Nobody is Gone

Have you seen or heard about the billboards showing up on Metroplex highways with the message, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.” They were sponsored and funded by a group called Metroplex Atheists with the stated intent to help show Christians that atheists “don’t have horns and a tail.” Holly Yan, staff writer for The Dallas Morning News, wrote in an an article published on April 4 about the group's attempts to quell the stigma attached to atheists. I found the article interesting and helpful as we Christians empathically seek to share our faith with people who claim there is no God.

First, I found it interesting that there is a Baptist church in Grand Prairie, Summit Baptist Church, which was founded two years ago with part of its vision being it would “be open enough to listen to differing beliefs.” Yes, I did say it is a “Baptist” church. Not what you usually think of when you reflect on Baptist evangelistic fervor, but, following its vision, its co-founding pastor, Derward Richardson, invited Terry McDonald, the chairman of the Metroplex Atheists, to speak at his church. Again, yes, I said, “Baptist” church. About 75 people turned out for the Saturday night discussion and I am sure they are all the better for their participation.

As the great preacher, Harry Emerson Fosdick once said to a man who told him he didn’t believe in God, “Tell me about the God you don’t believe in, because I probably don’t believe in that god either.” The faithful, open, heart-felt discussions we have about the God/gods we do and don’t believe in only strengthen our faith. The article quoted an atheist who encouraged his Christian daughter, “always question everything.” I could not agree more. As I like to say, we should never be required to check our brains at the door of the church and, if you are ever asked to do so, run.

Secondly, I was interested to read the statement made at the meeting by Terry McDonald, who was a devout Catholic, going to Catholic schools and being on his parish council, yet rejected his faith in his thirties “when”, as he said, “I looked for God, he wasn’t there.” That is why open discussion and the ability to see the humanity in someone who thinks differently than we do is so important. We can hear in their voice the same cry we have uttered, “O God, where are you?” (If you have forgotten, read Psalm 13.) To see ourselves in the face of someone we might once have thought of as our enemy, is our first step in loving them as Christ commanded. It is a wonderful opportunity to share with them the God we have found. I am reminded of Shel Silverstein’s poem entitled, "Nobody”:

Nobody loves me,
Nobody cares.
Nobody picks me peaches and pears.
Nobody offers me candy and Cokes,
Nobody listens and laughs at my jokes.
Nobody helps when I get in a fight.
Nobody does all my homework at night.
Nobody misses me,
Nobody cries,
Nobody thinks I’m a wonderful guy.
So if you ask me who’s my best friend, in a whiz,
I’ll stand up and tell you that Nobody is.
But yesterday night I got quite a scare,
I woke and Nobody just wasn’t there.
I called out and reached out for Nobody’s hand,
In the darkness where Nobody usually stands.
Then I poked through the house, in each cranny and nook,
But I found somebody each place that I looked.
I searched till I’m tired, and now with the dawn,
There’s no doubt about it –
Nobody’s gone.

My prayer is that Mr. McDonald will one day discover that Nobody is gone. And he will find again somebody wherever he looks – maybe even God in your face or in mine. Remember, Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, “…if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:46-47). As the old song says, “They will know we are Christians by our love.”

Easter is a season, not just a day.

The other day I attended a meeting that was initiated with a prayer. In the prayer, God was thanked for the beauty of the day, the bounty of our lives, the fellowship we enjoy and the holy season of Easter that just past. Now I know I should have been deep in spirit of prayer and should not have noticed, but I did and it made me sad. Easter has not passed. It is a season.

Liturgically, Easter is not a day, but a season in the church year. The season lasts 50 days until the day of Pentecost, which this year comes on May 31. Actually, the day of Easter is what determines the entire Christian calendar. The day of Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon falling on or after March 21, the first day of spring. After the day of Easter is set, then all the moveable days of the church year (Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Pentecost, etc.) can be set. This means that our calendar, as well as our lives, revolves around the resurrection of our Lord. Easter is a season, not just a day.

The Easter season is the oldest of any in the church year. It is hundreds of years older than Advent and Christmas. As Robert Wetzler and Helen Huntington write in their book, Seasons and Symbols, “Easter is the keystone in the arch of Christianity. Without it, everything else crumbles. We sing ‘Christ is risen! Alleluia!’ because it is essential to our understanding of God’s promises of eternal and renewed life.”

This is why the concept of the season of Easter is so important. The resurrection cannot be contained in one day. So we are given fifty days to get into the habit of observing how God is renewing our lives. God is constantly recreating new ways for us to experience the resurrection for ourselves. If we will stay alert to this possibility throughout the season of Easter, and on through the year, maybe we will find ourselves proclaiming “Christ is risen!” one day in October.

Exciting Things To Come

By now you should have the schedule for Easter and Holy Week indelibly etched in your brains. If you don’t, here it is one more time:

Prayer Labyrinth
Walk the prayer labyrinth April 6-9, Celebration Hall
Maundy Thursday Service
April 9, 7:30 p.m., Robertson Activity Center
Stations of the Cross
Friday, April 10, 3:30-7:30 p.m., Quad Room
Good Friday Service
7:30 p.m., Celebration Hall
Easter Sunday Services
Celebration Service: 8:15, 9:30 and 10:45 a.m., Celebration Hall
The Bridge: 9:30 and 10:45 a.m., Robertson Activity Center

What I’d really like you to be aware of is the services the three weeks following Easter. Even though I think all of our worship services here at Stonebridge United Methodist Church are special, the services on April 19, 26 and May 3 will be some of the most unique and moving we have ever offered. About a hundred years ago, archeologists discovered the oldest Christian hymn texts ever found. They were a part of the earliest Christian worship services; just after the time of Jesus’ ministry, during and just following the time of Paul’s missionary work. Like the Psalms in the Old Testament, we have the words to these hymns, but there was no musical notation yet invented to write down the notes to which they were sung. Recently, these early hymns’ texts were put to a very intriguing and beautiful contemporary style of music. They have come to be known as the Odes of Solomon.

On the three Sundays following Easter, we will be one of the first congregations in the area to highlight these hymns in our worship services. We will be worshipping ‘in the round’ with the music of the Odes surrounding us. The services will also include acting, dance, video presentations, choirs, soloists, ensembles and some interactive elements. You will not want to miss these wonderful opportunities to worship along side the earliest converts to the message of Christ in a most contemporary style. That is why we are calling these services “An Ancient Modern Celebration”.

Due to the style and production requirements of these services, for these three Sundays only, we will not be having the 8:15 service. We will be back to our regularly scheduled service times Sunday, May 10.

On those same Sundays in The Bridge, Pastor David will be taking on the subject of God’s message and human sexually. Some have asked why this is an appropriate topic for Sunday morning worship. The truth is we live in a sex education class. In our society, we are constantly being taught who we are and how we should act as sexual beings. We do not have the choice of whether or not we learn about sex, only what we are going to include in that learning process. I believe our faith must be a part of that discussion. Sex is God’s good gift to us as we seek to share intimately the love God has placed in our hearts. We must do that mutually, responsibly and appropriately to live a life that glorifies God. It is time for the church to help us in that process. We have subtitled the sermons as “PG – Parental Guidance Suggested”. We ask you to use your best judgment in your children’s attendance.

Easter Memories

As I hid the eggs in the damp darkness of our backyard early Easter morning and filled baskets anticipating the joy-filled faces that would find them, I was taken back to the time when I was the recipient of such surprises. Then it was I who searched for eggs hidden in places only a father could hide them and discovered the secret desires in my Easter basket that only a mother would know to purchase. I remembered the pre-dawn Holy Week services at our church that my family never missed - particularly the donut feast in the fellowship hall following the services. I returned to the glory of the Easter services of my childhood and the harkening sound of the trumpets we had in church only two times a year. Now I was the father finding just the right place to hide those multi-colored ellipticals and Susan was the one making magic with wicker and plastic grass. What a privilege to create family memories. What a blessing to have those memories in my own heart.

Garrison Keillor in his book Leaving Home tells a story with similar sentiment.

"Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted. We know that as we remember some gift given to us long ago. Suddenly it's 1951, I'm nine years old, in the bow of a green wooden rowboat, rocking on Lake Wobegon. It's five o'clock in the morning, dark; I'm shivering, mist comes up off the water, the smell of lake and weeds and Uncle Al's coffee as he puts a worm on my hook and whispers what to do when the big one bites. I lower my worm slowly into the dark water and brace my feet against the bow and wait for the immense fish to bite.

Thousands of gifts, continually returning to us. Uncle Al thought he was taking his nephew fishing, but he made a permanent work of art in my head, a dark morning in the mist, the coffee, the boat rocking, whispering, shivering, waiting for the big one. Still waiting. Still shivering."

Will you join me in celebrating the works of art; those painted in our heads and the ones we are creating for others. Let us remember nothing we do is ever wasted when it is done in love. Let us remember what was done in love for us - even the loving actions of our Lord of which we are reminded this next week

Grace and peace,
John Mollet