Good morning church family,

Stu and Sidney couldn’t stand each other. Some of the disdain was really quite natural. Stu was the kind of guy who would look askance at a man who didn’t have a little dirt under his nails or who used words like “askance”. He drank beer, drove an old stoved-up pickup truck, and wore a cap everywhere except to bed. His schooling, formal and otherwise, had stopped with his graduation from high school, his career advancement had stalled with his promotion to forklift operator at the scrap yard, and the romantic in him began and ended with the purchase of a heart-shaped Whitman’s Sampler from CVS every February.

Aside from age (they were both in their late fifties), faith (they were both members of the same church), and location (they both resided on planet earth), Sidney had nearly nothing in common with Stu. Sidney was the kind of guy who had his hair cut every two weeks – at a salon. He drank herbal tea, drove a leased Passat, and wore khakis when mowing the lawn. His home had a library, his office had a Monet, and his wife kept a scrapbook of all the love poems he’d penned for her over the years. Nature, indeed, had not made Stu and Sidney a pair.

But the white-hot dislike the two had for one another had little to do with their polar-opposite personalities. Much of the hatred stemmed instead from a dispute the two men had at a church funeral; of all places. It was a silly thing really. Five years earlier, Sidney’s mother-in-law had passed away and a funeral was to be held at the church. The funeral received the full Calvary Baptist treatment. A formal sanctuary service was prepared with both pastors on hand, a pianist and organist provided for accompaniment, audio-visual workers scheduled to handle sound and projection, and ushers dressed in formal attire had volunteered to hand out the laser-printed programs produced in the church office. A full platoon of church ladies had fanned out across the fellowship hall to ready the tables for the kitchen-full of food that had been prepared for the reception that was to follow the burial. The trustees had ensured that the grass was cut, the walkways edged, and all the hedges trimmed. The building looked a picture and Sidney couldn’t have been more pleased to find it so when he and his wife arrived early on the morning of the funeral. But his pleasure in the proceedings, along with his calm and composure, would begin to erode when, after checking on things inside the building, he ran back out to the car to fetch a framed picture they’d forgotten to bring in.

When he’d driven up to the church earlier that morning, Sidney had noticed the hearse parked along the street with a flag car in front of it. One of the workers from the funeral home, who stood in the lot attending to folks arriving, had recognized Sidney as a member of the bereaved family and kindly motioned for him to park behind the hearse in preparation for the processional to the cemetery. Sidney and his wife had nodded solemnly to the black-suited undertaker and he’d whispered his condolences with a bow as they made their way toward the church.

But now, as Sidney went out to get the framed picture, an awful sight unsettled him. Parked behind his newly washed and polished Passat was Stu’s beat-up, old pickup truck with its rusted rocker panels, its collapsed suspension on the driver’s-side rear end, its Bondo-ed and house-painted front end, and its bagful of empties laying in the back of the bed. Sidney stopped cold in his tracks and stared at the sight. He knew whose truck it was. He’d seen Stu come into the fellowship hall, carrying some kind of covered dish that Stu’s wife, Cindy, must have prepared. Sidney had hoped that Stu was just dropping off the dish and wouldn’t be staying; seeing as how he was dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and work boots – and wearing a hat, no less. But that evidently wasn’t the case. Stu wasn’t only staying for the funeral but was going to be driving over to take in the graveside service as well. Sidney stood there trying to imagine the scene when, at the conclusion of the funeral, a host of well-dressed mourners would come filing out the sanctuary doors behind white-gloved pallbearers in three-piece suits carrying the gilded coffin containing the precious remains of his wife’s beloved mother. This solemn and decorous procession would then pass astride the redneck spectacle that was Stu Beauchamp’s old dumprunner. This simply wouldn’t do – the truck would need to be moved. Sidney grabbed the framed picture and headed back into the building to find Stu.

Entering the church, Sidney went directly to the sanctuary. The room, smelling of cut flowers, was cool and quiet. The only sound was the air-conditioned air blowing softly out of the duct work above and the quiet humming of the projectors that were already filling the screens with lovely images of the deceased. Scanning the long, elegant sanctuary, Sidney spied Stu sitting all alone in the back pew with his head down and his phone propped up on his belly.

