Weekday Devotion With Pastor Chris

Peter Marshall was a much-loved preacher of the twentieth century who went on to become Chaplain of the U.S. Senate – quite an achievement for anyone, but particularly for a man who had immigrated here from Scotland.

     While still young Marshall spent a summer working in an English village called Bamburgh, about sixteen miles southeast of the Scottish border, and on the edge of the North Sea.  Around it were wheat and barley fields, pasture and moorland where black-faced sheep roamed.  To the west stood the desolate Chalton Moor.

     One dark night, Marshall was walking back from a nearby village.  He struck out across the moors, thinking he would take a shortcut.  He knew there was an abandoned quarry close by the road, but assumed that he could avoid it.  In her book, A Man Called Peter, Catherine Marshall describes what happened next:

The night was inky black, eerie.  There was only the sound of the wind through the heather-strained moorland, the noisy clamor of wild muir fowl as his footsteps disturbed them, the occasional far-off bleating of a sheep. Suddenly he heard someone call, “Peter!...” There was great urgency in the voice.  He stopped. “Yes, who is it?  What do you want?”

For a second he listened, but there was no response, only the sound of the wind.  The moor seemed completely deserted.  Thinking he must have been mistaken, he walked on a few paces.  Then he heard it again, even more urgently: “Peter!”

He stopped dead still, trying to peer into that impenetrable darkness, but suddenly stumbled and fell to his knees.  Putting out his hand to catch himself, he found nothing there.  As he cautiously investigated, feeling around in a semicircle, he found himself to be on the very brink of an abandoned quarry.  Just one step more would have sent him plummeting into space to certain death.

     This Sunday we celebrate Pentecost, and the outpouring of God’s Spirit.  The Spirit is Christ’s promised presence; Christ’s power and guidance, comfort and strength at work in our lives and in this world.  An experience like Peter Marshall’s reminds us how near and real the Spirit is.  Most of us will never have that kind of encounter, but that doesn’t mean the Spirit isn’t at work in our lives, too.

     More often than not, the Spirit’s presence is felt in the little things: a sudden urge to give someone a call, a sense of God’s nearness during a moment of prayer, or that moment when all the pieces seem to come together just when we need it most.  The Spirit isn’t given just to some, but to all who profess Jesus.  In fact, faith itself (as Jesus made clear, Matthew 16:17) is a sign of the Spirit’s presence at work within. 

     I love Pentecost.  I love the assurance it offers that God’s Spirit is moving even now.  And I know, finally, how dependent I am upon that Spirit for everything that is best and good in my life and in my ministry.  This Pentecost, claim the promise of God’s Spirit at work in your life, too.

“By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control... If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-25)

Weekday Devotion With Pastor Chris

* WARNING STAR WARS SPOILER ALERT* lol

The Iveragh Peninsula on the southwest coast of Ireland, offers breathtaking scenery along with the highest peak in Ireland.  The “Ring of Kerry” is a winding, coastal road that takes you in a great circle around the peninsula.  When we drove the Ring several years ago, one of the highlights for us was standing on a high cliff looking out across the ocean towards the Skellig Islands.

     The Skellig Islands were made famous here in the United States when one of them, Skellig Michael, showed up in a couple of Star Wars movies.  It served as the hermitage of Luke Skywalker who found his way there to live in exile after his Jedi students were killed by Kylo Ren and his Knights.  In the movie the island was called Ahch-To, and it was not only the birthplace of the Jedi Order, but also held the ancient Jedi texts.

     Well, that might be more Star Wars history than you wanted.  But Skellig Michael was a striking choice for Ahch-To both for its geography and its history.  In fact, it was its geography – essentially a twin-pinnacled crag rising out of the sea – that led to its history.  “Skellig” is from the Irish “sceilig” which means a splinter of stone.  And that’s what Skellig Michael looks like from a distance; steep-sided and narrow.

 

Skellig_Michael By Jerzy Strzelecki  CC BY-SA 3.0

     The island consists of about 54 acres.  It is a mile around, and climbs to 714’ above sea level.  A monastery was founded there in the sixth century.  The monks’ beehive stone dwellings are still in remarkably good condition, and were featured prominently in the movie.  Situated high above the ocean, those dwellings can still be accessed by a steep flight of stone steps that rise up from three different landing points along the shore.

     In his tour guide, Rick Steves calls Skellig Michael “the Holy Grail” of Irish monastic island settlements.  He quotes the great Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw who called it “the most fantastic and impossible rock in the world.”  Monks lived on that impossible rock for more than 500 years.  Viking Olav Trygvasson, was baptized there, and would later go on to bring Christianity to Norway and become its king.

     But why would monks choose such a desolate place to begin with?  Their life would have been harsh and simple; collecting rainwater in cisterns and living off the fish and birds around the island.  Certainly, the isolation was at least part of the reason.  One strain within the monastic tradition has long been separation from the world in an effort to grow closer to God.  But another, more practical reason, may have been the natural defenses which the island offered.  Before Brian Boru finally defeated the Vikings in the Battle of Cloontarf in 1014, Viking raids wreaked havoc throughout Ireland for nearly two hundred years.  The steep sides and narrow steps of Skellig Michael forced those approaching the monastery to come in single file, and gave the monks above an enormous advantage.

 

     When we look at that island and consider what those monks endured year after year in their pursuit of God, it puts any sacrifices we might make in perspective.  God was everything to them.  He was that pearl of infinite value, more than worth whatever price they had to pay.  Not everyone, of course, is called to the monastic life, but their loving devotion does raise the question, “What is the Kingdom of God worth to me?  What price would I be willing to pay in the pursuit of God?”

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Matthew 13:45)

Weekday Devotion With Pastor Chris

     Seven years ago a movie called "42" was released.  It was about Jackie Robinson and his first season with the Brooklyn Dodgers.  "42" was a reference to the number he wore for his entire career.  He made it famous not only by the quality of his play, but also for his integration of professional baseball.

     Part of the power of the movie lay in the glimpse it offered of what Robinson endured as baseball's first black player. It took extraordinary character for him to accomplish what he did.  In one scene future Hall of Famer Pee Wee Reese approaches owner Branch Rickey.  He is one of the most popular players in all of baseball, and he has just gotten a disturbing letter.  He doesn’t know what to make of it.  Rickey walks over to a filing cabinet and pulls out a massive file.  It contains all the hate mail and threats that Robinson has received.  It puts Reese's letter into perspective, and he is clearly moved.

     We move to Crossly Field in Cincinnati.  It is May 13, 1947, and this is the first game of just the second road series of Robinson’s inaugural season.  Robinson is being harassed and booed.  The camera moves in to focus on a father and son in the stands.  The son talks about his hero, Pee Wee Reese, and then watches as his father begins to boo and curse Jackie Robinson.  The boy hesitates for a moment, and then joins in.   He wants to be like Dad.

     The camera shifts to the field.  Pee Wee Reese is watching as the abuse is poured down on his team-mate.  From his position at shortstop he walks across the diamond to first base where Robinson is standing.  There, in front of the entire stadium, he places his arm around Robinson’s shoulder and begins to chat him up.  Through that single gesture, Reese has made a statement to all the world: “I’m with him.”  The crowd is silenced.  It is my favorite scene of the entire movie.

http://brooklyncyclones.com/mcupark_mega/visit/statue/

     Did it actually happen?  Two different credible sources said they saw it firsthand.  The first was Lester Rodney, a reporter for the Daily Worker.  The second was Rex Barney, a Dodgers’ pitcher who recalled the moment nearly forty years later in an oral history of the team. 

     There are a couple of issues with those eyewitness reports, however.  Rodney didn’t actually write about the incident until years later, and Barney said he saw it happen while he was warming up to pitch in the first inning.  The problem there is that Barney wasn’t a starting pitcher until the following year.  Records show that in 1947 he didn’t come into the Cincinnati game until the seventh inning.

     IN an interview in 1952, Robinson himself described the event as occurring in Boston in 1948. He said the same thing in his book which came out eight years later.  Robinson's account is actually more consistent with Barney’s own, because on Aug. 14, 1948, Barney started a game in Boston – the same year and same place that Robinson himself said it happened.
    
     Chances are that Reese’s famous gesture came a year later and in a different city, but it certainly happened and it still would have carried great meaning: racism didn’t magically disappear after Robinson’s first season.  Today there is a statue of the moment outside the Cyclones home field in Brooklyn.  At its dedication in 2005 Robinson’s widow said, “It's a historic symbol of a wonderful legacy of friendship, of teamwork, of courage -- of a lot of things we hope we will be able to pass on to young people. And we hope they will be motivated by it, be inspired by it and think about what it would be like to stand up, dare to challenge the status quo and find a friend there who will come over and support you."

In the incarnation, God comes over and puts his arm around us.  In baptism, God places his sign upon us and declares to all creation, “I’m with them.”

“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us-- and we ought to lay down our lives for one another” (1 John 3:16)

ZOOM SCAVENGER HUNT!

Weekday Devotion With Pastor Chris

     William Wilberforce was born on August 24, 1759, the only son of a wealthy merchant in Yorkshire, England.  He didn't have an easy childhood.  He was small, and prone to sickness.  He lost his father when he was nine, and was sent off to live with an aunt and uncle in London.  He came to adore his aunt and uncle, but his mother and grandfather brought him back three years later when he began to show interest in evangelical (or "nonconformist") Christianity as a result of his aunt's influence.

     By the time he entered Cambridge, Wilberforce was already independently wealthy -- the result of the loss of both his grandfather and uncle.  With no need to make a living Wilberforce proved an indifferent student, but he had a very active social life and made quite a few friends.  One of them, a future Prime Minister, was William Pitt, and it was Pitt who convinced him to enter into politics.  In what we would call his senior year, Wilberforce ran for and was elected to the House.

     Wilberforce proved to be a gifted speaker.  James Boswell, the famous biographer, would later say of his eloquence, "I saw what seemed a mere shrimp mount upon the table; but as I listened, he grew, and grew, until the shrimp became a whale."  Those gifts would prove crucial in the great task that lay before him.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay 

     The turning point in Wilberforce’s life came over the course of some fourteen or fifteen months between 1884 and 1885.  It began when he invited a brilliant Cambridge professor, Isaac Milner, to join him and some members of his family on a tour of Europe.  To his surprise, Milner proved to be a devout Christian.  Their conversations, along with Wilberforce's exploration of the New Testament and works by Philip Doddridge and Blaise Pascal, finally resulted in (as Wilberforce put it)  “a settled conviction in my mind… of the truth of Christianity.”  This was no sudden conversion.  This was a deep, exhaustive study that resulted in what Wilberforce would come to call the “Great Change”.  Years later he wrote to a friend:

It is scarce too strong to say, that I seem to myself to have awakened about nine or ten years ago from a dream, to have recovered, as it were, the use of my reason after a delirium.  In fact till then I wanted first principles; those principles at least which alone deserve the character of wisdom, or bear the impress of truth.

Emulation, and a desire of distinction, were my governing motives; and ardent after the applause of my fellow-creatures, I quite forgot that I was an accountable being; that I was hereafter to appear at the bar of God; that if Christianity were not a fable, it was infinitely important to study its precepts, and when known to obey them; that there was at least such a probably of its not being a fable, as to render it in the highest degree incumbent on me to examine into its authenticity diligently, anxiously, and without prejudice…

I am not now what I ought to be; yet I trust… through the help of that gracious Being who has promised to assist our weak endeavors, to become more worthy of the name of Christian.

     Two years after the “Great Change,” Wilberforce became the driving force in Parliament for the abolition of slavery.  This wasn’t about popularity.  This was about being faithful, and using his position to serve God.  Over the next two decades, undaunted by repeated setbacks, Wilberforce fought the good fight.  In 1807, with tears streaming down his face, he saw Parliament take its first major step by abolishing the slave trade.  Twenty six years later, and some forty-six years after Wilberforce had first agreed to lead the charge, Parliament finally abolished slavery altogether.

     Christianity, as Wilberforce discovered, has a way of being "self-authenticating" -- that is, if you take it seriously and put its precepts into practice, experience bears out its truth.  The issue isn't that people try it and then find it wanting.  The issue, rather, is that what they try isn't really Christianity at all, but rather some sociably acceptable, watered-down version that has been drained of all its power.

"I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty."   (John 6:35)