When Love Looks For Us

Gloria died yesterday. She had been a shut-in for over ten years. As her preacher I must have gone to see her over 1000 times. She would never have been what you called an important person. She didn’t have a pleasant exterior. She could complain a lot. I quit asking her how she felt when I went to see her because she might look halfway contented when I came through the door, but as soon as she verbalized the answer to my question her demeanor dropped 1000 points to the despair side of things.

Whenever I would go to see her she would ask about how the people in the church were, and she would ask about our grandchildren. I’d taken all three of them to see her at the nursing home at times when they came to visit us. She brightened up more than I ever saw her when they were in the room. Sometimes when they came to town I wasn’t able to take them to see her, and I knew she’d be disappointed, so I tried to talk about how busy we were when they got here, but she could be rather importunate about having them come see her.

Was Gloria needy? Yes, she was a very needy person, but then we’re not? She had love for people, but she looked for it for herself as Robinson Crusoe continually scanned the horizon for a sail. At least once, I know she got it.

Our grandson, Daniel, aged three and a half, went with me to see her the last time they were up here. I couldn’t get the others to come see her that day, but he was happy to come with me. I even got him to stand next to her so I could take a picture which I had a copy made of and gave to her later. Then it came time to go.

We were almost out of the room when he turned around and went back up to her at the bed and looked her full in the face. Only a child would have such boldness of love. Without any prompting from me he said to her, “I love you!” and then left the room.

Love comes in all kinds of packages. Getting the pure uncalculating love of a child is the greatest experience. You cannot contrive to get it. You cannot make it be given, but when it is given it is as though a billion dollar check was deposited in your checking account. There is only one love greater than the love of a child. Jesus knew it when he juxtaposed the sincere love of a little one with the love of His Father.

We look for love, but the real joy comes when love looks for us. I’m so thankful I was there to see Gloria get some of that love she longed for. It was a foretaste of the love she is experiencing now.

GIVING SHOWS

These are the things that giving shows:

HOW FOCUSED WE ARE INDIVIDUALLY

HOW LOVING WE ARE

HOW COMMITTED WE ARE

HOW GREEDY WE ARE

HOW WILLING WE ARE FOR GOD’S WORK TO BE DONE

HOW WE CARE ABOUT GOD’S WORKERS AND THE NEEDY (I.E. DO WE HAVE THE HEART OF JESUS?)

HOW GENEROUS WE ARE

WHAT WE GIVE, NOT WHAT WE DON’T OR CAN’T GIVE

WHAT PLACE THE SPIRIT HAS IN OUR LIVES (Martyn Lloyd-Jones commented on why the early Christians met so much. They did not want to miss out on what the Holy Spirit was going to do in the assembly.)

WHEN WE ARE READY TO ACT FOR GOD (LIKE THE MINUTEMEN)

WHERE OUR HEART IS (IT SHOWS WHAT WE’RE ALL ABOUT)

WHO WE ARE

WHERE WE’VE BEEN (at work) AND WHERE WE’RE GOING (to heaven)

WHY WE ARE LIVING

God sees the heart. Taking these things into account, what do you want Him to see when you give, both in the offering plate and in help to your neighbors?

Do You Need To Laugh?

Humor is more specific to cultures, individuals and ages than drama or tragedy is. That’s why the comedies of Shakespeare have not fared as well over the centuries as the tragedies and histories have. Some things always make us aware of pain, but not everything seems funny to everyone.

Having stated the foregoing analysis, when I need to laugh “Father Was A Fullback” makes me laugh out loud every time. I don’t football, but I love this movie.

It starts off with a great mix of comedy people who are truly funny unlike those today who just think they’re funny: Fred Mac Murray, Maureen O’Hara, Natalie Wood, Betty Lynn (you may have known her best as Thelma Lou on Andy Griffith), Jim Backus (Mr. Howell on Gilligan’s Island), and the queen of character comediennes, Thelma Ritter (she is worth her weight in laughter in every movie I’ve seen her in with the exception of her role as Robert Stroud’s embittered mother in “Birdman of Alcatraz”). The interaction between these people is the main ingredient in this comedy. Every one of them has that absolute sense of timing that is so needed in comedy.

The film has two story lines: the first is State U’s losing football season; the second is the seemingly losing battle of wits between parents and children in the coach’s home. It was a simpler age, so the story line doesn’t involve drugs, smoking, drinking or overt rebellion. I won’t reveal what happens to State at the end of the season, but all the complications in the home are resolved in one remarkable turn of events which brings about good.

