Good morning church family,

“Why is it,” Jeremy wondered to himself; stepping into the shower, “that I only seem to remember the frightening dreams?”

Jeremy had, moments earlier, woken with a start just minutes before his alarm was set to go off. He’d laid still in his bed, listening for sounds of trouble in the dark house; not yet sure what was real and what was imagined. But all had seemed well. The only thing he’d heard was the rumbling of the furnace firing to life in the basement and the whisper of his wife’s breathing as she lay beside him in bed. With covers drawn under his chin, Jeremy relived the dream that had just finished playing out in his subconscious. In the dream’s opening scene, he’d walked up to the front door of his house and found it ajar. His steps arrested by the unexpected sight; he was suddenly filled with dread. Stepping cautiously inside the house, Jeremy found the refrigerator, which for some reason was located just inside the door, wide open with its contents strewn about the living room. There were other signs of burglary and mayhem within his field of vision. Sensing that the vandal was still in the house, Jeremy halfheartedly shouted “Hey! Anyone here?” Immediately, a man wearing overalls and a straw hat strode casually into the room, moving debris aside with his foot. He carried an old Springfield rifle in his hand and looked like something out of a Depression-era migrant camp. “What’d you think was going to happen?” the vandal said to Jeremy before spitting tobacco juice on the carpet. “Didn’t you know I’d shim your back door and wait till you weren’t watching to have my way with your house?”

And that was it – the whole dream. The little nightmare only ran some thirty seconds but Jeremy was having a hard time getting it out of his head as he took his shower. Lathering up under the steamy hot water, Jeremy tried reflecting on the story, but given the disquieting nature of the thing, he opted to dwell on baseball instead.

The problem was, Jeremy would have very nearly the exact same dream about a week later. Working late at the office, he’d rushed home to find the kids all in bed, a plate of dinner in the microwave, and his wife in the shower. He’d covered the dinner and put it in the fridge; opting for a beer and a bag of chips instead. Coming out of the bathroom and finding Jeremy snacking and watching something with squealing tires and shooting guns, his wife had frowned and asked him to come to bed. “Let me decompress for a minute or two,” Jeremy had said, one eye on the blinking screen and the other peering inside the chip bag.

Next thing he knew, Jeremy was launching himself out of a fitful sleep and rising to a sitting position on the couch. His heart was racing and his hands were reflexively drawn into fists. The sound of the beer bottle falling over on the coffee table jogged his memory and set him back to reality. As he turned off the television and looked up at the clock on the wall, the image of the nefarious Okie in overalls holding the Springfield, flashed across his mind. The same short dream and the same eerie question: “What’d you think was going to happen?” played over and over again in his mind.

But weeks went by; allowing time’s crashing surf to smooth away the memory of the rerun nightmare. The nagging thought that the dream might perhaps have been more of a vision, omen, or warning had faded into the recesses; deadened in the pile-up of days. But then came the night in the hotel.

Jeremy had traveled to Las Vegas to attend a junket for company salesmen. The pretext for the trip was to gain familiarity with new product, become acquainted with the service personnel, and have an in-person Q&A session. But the whole thing was really a holiday; an expense account blowout for the company’s highest earners. The junket ended on Friday morning but Jeremy had booked his return flight for Saturday. “What’s the rush in getting back?” he’d reasoned to himself. “I owe it to myself to enjoy an extra night in Vegas.”

Jeremy wasn’t the best version of himself that Friday night. He wasn’t exactly unfaithful to his wife or anything and he was largely safe against charges someone might make that he’d violated the laws written in that leather-bound Bible he’d left back on his desk at work. But he wouldn’t have wanted his wife, kids, parents, pastor, or men’s group friends to have seen all that he’d done and said that night. In truth, he’d drank too much, flirted with the devil, and imagined himself Mr. Hyde most of the night. Tired and tipsy, he’d fallen asleep in his hotel while watching some trashy, titillating thing.

Waking up to a bright, blearing sun streaming into his room and the sound of housekeeping knocking on the door, Jeremy jumped out of bed and fumbled for his phone. “9:32” was the readout on the home screen. His flight was supposed to leave just after 11am. As he stood there, trying to get his bearings, he suddenly jumped. There in the corner stood the dusty old man with the Springfield smiling wryly at him and spitting tobacco. The awful dream came flooding back to him. Jeremy’s heart raced as, out from under the straw hat, came the awful words again: “Didn’t you know I’d shim your back door and wait till you weren’t watching to have my way with your house?”

