¹² But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. ¹⁵ More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. ¹⁹ If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
²⁰ But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead…

This is a reading from 1 Corinthians 15. Paul, a church planter and pastor wrote at least two letters to the church in Corinth that he started a few years earlier. The church struggled with many things including the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Usually you will hear this read sometime around Easter and definitely not in the season of Christmas, let alone me writing about it on New Year’s Eve. However, I have my reasons.

Yesterday, I ran across an article on a website written by a Presbyterian pastor and then shared on Facebook by a classmate of mine. The Presbyterian pastor wrote a somewhat snarky article stating that he is going to hell for not believing in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

He writes, “In my hard-heartedness I asked one of my accusers if, instead of being a one time magic trick, the resurrection might not be understood as a poem about the whole life process. Like Jesus before Pilate, my accuser was silent. I asked, if the virgin birth and resurrection were essential to Christianity, why the earliest versions of Mark’s gospel had neither.”

 Yes, it is true that there is no birth story in Mark, but there is a resurrection story! The tomb is open and empty and the angel tells the women “But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ” If this was made up, we wouldn’t be talking about Jesus today. There would be no Christianity. Mark’s gospel reminds us that Jesus is out ahead of us and we should go out and look for Him!

Back to the point, I am sad when I hear a Christian pastor stating that he does not believe in the literal resurrection of Jesus our Lord and Savior. I don’t condemn him nor am I proclaiming eternal damnation upon him. I am sad that he only follows the philosophy of Jesus’ teachings. I am sad that a Christian leader doesn’t believe the one thing that our faith depends upon. Don’t believe me? Go back and read Paul’s words above.

Paul wasn’t an eyewitness to the resurrection but he encountered Jesus in such a profound way that he experienced radical life-change (see Acts 9). After that experience, Paul became the most dedicated Christian pastor/church planter/theologian/apologist the world has ever known.

Paul states clearly in his first letter to the church of Corinth that if the resurrection of Christ is a fabricated story we Christians a sorry lot. Paul says it this way, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all people.” In other words, if we see Jesus as someone to emulate in this life only as if having a philosophy of living, then we are missing the point and people should feel sorry for us.

Through Paul, the Bible addresses the uncertainty if not the un-believability of Jesus Christ rising from the dead. Even the disciples doubted the women who reported that the tomb of Jesus was empty. Jesus reportedly said this to the doubting Thomas in attempts to bring comfort those who would read the gospel of John throughout the ages, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

The resurrection of Jesus is Christ is not an outdated shibboleth of conservative Christianity nor is the denial of a bodily resurrection a badge of honor for progressive Christians. The resurrection of Jesus is good news for all!

The resurrection is not a poem or an allegory; it is an event that changed the world… even if it defies the natural order of things.

As for me, I believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. I take comfort in knowing that Christ came back to tell the world that not even sin and death have the final word.

I pray that everyone who reads this understands the depths of God’s love for the world to send Himself in the person of Jesus to live, die and rise again to tell us that the best is yet to come.

God bless you now and forever,

Pr. Ben

Maybe you have seen this online recently… but if you haven’t I wanted to share this with you. What I am also saying is this was not an original thought! Honestly I am not that sharp to catch subtleties like this. Maybe that is why I like magic shows, I can never figure out how they ‘do it.’

This is the 50^th anniversary of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” A lot of us remember anxiously waiting for CBS to air this show every December since its debut. Many of us also waited expectantly for “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and “Frosty the Snowman” long before “A Christmas Story” came out in 1983.

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” was different than the rest of those shows. This is the only Christmas special that told the Christmas story from gospel of Luke in the New Testament.

About 2/3s into the show Charlie Brown laments that he can’t do anything right and that he really doesn’t know what Christmas is all about. At this instant Linus seizes the moment to explain the meaning of Christmas by telling the Christmas story from the Authorized King James Version of the Bible (AV).

If you are not familiar with Linus, he is the boy who always carried a blue security blanket with him wherever he went. He always had his blanket.

When Linus gets to the part of the gospel story when the angels visit the shepherds in the fields surrounding Bethlehem, Linus drops his security blanket when the angel says, “fear not.”

Like I said earlier, I never noticed this in all the years I watched the show. It took someone else to point this out to me. However, this is a poignant moment. The boy who always carries his security blanket drops it when the angels say to the shepherds, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”

 Why is this so important in 2015? Fear-mongering is at an all time high. There are many dispensers of fear that are telling us to be afraid of this that and the other thing with a caveat… vote for “me” and I’ll keep you safe and don’t vote for them, they will not keep you safe. Many candidates in this election cycle are using fear to scare you into voting for them. (As a side note: I am not talking about political platforms or agendas, I am talking about METHODS. Please don’t read into my comments!)

One of the things I discovered after moving to California was that many things are labeled with signs that tell you that something might be “cancer causing.” When I went to park at Disneyland in October there was a warning sign in the parking garage that essentially told me “Disneyland causes cancer.” (I wish I would have had the forethought to take a picture of the sign.)

Where are my going with this? I believe we need to choose how we approach life in this big, bad world of ours. One tactic is to be fearful: Circle the wagons, play it safe, be suspicious of everyone and avoid cancer-causing Disneyland. In other words, let fear rule over us. Just so you know, fear when directed at others eventually morphs into hate. (Please don’t hate Mickey Mouse.)

OR…

We can listen to the words of the angel and “Fear not.” Both the Authorized Version (AV) and the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible tells us that the phrase “Fear not” and “Do not be afraid” shows up 70 times throughout scripture. The angel’s declaration was not a new one for God’s people. Over and over again God reminds us to “fear not.”

One of the starkest reminders of this phrase happens in Deuteronomy 1. Moses sends spies into the ‘promised land’ to scout out the land God had promised them hundreds of years before this moment. God told Moses that the people of Israel should “fear not” because God is in control. Long story short, the people chose fear over faith and God sent them back to do laps in the desert for 38 more years.

Fear will only hold us back from living into the love and the promises of God. Fear will keep you far away from Bethlehem this Christmas and fear is what caused a modern day wall to be built around Bethlehem to keep people some people in and some people out.

Don’t allow a wall of fear to be built around your heart this Christmas.

Yes, love is risky. It cost the baby of Bethlehem his life. But he would tell you that it was worth it.

God bless you and Merry Christmas,

Pr. Ben

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
-Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount

 Our society is falling apart. Our nation is more than divided there are many fractures. Smarter people than myself will write on this subject. I am sure there will be books and dissertations that will plumb the depths that I cannot in this short article.

It is clear if you read or watch the news, we as a nation are not united. I am sure there are many reasons for this but as a pastor I think about such things theologically. I believe that when individuals and groups value ideas and ideologies (and theologies) over people- there will be division. In today’s world the notion of being ‘right’ trumps any other value including community and the inherit peace that comes with living in community.

That is not to say that we should avoid conflict or pretend to not disagree all to portray a 1950’s “Father Knows Best” or “Leave It To Beaver” sort of existence. Today we can no longer disagree and leave it at that. We must demonize the other who does not see things our way. We must shout it from the rooftops that ‘they’ are the reason the world is falling apart. If we are ‘right’, then everyone else is wrong AND evil. Maybe you don’t do those things or believe that, but if you watch the news you can hear these things implied or said by many talking heads.

Peace is not the absence of war. Peace is something that must be waged or conducted. We should pursue peace and community over ideas if we ever want to see the end of extremism of any ideology political or religious (of any brand, including Christianity). Extreme points of view that value the idea of being ‘right’ over people often leads to hate and violence against those who don’t agree.

Jesus encountered the practice of ideology over relationship quite a bit. The Pharisees (the religious leaders of Jesus day) continually advocated for people doing things their way (according to the Mosaic Law) or there would be literal hell to pay if they did not conform. The Pharisees threatened and used scare tactics to get the people of Israel to do what they thought was the correct ways of living and believing. Most people were afraid of their authority because they wielded it like a sword versus using their power to bring people together. Jesus openly challenged that kind of leadership and fear mongering.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. “Everything they do is done for others to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’ Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” Jesus from Matthew 21:1-7,13

 Jesus tells us that peacemakers are blessed. To put this a different way, God favors those who bring people together.

