My Blog

Category: Meditation

  • Strategies for Summertime Spirituality

    The month of May is almost over.  Memorial Day signals opening of swimming pools, buzz cuts for boys, weekday outings to museums and zoos, homemade ice cream, watermelon season, an upswing in agricultural enterprises, and the beginning of summer vacations.  We also start the summer slump in churches across America, with a decline in attendance and anxious messages from church treasurers about cash flow because offerings go down when the people are not there.

    Our culture has declared how things are supposed to work between Memorial Day and Labor Day and that’s that.  The Church tends to conform to the culture.  Whatever happens during the rest of the year, in the summer, we are both in and of the world.

    On several occasions, I have tried to counteract the summer slump and had little success.  Call me a die hard, but I’m going to try again.  Any success at all is better than none when it comes to reminding God’s Holy People what our relationship with the world is supposed to be.  

    St. Paul put it this way, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).  Jesus called his followers to be light and salt and leaven in the world (Matthew 5 and 13).  Light, salt, and leaven are agents of transformation – light dispels darkness, salt adds flavor, and leaven causes the dough to rise.  When the agents of transformation are present, things are no longer the same. Through our prayers and our lifestyle, we are God’s change agents.

    With that in mind, I have a few suggestions for how to enjoy summertime while still fulfilling our sacred purpose.

    •  Maintain the spiritual discipline of worship.  If you are home on Sunday morning, your presence in worship with your community of faith helps keep the emphasis on God, both for you and for your fellow worshipers.  When you are there, you are making a statement – a witness – that God’s reign in your life is not suspended just because it is summertime. Vacationers may be visiting your church while you are out of town. You may also use the time in worship to contemplate the different things you are doing/seeing/experiencing during the summer. What about those mountain majesties where you hiked?  What might God have had in mind when creating the orangutan you saw when you took the children to the zoo?  What kind of divine purpose is being worked out in the harvesting of hay, which kept you working from sunrise to sunset yesterday?

    •  Find a church in which to worship while traveling.  In addition to maintaining the discipline of worship while you are in a different place, you may discover new friends, new ideas, and elements of diversity you have not known before.  Maybe you can bring something back that will enrich the life of your own community of faith.  The churches you visit will have an opportunity to extend their hospitality to you and hear about the church you love back home.  If you have children or youth who will be traveling with you, ask them to get on the internet and find a church where your family can worship “wherever you may be.”

    •  Don’t send your pledge on vacation.  The operational costs of your church continue even when you are not there.  In warmer locations, the costs increase significantly because of the need for air conditioning and watering.  There is no legitimate reason why church leaders should have to experience anxiety over cash shortfalls in the summer (or anytime of year for that matter).  Make it a matter of faithful stewardship to bring or send your contribution before you leave on vacation.  Or, if you forget, you may still mail a check or use online banking to get your gift to the altar while you are away.

    •  Get involved in ministries you don’t normally have time for.  If summertime affords you a little extra free time or a slower pace, use some of that time to serve Christ and the Church.  Maybe there’s a need for Vacation Bible School leaders, workers for a home repair ministry, or someone to do some maintenance around the church.  Is there a mission trip, retreat, summertime conference, or bible study you would otherwise decline due to the busyness of your life?  Does your summer schedule allow you to attend a weekday service that you can’t attend at other times of the year?  God would like to spend more time with us and have more of our attention.  Summertime may open up some possibilities for that to happen and blessings will flow into our lives.

    •  Whatever you do, think God!  Be intentional about your spiritual journey.  Begin and end your days with prayer, so that, in all the cares and occupations of our life, we may not forget God, but remember that we are ever walking in God’s sight.  Look for signs of God’s hand at work in the world around you.  Habits that affect the rest of your life can be formed during a three-month period. Don’t let a hiatus become a habit!

      Ron Short Sig Blue

  • Sermon at Calvary Church ~ May 20, 2012

    Calvary Cross

    Easter 7B

     Listen to the Sermon for May 20, 2012

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  • “Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise” – Feast of the Ascension

    Ascension vaznesenjeAlmighty God, your blessed Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.  Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the world; through the same your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

    Today is the Feast of the Ascension. The Ascension (Luke 24:44-53 / Acts 1:1-11) is probably not the best known of the feast days in the Church’s calendar, but it is one that takes on increasing depth and importance the more you think about it and experience it.  In this feast, we are drawn into an event that has cosmic significance.

    The Ascension is not about gravity, or the physical location of heaven, or any of that. It is about God.  In fact, even though it comes toward the end of the season of Easter, the Ascension is most closely related in meaning to Christmas.  At Christmas we celebrate the Incarnation, God becoming flesh and living among us. 

    What was begun at Christmas is brought full circle and proclaimed again in a different way at the Ascension.  In the Incarnation, what it means to be God became fully a part of what it means to be a human being. In Jesus, the human and the divine become united in the person and life of one man.  In the Ascension, this human being became fully a part of who God is.

    It was not the spirit of Jesus, or the essence of Jesus, or the divine nature of Jesus, or the invisible part of Jesus, or the idea of Jesus, or anything like that, that ascended to the Father. It was the resurrected body of Jesus: a body that the disciples had touched, a body that ate and drank with them, a real, physical, but gloriously restored body-bearing the marks of nails and a spear. This humanity has become a living, participating part of Divinity.

    The Ascension tells us that it is a good and holy thing to be a human.  It is so good and holy a thing that God became human.  The fullness of God now includes what it means to be a human being.

    So we are able to approach God with confidence and with joy. Because we are not only dealing with the Creator of the universe and the Sovereign of all time and of eternity; we are also drawing near to the One who lived our life, has shared our fate, who knows us, and cares about us.

    St. John Chrysostom expressed it in this way: “Through the mystery of the Ascension we, who seemed unworthy of God's earth, are taken up into heaven…Our very nature, against which Cherubim guarded the gates of Paradise, is enthroned today high above all Cherubim.”

    Charles Wesley's Hymn for Ascension Day is also quite a beautiful expression of the meaning and implications of the Ascension.

    Amen.

    Ron Short Sig Blue

     

     

     

     

  • Sermon at Calvary Church ~ May 13, 2012

    Calvary Cross

    Easter 6B

     Listen to the Sermon for May 13, 2012

      Read the Sermon for May 13, 2012

     

     

     

     


  • So that your joy may be complete

    Jesus said to his disciples, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:9-11).

    While reading this passage, which is a portion of Sunday's gospel, I was struck by Jesus emphasis on joy.  He wants our joy to be "complete."  That led me to theologian Paul Tillich, who reflected on the joy of the Christian life in The New Being:

    Blessedness is the eternal element in joy, that which makes it possible for joy to include in itself the sorrow out of which it arises, and which it takes into itself. In the Beatitudes, Jesus calls the poor, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst, those who are persecuted, "blessed." And He says to them: "Rejoice and be glad!" Joy within sorrow is possible to those who are blessed, to those in whom joy has the dimension of the eternal.

    Here we must once more reply to those who attack Christianity because they believe that it destroys the joy of life. In view of the Beatitudes they say that Christianity undercuts the joy of this life by pointing to and preparing for another life. They even challenge the blessedness in the promised life as a refined form of seeking for pleasure in the future life. Again we must confess that in many Christians, joy in this way is postponed till after death, and that there are Biblical words which seem to support this answer. Nevertheless, it is wrong. Jesus will give His joy to His disciples now. They shall get it after He has left them, which means in this life. And Paul asks the Philippians to have joy now. This cannot be otherwise, for blessedness is the expression of God’s eternal fulfillment. Blessed are those who participate in this fulfillment here and now. Certainly eternal fulfillment must be seen not only as eternal which is present, but also as eternal which is future. But if it is not seen in the present, it cannot be seen at all.

    This joy which has in itself the depth of blessedness is asked for and promised in the Bible. It preserves in itself its opposite, sorrow. It provides the foundation for happiness and pleasure. It is present in all levels of man’s striving for fufillment. It consecrates and directs them. It does not diminish or weaken them. It does not take away the risks and dangers of the joy of life. It makes the joy of life possible in pleasure and pain, in happiness and unhappiness, in ecstasy and sorrow. Where there is joy, there is fulfillment. And where there is fulfillment, there is joy. In fulfillment and joy the inner aim of life, the meaning of creation, and the end of salvation, are attained. (Tillich, Paul, The New Being: Chapter 19, The Meaning of Joy, Chas. Schribner's Sons, 1955)

    When our inner joy finds outward expression, it is "complete."  When our inner joy finds outward expression, it is contageous.  Joy is the essence of our salvation and the fruit of faith-filled living. 

    The world needs more joyful Christians!  Lord, give us an abundance of joy so that we may spread it around liberally enough to change the world.

    Ron Short Sig Blue

  • Sermon at Calvary Church ~ May 6, 2012

    Calvary CrossEaster 5B

     

    Listn to the Sermon for May 6, 2012

     

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  • An Epiphany From a Muscadine Grape Vine

    Jesus said, "Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5).

    The powerful imagery of Jesus’ description of the relationship between him and his followers became clear to me one day when I was jogging on the trail beside Buffalo Bayou west of Downtown Houston, Texas.  At one place along the trail, there are several pine trees that are completely wrapped up by muscadine grape vines.  The last time I had run past this site, the grapes were still green.  That day they were ripe and stood out boldly from the vine and its branches.

    What wasn’t so easily discernible was where the vine left off and the branch began.  I had never really Muscadine Grapes
    looked closely enough at vines and branches to notice that.  Jesus’ words came to mind.  The fruit that is borne by a grape vine comes as a result of the oneness of the vine and its many branches.  If you cut off a branch, it will no longer be capable of bearing fruit.  Actually, if there are no branches, the vine will not bear fruit until it grows new ones.

    As followers of Jesus Christ, we are able to bear fruit as long as we are connected to the vine and draw nourishment from it.  It may be difficult for anyone to distinguish between Christ’s life and the lives of his followers, just as it is difficult to distinguish the vine from the branches. The fruit Christ wants to give to the world is the result of the mystical union of the vine and its branches – his life and our lives.  The more branches there are connected to the vine, the more fruit there is.

    During the Easter season, I’m leading a Sunday morning series based on Robert Schnase’s book, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations.  The five practices are Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Intentional Faith Development, Risk-Taking Mission and Service, and Extravagant Generosity.  In each case, the desired result is greater fruitfulness.  And in each case, that increase in fruitfulness depends upon our connection to Jesus Christ and to one another, a relationship that resembles that of a vine and its branches. 

    Apart from Christ, the true vine, we can do nothing.  Actually, we can do plenty of things.  We are amazing and resourceful creatures.  But the fruit of Christ comes only from abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in us.  It's not always easy to stay connected.  But that's the way it works!

    Ron Short Sig Blue

  • Sermon at Calvary Church ~ April 29, 2012

    Calvary Cross

    Easter 4B

     

    Listen to the Sermon for April 29, 2012

     

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  • An Epiphany From the Table of the Good Shepherd

    Yesterday, I went with Deacon Lois Howard to see how she exercises her ministry with a group of preschool children and a group of adults who have Alzheimer’s.  The preschool and the day program for the adults are in the same building in a church in Lexington. Every Wednesday morning for the last five years, Deacon Lois has gone there to minister to them in a very special way.

    The Adults had their chairs arranged so that they could see Deacon Lois use the Godly Play elements as she told a story.  The children paraded in and took their seats on the floor in front of the adults.  Then Deacon Lois did her thing!

    She told the story of “The Table of the Good Shepherd.”  The story starts out in a sheepfold.  Deacon Lois pointed out that each of the sheep is a different color.  I think the children had already noticed that because there was glee all around.  The Good Shepherd leads the sheep out of their fold and over to a Deacon Lois Howard large table.  After they arrive, others are invited to join them.  The others, Deacon Lois pointed out as she carefully arranged them all around the table, were all kinds of people.  Different from one another, just like the sheep.  There were older people and children.  There were men and women, boys and girls.  There were people from far away and people who looked more familiar to us.  She pointed out that everyone is welcome at the Table of the Good Shepherd.

    For me, this was a wonderful prelude to the Fourth Sunday of Easter, also known as “Good Shepherd Sunday.”  It helped me pay more attention to the flock in the passage from John. The character of the flock reveals something about the one who guides and cares for it. The fact, for example, that there are different kinds of sheep indicates that the shepherd values diversity along with unity.

    I’m very grateful that the Good Shepherd values this sort of unity in the midst of diversity, yet I am aware of how difficult it is to achieve and how challenging it is to maintain.  We tend to associate with people with whom we share racial, cultural, economic, and religious characteristics and values. At times we may even ridicule those who appear to be different.

    The Good Shepherd calls us all, “from every nation, race, people and tongue.” Unlike the societies in which we live, in the Good Shepherd’s flock our differences are to remain as distinctions but not as separations. They enhance the color and texture of the community of believers rather than alienating or marginalizing. There is no dominant or superior group in this flock. We are all God’s people, "one flock, one Shepherd."

    It is a paradox of our faith that the Good Shepherd is also the Lamb of God.  Of his own accord, he laid down his life for the sheep. He paid for the undisputed right to lead us by the shedding of his blood. If we hear his voice and follow him, he will make it possible for us to live together in peace.  If we can do that, as diverse a flock as we are, perhaps the flock of Christ can offer hope to our divided world. This is reason enough to cry out: Alleluia!

  • Sermon at Calvary Church ~ April 22, 2012

     

    Calvary Cross

    Easter 3B

    Listen to the Sermon for April 22, 2012

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