Later that day, as he stared at himself in the tiny mirror in the airplane bathroom, Jeremy became settled in the conviction that the dream was from Heaven and that the prophecy was most assuredly an unfavorable one. As he tried to wash his face and freshen up from the night before, his head and heart began to sober to the sad state of things. He was in desperate need of change.

Arriving home a little after six that evening, Jeremy felt sheepish as he approached the front door. He wished he’d kept in better touch while he was away. He wished he hadn’t stayed the extra day in Las Vegas. He wished he hadn’t gone at all.

Walking in the front door, he looked around. Looking through the living room and into the dining room, he could see his wife clearing the table and carrying dishes to the sink. On the couch against the far wall, his eldest daughter was huddled under a blanket, the hood of her sweatshirt pulled over her head. Her face illuminated by the blue light of her tablet, Jeremy briefly caught her indifferent eye. His two boys were arguing and fighting about something as they stormed, heavy-footed up the stairs. “Hey, everyone,” Jeremy said; feigning a shout, “I’m home.”

The boys continued their climb unabated, his daughter turned further into the couch cushions, and with her back turned while facing the sink, his wife offered an unenthusiastic “Hey, honey.”

Standing there, the only one to greet him was the dusty, old vandal with the rifle. Spitting tobacco juice, the old man nodded derisively at the debris caused by Jeremy’s selfish neglect. “What did you think was going to happen?”

“Lord,” Jeremy whispered as he looked around, “help me. Help me secure my home.”

We’re looking forward to gathering together later this afternoon to worship the Lord and to commit ourselves again to Christ’s lordship in our lives and to be blessed by the loving reassurances of our Heavenly Father. Never forsake His invitations to grace and peace! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate

Good morning church family,

When someone starts talking about technological advances being made, he is most likely thinking about those advancements in terms of the material world. He’s thinking of better surgical instruments, greater fuel efficiency, faster download speeds, and smarter operating systems. He’s likely not thinking in terms of soul and spirit. For, if he was, he wouldn’t be speaking of advancements then; but of dangers.

All sin is deadly but certain sins are surely deadlier than others. A man who commits a crime of passion, for instance, will certainly be closer to confession and repentance than one who commits a crime in cold blood. Envy is a far more perilous condition of the soul than discontentment happens to be and treachery is more fatal than rebellion. I’ve read of fire ants killing people and so, in that sense I suppose they should be classified as deadly. But, even with that knowledge, should I happen upon a colony of fire ants in a field somewhere, I wouldn’t recoil in fright. But, if in that same field a fierce lion stood opposite me taking stealthy steps as his hungry eyes were locked on mine – I would be positively terrified. Well, if there’s any sin prowling my head and heart that’s as dangerous and deadly as a wild lion, it’s the sin of pride. And just as a stalking lion is aided by tall, tawny grasses, so pride is aided by divining technologies.

Pause and consider for a moment how modern technology has served to grant to its owners, superhuman, almost godlike powers and capabilities. Imagine a busy highway for a moment and further imagine that all you could see were the passengers; the cars being invisible. Hundreds of seated humans moving effortlessly across the landscape at high speeds is surely a superhuman thing. Do the same with people traveling from New York City to London on an airplane. If you imagine away the fuselage, all you’d see are hundreds of people flying five-hundred miles-an-hour at thirty-thousand feet while eating foie gras and drinking white wine. With hydraulic technologies, a human being is able to lift huge rocks, rip tall trees out of the ground, and move his home from one hill to another. Voice activation technology gives us the power to speak all manner of things into existence. One word to the digital butler in our pockets and – voilà! – information is provided, lights come on, food appears, and complex problems are solved. Modern technologies have made us faster, smarter, stronger, and far more able than any other humans who’ve ever walked the earth. They’ve also made us so woefully prideful and independent that we now rival those wicked tower-builders who populated the Plain of Shinar long ago.

So, what should our response be to these technological dangers we’ve allowed to become so integral to our modern way of life? Do the Amish have the answer? Should we unplug from the grid in order to be tied in again to the group? Might we find inspiration in the violence the Luddites once inflicted on the machinery of the Industrial Revolution and smash our smartphones to smithereens? Ought we to adopt a Lenten way of life; subjecting ourselves to various forms of religious denial? Well, I don’t know about you but none of these options seem particularly realistic or in keeping with the biblical mandate to live in freedom; being mastered by nothing. Sin management doesn’t sound like righteousness to me and containment is no victory.

No, it seems to me that we ought to look to the Rod of Moses for insight and instruction. When God called Moses to go to Egypt and win the deliverance of the Hebrew slaves, Moses was shepherding his father-in-law’s flocks out in the Midian desert. Shepherds needed a good sturdy stick for directing the flock through narrow mountain passes, for checking straying animals, and to possibly fend off would-be predators. A shepherd’s rod also made a good walking stick. So, when Moses traveled to Egypt, he happened to take his staff with him. And then, if you read the account, a curious thing happened in the presence of Pharaoh. God gave that rod a marvelous technological upgrade. That simple walking stick became a scepter of great power and provision. Over the next forty years Moses, with that rod, bested Pharaoh’s magicians, drew fresh water out of a rock, parted the Red Sea, and performed many other superhuman miracles. With that upgraded stick, Moses had in his hand something that made him able to do godlike things. And while that was a wonderful blessing when Moses was using his staff as a means of glorifying God and leading His people; it became a deadly thing when it proved an instrument that served Moses’s anger, frustration, and resentment. Had Moses not been given a rod endowed with heavenly power, he may not have died in the wilderness and been forbidden from crossing over the Jordan.

When our Medieval forbears set about to rank sins on a scale of the least to the most deadly, it’s interesting that they reserved the top spot for pride. In fact, pride was put in a category all its own and regarded as mankind’s primary sin; that principal depravity from which all other sins flowed as tributaries. Whether we like it or not, the smartphones that most of us have in our hands are similar to Moses’s rod in many ways – scepters of great power and provision in our lives. We would all do well to recognize, that while we may be able to use modern technology’s inherent powers to glorify God and advance His will, it’s just as likely that we might allow it to be an instrument that serves our selfish pride.

Over the last few years, the Lord has made me wise to this concern and I’m committed to letting Him guide my use of these technologies. I would love to see technology be used to help lead God’s people out of the wilderness and I would hate to see it leave me buried in it.

What a blessing it will be to gather together tomorrow morning and to lay our lives, crowns, and phones at the feet of our King. What joy and strength comes in surrender and worship! I’m so thankful to have been shown the way. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate

Good morning church family,

To a twelve-year-old boy like Ethan Carmichael, a $25 gift card to Macy’s was about as valuable as a $25 gift card to the grocery store, the power company, or the water and sewer department. To Ethan, Macy’s was a store you walked through to get to the food court and on to the rest of the mall. It was a place where fancy ladies shopped for fancy clothes and tried on cosmetics in front of brightly lit, glittery mirrors. It was a store where older men in dress shoes, charcoal slacks, and cashmere sweaters looked through racks of grown-up clothes while looking glumly at the salesmen sidling up to them. Macy’s was a not a store for a boy who was into video games, basketball, and cheeseburgers. But it was Ethan who was in possession of the card; having won it at a Yankee swap gift exchange hosted by his stepfather’s family. And if his prize for the night wasn’t already disappointing enough, his mom wiped all the remaining shine off of it. “Ooh, honey,” she said when it became clear that Ethan was out of swaps and stuck with the card, “that’s wonderful. You could get a new belt.”

The gift card, along with an unopened package of rock candy and a tiny stocking filled with hand warmers, had been sitting on the end of his dresser since back before Christmas; the ruins of a once-great holiday. It was the middle of February now and Ethan was in a mood to clean up his room. He threw the hand warmers in his sock drawer and the candy and the stocking in the trash. Why Ethan’s grandmother gave him rock candy every Christmas, he’d never understood. Ethan thought about throwing the gift card in the trash as well, but instead slid it into the empty credit card sleeve in his wallet; right next to his library card and student ID. “Next time someone goes to the mall,” Ethan thought to himself, “maybe I’ll tag along and see what I can find.”

Ethan would get his chance later that week. His mom was taking his big sister Eliza shopping for a sweet 16 formal that Eliza was planning on attending and, even though such an outing was fraught with grave danger for a tag-along little brother, Ethan was in a mood to gamble. At a bare minimum, he was fairly certain he’d at least get a food court cheeseburger out of it.

Macy’s proved to be about as useless a store as Ethan had feared. The entire upstairs was a complete loss; stocked with acres of women’s unmentionables and rows and rows of other finery for the fairer sex. The lower floor wasn’t much more promising. But Macy’s was still a department store after all and a quarter of the downstairs floor space was devoted to sporting goods, kitchenware, gift items, and tools and such. He spent a little while looking at a dart board but at a price of $34.99, it just wasn’t attractive enough to have to contribute any of his own money. The same was true for a tool kit and a bean bag chair he’d found. The only thing he thought he might like was a lava lamp selling for $19.99. He thought it might be a pretty neat addition to his room and it didn’t hurt that there would be just enough room on the card to throw a candy bar on the counter to go with it. But in the interest of due diligence and because he’d promised his mother that he’d at least look at leather belts, he wandered into the men’s department.

Almost everything for sale in the men’s department was well out of his price range. There were a pair of slippers he kind of liked but they were well beyond what he could afford. The same was true for a jacket that caught his eye, a robe he was somewhat keen on, and a hunting vest with lots of cool little pockets. Ethan’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw “$400” printed neatly on the bottom of the tag attached to the vest. He was just about to head back to the lava lamp when his eye caught an image of a cowboy standing tall under a bright blue sky, his jaw set and his dark, steely eyes looking on under the bill of a broad-brimmed hat. At the bottom of the bright, backlit poster the name “Stetson” was written in a strong and sturdy font. Ethan was attracted to the poster and the image of the cowboy. Looking below the poster, he noticed a small display of cologne. His eye wasn’t long transfixed on the rancher before being taken in by the come-hither eyes of a scantily clad, sophisticated beauty draping herself over a bare-chested man who was staring aimlessly off into the distance. “Sauvage by Dior” was written at the bottom of this poster. Both images raked at the coals glowing in his, as yet, unformed chest and Ethan was drawn in to the Macy’s cologne counter.

There were so many different scents to smell and so many different images to wrestle with. Ethan liked the Dior cologne as well as the ones by Calvin Klein and Polo but they were far too expensive. He kind of liked the Stetson cologne and was surprised to find that one of the bottles sold for $24.99. He looked up again at the cowboy and then at the temptress. “Yes,” Ethan thought to himself, “cologne might be what’s missing for me.”

Meeting up with his mom and sister, Ethan felt funny carry the sharp, little, bright red Macy’s bag that his cologne was put in. Both his mom and his sister looked at the bag and then, cocking their heads, stared at Ethan quizzically.

“What did you get there, son?” his mom asked, a kidding smile spreading across her face.

“Cologne,” Ethan replied sheepishly; wishing suddenly that he’d just bought a belt.

His answer elicited broad, excited smiles and giggling laughter from the women in Ethan’s life. “What kind?” his sister wanted to know.

“Stetson,” Ethan said, a little more confidently.

“Stetson?” Eliza said, sneering. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Stetson is a very handsome-smelling cologne, Ethan,” his mom said while nodding approval with a patronizing air. “I think that’s a wonderful use of your gift card.”

It was a long lunch. Ethan endured some additional ribbing from his sister and probing from his mother. When they got up from the table to throw away their lunch items, he stuck the bottle of cologne in his jeans pocket and threw away the little bag.

Riding home, Ethan sat alone in the back seat of his mom’s SUV. He was glad to be mostly by himself and left out of the front-seat conversation. He retreated inside his winter coat and left his hood on for the ride home.

Stopping at a red light near the center of the city, Ethan’s eye was drawn to a large mural painted on the side of an old church building. The image was of a man who appeared to be nailed to a post and crossbeam. Sadness and anger were painted on the faces of the onlookers below but the suffering man’s countenance was that of an angel, full of love. Enraptured, for a moment Ethan seemed to be painted into the scene; one of the onlookers looking up in wonder. As the car began rolling forward, Ethan’s eye shot to the name on the sign in front of the building: “Ecclesia Odorem”.

“Ecclesia Odorem,” Ethan said haltingly; interrupting his mom and sister’s conversation. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, the church there?” his mother replied. “That’s a funny name. It’s strange. It means ‘Church of the Fragrance’ or something like that. We used to take field trips there when I was a kid and look at all the artwork.”

Ethan could suddenly feel the bottle in his pocket. “Hmm,” he thought to himself. “Whatever that was on that wall – I bet that’s what’s missing.”

We’re looking forward to another wonderful morning of worship and fellowship in the Word! We’re glad to gather and for the blessings of the time spent together – but it’s more than that. Just as a ship needs harbor times ahead of the high seas, so we need sanctuary times ahead of the rough and tumble, ensnaring weeks that lie ahead for each of us. Church is such a lifeline and a blessing for our faith! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate