Day 210: Apocalypse Now

 DAY 210

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty    Saturday 10 October 2020

Apocalypse Now

Under an eerie red sky, wildfires turn the West into a hellscape.

“Apocalyptic wildfires ripping through California, Oregon, and Washington have forced hundreds of thousands of residents to evacuate as the infernos turned skies blood-red across the West. At least 35 people have died and dozens more are missing in blazes that so far have scorched more than 5 million acres; …Billowing clouds of toxic smoke forced flights to be cancelled and schools to be shuttered, and authorities from Los Angeles to Seattle urged residents to stay indoors to avoid breathing some of the planet’s most polluted air. Scenes of devastation litter the Northwest. The small Oregon towns of Phoenix and Talent, home to 11,000 people combined, have been reduced to ashes. There’s nothing to sift through.” - From an article by the same name in the current issue of a national news weekly.

“Hellscape” is an appropriate adjective for the nightmare of heat, smoke and fire faced by many in the west. Whatever people believe about hell, they are living through it now. From the same article: “One man was racing to his family when he found a badly burned woman in the road. He helped her into his car, apologizing that he had to keep driving to find his wife. ‘I am your wife,’ the woman whispered.” For them, this has been hell, a portent, perhaps, of things to come: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” 2 Peter 3:10.

Some believe that hell will last forever. Others believe it will have an end, otherwise eternity would not be perfect in God’s kingdom. Whatever we believe, millions confess of Jesus on a regular basis in the Apostles’ Creed “he descended into hell. Jesus issued warnings to the religiously self-righteous to avoid that place “where the fire never goes out” Mark 9:43. By focusing on heaven rather than hell, we can gain entrance into the one and avoid the other through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the Savior who saves us from both sin and hell. Whatever ‘hellscape’ or ‘apocalypse now’ we might face, our souls are secure for eternity in Him. Thus “…might not perish...” is perhaps the most neglected yet hopeful promise in John 3:16.

Reflective question: What will happen to you when you die?

Reflective Scripture: Hebrews 9:27 – “…people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,…”

Reflective hymn:

“Are You ready For the Judgment?” – Jason French © 2010

Wretched man, Oh, who will save me! Who will save my soul from hell!

Is there one who will stand with me to declare that all is well?

There is One who will stand for us! Taking all our guilt and shame!

Bearing all our sin and sorrow – Jesus is His holy name!

Day 209: Those We’ve Lost: Betty J. McBride

DAY 209

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty    Friday 9 October 2020

Those We’ve Lost: Betty J. McBride, 71

“She wanted everybody to be blessed.”

“Some teachers like to familiarize their students with the connection between music and mathematics. Betty J. McBride preferred to focus on music’s spiritual resonance – the way, for example, Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ uplifted listeners during the annual Christmas program at the Nazareth Baptist Church in Columbus, Georgia, which she attended. She was a special education teacher who also taught music, who became involved in the lives of her students, later becoming a school counselor. ‘She had a heart for people,’ her son said. ‘She wanted everybody to be blessed. She was able to go to college, and she wanted to pass on the blessings that she had to those who were less fortunate.” - From a newspaper series, “Those We’ve Lost” to the pandemic.

He called me to come by his house to talk. A retired pastor, I knew him through his daughter who was a classmate in the Christian college we both attended. I had just graduated with a B.A. in religion with no plans for further education at that time. He shared with me my need for a degree that I could also use while pursuing ministry, urged me to return to school that fall for a degree in education, and handed me a check for the first semesters tuition, $100, which covered it 55 years ago. I followed his caring advice, and it dramatically changed the trajectory of my life.

Fast forward 55 years to a worship service in Honduras, led by a passionate young man at a keyboard. He wanted to go to university but it was out of his reach economically. The Lord put it in our hearts to sponsor him and now after five years he is a university graduate being used in special ways by the Lord and we are on our second student. And the cost? That same $100 investment made in my life so many years ago, once a month, that covers it all.

And Betty McBride? Here is a woman I would have liked to have met, who exuded blessing, who found a place to ‘pay forward’ the blessings she had received: ‘Blest to be a blessing.’

Reflective question: Will you ask the Lord to put in your heart someone you can bless today?

Reflective Scripture: Proverbs 22:9 – “The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share…”

Reflective hymn:

“Make Me a Blessing” Ira Wilson (1880-1950)

Give as ‘twas given to you in your need, love as the Master loved you.

Be to the helpless a helper indeed, unto your mission be true.

Make me a blessing, make me a blessing.

Out of my life may Jesus shine.

Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray.

Make me a blessing- to someone today.

Day 208: How Are You?

 DAY 208

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty    Thursday 8 October 2020

How Are You?

“The correct answer to the question ‘How are you?’ is Not too bad. Why? Because it’s all-purpose. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the conditions, Not too bad will get you through. In good times it projects a decent pessimism, an Eeyore-ish reluctance to get carried away. On an average day it bespeaks a muddling-through modesty. And when things are rough, really rough, it becomes a heroic understatement. Best of all, with three equally stressed syllables, it gently forestalls further inquiry, because it is – basically – meaningless.” - From the current issue of a literary/opinion magazine.

“How are you?” she was asked the first day of the semester as she walked to class and was passed by a student going the opposite direction. So she stopped and turned to answer the question, only to watch the questioner fade in the distance. “I thought they wanted to know – otherwise why would they have asked?” Fairly quickly it became apparent to her as a foreign student that Americans don’t really want to know how you are – in fact, she found that those who take time to go into detail in response to the question don’t get asked much – again, people don’t really want to know. The correct and socially accepted response is “Fine – how are you?”

When God asked Adam where he was in the Garden, He wasn’t asking about physical location but ‘how are you?” When Jesus invites those who are “weary and heavy laden” promising “I will give you rest” it is another way of asking ‘how are you?’ and of anticipating the response. When we as Christians ask others ‘how are you?’ it should never be a matter of cultural courtesy but rather a desire to know how someone else is doing. “Carry each other’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2) begins with asking “How are you?” and the response, if honest, is never “basically – meaningless.” During this time of a pandemic people need to know we care, a caring that starts with a simple question sincerely asked: “How are you?”

By the way, the experience above was that of my wife when she came to this country from Switzerland to attend university. It still at times perplexes her that Americans ask a question to which they really do not want an answer.       

Reflective question: To whom does Jesus want you to ask this question so you can respond as Him for them?

Reflective Scripture: Proverbs 11:25 – “…whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.”

Reflective hymn:

“Are you Weary?” – St. Stephen of Mar Saba (725-794)

Are you weary, are you languid, are you sore distressed?

“Come to me,” says One, “and, coming, be at rest.”

Day 207: Country Focus Portugal

 DAY 207

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic
A series of daily reflections for people of faith
by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor
Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland
pastorrobert@paxpres.org
Week Thirty    Wednesday 7 October 2020

Country Focus: Portugal

Portugal became an independent kingdom in 1143, a republic in 1910, and a parliamentary democracy in 1974. Throughout its lengthy history the Roman Catholic Church was the official religion, but in 1974 that relationship changed, although it still retains certain privileges. With the Roman Catholic Church laying claim to approximately 90% of the population, even if nominally for many, the remaining 10% are divided between evangelical and Pentecostal denominations and cults – LDS and Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as growing numbers turning to new age teachings to satisfy their spiritual hunger. One of the biggest challenges for the evangelical community made up of mostly small congregations is the acquisition of a building, as this communicates legitimacy in Portuguese culture.   

Prayer Focus 
+ Acrimonious church splits plague many of the already small congregations.
+ Pray for a healing of relationships and a shift of focus to what really matters.
+ Pray for the acquisition of buildings for many small congregations, a sign of legitimacy. 
+ Pray for outreach to ethnic minorities, the large number who have come from former Portuguese colonies, for gypsies, and for Eastern Europeans who have come seeking work.
+ Pray for those seeking to reach young people, some using sports as an entre into their lives, as growing numbers of youth are turning to drugs to meet their spiritual needs.
+ Pray for the handful of small Christian bookstores across the country that growing numbers of individuals will enter them seeking spiritual food, purchase and read Christian literature.
+ Pray for quality training for leadership, and for more leaders willing to be trained.    

Jesus’ Prayer Request each Wednesday:
“’The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 
Ask the Lord of the harvest,
therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” 
Jesus – Matthew 9:37-38.
For additional information on praying for Portugal
go to operationworld.org.

Reflective question: Will you pray the next seven days for these ‘Portuguese prayer requests?’
                                                                                                                                            
Reflective Scripture: Psalm 107:20 – “He sent out His Word and healed them;…”

Reflective hymn: 
“Send the Light” – Charles Gabriel (1856-1932)
Let us pray that grace may everywhere abound: 
“Send the light! Send the light!”
And a Christ-like spirit everywhere be found: 
“Send the light! Send the light!”
Send the light, the blessed Gospel light, 
let it shine from shore to shore.

Day 206: An Awful Silence

 DAY 206

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of fait

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty    Tuesday 6 October 2020

An Awful Silence

“For one pastor in Illinois, the experience of preaching in an empty room seemed to lack power at times….after preaching only to a set of cameras, ‘there is suddenly this awful silence, and you kind of wonder if you just did anything.’ This bewildering feeling of ‘awful silence’ gave way for him to what was, perhaps, the greatest lasting benefit of pandemic preaching: a renewed conviction that preaching is from God and for God.  Half the pastors interviewed in a recent survey said the lack of feedback and human interaction during the pandemic ultimately reminded them to seek affirmation from God for their preaching rather than from people.” - From a current publication on preaching from a Christian magazine.

It was a traditional Presbyterian church in terms of service liturgy with one exception – it had an “amen corner,” a kind elderly man who loved Jesus and who also loved to say “amen” when he felt like it during the sermon. I must confess I subconsciously began to listen for and even depend upon his vocal affirmation during my sermons, and when he died an ‘awful silence’ of a different kind unnerved me – I had become ‘amen-dependent.’

I have preached in churches where ‘amens’ during the sermon have been the norm. The only problem with people saying “amen” while you are preaching is when they don’t, an ‘awful silence’ that says you are not connecting with them. When your source of affirmation shifts, ‘amens’ don’t influence you. A homiletics professor years ago told us “Preach to an audience of One, God in the balcony. Always keep your eyes there as you preach and God will use you.”       

Now we preachers are forced by circumstances to shift our focus from those to whom we preach to the One for whom we preach.  Preaching to no one but my iPhone was difficult at first, but I  have now come to prefer it – the absence of people whom I am hoping to satisfy makes it just God and me in the room, and it is freeing. And for those who listen? Hopefully, sermons are more edifying. This is ‘an awful silence’ out of which redemption can flow. I can live with that.

Reflective question: As you listen to sermons, for whom do you think they are prepared?

Reflective Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:22 – KJV – “…it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save many.”

Reflective hymn:

“I Love to Tell the Story”

I love to tell the story of unseen things above,

Of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love;

I love to tell the story because I know ‘tis true,

It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.

Day 205: The Global Body of Christ

 DAY 205

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty    Monday 5 October 2020

The Global Body of Christ

“We are one body, so the Bible says. ‘If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.’ COVID-19 has brought with it many painful lessons. COVID-19 has unearthed just-below-the-surface realities in our world (food insecurity, inaccessible health care, living a paycheck away from financial disaster, no sick leave). COVID-19 has relentlessly revealed just how vulnerable we are physically, economically, socially. COVID-19 has also brought home the truth of our interconnectedness.  As it turns out, we are, in fact, one body – whether we like it or not. When one part of the world gets the coronavirus, the rest of the world, eventually, will be infected too. …Parts of the body are unarguably suffering more than other parts.  Do we care?...Like climate change, natural disasters and so much more, COVID-19 has an outsized, harmful impact on those already on the margins of our world, but all of us are vulnerable to its sickening effects. We are indisputably and irrevocably one body, and as followers of the Savior of the world we are called to respond with love to any part of the creation that suffers.” - From an article in the current issue of a Christian denominational magazine.

Yesterday was World Communion Sunday for millions of Protestant Christians, an annual recognition of the interconnectedness of the Body of Christ world-wide begun in 1933 by an American Presbyterian pastor that has since spread across denominations and across the world. Its focus is the Sacrament of Holy Communion as Christians gather around the Lord’s Table. The writer above is calling us to view this world-wide body from the perspective of a shared humanity and legitimately so. Jesus died for the whole world, and His concern remains for the whole world.

Paul connects the Lord’s Supper with Christ’s second coming: “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.” 1 Corinthians 11:26. At that time I think all the Communion tables and altars of the churches around the world will be joined for the spreading out of the culmination of this Sacrament when it will be said, “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” Revelation 19:9. Until then, ……..

To help address humanitarian need around the world

go to World Vision at worldvision.org.

Reflective question: Will you be open to and even seek ways you can share with Christ’s body elsewhere?

Reflective Scripture: Matthew 25:40 – “…whatever you did for one of the least of these…you did for me.”

Reflective hymn:

“In Christ There is no East or West” – John Oxenham (1852-1941)

In Christ there is no east or west, in him no south or north,

But one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth.

Day 204: Conscience

 DAY 204

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Thirty    Sunday 4 October 2020

Conscience

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. - The Book of Common Prayer: For the Sunday closest to 5 October.

His conscience pursued him over his acts of adultery. He sat in my office and poured out his heart through a constellation of emotions: guilt over what he had done to his wife, his family and himself; anger at himself for having made such foolish choices based on the deceitfulness of sin; remorse or regret for having done what he did; and a repentant heart, confessing to the Lord against whom he had ultimately sinned as weeping he read out loud and prayed Psalm 51:1-17, the on-target penitential prayer of a man who committed adultery many centuries ago.  

Conscience – one of those great words from Latin easily unpacked: the prepositional prefix “con” meaning “with,” and the noun “science” meaning “knowledge.” The conscience is where in every human being without exception the God of Creation has shared a measure of “knowledge with” us, so that universally certain actions are understood to be wrong: lying, stealing, killing, adultery. “They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.” Romans 2:15. Clear or guilty, conscience is a two-edged witness within.

When we do things that are contrary to God’s will our conscience tells us so, and unless and until we deal with it we will be plagued by “those things of which our conscience is afraid.” It is an act of grace by the Holy Spirit that convicts us of sin, and the only thing more troubling than a guilty conscience is a conscience seared so badly by sin that it no longer recognizes it within.  

Reflective question: What is your conscience telling you – will you listen and follow through? 

Reflective Scripture: 1 Timothy 3:9 – “…hold the mystery of faith with a clear conscience.”

Reflective hymn: “I Want a Principle Within” – Charles Wesley (1707-1788)

From thee that I no more may stray, no more thy goodness grieve,

Grant me the filial awe, I pray, the tender conscience give.

Quick as the apple of an eye, O God, my conscience make;

Awake my soul when sin is nigh and keep it still awake.

Day 203: Longing for a Distant Home

 DAY 203

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Twenty-nine    Saturday 3 October 2020

Longing for a Distant Home

“After months of containment, we understand a little better what it might be like to live on the moon. We have masked up to venture out the front door, floating in wide arcs around masked neighbors, while those unable to leave their homes have peered out the window at a world in orbit. For a period during the coronavirus pandemic, everyone on Earth has experienced the  extremes of distance usually reserved for those in the death zone or outer space. In our time, apart, we have felt a longing for the places we can’t go.” - From a current newspaper article: “Longing for a Distant Home in a Time of Pandemic.”

When we talked about going to heaven and standing before Jesus he cried. You could see the longing in his eyes. Yes, he had had a major stroke, and stroke patients seem to cry easily. But I had seen the same tears, the same look in his eyes, before the stroke. So real had been the Lord in his life, so life-changing the relationship, that as the years came and went he found himself increasingly filled with a longing to see the One who had so filled his life with meaning and purpose and peace and forgiveness and hope. By the time he died recently I had known him over fifty-five years and had watched this progressively growing longing develop in his life.

Where has this human tendency to ‘long for a distant home’ come from?  C.S. Lewis observed, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”  This ‘longing for a distant home’ referenced in the newspaper article is that same distant home God has placed within us all a longing to find, to enter when we die. The pandemic provides us with both an opportunity to reflect on our mortality and on what will happen to us when we die.

Reflective question: If you have no longing for heaven and to see Jesus, what will you do when you die?

