I knew that the movie "E.T." would be a bore and that there would be nothing in it for me. Science fiction has never been an interest of mine. Tolkien's little creatures bored me. I just knew that a movie about an ugly little creature from outer space could not hold my attention. The first few minutes of the movie confirmed my reservations. But then, after somehow staying awake, I began to succumb to the charms of that movie. It spoke a different message than is usually wrapped around such matters. Beyond a telling portrayal of the openness of children to new truth, it also hinted that the unknown is potentially friendly, and gentle, and caring. Had I walked out I would have missed a powerful, but subtle, theological affirmation of the goodness of creation - extending even to the unknown reaches of outer space.
 

Tony Campolo in his book, Who Switched the Price Tags?, gives us a beautiful example of the kind of attitude that accompanies mustard seed faith. He tells of Lord Chesterton who suggested that God got a childlike excitement out of His work. "As a matter of fact, he contended that God may be the only one left in the universe who has childlike emotions about work, while all the rest of us have grown old and cynical because of sin. God never tires of what He does. He enjoys it.

If you take a five-year-old child, throw her into the air, catch her, bounce her off your knee, and then set her down on the floor, you can expect her to exclaim, "Do it again!" If you repeat the process a dozen times, the child will not tire of these antics.

Lord Chesterton believed that God may be that way about creating daisies. He asks us to imagine God creating the first daisy and enjoying it so much that something down inside Him exclaims, "Do it again!" And when he makes the second daisy, He is even more excited and shouts to Himself, "Do it again!" Imagine God continuing to create daisy after daisy, and after making the hundred-billionth daisy, being even more filled with excitement than when He began. Obviously, this is an exaggeration but it makes no difference. The principle is what is valid - God is a God who delights in what He does."

We are created in God's image. Mustard seed faith says that this is a marvelous world in which God has placed us. It is an exciting and wonderful thing to be alive. We are fortunate when we can get up each morning and go to our schools, offices, fields and factories and share in the abundance of God's creation.

During World War II, American industrialist Henry J. Kaiser was brought to Washington, D.C., to testify concerning his ship building activities. He had claimed to be able to build a ship a day. He was being cross-examined by a somewhat hostile young lawyer who said, "So you think you can build a ship a day. You know, Rome wasn't built in a day."

Henry J. Kaiser looked the young lawyer squarely in the eye and answered, "I wasn't there."

Note: In November 1942, one of Kaiser's Richmond yards built a Liberty Ship (Robert E. Peary) in 4 days, 15 hours, and 29 minutes as a publicity stunt. Nationally, the average construction time was 42 days and by 1943, three Liberty Ships were being completed each day by Kaiser's company. It was said that the speed at which Liberty Ships could be constructed allowed the US to build cargo vessels faster than German U-boats could sink them. Here for more.

Kathleen Norris writes, "When I think of the demons I need to exorcise, I have to look inward, to my heart and soul. Anger is my best demon, useful whenever I have to go into a Woman Warrior mode, harmful when I use it to gratify myself, either in self-justification, or to deny my fears. My husband, who has a much sweeter nature than I, once told me that my mean streak grieved him, not just because of the pain it cause him but because it was doing me harm. His remark, as wise as that of any desert Abba, felt like an exorcism. Not that my temptation to anger was magically gone, but I was called to pay closer attention to something that badly needed attention, and that was hurting our marriage. It confirmed my understanding of marriage as a holy act: one can no more hide one's true faults from a spouse than from God, and in exorcising the demon of anger, that which could kill is converted, transformed into that which can heal."

What are your best demons? To name them for what they are and how they bring suffering, is half the battle.

These words by Martin Luther should stand as reminder to us all that end times forecasting is worthless - unless you are viewing the "End Times" as the whole period after His Resurrection. First published in 1522, the excerpts are the 6th and 7th paragraphs of his sermon titled: Christ's Second Coming: or the Signs of the Day of Judgment; and the Comforts Christians Have From Them:

I do not wish to force any one to believe as I do; neither will I permit anyone to deny me the right to believe that the last day is near at hand. These words and signs of Christ compel me to believe that such is the case. For the history of the centuries that have passed since the birth of Christ nowhere reveals conditions like those of the present. There has never been such building and planting in the world. There has never been such gluttonous and varied eating and drinking as now. Wearing apparel has reached its limit in costliness. Who has ever heard of such commerce as now encircles the earth? There have arisen all kinds of art and sculpture, embroidery and engraving, the like of which has not been seen during the whole Christian era.

In addition men are so delving into the mysteries of things that today a boy of twenty knows more than twenty doctors formerly knew. There is such a knowledge of languages and all manner of wisdom that it must be confessed, the world has reached such great heights in the things that pertain to the body, or as Christ calls them, "cares of life", eating, drinking, building, planting, buying, selling, marrying and giving in marriage, that every one must see and say either ruin or a change must come. It is hard to see how a change can come. Day after day dawns and the same conditions remain. There was never such keenness, understanding and judgment among Christians in bodily and temporal things as now - I forbear to speak of the new inventions, printing, fire-arms, and other implements of war...This compels me to believe that Christ will soon come to judgment...it must soon break in upon them.

Note: If the link is still active here is the full sermon: http://sermons.martinluther.us/sermons2.html

Does omnipotence mean that God can literally do anything? No, that is not the meaning. There are many things God cannot do. God cannot do what is self-contradictory or nonsensical, like squaring the circle. Nor (and this is vital) can God act out of character. God has a perfect moral character, and it is not in him to deny it. God cannot be capricious, unloving, random, unjust, or inconsistent. Just as God cannot pardon sin without atonement, because that would not be right, so God cannot fail to be faithful and just in forgiving sins that are confessed in faith and in keeping all the other promises God has made. Moral instability, vacillation, and unreliability are marks of weakness, not of strength: but God's omnipotence is supreme strength, making is impossible that he should lapse into imperfection of this sort.

The positive way to say it is this: though there are things which a holy, rational God is incapable of intending, all that he intends to do he does. "Whatever the Lord pleases he does" (Ps. 135:6). As when he planned to make the world, "he spoke, and it came to be" (Ps. 33:9), so it is with everything that he wills. With people "there's many a slip twixt cup and lip," but not with God.

In the fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes, an unscrupulous con artist, seeking royal favor, promises to provide the emperor with an outfit of clothing that would be very special. So delicate and rare would be the fabric that the clothes would be undetectable to the touch. More importantly, they would be invisible to anyone of poor character or inferior ability. When the emperor received the empty hanger on which his new outfit was supposedly displayed, he could hardly admit not seeing the clothes without impugning his own suitability for royal office. So he admired the clothes (as did his advisors), put them on, and strutted proudly around his kingdom—stark naked!

We Christians can fall into the same trap. In the first part of Colossians 3, Paul said to “take off” practices such as fornication, lying, greed, and so forth. But the point is that we are to “put on” new practices to replace the old ones. Have we really donned those positive attitudes and actions of compassion, kindness, humility?

Sometimes the answer is “No.” Instead, we parade around showing off our new clothes of righteousness and refusing to admit the truth: that we are really naked. And we walk about, blinded to the fact that the world is snickering behind our backs because the righteousness we think we're wearing isn't the righteousness of Christ; rather, it is our own failed efforts!

There is a marvelous miracle described in Willa Cather's book, Death Comes for the Archbishop. In the story, Father Junipero and his friend, Father Andrea, set out on a journey through a Mexican desert with bread and water for one day. On the second day, they are beginning to lose heart when, near sunset, they see in the distance three very tall cottonwood trees. They rush toward the trees and see a little house. An old Mexican comes out of the house, greets them kindly, and asks them to stay the night. Inside the little house the man's young wife is stirring porridge by the fire. Her young son is beside her playing with a pet lamb. The family shares their supper with the priests, then gives them sheepskins to use for sleeping on the floor. The next morning when they awake, the family is gone, presumably caring for their sheep. Food was set out on the table. The priests eat and continue on their way.

When the brothers at the monastery hear Father Junipero's story, they say they know of the place with the three tall cottonwoods, but insist there is no house there. So Father Junipero and Father Andrea take some of the brothers and travel back to the place. The three tall trees are there, shedding their cotton, but there is no house and no family. The two priests sink down on their knees and kiss the earth, for they know it was the Holy Family that had entertained them there. Father Junipero recalled how he had bent to bless the child after evening prayers. The little boy had lifted his hand and with a tiny finger had made the sign of the cross on Father Junipero's forehead.

Beneath the three trees, there is rest for the weary. 

G.C. Morgan wrote concerning the special three: "There can be no doubt that these men, Peter, James, and John, were the most remarkable in the apostolate. Peter loved Him; John He loved; James was the first to seal his testimony with his blood. Even their blunders proved their strength. They were the men of enterprise; men who wanted thrones and places of power...Mistaken ideas, all of them, and yet proving capacity for holding the keys and occupying the throne. What men from among that first group reign today as these men?

On four special occasions, Jesus admitted them to experiences from which they learned precious lessons. On the occasion of the raising of Jairus's daughter (Luke 8:51), they were granted a preview of their Lord's mastery over death ... On the mount of transfiguration (Matt 17:1), they gained clearer insight into the importance of His impending death ... On the Mount of Olives (Mark 13:3), they marveled at His prophetic discernment ... In the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt 26:37), they glimpsed in the sufferings of the Savior something of the cost of their salvation..."

Rev. Randall D. Bell tells a powerful story about a pastor who stood in court beside a member of his congregation an individual who had been “out with the boys," and had too much to drink. As he was driving home on the rain‑soaked streets and through the dense fog, he turned a corner and heard a sickening clash of metal and breaking glass. Two young people lay dead. They had been thrown from their motorcycle. He was charged with manslaughter and driving under the influence. He sat in court trembling after days of testimony. The judge was about to speak. It could mean years of prison, loss of job, and poverty for his family. The judge spoke: The test for drunkenness had not been properly done; the motorcycle had no proper lights; the jury was ordered to render a not guilty verdict. All that was ominous and foreboding was now gone. He was a free man. The court declared him “not guilty." His family kissed him they could go on with their life, all because he had been declared innocent.

Then Rev. Bell adds these words, “Now maybe this story and the way it ended angers you, because you hurt over those young people who were killed. But know this you and I are that man. His story is our story. We are the sinner who finds himself in the presence of God the Eternal Judge. . . ."

You see, not only are we blinded by our prejudices toward people like the Samaritan woman with her unseemly lifestyle, we are also blinded to the fact that we are the Samaritan woman. We, too, have fallen short of the grace of God, but the hand of grace is reached out to us as well.

George Atley was killed while serving with the Central African Mission. There were no witnesses, but the evidence indicates that Atley was confronted by a band of hostile tribesmen. He was carrying a fully loaded, 10-chamber Winchester rifle and had to choose either to shoot his attackers and run the risk of negating the work of the mission in that area, or not to defend himself and be killed. When his body was later found in a stream, it was evident that he had chosen the latter. Nearby lay his rifle--all 10 chambers still loaded. He had made the supreme sacrifice, motivated by his burden for lost souls and his unswerving devotion to his Savior. With the apostle Paul, he wanted Christ to be magnified in his body, "whether by life or by death."

Writing on Philippians 1:20 in The Bible Knowledge Commentary, Robert P. Lightner said, "Paul's concern was not what would happen to him but what testimony would be left for his Lord. Release would allow him to continue preaching Christ. But martyrdom would also advance the cause of Christ."

After the tomb was found empty and Jesus appeared to the early church on many occasions, doubt disappeared, and the early church had overwhelming confidence in the Lord. The church today must live and be about its ministry with the same Easter confidence. We say we rely on God’s mercy for our salvation; we need to give over all areas of our lives to God’s control. What aspects of ourselves are outside God’s control? Our temper? Our money? Our time? We need join the psalmist and say, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Our trust in the Lord must be complete. We are no longer defeated people but powerful Easter people. Little children in danger or in despair literally run and throw themselves into the arms of their mother. This is confident faith. When was the last time we ran and thrust ourselves onto the Lord? A cautious step in his direction is better than none at all, but believing with abandonment is called forth by an empty tomb. God wants us to fall head over heels in love with him so he can bring the greatest joy and purpose possible into our lives.

God also encourages us to hold fast to hope without wavering. Scripture says, "Where there is no hope, the people perish." Too many of us view too much of our lives and the world as hopeless. Without hope, no great strides will be made in the future; there is no venturesome faith without hope. Without hope we burrow into the ground and live the life of a mole instead of walking freely in God’s sunlight. In a difficult situation, a hopeful people find the challenge and opportunity to do something great with God.

Confident in our faith, with an unwavering hope, the Lord also encourages us to stir up one another to love and good works. We must do something. Faith and hope must move from the abstract to the particular.

Easter people are called upon to celebrate the Festival of the Resurrection each Sunday, for each Sunday is a little Easter. "... Not neglecting to meet together," is how it is written in Hebrews. To break fellowship with the worshiping community is to pursue a weakening faith. It is also a form of denial of all that Christ means. True faith, strong faith, is never faith in isolation but must always be faith shared and strengthened through regular worship. We must encourage one another to be regular in worship and strong in the faith.

The end is drawing near. The Lord will return soon to reclaim his fallen creation. When the Lord of the church comes again, how will he find us? Will we be acting like people who have been touched by the meaning of the cross and the empty tomb? Therefore, let us continue to draw near to the Lord with a true heart and a confident faith. We hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering. We consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. We do not neglect to worship but encourage one another. In sum, we will all be Easter people.

John Leax, American poet, essayist and fiction writer, lived on a small farm in New York State and taught writing at Houghton College. There was never enough time to do all the work on the farm, and the old orchard, planted higgledy-piggledy long ago by someone on a hillside, was neglected and overgrown. One day John was driving through the large, carefully groomed orchards of central Ontario, and found himself vaguely depressed by the endless rows of well-ordered trees. He reflected on his feeling, and on the sense of being at home in his own little, poorly tended orchard. Why was that, he wondered. It had to do, he finally concluded, with the way a small orchard fits into the scheme of creation, with many people caring for their tiny plots of ground. The huge orchards of the conglomerates, on the other hand, were sad reminders of the commercialization of the land.

"Perhaps this is why," he said, "though I feel my failure to bring the old orchard to fruitfulness, I feel no real guilt, why in fact I feel a sort of pleasure in watching it turn wild and useless. When I walk in it, it tells me that a man's caring comes to an end. It tells me that life is lived within the boundaries of extremes, of wildness and domestication. It tells me that my order is not the only order. And in its message I feel comfort."

His order is not the only order. And that is what he finds comforting. That is what we would all find comforting, I suspect, if we spent more time studying the lilies -- the rainbows, the geese, and the wildflowers.

William Barclay wrote in his book The Mind of St. Paul:

"The great value of the doctrine of the Second Coming is that it guarantees that history is going somewhere. We cannot tell how it will happen. We cannot take as literal truth the Jewish pictures of it which Paul used. We need not think of a physical coming of Christ in the clouds, or a physical trumpet blast. But what the doctrine of the Second Coming conserves is the tremendous fact that there is one divine, far-off event to which the whole creation is moving; there is a consummation; there is a final triumph of God."

Dr. Al Lindgren of Garrett Seminary tells of taking his junior high school son fishing. While waiting for the fish to bite, they got to talking. The son asked, "Dad, what was the toughest thing God ever tried to do?" His father answered with a question, teacher style! His father asked, "What do you think was the toughest job God tried to do?"

The son replied, "In science class, I thought that creation was God's toughest job. Later in Sunday School we were talking about miracles and I thought that maybe the resurrection was the toughest. But then I got to thinking. No one really knows God real well. Now I think the toughest thing God ever tried to do is to get us to understand who he is and that he loves us." His dad responded, "You're right, son. And it took God's Son to do it."

A Sunday school superintendent had two new boys in her Sunday school. In order to register them she had to ask their ages and birthdays. The bolder of the two said, "We're both seven. My birthday is April 8, 1976, and my brother’s is April 20, 1976." "But that's impossible!" answered the superintendent. "No, it's not," answered the quieter brother. "One of us is adopted." "Which one?" asked the superintendent before she could curb her tongue. The boys looked at each other and smiled, and the bolder one said to the superintendent, "We asked Dad awhile ago, but he just said he loved us both, and he couldn't remember any more which one was adopted."

In Romans 8:17, Paul writes: "Now if we are [God's] children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ . .." (NIV) Paul's comparison is to adoption. By our faith in Christ we become his adopted brothers and sisters—adopted sons and daughters of God. As fully adopted and accepted children, we share the same inheritance as the begotten Son, Jesus. No wonder all creation waits eagerly for the full revealing and adoption to happen!

In 1979 a Roman Catholic nun, Mother Teresa, was given the Nobel Peace Prize. Most of her adult life was spent ministering to the poor and diseased in Calcutta, India. She accepted the prize with the comment, "I am unworthy." The humble person receives at Christmas the greatest prize of Christ and responds likewise, "I am unworthy." Our humble God comes to humble people like the shepherds who know they are outcasts because of their sins. It is a paradox that the best people consider themselves the worst sinners. The greatest leader of Israel, Moses, was told by God at the burning bush to remove his sandals for he was on holy ground. His sandals represented his sinfulness. The great prophet, Isaiah, confessed, "I am a man of unclean lips." The great Christian, Paul, confessed that he was "chief of sinners."

When Charlemagne, the ruler of a vast empire, died, his funeral cortege came to the cathedral door, there they were shocked to find the gate barred by the bishop. "Who comes?" shouted the bishop. The heralds answered, "Charlemagne, Lord and King of the Holy Roman Empire!" Answering for God, the bishop replied, "Him I know not! Who comes?"

The heralds, a bit shaken, answered, "Charles the Great, a good and honest man of the earth!" Again the bishop answered, "Him I know not. Who comes?" Now completely crushed, the heralds say, "Charles, a lowly sinner, who begs the gift of Christ." "Him I know," the bishop replied. "Enter! Receive Christ's gift of life!" It is only when, in humility, we see ourselves as nothing that God receives us and gives us life.

Some years ago I found myself at a clergy conference among a bunch of bishops. (I don't know what else to call them. I know about a "gaggle of geese" and a "flock of birds" but what do you call a gathering of bishops? I settle on "bunch.") There was some sort of unintentional pride involved in the proceedings, for in front of the various clerical dignitaries, along with their names, were written their titles, the "Most Reverend" so-and-so, the "Right Reverend" so-and-so, and the "Very Reverend" so-and so. Whimsically, I printed on my card the "Hardly Reverend"...which, of course, made me guilty of a reverse sort of pride, like the monk in the famous story who said about the various monastic orders: "The Jesuits are ahead of us in learning, the Franciscans are ahead of us in good works, but when it comes to humility, we're tops!"

 A preacher died and went to heaven. This preacher was known as one of the best preachers around. Thousands of people had come to Christ because of his sermons. And he knew it.

As St. Peter was showing him around, they passed through a huge section of humongous homes. These homes were so big, they were nearly castles. Either outside the house or looking out of the window of each of the houses was a little widow lady, a widower, a teenager, or a child. And they all looked overwhelmed by the size of their mansion.

The preacher was getting excited. If these people, just your ordinary everyday kind of Christians got these kind of mansions, imagine what he was going to get. As they ended their trek through the neighborhood, they came upon a large Texas style ranch house. It was gorgeous, but wasn't huge. It had everything you could imagine, but it was nowhere near what he was expecting. So he asked why?

St. Peter sort of grinned and said: "Oh, we appreciate everything you did. You're a great preacher, and thousands upon thousands came to Christ because of you. But truthfully, you were just the distraction. The real work, the tough work, was done on the knees of every one of those people we passed. They were our prayer warriors. And that's where the real battle was fought."

Prayer brings us into the very presence of God. Through prayer, we are brought to the throne of grace and we are enabled to stand before God --not presumptuously but in all humility and because we've been invited there.

Gregory of Nazianzus was the 4th-century Archbishop of Constantinople. That's 1600 years ago. He wrote this wonderful ironic description of Jesus:

• He began His ministry by being hungry, yet He is the Bread of Life.
• Jesus ended His earthly ministry by being thirsty, yet He is the Living Water.
• Jesus was weary, yet He is our rest. Jesus paid tribute, yet He is the King.
• Jesus was accused of having a demon, yet He cast out demons.
• Jesus wept, yet He wipes away our tears.
• Jesus was sold for thirty pieces of silver, yet He redeemed the world.
• Jesus was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, yet He is the Good Shepherd.
• Jesus died, yet by His death He destroyed the power of death.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now I'm found;
Was blind, but now I see.

This plaintive spiritual song is a favorite among the elderly and nursing home residents at chapel time, those for whom physical eyesight is waning and for whom spiritual sight is increasingly significant. I think many believe it is a Negro spiritual, maybe because of its haunting melody. Actually it was written by John Newton, who was part of the revival of the Church of England in the late eighteenth century. He was a self-educated man, who had gone to sea and at one time had been the captain of a ship in the African slave trade. After his conversion, he became an ordained minister of the Church of England, finally serving as rector of a church in London. It could well be that this personal testimony referred to his time of blindness to the awful exploitation and forced transport of the wretched slaves. He was indeed a spiritual wretch, just as the slaves were physical wretches in the stinking hold of his ship. Through an amazing grace his eyes were opened and he could see clearly God's will for his life, and it was not to haul slaves.

Suppose you had a thousand-acre ranch and someone offered to buy it. You agree to sell the land except for one acre right in the center that you want to keep for yourself. In most parts of the country, the law would allow you to have access to that one lone spot by building a road across the surrounding property.

So it is with us as Christians if we make less than a full surrender to God. We can be sure that the devil will build roads to reach any uncommitted area of our life. When this happens, our testimony will be marred and our service will become ineffective.

Soon after Augustine's conversion, he was walking down the street in Milan, Italy. There he met a prostitute whom he had known most intimately. She called but he would not answer. He kept right on walking.

"Augustine," she called again. "It is I!"

Without missing a beat and with the assurance of Christ in his heart, he replied, "Yes, but it is no longer I."

Because of Christ and His Spirit, Augustine was a changed man. He was born again, a brand new creation.

Each year, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, a great number of people find delight in the marvelous story written by Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol. There is something in the story that lures us back to it year after year; we never seem to grow tired of hearing its message. The main character in the story is a surly old man named Scrooge, who lives a miserly existence. He sees no benefit in being generous with the poor, or even providing a living wage to dedicated workers. He clutches onto his money and despises the thought of parting with any of it. But it is not only his money that Scrooge withholds from others, it is his entire being. He withholds love and kindness, he withholds warmth and friendship. Then, one night, Scrooge undergoes a profound crisis. He sees himself through the eyes of others. He has a vivid vision of his past; and then his present. But what is most frightful to him - what shakes him to the core of his being - is when he is granted the opportunity of a lifetime. He is allowed to witness his future. But his future proves to be so dark and frightening, that it prompts within him a dramatic change. He undergoes a radical transformation and becomes an entirely new person. Rather than being cold and indifferent to people, he becomes generous and compassionate.

It is a heart-warming story. But more than that, it is a hopeful story. It provides us with the hope that we too can make needed changes in our lives. We can break free from the ruts we have burrowed, and the negative behaviors we have cultivated. We can become kind and compassionate, humble and hospitable, joyful and generous.

I have never read anything which suggests this, but I wonder if the story of John the Baptist influenced Dickens and served as an impetus in his creation of A Christmas Carol?

The Sadducees thought the idea of resurrection to be silly. Maybe they had been influenced by Greek thinking, maybe they felt you could not build a good case for it based on the Scriptures. But they thought it silly and had come to the conclusion that Jesus believed in it. Since Jesus was a prominent teacher, they thought it would be fun and instructive to publicly humiliate him and so concocted their over-the-top scenario that exploited the old Israelite practice of levirate marriage to wonder what a woman who on earth had seven husbands would do in the afterlife.

The set-up reminds you of the time someone wanted to get under the skin of C.S. Lewis. Lewis was fond of suggesting that in heaven, animals (and maybe even our cherished pets) could very well find a place. A person who thought that to be silly snidely asked Lewis "Well, what about the mosquitoes?" to which Lewis replied that God was clever enough to combine a hell for humans with a heaven for mosquitoes! (Or it reminds you of the famous line, attributed by some to Augustine: when a cynic asked what in the world God had been doing in all those eons prior to the creation of the universe, Augustine was said to reply, "He was making hell for the curious.")

Jesus once told a story about a wealthy landowner who was preparing for a long journey. He called his three servants and divided his money between them, each according to their ability. To one servant he gave five talents, meaning a sum of money, to a second two, and to a third one talent.

Why is life like that? I don't know. We are all equal in the eyes of God. We are all guaranteed equal rights under the Constitution. In an election our votes are all equal. But when it comes to our abilities, we are as different as different can be. God simply did not make us all the same. There are some people who can handle five talents, there are some who can handle only one.

There are some persons who have great intellectual capabilities, and some who do not. There are some who have the ability to project and articulate their thoughts, and there are some who cannot. There are some who have physical prowess and attractive looks, and there are some who do not.

The important thing to remember is that each servant was given something. No one was left idle. You may not be a five talent person, but you have some talent. We all do. And you know something. I think that there are a whole lot more one and two talent people in this world than there are five talent people. Oh, there are some people who seem to have it all, I won't deny

that. But most of us are just one or two talent servants.

Why do we fear to step up and use our one or two talents. Why did the man in Jesus parable chose to do nothing with the one small sum he had been given him?

1. First, perhaps he feared failure.
2. Second, perhaps he played the game "if only." If only I had been given the talent of these other two men.
3. These may be sound reasons but more than likely he did nothing because he thought his one little talent wouldn't make a difference.

Again and again in history, when events get unusually complex or threatening, the tendency is to turn to our sense of total powerlessness. People can feel that things are in such a mess that only the intervention of God himself is capable of undoing what has been done. The role of passive dependency is always easier than a stance of responsible involvement. Who has not, like a little child, wanted to gather up all the broken things and take them to Daddy to fix? The impulse to let someone else come in and solve all our difficulties is very strong; in fact, it is the classic infantile reaction to any problem, and who can deny that speculating abstractly about a problem or about the future is less demanding than working at solving the problem, or serving lovingly and sacrificially in the present?

Thomas Reeves in his book The Empty Church describes this scenario. "Christianity in modern America is, in large part, innocuous. It tends to be easy, upbeat, convenient, and compatible. It does not require self-sacrifice, discipline, humility, a zeal for souls. There is little guilt and no punishment. The faith has been overwhelmed by the culture. Christianity becomes a cultural Christianity when the faith is dominated by a culture to the point that it loses much of its authenticity. What we now have might be labeled as a Consumer Christianity. Millions of Americans today feel free to buy as much of the Christian faith as seems desirable. The cost is low and customer satisfaction is guaranteed."

In his book The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis, the great Christian apologist, draws a stark picture of hell. Hell is like a great, vast city, Lewis says, a city inhabited only at its outer edges, with rows and rows of empty houses in the middle. These houses in the middle are empty because everyone who once lived there has quarreled with the neighbors and moved. Then, they quarreled with the new neighbors and moved again, leaving the streets and the houses of their old neighborhoods empty and barren.

That, Lewis says, is how hell has gotten so large. It is empty at its center and inhabited only at the outer edges, because everyone chose distance instead of honest confrontation when it came to dealing with their relationships.

"Look, she's the one who said that about me. Let her come and apologize!"

"We may go to the same church, but that doesn't mean I've got to share a pew with that so-and-so!"

"It'll be a cold day in July before I accept his apology."

That's all well and good, I suppose... if you don't mind living in hell. Are we really so willing to give up our relationships with others – relationships that have come about and been forged by our desire to follow Jesus? Nowhere, and I do mean nowhere, in the New Testament gospels will you find Jesus saying that the first order of things is always to be right. But he does have a great deal to say about forgiveness, about relationship, about reconciliation, about service and humility and vulnerability.

He makes it sounds like family, doesn't he?

The following strengths, if not properly maintained, can become weaknesses:

• A person who calls himself frank and candid can find himself becoming tactless and cruel.
• A person who prides himself on being tactful can find eventually that he has become evasive and deceitful.
• A person with firm convictions can become pigheaded.
• A person who is inclined to be temperate and judicious can sometimes turn into someone with weak convictions and banked fires of resolution . . .
• Loyalty can lead to fanaticism.
• Caution can become timidity.
• Freedom can become license.
• Confidence can become arrogance.
• Humility can become servility.

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, 'Who are these, clothed in white robes, and whence have they come?' I said to him, 'Sir, you know.' And he said to me, 'These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.' " (vv. 13-14)

Violet Asquith was once sitting next to Winston Churchill at a dinner party. She said that he sat there for a long time and said very little. She reported that he seemed to be in deep thought. Then he became aware of his environment and began to recognize that she was there. At that point, he turned and asked her how old she was. She told him that she was nineteen years of age. He told her that he was 32 years old. Then he said, "Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is the allotted span for all we must cram into it!" He then went on to speak at length about the shortness of life and ended by saying, "We are all worms. But I do believe that I am a glowworm."

Because of Jesus Christ, all who trust in him as Savior and Lord can make the same claim.

In the King James version the text reads: "The Master has come, and calleth for you." This has been used as a funeral text, reminding the mourners that death for a Christian is simply the call of Christ to come up higher, that he who is the resurrection and the life is leading a loved one into the fulfillment of highest hopes. But Christ calls all through life, not just at death. He calls us to Christian service and to a life of faith.

Charles Lamb once made an interesting observation: "Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door." It is true, for a sense of curiosity and of expectancy rises quickly in our emotional response to the sound of a knock. Christ is continually knocking and we must hear him as he seeks in many ways to attract our attention. His knock on the door of our life is the most important of all. When it sounds, do we pretend not to have heard or that we are not at home? We will have to answer his knock if we are to have fellowship with him and receive the blessings he has come to bestow.

Let me share a story about Michael Wayne Hunter who was put on death row in California in 1983, in San Quentin Prison. After his third year on death row something happened. One day he was getting ready to spend time exercising when the guard said, "You're going to miss Mother Teresa. She's coming today to see you guys." Yea, sure, he said, "one more of those designs they have on us." A little later he heard more commotion about it and thought it might be true.

Another guard said, "Don't go into your cells and lock up. Mother Teresa stayed to see you guys." So Michael jogged up to the front in gym shorts and a tattered basketball shirt with the arms ripped out, and on the other side of the security screen was this tiny woman who looked 100 years old.

Yes, it was Mother Teresa.

This hardened prisoner wrote about his experience, he said, "You have to understand that, basically, I'm a dead man. I don't have to observe any sort of social convention; and as a result, I can break all the rules, say what I want. But one look at this Nobel Prize winner, this woman so many people view as a living saint, and I was speechless."

Incredible vitality and warmth came from her wizened, piercing eyes. She smiled at him, blessed a religious medal, and put it in his hands. This murderer who wouldn't have walked voluntarily down the hall to see the Warden, the Governor, the President, or the Pope, stood before this woman, and all he could say was, "Thank you, Mother Teresa."

At one point Mother Teresa turned and pointed her hand at the sergeant, "What you do to these men," she told him, "you do to God." The sergeant almost faded away in surprise and wonder.

That day was a turning point in the life of Michael Wayne Hunter. This San Quentin Death Row prisoner was cleansed by that experience. Life changed. Suddenly there was meaning to it. So drastic was the change a new trial was set and the death penalty was not sought. The verdict was guilty on both counts of first degree murder but a new sentence was given: Life without the possibility of parole. Prosecution did not seek the death penalty because Mr. Hunter was now a model prisoner and an award-winning writer. He is one other thing: A testimony that Christ still is willing to heal, still willing to touch the untouchable, and to make us whole.

The glory of a good person is the testimony of a good conscience. A good conscience is able to bear very much and is very cheerful in adversities. An evil conscience is always fearful and unquiet. Never rejoice except when you have done well. You shall rest sweetly if your heart does not accuse you. Sinners never have true joy or feel inward peace, because 'there is no peace for the wicked,' says the Lord (Isaiah 57:21). The glory of the good is in their consciences, and not in the tongues of others, The gladness of the just is of God, and in God; and their joy is of the truth.

A person will easily be content and pacified whose conscience is pure. If you consider what you are within, you will not care what others say concerning you. People consider the deeds, but God weighs the intentions. To be always doing well and to esteem little of one's self is the sign of a humble soul. For not he who commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends, 'says Paul (2 Corinthians 10:18). To walk inwardly with God, and not to be kept abroad by any outward affection, is the state of a spiritual person. Conscience is that faculty in me which attaches itself to the highest that I know, and tells me what the highest I know demands that I do. It is the eye of the soul which looks out either toward God or toward what it regards as the highest authority. If I am in the habit of steadily facing toward God, my conscience will always introduce God's perfect law and indicate what I should do. The point is, will I obey? I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I walk without offense. I should be living in such perfect sympathy with God's Son that in every circumstance the spirit of my mind is renewed. The one thing that keeps the conscience sensitive to Him is the habit of being open to God on the inside. When there is any debate, quit. There is no debate possible when conscience speaks. 

A model from the world of real estate becomes instructive at this point. A firm in Salem, Oregon, assigns 500 families to each agent. Agents are expected to contact each assigned family once per month for a year. The contact may be personal, a telephone call, or a letter. Research indicates that it takes at least six contacts for people to remember who the agent is and the firm represented. During this time of "building relationships," agents are encouraged not to go in the house (good psychology, everyone else is trying to get their foot in the door). Furthermore, they are encouraged not to ask for a listing during this "get acquainted" time. Obviously, there would be exceptions to these restrictions, but they do illustrate an understanding of what it takes to create a favorable climate for selling real estate. After the initial year of regular contacts, the agent continues to communicate with the assigned families on a scheduled, systematic basis. Research reveals that if this pattern is followed consistently for one-year-and-a-half, the agent will secure 80% of the listings.

What does the real estate firm know that we either do not know or overlook? First, people do not like to be confronted by strangers seeking entrance into their homes. In fact, in many communities this is socially unacceptable. The sales person or any other unknown professional who arrives at the door is automatically confronted with a high sales resistance. If the door is opened, it is done with a determination not to be "taken in" by sales talk. The salesperson professionally represents the product, and consequently the sales pitch is discounted at least 50 percent.  However, if a friend comes over and shares a glowing personal testimony concerning the value of the agent's product, the reaction is apt to be markedly different. A satisfied customer makes the most effective salesperson. Second, people are more inclined to do business with acquaintances than strangers.  Third, it takes time and effort to build a healthy decision-making climate. Fourth, there is no substitute for time. Often it is necessary to "make haste slowly."