In a backhanded sort of way, too, this film is about character. The coach continues on with the team, the family learns to support one another. They all have to learn that honesty is the best policy (deception is the main stumbling block in the home), and not to give up on their dreams. The parents find that the problems of adolescence come to every child, but they also pass on when maturity and fulfillment arrives.

Two Different Send-Offs

One said in summing up the graduates’ futures: “Be respected and loved.”

Another on a different night to a different group of graduates said, “Be kind.”

These two pronouncements made by two different school superintendents at two different graduations were made 5 nights apart and less than two miles apart, and yet the difference between the two are light years apart.

The first one was saying to the graduates, in essence, to make sure that people are treating you right. The focus is on you and how you are being dealt with. On the outside that sounds fairly innocent as we do want people to treat us right, and there are times when we may have to stand up for our rights, but taken to its logical conclusion without any qualification at the heart it is simply telling the graduates to look out for number one, or in even plainer terms, to be self-centered in their thinking. Assessment of the future is based on what we get from others.

The other view is vastly different. It encourages people to think not of what they get, but of what they receive. This is the cry that has gone out in presidential inaugurations, in military mottoes and from Jesus Christ.

According to the scholars I have read, the very concept of kindness as we conceive of it did not exist in the ancient world until Christianity came along. While being kind seems weakness to many, it is really being super strong. It was Jesus who defined kindness and he defined it in blood. To treat people better than they deserve is the sign of real strength.

Every day we graduate from what we have been to what we are. My advice to graduates is to follow both sets of advice, but to change the words of the first charge around so as to make it compatible with the second. Be kind to others by respecting and loving them.

Babette's Feast

Babette’s Feast won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1986. I never heard of it until a few years later a friend told me about this interesting movie of some isolated people who were given a fancy meal. On the basis of his recommendation I taped the film when it was broadcast on PBS.

This is one of those films you can’t appreciate unless you see it through clear to the end. I had taped it off the air and watched the first half of it one evening. That initial viewing seemed sluggish and almost aimless. I wondered what my friend had seen in this movie. The next evening I watched the second half and was electrified. Very few films have made such an immediate and complete invasion of my consciousness. This was more than the story of a remote group of people who were introduced to a little international culinary culture.

The story involves a small home church in an isolated region of Denmark. It was founded by a man long gone by the time of the “Feast” mentioned in the title. His two daughters had become the caretakers for the congregation that had descended to backbiting and spiritual apathy. From out of their past had come Babette, a refugee from war in France. For room and board she because the two ladies’ housekeeper and also the chef behind all the cooking which was given to the indigent in the community. When the 100th birthday of their preacher father came around she volunteered to cook and pay for the meal for the church.

It is in the meal itself that a change takes place, a matter which in a way is analogous to what happens to us when we get into true fellowship with the Lord and His people as we partake of communion. The people relate to one another in a way they have not related for years. Old animosities are given over as they enter into a true fellowship with one another around the table, not one of organizational membership, but of organic unity. It takes an outsider to recognize the true greatness of what they are experiencing, but in the end the spiritual life of this community is re-ignited. The church is seen as a living being, not a museum of past, never to be repeated glories. It is as we confess our wrongs and forgive one another that we come the closest to the grace and mercy of God.

Being a foreign film, there is not only the language to be contended with, but also the body language and customs which almost need to be worked at in order to understand, but once you enter into the world of this feast you will be overwhelmed by what it means to be a part of Jesus’ church and also what it means to rise to the capability of the artist which God has created within you. You will want to amaze and delight the angels yourself.

Top Favorite Film Countdown Number 10

Over a decade ago the American Film Institute presented their list of the top 100 films of the preceding 100 years. I disagreed with many of the choices and felt that many obvious choices had been bypassed. As a result I did my own list of 100 which I eventually expanded to include a ranking of everything I have in my collection.

I’m going to share some thoughts on what are my top 10 favorite films. This is not an assessment of greatness. I like and appreciate “Citizen Kane” and “Gone With The Wind” and many other films that would be top rated, but which are not my favorites. A favorite is a film that I want to see over and over. In some ways these speak to me very intimately and in many cases affirm things deep inside my heart. That’s why this is really a heart list and not an art list by any objective standard.

A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS

In terms of a count down, the number 10 film on the list is “A Man For All Seasons”.

I admire films about character. Every one of the films in my top ten is really about character in some way. I’ve read up on the life of Sir Thomas More and discovered that I wouldn’t have agreed with everything he did. For example, he was the lead persecutor of William Tyndale. It was his prosecution which sent Tyndale to the stake. Still, I appreciate the fact that he was a man who operated by principle and not by the whim of the times. That doesn’t mean that principles are equivalent to truth, but that they are certainly the bedrock of character.

More was one of the leading political figures in the court of England’s Henry VIII. Henry, in the search for a male heir embarked upon a course which cut the nation of England off from the Roman Catholic Church. In one sense, I would personally have agreed with such a separation, but More was right that it should not be done for politically correct reasons. He did not see it as a correct procedure. It is his constancy that labels him a man for all seasons, one who was not to be swayed by the winds to or from the court. We need such men and women in leadership in every part of our world in every age. This is a film that should be played for every political science class.

The film is filled with witty and poignant dialogue. The spoken words sparkle off the screen. The categories of right and wrong are directly portrayed. We see, for example, in Cromwell and Rich, the tendency to subdue right to expediency. More, clearly sets for the issues involved and his reasons for silence with regard to them until the time of his condemnation at the end of the film. (That’s no spoiler; without it you wouldn’t even have a story.) The Duke of Norfolk urges socialization as the highest good, but More puts him in his place by asking if he would be willing to go with him to hell for acting against his conscience’s sake for the sake of fellowship.

The actors and actresses make up a fantastic ensemble. This is the role that Paul Scofield was born to play. I know that Charlton Heston wanted it, and did finally play it a later film version, but Heston was too big and rough and lacked the subtlety that characterized Scofield’s playing. Leo McKern’s secretary Cromwell steals the entire screen every time he comes on. Robert Shaw is the perfect over the top Henry VII. Nigel Davenport gives his all as the bumbling political hack. Susannah York is the brilliant daughter of Sir Thomas who sees and knows everything that is going on, but is powerless to prevent it. And then there’s Orson Welles who could take two minutes on screen in any film and turn it into a triumph. This is filmmaking like we have not seen in decades.

TOMORROW'S SERMON TODAY!

This is the flip side to the sermon quotes Jeanette has been giving. Here you see the raw material that goes with me into the pulpit. You will notice no periods at the end of each idea. This is done to remind me that the Holy Spirit must finish every statement and stamp it with truth. Often times the best quotes Jeanette jotted down came not from my paper, but from the Holy Spirit during the preaching itself.

THE MAN MADE THE CLOTHES
(Even his clothes had His character!)
Matthew 17:1-13/Mark 9:2-13/Luke 9:28-36

There is a date marker here – after 6 days, again signifying the real world happening of this event

The three were singled out, not for merit, but for what Jesus wanted them to learn and then do

Who were they?

Peter was the first great preacher

James was the one so far out ahead of the rest that he was the first to see Jesus again after the ascension

John was the one who rounded out the century and saw heaven

This was no prestige trip, but a working one

They went to pray

Prayer has its part even in what God has already planned and ordained

It was while He was praying (Luke 9:29) that Jesus was changed before them

How can we expect a change when we don’t pray?

This was not so much a change as a stripping away of earthly figure to show spiritual reality

The change extended to what Jesus was wearing

He was so much what He was that the clothes he wore took on His hidden character at this time

Elijah and Moses appear with Jesus, representing possibly the Prophets and the Law, but also possibly some of the most significant saints of the past

They may have been there for themselves as well as for what they represented

Elijah and Moses were monumental larger than life figures, both in their historicity and in their spirituality

Peter wants to put Jesus on the same level with these two

The building of the tabernacles may indicate Peter’s desire to stop everything else and just stay here with them

There is always an attempt to want to retreat from the real world in a moment of ecstasy

The ecstatic is really designed to equip us for the real world by showing us the truth behind the reality rather than tempting us to opt out

Jesus didn’t want to distract them

He wanted to show them a reason for going on

Peter didn’t really know what to say

God stepped in and settled the matter by pronouncing His approval only on Jesus

The others prophesied or pointed out Jesus, but Jesus alone fulfilled the task of the savior

We are still to listen only to Jesus as a final authority

Fear resulted, but was dispelled by the touch of Jesus

Jesus was the only one there at the end, the only one left standing

This is something they didn’t discuss until after the resurrection at the command of Jesus

These events led into a discussion of farther reaching things, beginning with the work and significance of Elijah

They couldn’t quite get what resurrection from the dead meant

They didn’t perceive the absolute necessity for the cross

Jesus explained that the restoration work of Elijah included the suffering of the Son of Man

They did with John (Elijah) what they wanted, but that didn’t mean they got what they wanted

The same would be true of Jesus