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 73:25 – “Whom have I in heaven but you? And being with you, I desire nothing on earth.”

Reflective hymn:

“This World is Not My Home” – Mary Reeves Davis (1929-1999)

This world is not my home I’m just passing through,

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue;

The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door,

And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.

Refrain: O Lord, you know, I have no friend like you,

If heaven’s not my home then Lord what will I do?

The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door,

And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.

Day 202: Sukkot The Feast of Tabernacles

 

DAY 202

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Twenty-nine    Friday 2 October 2020

Sukkot

The Feast of Tabernacles

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites: ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Lord’s Festival of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days. The first day is a sacred assembly; do no regular work. For seven days present food offerings to the Lord, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the Lord. It is the closing special assembly; do no regular work…So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days; the first day is a day of sabbath rest, and the eighth day also is a day of sabbath rest. On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees – from palms, willows and other leafy trees – and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’” -  Leviticus 23:33-36, 38-43.

Built in 1791, the Cane Ridge Meeting House in Paris, Kentucky was a Presbyterian church that was the location of one of the greatest revivals in American history, the Cane Ridge Revival that began in the hearts of a group of Presbyterian pastors in 1804. Upwards of 10,000 people at times were in attendance, packing the building and filling the fields surrounding it. Out of that revival came an American denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). We have visited the site, the original log church now completely surrounded by a much larger stone building to house and protect it.

As with the protected structure at Cane Ridge, so with the instructions from God to the Jews to annually build temporary shelters, tabernacles  or booths, ‘sukkot,’ to remember and never forget that such were the shelters of their ancestors as they experienced their deliverance by God from bondage in Egypt, a celebration marked this week by millions of Jews.

Reflective question: If you were to build a tabernacle or structure over a place where God did something memorable in your life, where would that place be?

Reflective Scripture: For a different take on this dynamic, read Matthew 17:1-9.

Reflective hymn:

“This is Holy Ground” – Christopher Beatty (1944-     )

This is holy ground; we’re standing on holy ground,

For the Lord is present and where He is holy.

Day 201: Common Good and Common Grace

 DAY 201

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

pastorrobert@paxpres.org

Week Twenty-nine    Thursday 1 October 2020

Common Good and Common Grace

“The hallmark of free speech and rightful assembly in America relies upon civic order. Civic order relies on a commitment to the common good. Theologically, the common good ties to our commitment to all persons made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27) and to the common grace generously and indiscriminately bestowed by God upon the righteous and the unrighteous alike (Matthew 5:45). To the extent the common good untethers from common grace – a doctrine based on God’s undeserved love for all people – goodness perverts into partisanship and subjects to societal whim, market value, individual rights, and personal preference.” - From an editorial in the current issue of a Christian magazine.

How do we look as a country to the God of common good and indiscriminate common grace? It is disturbing to watch as millions who claim to know the Bible and the God of the Bible embrace a political ideology that has only one agenda that matters: the protection of their ‘rights.’ Common good untethered from common grace yields no concern for ‘the other’ made in God’s image but not sharing their religious beliefs, resulting in ‘goodness perverted into partisanship and subject to societal whim, market value, individual rights, and personal preference.’

Standing in stark contrast to what we are embroiled in as a nation is the God who created everything and who took on human flesh in the Incarnation in order to give us a markedly different model for how we relate to each other, how we treat each other. When several of his disciples got into an argument seeking to assert their rights and importance, Jesus’ response cut to the quick and convicted their hearts: “…whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:26-28.

We need a Holy Spirit revival amongst those who know Jesus tethering common grace and common good together as one deep within, that engaging in such scandalous behavior as putting others first rather than the current ‘us first’ focus, our nation might see Jesus in us.

Reflective question: How are ‘common good’ and common grace’ as described above linked together in your perception of others in the turbulence currently affecting our culture? 

Reflective Scripture: 1 Corinthians 10:24 – “No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.”

Reflective hymn: “God of Mercy” – Henry Lyte (1973-1847)

God of mercy, God of grace, show the brightness of your face.

Shine upon us, Savior, shine; fill your world with light divine;

All your saving health extend unto earth’s remotest end.