Amoral, Immoral, or Merely Pathetic?

Are words even necessary?

This is becoming more and more common.  This is something that in years past was occasionally observed, but now I see it every time that I park.  Sometimes I see it multiple times per visit.

Seeing things like this makes me hurt.  It is hurtful to see people act in this way toward their neighbors.  I have stood by and watched people push their cart behind or sometimes even into their neighbor's car.  It leaves me between bawling and brawling.

So I walk over and grab the carts and push them to the cart corral or to the store.  I certainly cannot leave them for the wind to slam into the neighbors' cars.  I cannot leave them for some struggling elderly person to encounter.  I certainly cannot change the hearts of those who do such things to their neighbors.

What can I do?  I can move the carts to a safe location.  I can turn from my feelings of distress and look to God for the peace that only He can restore to my heart.  I can pray for those who do such selfish things.  I can rejoice and give thanks that I am physically able to do a few little things on behalf of my neighbors.  I can rest in the assurance that for Christ's sake God forgives me of my own selfishness and thoughtlessness and that He calls me continually to be restored in His grace, mercy, and peace.

Hmm!  Life is really very, very good.

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The Countenance of the Lord

This calendar and picture hang in our dining room. As it caught my glance and then further attention last night, I commented to my wife regarding how truly amazing God’s mercy is. After all that Jesus endured for our sake, willingly putting Himself in our place to take our guilt, our sin, our shame, our condemnation, our burdens, our suffering, our death, yet even though we turn aside from Him and mock Him with our lives, sinning and doubting and hurting ourselves and one another, yet He continues to look upon us in mercy and love. He never says, “After all that I did for you . . .!”

Rather, He calls to us through His means of grace in His Church, calling us to receive the repentance that the Holy Spirit works, so that we may hear His gracious words of forgiveness and peace and to eat and drink the blessings of His Holy Communion.

I am reminded of this at the close of every divine service in the Benediction, hearing again the amazing words, “The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and grant you peace.”

The Lord lifts up His countenance upon those who receive this blessing. Instead of looking down in disgust, instead of glaring with wrathful condemnation, instead of turning His countenance away, He lifts up His countenance in compassionate and merciful love and bestows His peace.

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The Anguish of Rejection

Rejection is a powerful experience. It can devastate an individual. Everyone experiences it. It can injure a person so deeply that the person never fully recovers. Some people are changed by the experience for the rest of their lives, being influenced by the experience in all of their future relationships.

Reaction to rejection can produce resentment and anger, even rage and terrifying wrath. This can be internalized and directed against onself by the injured person. It also can be directed outward toward others.

Rejection also results in lost opportunities for both the rejected and for the rejecting party. Sometimes these lost opportunities can never be recovered. Other times, they can.

During this season of Holy Week, rejection is a major theme. While we tend to presume mistakenly that we are being rejected, the reverse is actually true. It is the Lord Jesus who faces rejection.

I often wonder how it was possible for Him to live the life that He came to live. From the day of His birth He knew what was awaiting Him at the conclusion of this week. Every day of His childhood, throughout every day of His young manhood, with each step of His journey throughout His ministry, He knew exactly what awaited Him.

He knew that the very reason for His birth would be rejected by everyone. Even Simon Peter rejected it and had to be chastised as Satanic in his thinking. Even His mother, Mary, did not really understand or accept who Jesus was. She demonstrated this when He was twelve, and at various times throughout His ministry as well.

Jesus knew that He would take the sin of world to save the world and that He would be rejected and even hated by the world, including those who falsely imagined themselves to be truly godly. Yet His reaction was never one of rage or spite or hatred. His anger was only displayed concerning the evil that was done. He never responded to the rejection as we would and do.

The ultimate display of this is when He cries out from the cross that the Father should forgive those who rejected Him and murdered Him. But it is also powerfully displayed during Holy Week as He preaches and says:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. (Matthew 23:37-39)

Amazingly, He makes this statement after the events of Palm Sunday. The people cried out with the very words of which He speaks. But did they receive Him for what these words really mean? Did they truly receive Him as the One coming in the name of the Lord? No. Even as they cried out, they rejected Him. For He was not at all who they were seeking. They proved this on Friday.

Jesus came to town exactly as the Scriptures foretold. He came lowly and riding on an ass. Lowly means more than of low estate. It means that He came in gentleness and compassion. He came with the purpose of facing rejection from those whom He came to save.

Even knowing their falseness and treachery, knowing fully how they were rejecting Him and that which He came to accomplish, still He came in meekness and filled with compassion. This was His people, His city, His temple. He loved them. He called to them for centuries, through the prophets. He begged them to come to Him to receive the goodness that He came to bring. But they rejected Him. Time and time again they rejected Him for their own ideas concerning the kingdom of God. And now that He came to them in the flesh, still they rejected Him. His response? He lamented over them. He wept concerning them. He cried out with yet another compassionate warning.

Luke’s account seems to indicate that He made nearly this same lament earlier, even before Palm Sunday. Only in the earlier statement, He did not make the henceforth statement that indicates the blessed event of Pentecost and the few who would then believe and those few who would hear and believe throughout the centuries until the Last Day.

Amazingly, He did not demonstrate anger, only compassion. His compassion led Him to the garden that Thursday evening, where He would be betrayed by Judas and arrested by the soldiers of the temple guard. His compassion led Him to take our blame in silence and to suffer our punishment even unto the death of the cross. His compassion moved Him to take the sin of the entire world, knowing that most would reject His grace and die apart from His communion. Nevertheless, from the cross, He cried out with that great merciful cry, “It is finished!”

The redemption is complete. The declaration of righteousness and freedom from sin has sounded forth. No sin-guilt remains for anyone. And yet billions continue to reject this marvelous declaration. The Lord decreed it in Genesis 3. He has been sending His prophets to proclaim it ever since. He sent His Spirit at Pentecost to confirm it. He established His Church wherein the communion created by this declaration is made to belong to all who are baptized and continue in the faith that the Holy Spirit bestows.

Today the Lord Jesus still cries out: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!” Only today His Jerusalem is not contained within walls nor is it limited to a specific location. With His death, resurrection, and ascension and the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the walls were extended to the very ends of the earth. Now Jerusalem is wherever His saints are gathered to His means of grace. Jerusalem is now every city where the Church is gathered by the Holy Spirit.

And yet Jesus still laments over the rejection of who He really is. He still calls out to those who imagine themselves to be Christians, begging them to receive Him for who He really is rather than defining Him according to their own thoughts and their own terms. And His compassion is as great today as it was during Holy Week as He prepared to give Himself into death for the sin of the world. He is no less willing and no less desirous to have all come to Him through the ordained means to receive Him as the One coming in the name of the Lord.

Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday, the night in which the Lord Jesus instituted His Church of the New Testament in His blood. Surely this is a time when we will want to reflect upon His words and to hear His call to be gathered by Him as He says. Surely we will desire to hear again the means by which He says that forgiveness and life are made to be ours. Surely we will want to hear again how He says the Church is gathered to be His Holy Communion of Saints. Surely we will want to hear again how He says that He comes to us and is truly received as the One coming in the name of the Lord.

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The Lord’s Diner

Here in Wichita the Roman Catholic Diocese operates a charity named The Lord’s Diner . Information about this “soup kitchen” is available at their web site.



The diner has operated for a number of years, serving evening meals 365 days per year, with the numbers ranging from 400-500 per day. The diner has become an object of controversy by expressing a desire to establish a second location with the desire of providing more meals to more of the city’s needy. Some folk in the second area have objected to this, as is reported in the Wichita Eagle’s Tuesday edition entitled, “City sets public hearing on controversial Lord's Diner location for Nov. 17”.

The building is owned by the city. It is currently vacant, but some would like to see the building used for other purposes, including a job training center.

One very disturbing comment is reported to have been put forth by Kevin Myles, president of the Wichita chapter of the NAACP. The Eagle reports that he “said he wants the city to consider an alternative where the Diner delivers its prepared meals to churches throughout the central northeast neighborhood.”

This is a disturbing notion. Why? This is a privately operated charitable soup kitchen. That the NAACP should suggest that the city government should dictate to a private organization how it may conduct its charitable work is disturbing, even frightening. Perhaps Mr. Myles will realize this when given time to think about his stated desire. Surely he would not consider this to be appropriate if someone were to suggest that the city government dictate to the NAACP how it may operate and conduct its work. But when tyranny rules over one group, it can rule over all.

Another disturbing comment is reported to have been stated by Council member Lavonta Williams. The Eagle reports: “She proposed a public hearing be set for Nov. 17, instead of Nov. 3, as city staff proposed. And she indicated that she supports the Diner but questions the location when the city is trying to improve the area and has discussed a job training center at the building. "You can give a person a fish and they'll eat for a day but if you teach them to fish they'll eat for a lifetime," she said.

Why are these comments disturbing? First, it is delusional to imagine that a job training center will help people who are hungry now. It is furthermore delusional to imagine that spending money on a job training center will help the jobless when the availability of jobs continues to decline. The Lord’s Diner is offering to pay the city to use the building, and further to provide meals to people who are hungry.

Council member Williams quotes the cliche about teaching a person to fish, without taking into account the futility of such training. This cliche very accurately manifests the thoughtlessness of such propositions. Teaching a person to fish, does not make fishing possible where it is illegal to fish without purchasing a licence. If the people had money for a fishing licence, they could buy quite a few fish. Moreover there are legal restrictions placed upon where fishing may occur and how many fish may be caught and kept.

The point is that a job training center does a hungry person no immediate good, especially when this training center is being proposed as an alternative to a group who is offering free food now. Perhaps Councilwoman Williams has never been hungry. It is unlikely that anyone who knows the pain of hunger, the hunger that comes from poverty and helplessness, would ever imagine such a suggestion to be worthy of consideration or even mention. Certainly a job training center is a good idea for assisting people to prepare for the future, but not as a substitute for a group who is working to provide for the immediate needs of people who could starve or become weakened before any training would benefit them.

The area of town where The Lord’s Diner wants to operate the second soup kitchen is an area where many hungry people currently reside and traverse. Those who have expressed concern over having homeless people and other needy people congregating to be fed would do well to consider that desperately hungry people are far more likely to get into trouble than those who are congregating with the hope of receiving a meal to fill their bellies. People with the promise of receiving a meal may mill about, but those who have no such promise often will look with envy upon those who have something.

How much better it would be if the kind folk who operate and volunteer to serve in The Lord’s Diner were left in peace to carry on with their acts of compassion without interference from others.