I have been remiss…

A week ago, Tarheel Marc Velazquez over at Spudlets suggested that all of his writing buddies share a bit of their church’s (or temple’s, or synagogue’s) sermon this week. Marc has gotten a bit down about it—I don’t think he got the response he had hoped for. I fully intended to do this on Monday morning, but of course, managed to get all sidetracked on other silly stuff. But, I figure better late than never.

First, I don’t usually do a lot of very specific posts about Christianity—I’m just one guy, and this being the Internet, for every sincere person who truly wants to find out more about my faith, there are 100,000 trolls out there just itching to get in a flame war with me about it— I just don’t have the necessary patience to deal with them all. The bit about casting pearls before swine sorta comes into play here.

Second, even for those who profess Christianity, my beliefs might be a bit hard to handle—in Constitutional terms, I believe God to be a strict constructionist, and when it comes to the particular Constitution of God’s Word, I don’t believe I (or anyone else, for that matter) have authority to pass any sort of amendments. You pretty much have to take It like It is, or don’t take It at all.

Third, religion of any sort is serious business, more so than politics or law or finance or anything else, and Possumblog has always been about as unserious as it comes. Somehow, I think whatever positive message of faith I might have would get lost when you scroll down and read about escaped lab monkeys or how hot Julie Chen is.

Finally, it’s pretty obvious that I’m not a very good example. The last thing God needs is people looking at ME as being what the Gospel is all about. I try my best, but I fail with alarming regularity. (Thankfully, my failings don’t negate the truth of God’s Word.)

HAVING SAID ALL THAT, this post is still not going to get around to the meat of what our preacher talked about Sunday—the subject was benevolence, which is a part of an ongoing series he has been conducting on the work of the church. Not that it’s not a great topic, nor that he didn’t do a good job, nor that I might not listened as well as I should have due to wrestling with a demon in the form of a wiggly six year old (although that sure didn’t help)--it is a great topic. But the two sermons he presented made my mind wander to thinking about the great material wealth we take for granted here in this country. Yet, we still complain about not having more.

I have been teaching a Wednesday night class for seventh and eighth graders on the book of James this quarter, and the discussion a few weeks ago turned to how sometimes we can start belonging to our belongings; that having the newest and best sometimes becomes more important than acknowledging where those things actually came from. Further into it, I pointed out that whether they believed it or not, the fact that they had closets full of clothes and shoes, and rooms full of electronic doodads, and good health, and parents who made sure they had a good meal on the table every day, made them incredibly, unbelievably wealthy in the eyes most of the rest of the world.

After a while and a few more examples you could see, despite all the carefully cultivated early-teen ennui, that they understood they had it pretty sweet—more to the point, that they had an obligation, even at twelve or thirteen, to think about how they used what God has blessed them with. The best example I used was one of our missionaries, a young Russian man who sends us regular updates from a small village in the Volgograd region. Some of our men go visit there every year, and come back with some incredible slide shows and talks of the conditions this preacher and the small group of Christians he’s teaching have to put up with.

You all know how bad it is (or you should) but until the kids really started thinking about it—that the $20 they spent on a DVD and the $80 they spent on a pair of sneakers is equal to his salary for a month, it didn’t really hit home.

But beside the obvious difference in the cost of living, there is also the idea of being satisfied with what you’ve been given, and the idea that some things are more important than the latest Nikes or Avril Lavigne CD. I read them the latest e-mail we got from him. (Names omitted for privacy—spelling and grammar as transmitted):

This is a report from A— S— for the January 2003!

All Christians in A-------- are sending you Love and Peace.

For that period of time I was trying pretty hard to find a place for Church meeting. And no success yet! We had some offers but they didn’t work out! It is so hard to find a comfortable (convenient) place for meeting of 10 – 15 people.
But I will keep going in that direction. Pray for it!

When I will find a place we will definitely need some money for the chairs to sit at (at least 10 chairs! = $200). I am doing all Bible classes on regular bases!
S—a and N—a study Bible pretty hard. They are doing great! We are singing 2 parts already: soprano and tenor! It is a big success! I am really proud by them!
They help me a lot with evangelization! We have 5 gests with the kids! And I can see some progress in the future. As I told you in our last summer meeting: Here we will have a very slow progress but we will! I am studying with N—a‘s sun A—r and S—a sun K—a! We became good friends! And I hope that some day they will became a Christians.

T—a visited Germany for 2 weeks and after she went back, she moved to Kamyshin. She is trying to get a good job for her to help her daughter in her life.
T—a studying at the computer courses and at the same time she is visiting courses for the distributors. I think she moved to K------ for a long time. A—y and L—a are going come back to A-------- in the nearest future.

[The next portion deals with withdrawing the fellowship of the congregation from a woman who had become a drunkard and involved in a series of blatantly adulterous relationships, and was unwilling to change her ways.]

The life style of that village is so bad! Many people getting drunk constantly and having a lot of adulteries. It is a very hard place to work at. I am not complaining I am just trying to explain to you why I do not have big increase in numbers.

People are very satisfied with theirs life style. And they think they believe in God.

They don’t want to change the way they live. I don’t loose my hope in the power of God’s work. And I want you to encourage don’t give up! I think that Christian in your congregation will receive some praise from the Lord Jesus for helping this little amount of sinners in a deep and wild village A-------- become as pure as Jesus blood. Do not look at the numbers look at the hearts! Thanks for everything you do for us. Russian Christians in A-------- a very respect you and love you. We so glad that God made us one family.

We keep these updates posted on our bulletin board, but I don’t think the kids had ever taken a moment to read them. Maybe they’ll read the next one, and maybe they’ll come to understand that their benevolence to others is a bit more than chunking a dollar their parents gave them into the collection plate.

So, Marc, there you go.
posted by Terry at 2:22:00 PM