God needs the church to be peacemakers and bring reconciliation to a broken world. If we mimic the world, we will only bring more division. It is not a contradiction to disagree with someone and still like them (or at least be civil). I believe spiritual maturity in this day and age might look like this: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (and others), that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

 If you are reading this and thinking I am making a political statement, I am not. This is one aspect of my faith relationship with Jesus. However, my trust in God affects all aspects of my life including how I view world events and the news.

May God bless us all,

Pr. Ben

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Paul the great church planter, pastor and theologian wrote these words to a church in Thessalonica in the middle of the first century AD. Most likely the first letter to the Thessalonians is the earliest writing of the New Testament.

Depending upon how we read it, it might come off as a trite saying or words of advice often found in fortune cookies. It is much more than that. Paul’s preaching and deep faith caused him to be persecuted, beaten and arrested. He lived a ‘hand to mouth’ existence and relied upon the kindness of Christians to house and feed him. Paul was on the move and far from home. The people of Thessalonica oppressed and jailed Christians. The church in Thessalonica whisked Paul out of town to save him from further persecution. When the townspeople heard that Paul moved onto Berea to preach; they sent people down there to stir up trouble for him and the message he brought. (Acts 17)

Yet in the face of all that trouble, Paul writes (and lived out), “give thanks in all circumstances.” Paul encouraged the church to do something he continually lived out.

Job (from the Old Testament) lost everything: family, fortune and health… circumstances that would break the spirit of most people. However, after all the tragedy Job endured he proclaimed, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb,

and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” Job 1:21 

Paul and Job could say these things because they lived that message out in their lives.

I however am not telling you to be grateful. By all accounts I live a privileged life. Not only because I live in California in a National Park. Compared to Paul and Job my whole life has been easy. Even the hardest moments in my life don’t compare to what they went through. I don’t feel comfortable telling anyone to be grateful. I do feel comfortable asking people to consider why we as Christians should be grateful.

Gratitude must come from within. It cannot be imposed or commanded from the outside. Considering the example of Job and Paul, I am ashamed when I think of the times that I am upset and ‘put out’ by the minor inconveniences of life. Most of these instances can be truly called “1^st world problems.” In other words, people in truly dire circumstances (in other parts of the world) would be THANKFUL to be in my shoes.

As I said, thankfulness can’t be forced. It should be cultivated from within. Yes, we should be thankful when good things happen and we should say “Thank you” to people who do nice things for us, however Paul and Job show us where our gratitude should be directed: at God and for God.

We all will experience moments of great joy and inexpressible sorrow. That is the human condition. Yet it is God who breaks into our world and says to us, “I will always be with you. No matter what happens, I will be there.” Circumstances will change, but God and the promise of God does not. That is where my thankfulness lies. Knowing that life will have its ups and downs, I cannot place my trust or my gratitude in ever-changing situations. For me, I can only be thankful for the one thing that doesn’t change in my life: Jesus Christ.

I am reminded of the words of Isaiah 43. Truly they are God’s words, Isaiah wrote them down.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

 For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…”

May you have a blessed Thanksgiving. Give thanks to the One who walks beside you.

Pr. Ben

If I asked a 100 people, “What is the Church?” I might get 100 different answers. Everyone has an opinion. There is nothing wrong with a personal view on any subject. Regarding questions related to God, ‘what I think’ doesn’t really hold a lot of weight. When questions like these arise, I have one place to go: The Bible.

Why am I even asking the question, “What is the church?” Isn’t it obvious??? Yes and no. We can all see the things the church does, but is that the true definition? If it is not, are we really living into God’s intention for the church? No, this isn’t a ‘witch-hunt.’ I have been burdened with this question. I sense that God is pushing me to answer this for myself so that I can clearly communicate that truth to others, especially at Bethel Lutheran Church. Yes, this nagging is different than other types of questions that I have to answer. The nagging tells me that this is important for God, for me and for our church. (I am explaining this to you so that you understand that I didn’t just pick a topic and started writing about it. For some reason this question is bouncing around in my heart and head and I am making an attempt to answer it!)

Here is what I have so far…

The Church is an extension of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

In other words, the Church should be doing the same things that Jesus was doing as recorded in the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

First: How do we know the Church is an extension of the earthly ministry of Jesus? Let us see what the Bible says.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
1 Corinthians 12:27

 So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
Romans 12:5

And Christ is the head of the body, the church.
Colossians 1:24 

The mission statement of the ELCA (of which we belong) is “God’s work, our hands.” I believe that reflects the biblical thinking about the nature of the church.

Both in Colossians and Ephesians state that Christ is the brain of this operation. Jesus is in charge of his body the same way our brains (both consciously and unconsciously) manage our bodies. The Church is the body of Jesus in the world today.

Martin Luther in his Apology to the Augsburg Confession affirms this when he writes, “This church alone is called the body of Christ, which Christ renews, consecrates, and governs by his Spirit, as Paul testifies when he says (Ephesians 1:22- 23), “And he has made him (Christ) the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness,” that is, the whole congregation “of him who fills all in all.”” Article VII and VIII of the Apology

Second: If the Church is the Body of Christ on earth, what should we be doing?

Once again we need to go back and see the things that Jesus did and make sure we are doing those things.

In everything that Jesus did while He was on earth, he always brought the Kingdom of God. It stands to reason that wherever the Lord is, so is His Kingdom. In Jesus’ first words that marked the beginning of His public ministry, Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:15

We represent the Kingdom of God to each other and to the world as Christ’s body. It will never be the fullness of the Kingdom until Jesus returns; however we still represent the Kingdom of God none-the-less.

What else did Jesus do besides bring the Kingdom of God?

Gave the Church the sacraments (Baptism and Holy Communion) and instructed us to use these means of grace to experience the presence of God in our lives.

Jesus talked about God. There are sermons, teaching moments and conversations in the gospels with anyone who would listen or engage in discussion. Jesus:
                   Preached,
                            Taught,
                                   Led Bible Study formally and informally,
                                                     Had informal discussions about God with both small groups of
people and one-on-one.

Jesus prayed. We don’t have the contents of all Jesus’ prayers but not only did He pray to the Heavenly Father but also gave us the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus also prayed quite extensively in John 17.

Jesus mentored others. Jesus mentored the disciples and others. Jesus prepared them for future ministry and news ways of thinking about God.

Jesus addressed the needs of others. Whether it was a healing, a conversation or even a meal, Jesus showed compassion by helping others.

Jesus welcomed others. Jesus embraced people from all walks of life including those who were excluded by the religious leaders of His day. The Kingdom of God is for everybody.

Jesus embraced community and relationships. Not only does Jesus live within the perfect relationship of the Trinity, but Jesus also lived in and taught the importance of community.

Jesus loved. In all the things mentioned above, Jesus did those things in love. About the only thing Jesus didn’t love were demons and the religious authorities that prevented people from connecting with God and God’s love.

Yes, there are probably things I missed. I am hopeful I touched upon the major activities of Jesus’ ministry and therefore our ministry too.

How we do those things and do them better is a different conversation for a different day.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. May God bless you.

Pr. Ben

In 1931 Tennessee Williams wrote a tragic short story about a man who forgot something important…

Jacob Brodzky, a shy Russian Jew whose father owned a bookstore. The older Brodzky wanted his son to go to college. The boy, on the other hand, desired nothing but to marry Lila, his childhood sweetheart- a French girl who was very ambitious and outgoing as he was laid back and contemplative.

A couple of months after young Brodzky went to college, his father fell ill and died. The son returned home, buried his father, and married Lila. Then the couple moved into the apartment above the bookstore, and Brodzky took over its management.

The life of books fit him perfectly, but it cramped her. She wanted more adventure- and she found it, she thought, when she met an agent who praised her beautiful singing voice and enticed her to tour Europe with a vaudeville company. Brodzky was devastated. At their parting, he reached into his pocket and handed her the key to the front door of the bookstore.

“You had better keep this,” he told her, “because you will want it some day. Your love is not that much less than mine that you can get away from it. You will come back sometime, and I will be waiting.”

She kissed him and left. To escape the pain he felt, Brodzky withdrew deep into his bookstore and took to reading as someone else might have taken to drink. He spoke little, did little, and could most times be found at the large desk near the rear of the shop, immersed in his books while he waited for his love to return.

Nearly 15 years after they parted, at Christmastime, she did return. But when Brodzky rose from the reading desk, he took the love of his life as an ordinary customer.

“Do you want a book?” he asked. That he didn’t recognize her startled her.

But she gained possession of herself and replied, “I want a book, but I’ve forgotten the name of it.”

Then she told him a story of childhood sweethearts. A story of a newly married couple who lived in an apartment above a bookstore. A story of a young, ambitious wife who left to seek a career, which enjoyed great success but could never relinquish the key, her husband gave her when they parted.

She told him the story she thought would bring him to himself. But his face showed no recognition. Gradually she realized that he had lost touch with his heart’s desire, that he no longer knew the purpose of his waiting and grieving, that now all he remembered was the waiting and grieving itself.

“You remember it; you must remember it- the story of Lila and Jacob?” After a long pause, he said, “There is something familiar about the story, I think I have read it somewhere. I think that it is something by Tolstoi.”

Dropping the key, she fled the shop. And Brodzky returned to his desk, to his reading, unaware that the love he waited for had come and gone.

What a story, eh? I thought so too. What also came to mind was Revelation 2:4b-5a. (I know what you are thinking—“Did he really think about Revelation after reading this story?” Actually, I did. I am kind of a Bible nerd.) It says this, “You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.”

Jacob had forgotten his first love. All he knew were books and the pain of loneliness. Although the story is creatively tragic, I can’t help but think about the ways I forget about our first love. Jacob forgot about Lila. John records the very words of Jesus in Revelation and Jesus is talking about a church who forgot about Him!

They didn’t exactly forget about Jesus, but they forsook (abandoned) their love for Him. It was as if they still loved Jesus but not as much as before. Jesus used to be their “first love” now He is somewhere lower on the list. That’s not so hard to believe is it?

All sorts of things get in the way of loving Jesus. In my life, the first thing that gets in the way of loving Jesus is loving myself. I want things done my way and if they happen to be Jesus’ way too—then it’s a bonus!

Jesus reminds the church of Ephesus to return to Him. Loving should be at the top of their ‘to do list’ and ours too. We aren’t asked to just follow the teachings of Jesus. We are asked to ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ Matthew 22:37. That’s hard to do when we are loving other stuff.

God loves us so much. (Words can’t express this strong enough.) God wants our full devotion over full compliance. Do not forget who loved you first…

Pr. Ben

I often run across stories and articles that are too long for a sermon, yet they are too wonderful not to share. Here is a little known story about the moon landing in 1969.

Communion on the Moon: July 20th, 1969
by Eric Metaxas

Forty seven years ago two human beings changed history by walking on  the surface of the moon. But what happened before Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong exited the Lunar Module is perhaps even more amazing, if only because so few people know about it. “I’m talking about the fact that Buzz Aldrin took communion on the surface of the moon. Some months after his return, he wrote about it in Guideposts magazine.

And a few years ago I had the privilege of meeting him myself. I asked him about it and he confirmed the story to me, and I wrote about in my book Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (But Were Afraid to Ask).

The background to the story is that Aldrin was an  elder at his Presbyterian Church in Texas during this period in his life, and knowing that he would soon be doing something unprecedented in human history, he felt he should mark the occasion somehow, and he asked his minister to help him. And so the minister consecrated a communion wafer and a small vial of communion wine. And Buzz Aldrin took them with him out of the Earth’s orbit and on to the surface of the moon.

He and Armstrong had only been on the lunar surface for a few minutes when Aldrin made the following public statement:

“This is the Lunar Module pilot. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.” He then ended radio communication and there, on the silent surface of the moon, 250,000 miles from home, he read a verse from the Gospel of John, and he took communion. Here is his own account of what happened:

“In the radio blackout, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup.

Then I read the Scripture, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit.. Apart from me you can do nothing.’

I had intended to read my communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute [they] had requested that I not do this.  NASA was already embroiled in a legal battle with Madelyn Murray O’Hare, the celebrated opponent of religion, over the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas. I agreed reluctantly.

I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements.

And of course, it’s interesting to think that some of the first words spoken on the moon were the words of Jesus Christ, who made the Earth and the moon – and Who, in the immortal words of Dante, is Himself the “Love that moves the Sun and other stars.”

Occasionally I run across an article that is too good not to share. This is one of them. This is written by a “local” here in the South Bay. The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence as Scott Shute discovered after the loss of his father.

Faith of His Father
His high-tech career at LinkedIn couldn’t have been more different from his father’s life as a Kansas farmer. But some lessons always apply…

By Scott Shute Vice President of Global Customer Operations at LinkedIn

My bike ride to work is the most peaceful part of my day. I have a demanding job in Silicon Valley—vice president of global customer operations for the social-networking company LinkedIn.

I ride along bike trails beside San Francisco Bay with sweeping views of wetlands and forested hillsides. It’s my time to think, to pray, to get some fresh air before plunging into 10-plus hours of meetings, video conferences and e-mails.

This past winter, my dad died and that peacefulness vanished. Dad was 81. His death took all of us—Mom, me, my four siblings—by surprise. He was a Kansas farmer, vigorous and dedicated to the land. He farmed right up until his heart gave out.

I missed Dad intensely. My first days back at the office, I sat at my desk and wondered why I was there. At meetings I blankly watched numbers come and go on PowerPoint slides.

In Silicon Valley people live to work. We’re passionate about innovation, global impact and changing the world. After spending a couple of weeks in my rural hometown, telling stories about Dad, hearing everyone in our small church recall his steadfastness and quiet acts of generosity, work no longer seemed so significant.

I felt adrift in a way I didn’t understand. Dad’s death made me vividly aware of my own mortality. I was in my forties. How should I spend the years remaining to me? I wanted to make them count. Should I leave LinkedIn and join a start-up? Write a business book like other Silicon Valley leaders have done? Or something totally different? Whatever it was, I wanted to make a difference. I kept thinking about these questions on my ride to work.

Dad wasn’t troubled by such uncertainty. Farmer, father, husband—those were his callings and he stuck to them. His name was Ed. He was sturdy, with hands toughened by work and a ready smile that widened around Mom. He loved us kids, and part of that love was putting us to work. “It’s child abuse not to teach your kids to work,” he said.

His standards were high. “Is that the best you can do?” he’d ask quietly. It wasn’t criticism as much as motivation. It always made us want to do better.

Life on the farm was fun when I was little. I rode my dirt bike and wandered the fields with my black Lab. As I got older, Dad ramped up the chores. I tended nearly 1,500 hogs, a dirty, smelly job I did not enjoy. I was 12 when I started driving tractors.

Other kids my age got lifeguard jobs and spent summer days by the pool. I plowed fields in the broiling sun.

Dad never pressured me to go into farming. That wasn’t his way. In fact, he never pressured any of us kids to do anything. He led by example. I think he learned that at church.

Dad was no Bible-thumper. He lived his faith by deeds, not words. Our tiny Methodist church had all of six or seven families. But they were big farm families, so the sanctuary always felt full.

Mom led the choir. Dad taught Sunday school. We showed up for worship without fail. Dad firmly believed that if you relied on God, everything else would fall into place. No rain? No problem. God would provide. For Dad, faith meant being faithful. He was faithful to the farm. To Mom. To his family.

And he did the right thing even when it hurt. At the funeral, my cousin told a story about a day he went to the store with Dad and my brothers to buy supplies. Back in the car, my cousin realized the cashier had undercharged him.

“Check it out, guys, free money!” my cousin exclaimed.

The car slowed. “What was that?” asked Dad, his eyes on the road.

“The guy at the counter didn’t charge me enough,” my cousin said. Dad looked at him in the rearview mirror. “You’ll want to make that right,” he said.

“It’s only a couple bucks,” my cousin muttered. The look in Dad’s eyes made it clear that that was no excuse. My cousin got the message—and still remembered it all these years later.

I could picture that road, long and straight, bordered by endless waves of wheat. Sometimes, riding along the flat bike trail beside San Francisco Bay, under a big blue sky, I felt like I was back on those country roads of my childhood. Of course it wasn’t Kansas.

And at the end of my ride was a cubicle, not a farmhouse. There wasn’t much in that cube, just a computer and a phone, because we changed desks all the time in typical restless Silicon Valley style.

Was that why I felt so unsettled? Silicon Valley restlessness? Here, if you’re not changing jobs every couple of years people wonder what’s wrong with you. I steered my bike into the LinkedIn campus, a cluster of low-slung gray office buildings surrounded by parking lots and flower beds. I locked the bike, showered, changed and sat down at my desk. It was early and the office was still quiet.

Another wave of memories came over me. How different the farm seemed without Dad bustling around it! My older brother Tom had taken over day-to-day management years earlier, and he’d brought the operation into the twenty-first century. The combine harvester alone cost several hundred thousand dollars and used GPS to harvest crops on autopilot with accuracy down to inches. The driver sat in a cockpit like a spaceship’s.

Dad preferred the old methods but he was a realist. And he had to admit the air-conditioned cab was nicer than getting blasted by sun and dust all day. Maybe high-tech and farming weren’t so different after all.

 What would Dad have thought about this cubicle? I wondered. How would he have answered the big questions about life and work I keep asking?

Actually, I knew how he’d answer. He’d wake up before dawn, get on his tractor and plow. He’d take care of the livestock. Order fertilizer and meet with the seed supplier. Check up on me and my brothers and sisters. He’d plant what needed to be planted, harvest what needed to be harvested and nurture everything in between. At the end of the day he’d be at the dinner table thanking God for providing.

Dad led by example. He did what he said he was going to do. He didn’t scan the horizon restlessly, looking for a new direction in life. He already knew what was important, and he focused on those things with unwavering faithfulness.

I smiled. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I knew the answer to my questions too. Dad had been showing me that answer my entire life. The externals—this job, that job—mattered less than living with integrity. I didn’t have to change the world. I just had to be myself.

Businesspeople talk a lot about leadership. The most influential leader in my life was my dad. And he was still leading me, even after he was gone. His values were part of everything I did—mentoring employees, coaching my son’s Little League team, writing songs with my daughter. From now on, I would make those values even more central to my life.

I turned on my computer and glanced at my schedule. Another busy day. Not on a farm—but the principles were the same. Lots of chores. A rich harvest of work and relationships. Doing the best I could do. Having an impact by living with integrity. “Thanks, Dad,” I said quietly. And I got to work.

Original article from:
https://www.guideposts.org/comfort-hope/faith-of-his-father?nopaging=1

I read a chilling statistic the other day on cnn.com… “Imagine every man, woman and child leaving home in 29 states, mostly in the U.S. West and Midwest. That’s everyone west of Ohio and Kentucky and north of Texas, all the way to California.

The 158 million people in those states make up the same share of the U.S. population — 49% — as the proportion of Syrians that have fled carnage there.

The war in Syria is so hellish and unrelenting that more people have left that country than any other in recent years. One of every five displaced persons in the world is Syrian.”

Of course Syria is not as big as the United States but if it were, the above statements would be accurate. That is disturbing and it is heartbreaking.

I am reminded of what God says to the people of Israel even before they take possession of the land of Israel. “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.  He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)

Why yes, God is speaking to His chosen while they are still on their way to the “Promised land” of Israel and yes, God is referring to those who will be already living among people of Israel some day. I readily admit that is what it says. However, is our interpretation of the Bible so narrow that we would limit who we would extend help to based on where they live? I didn’t think so either.

It is heartwarming (to me at least) that God says to Moses—“I show no partiality…” or more bluntly God says, “I don’t play favorites.” He loves equally. It is not the brightest and best or the richest who are on the top of God’s most loved list. Not at all! God wants Moses (and us) to see that God cares about those who struggle or as Jesus puts it, “the least of these.” And we should to.

There are refugees from many places in the world. Even Jesus, Joseph and Mary were refugees. (See Matthew 2:13). The problems in Syria have highlighted the plight of those seeking a safe place to live, raise a family and make a living. Many of the refugees are caught between ISIS or ISIL and the Syrian government that is not that much better. Most Syrians are between a rock and a hard place. That is not meant to minimize those fleeing from other oppressive situations but it serves as a reminder to me to think critically and faithfully about the struggles of others in this broken world of ours.

Should Christian love be limited by borders or by a shared faith? I can’t imagine saying to someone, “I’ll help you if you can come to me first.” Or, “I’ll help you if you are Christian but no one else.” That doesn’t sound like love to me. The “Golden Rule” keeps bouncing around my head. “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31) I keep thinking, “What would I want/need if I were in that situation?” Clearly I hope others would come to my aid.

I am not offering solutions or even asking anyone to see things the way I do. I am writing because this weighs heavy on my privileged, rich, white American heart. However, I do know that I feel compelled to do more than just write about it. Maybe this is the first step…

God bless,
Pr. Ben