“Good morning, Stu,” Sidney said; cutting into the pew just in front of where Stu was sitting. “Thank you for coming.”

“Oh, hey there Sid,” Stu said, looking up and putting his phone face-down on the pew beside him. “I’m awful sorry about Helen.”

“Thank you,” Sidney said; leaning back against the pew behind and crossing his arms.

Stu sat back in the pew and laid his crossed arms on top of his belly. “She’ll sure be missed.”

“Yes, for sure.” Sidney looked down at his wingtips and nodded silently. He was stalling; trying to think of a way to broach the subject of Stu’s truck. But with every passing half-second, the awkward silence was making the prospect of congeniality more and more remote.

“Hey, Stu,” Sidney finally lifted his head and straightened his shoulders by bracing his arms on the pew behind, “I wonder if you could do a favor for me?”

“Sure, Sid. What can I do?”

“I know it’s kind of a silly thing; but I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind moving your truck for me.”

“My truck?” Stu asked, crossing his arms a little tighter. “What? Am I blocking somebody?”

“No,” Sidney answered, stammering a bit. “It’s just – you’re not far behind the hearse and you’d kind of be a lead car…”

“So?” Stu interjected. “That funeral guy there – he told me to park there if I was going over to Rosemont.”

“No, I get that. It’s more of a… I don’t know – it’s just an aesthetic thing. You know?”

“Ass-what?”

“’Aesthetic’. Like how things look,” Sidney said; growing less sheepish and more indignant.

“Oh,” Stu said gruffly as he reached for his ballcap and put it on low on his brow, “I see. You don’t like the way my truck looks – is that it? You’re ashamed of it?”

“Come on, Stu,” Sidney said, showing a little frustration. “There’s no reason to get upset,” Sidney continued as Stu stood up; pulling his keys out of his pocket. “Try and understand maybe where I’m coming from. Think of my wife and family. That vehicle of yours could be a little distracting, don’t you think?”

“Listen, Sid,” Stu said, sidling out into the center aisle, “you and yours don’t have to worry about a thing. I’ll just get me and my sorry, third-rate truck out of here so you can have a nice, dignified funeral. I’m sorry for the disturbance.”

“Stu,” Sidney implored, still leaning back but now raising his arms with upturned palms. “That’s not what I mean. You know that! Don’t take it like that.” Sidney just watched as Stu ambled out the back doors. “Goodness gracious,” Sidney said while shaking his head.

As the back door swung closed following Stu’s exit from the building, Sidney stood alone in the quiet sanctuary. His heart was pounding and his blood pressure was up. In the courtroom of his mind, he instantly came to his own defense. It had to be done, he argued. If he lost his cordial acquaintance with Stu – it was no tragedy. The important thing was that the eyesore was going to be removed. Sidney heard the muffled sound of the truck’s rattling engine roaring to life outside. He smiled and tried his best to shake off the whole thing.

Over the months and years that followed, this cancerous interaction would metastasize into a hardness of heart that threatened the faith and spiritual wellbeing of both men. Stu allowed the incident to prey on his insecurities by reinforcing fears he’d long held in his heart that he didn’t belong. He grew even more uncouth and more public in his criticism of the highfalutin, hypocritical foppery he saw in the church. He went from quiet to gruff and from helpful to hands-in-pockets. He had refused to speak to Sidney or even acknowledge his existence despite the fact that Sidney had, a couple of times, made feeble attempts at making amends. Stu often made a point of walking right by Sidney just to ignore him and, whenever possible, he liked to park snug against the Passat in the church parking lot. And for his part, Sidney had assuaged his sense of guilt in the matter by making Stu out to be a monster. Sidney questioned Stu’s honesty, his motivations, and even his salvation. Sidney had litigated the incident at the funeral in his mind and had judged Stu’s actions and reactions to be emblematic of the rot and decay in the church and the country. His dislike for Stu ossified into a disdain for all that was wrong with Western thought and culture. Neither man did what was necessary to remove the pebble in his shoe and now the two were a pair in their limping faith and unhappy hearts.

But everything changed one night during the week of revival meetings that were being held at the church. Every year in September, the church would have a week’s worth of special meetings concluding with a big homecoming service and banquet on Sunday. This year, the church had welcomed a big-name, powerful preacher to serve all week as the evangelist. Every night, the church was packed and the Spirit was moving mightily.

On Thursday night, Sidney got to the church late. His wife was out of town all week and so he walked into the back of the church by himself. Sidney found the sanctuary almost full. The congregation was standing and singing the final stanza of a hymn as Sidney walked up the center aisle looking for an open spot. He was nearly to the front when he saw what might have been the only spot left in the whole room – and it happened to be right on the aisle. He made a beeline for the spot just as the last notes of the last measure were fading from the grand piano. Reaching the pew, Sidney stopped short. The open spot would have him sitting right beside Stu.

Sidney had wanted in the worst way to move on and look for another seat but there really wasn’t one and he knew he couldn’t have kept looking without drawing unwanted attention to himself. So, he stood next to Stu and bowed his head as a prayer was offered before the message. Neither man acknowledged the other.

The sermon that evening was on 1Corinthians 13. As the preacher spoke simply and compellingly on how the Christian was able to love others because of the way God had first loved them, both men began to sweat from the heat of the burning coals being poured over their heads. They squirmed little but were careful to keep their eyes fixed on the preacher for fear that one might betray any conviction to the other. Both Stu and Sidney were glad when the preacher concluded his message with a prayer for the altar service.

As the preacher interceded on behalf of the congregation, God answered the prayer. The Spirit moved and began to soften many a hardened heart; including Stu’s and Sidney’s.

After the preacher opened the altar by making an impassioned plea for folks to come forward for prayer, the song leader stepped to the pulpit and invited the congregation to turn to hymn number fifty-eight in the hymnal. The Love of God wasn’t a familiar hymn to either man but looking down, there was only one hymnal sitting in the wooden rack in front of them. In a moment of magnanimity, Sidney lifted out the hymnal and handed it to Stu. Stu took it and looked briefly over to Sidney. As the music started, Stu fanned the pages open to number fifty-eight. Beginning to sing, Stu held the book out so that Sidney might be able to see. Sidney angled slightly toward the open hymnal and, hardly knowing what he was doing, reached out and took the right side of the hymnal. Stu slid his hand over; keeping hold of the left side. As the two men sang, tears of joy moistened the corners of their red eyes.

“O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong!

It shall forevermore endure – the saints and angels’ song.”

The Lord has planned a wonderful time for us all in His house tomorrow – I’m looking forward to sharing in it with you! May the countless intercessions for revival be answered in each of us that we might enter His gates with thanksgiving and respond to His word with conviction. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate

Good morning church family,

What if by some inexplicable act of cosmic happenstance, the length of a day increased from twenty-four to thirty-six hours? Someone bumped the galactic game board, let’s say, and all the universe’s pieces went pell-mell; expanding solar systems and redrawing constellations. What do you imagine we’d do with all the extra time we’d suddenly have at our disposal? Would we work more? Sleep more? Throw another meal in there?

I’m sure that it would take some time for our schedules to sync up with our new circadian rhythms. But once we finally figured it out and hit our stride, we’d have to find something to fill all the empty hours in our planners. And yet I wonder – even with twelve more hours in a day – would we be able to find the time to have our daily devotions with the Lord?

Many years ago now I remember lamenting to a colleague of mine that my church salary was insufficient to my needs. He responded by first asking if I had asked the church for a raise. I informed him that I had not – the church could hardly afford a full-time pastor as it was. He then inquired if I might be able to do some moonlighting. With a cocked head and one eye squinched shut, I told him that I imagined a second job to be an impossibility. “Well,” he then said, smiling, “you can always make more money by spending less.”

Now, that wasn’t very nice of him. Sure, I spent fifty dollars a month on cable TV, but the promise of pixilated company every evening was as necessary to me as any other utility. I needed television. And let’s not talk about the forty dollars a week I’d spend on fast food. My mom lived over a thousand miles away and I needed a hot meal every now and again – man can’t live by Frosted Flakes and cold cuts alone now; can he? And don’t dare try and take the red pen to my golfing hobby. The blessed exercise and fresh air that I’d get every week or so was more than worth the twenty-five dollars I’d pay for a round. Or was it? The more I thought about it, these expenses might be perfectly defensible if I had the disposable income sufficient to afford them. But I didn’t – I was pretty strapped for cash. There were a number of vital things missing in my life that could have easily been paid for by the three-hundred-or-so dollars a month I might save from cutting the cord, the clubs, and the supersized me.

I sometimes think about that sage bit of financial advice I got years ago; especially when I get to lamenting about how little time I seem to have for prayer and personal Bible study. Now, I’d be ashamed to ask God to hold the sun still in the sky and extend the day just to suit me and I can’t cheat sleep any more than I already do without becoming part of some government sleep-deprivation study. And that, of course, only leaves one other option. I can almost picture the Spirit smiling. “You could always find more time by wasting less” He might say.

Every Sunday morning while I’m getting ready for church, the same notification lights up the home screen on my iPhone. The message isn’t from a family member or friend; some news site or any of the apps I’ve downloaded. No – the message actually comes from my phone itself. On this past Sunday morning at 9:17am I received a message with a little hourglass icon at the left side of the message box. “Weekly Report Available” read the headline. “Your screen time was up 6% last week for an average of … hours, and … minutes a day,” read the subtext (with the latter figures mercifully omitted by the author). Now, I have no idea why Apple created such a feature – perhaps it’s the work of some ethicist they keep on staff to assuage the company’s sense of guilt at making us all bent-necked, lobotomized, automatons. Maybe it’s the work of some liability lawyer they keep on retainer – some kind of preemptive Surgeon General’s warning. I don’t know – but reading this report each week horrifies me. Now, I do a lot of noble things on my phone. I correspond, research, navigate, and I sometimes even use it to talk to someone. But the report isn’t vague and unspecific in its presentation of the data – it brings the receipts. It tells me how much time I spend here, there, and everywhere. Sadly, it’s a pretty faithful chronicler of my week’s wasted hours.

The world is awfully good at creating dependencies in us for things that are utterly unnecessary for our fulfillment as human beings. Were aliens to observe us from outer space, they’d certainly think that staring into backlit screens was somehow necessary to the survival of the species, that the efforts of grown men chasing balls of all shapes and sizes in arenas packed with cheering people must be vital to the interests of national security, and that a chicken sandwich that takes forty-five minutes of waiting in a drive-thru to be able to eat must rapture a human being to transcendent heights of fulfillment. Well… maybe if you get the waffle fries to go with it. But seriously, a lot of what we’re slavishly attending to every day need not master over us. We have to follow this team, finish that show, scroll through our newsfeed, and listen to the breathless analysis of the latest poll. Or do we? So many of the things that we become emotionally invested in, care deeply about, and wring our hands over don’t actually warrant the burning of a single brain cell. Our heart’s passion and our mind’s focus should be devoted to much more important and ennobling pursuits. Wonderful and amazing opportunities are open to us every day! God has gone to great lengths to make Himself known through the gift of His word. Let us read all about Him! He has paid the greatest of prices to make it possible for us to approach His throne and to fellowship with Him in the temple of our hearts. Let us befriend Him!

While I’m fairly confident that we’re not being observed by any aliens today – I know for a fact that God is watching over us. What must He think when He sees that our Bibles lay dusty while our screens are Windex-clean? Or when He sees that our dens are lively and jolly while our prayer closets are silent and lonesome? He must think He’s not all that important to us. O Lord, may we love you more by loving the world less!

We’re looking forward to gathering together in the morning to check in with Heaven and one another, compare notes on what we’ve seen and heard throughout the week, and to look our Creator in the eye and tell Him we love Him! It’s going to be good to blend our voices, lean into the load shoulder to shoulder, and walk the narrow way as a family. What a blessing! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate