Ray's Blog

On the Wrong Side of the Tracks

ray@rayreavis.com — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 04:05:03 GMT

I read Acts 11:1-18, where Simon Peter is criticized for hanging out with the "wrong" kind of people. You see, Peter and those who criticized him are Jewish, and according to the law they aren't supposed to associate with and eat with the uncircumcised -- or Gentiles.

In Acts chapter 10 you read about Peter going to visit Cornelius -- an uncircumcised Gentile -- after being called by God to minister to Cornelius's family. Even Peter had a problem with this at first, but God told Peter, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." Peter had no excuse to exclude anyone from the message of the gospel because the Lord wants everyone to hear God's message of mercy, grace, and redemption.

How many times do we as Christians try to put limits on God's grace? How often do we NOT invite someone to church because we don't believe they will fit in?

This passage is all about breaking down ethnic and cultural barriers, and reaching everyone with God's word. Like Peter, I believe all Christians are being called to minister to others who may not be very much like ourselves. the problem is that our own prejudice and bias is squelching God's voice. It's a shame, and we need to start reaching across to the other side of the railroad tracks on a regular basis.

At least that's the way this preacher sees it.

Peace,
Ray

Photo used under Creative Commons License.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22749172@N03/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

He Must Become Greater; I Must Become Less

ray@rayreavis.com — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:28:30 GMT

John 3:30 reads "He must become greater; I must become less." (NIV) I ran across this verse in my readings today, and later thought of some of the people that our churches help financially. This past Sunday we had an offering at Sharon UMC for a family short on paying rent. I have more calls coming all the time from people needing various help, and I often wonder whether the requests are legitimate.

I was cooking sausage for breakfast (yeah I know, not healthy, but really tasty) and stopped to say a prayer for the family we just helped. I prayed that they prosper and are able to make it through these tough times. I prayed that they really needed the money and just weren't scamming the church -- after all, many of the people who handed me the money Sunday morning probably don't have a whole lot to spare, themselves.

Finally, I prayed that IF this family scammed us -- they either didn't need the money or they end up squandering the money on something else -- that God still use that special offering for His glory. Because just maybe, even when we give money to people who may not be good stewards of that gift, the love of God shows in the offering we gave.

Maybe next week, next year, or next decade that person will remember that God's love and mercy touched a group of people so dearly that they reached out in love. And I thought of this verse. I thought of how we should do everything we do to God's glory, not ours. It doesn't matter one hill of beans whether the people use the money to OUR satisfaction. It only matters that the money we gave was to God's satisfaction, and God will use that money to help those people financially and/or spiritually.

Amen.

Photo used under creative commons license. Details: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kiki99/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

He Must Become Greater; I Must Become Less

ray@rayreavis.com — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:16:14 GMT

Amen.

Are you really a Good Samaritan?

ray@rayreavis.com — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:21:05 GMT

Our opening worship service at the 2010 Congress on Evangelism featured the Reverend Rudy Rasmus. While at St. John’s UMC in Houston the congregation grew from 9 to over 9,000 members.

Rudy preached on the parable of the Good Samaritan found in Luke 10:25-37. A teacher of the law asked Jesus what he must do to live forever. Jesus, as was his custom, answered the question with a question: “What is written in the law?”

The man answered “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus told the man that he was correct, and if he did this he would have eternal life.

But the man wasn’t satisfied; he asked Jesus “Who is my neighbor?” You see, the man was trying to justify his feelings toward others by drawing a box around a group of people he wanted to consider as his neighbors – the people he wanted to love.

So Jesus told the familiar story of a man who was robbed, stripped of his clothes, and beaten. He was left half-dead on the side of the road.

Along passed a priest, who crossed to the other side of the road to avoid making contact with the victim. Likewise a Levite passed by without offering any assistance. A third man, a Samaritan, helped the man.

Jesus instructed the lawyer through this parable that the Samaritan was the one being the neighbor to the beaten man. Jesus told the man to go and do likewise.

I won’t go into all that Rev Rasmus preached, but I’m sharing this with you because it got me to thinking. It got me to thinking about a passage in the previous chapter of Luke. In Luke 9:51-56 Jesus had been rejected by the Samaritans. He had sent messengers ahead saying he was coming, asking for room to be prepared for him. They refused, because they found out he was going towards Jerusalem.

James and John, two of Jesus’ disciples asked Jesus “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Jesus rebuked them for this, because he knew that despite their unlikeable attitude, he loved them as his neighbor.

I started thinking about how if James and John got their way, perhaps the “good” Samaritan would have been stricken by that fire and wouldn’t have had a chance to help the victimized man. Yeah, I know, it’s a parable, so it doesn’t mean there was literally a Samaritan, Jesus used that as a story to illustrate his point. But even if Jesus was using the parable of the Good Samaritan as a hypothetical, it still shows that even a town that refused Christ can have a good man in it.

So as I walk up and down the streets of New Orleans this week, I will do so with a new attitude. This city with several liquor stores on every block is full of people I love, because they are all my neighbors.

Jesus doesn’t give us permission to pick and choose those we love.

Photo Credits: Used by permission flickr.com user Lawrence OP. http://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/2245559051/

Magnificat

ray@rayreavis.com — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:39:29 GMT

The passage from Luke 1:46-55 is known as "The Magnificat" or "The Song of Mary." I like to look at a passage of scripture in context of the contemporary situation. By "contemporary situation" I am referring to the events, feelings, emotions, stressors, and all other life experiences that are going on at the time.

In this case, Mary was a single unwed teenaged mother-to-be. As bleak as this situation would be for a girl in the 21st century USA, think of the context around Mary's pregnancy. Her pregnancy was beyond socially unacceptable -- it could have resulted in punishment up to and including death.

But despite this, Mary is grateful, and has faith that God has selected her for a marvelous task. She did, after all, know that she was a virgin, so I suppose that could explain why she believes it was an "immaculate conception." But that still doesn't explain how easily she seemed to accept this burden as a joy.

Who knows, maybe she cried, complained, and carried on to God, wondering how God could do something like this to her. Perhaps she was upset like many of us are when dealt a difficult hand to play. But if she was complaining, the sciprtures don't mention it.

What the scripture tells us is that she was grateful for the chance to serve in her own way. Whether she was grateful right away or grateful after a temper tantrum isn't as important as her final disposition.

Isn't this a good lesson for us to take away? Can we not learn from Mary how to find the blessing in the context of where we are in life? I sometimes dislike a situation I'm placed in. As a pastor, not everything I deal with is pleasant, and many situations I find myself in are very awkward to deal with. I just hope that I can thank God for those things he sends my way and see them as an opportunity to serve God's people -- even if it's in a way I wouldn't have asked for.

Walking the Talk

ray@rayreavis.com — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:54:49 GMT

I'm studying James 1:17-27 for this Sunday's sermon. It's funny how God gives me experiences that I can use, but I was had heard something recently that got my mind working on this far before this morning.

I was listening to J. Vernon McGee's "Through the Bible" program yesterday on XM as I was driving Princess Rachel to the Triad area for a full week of spoilage with grandma and grandpa. I think this radio program originally aired in the 60s or 70s, but someone wrote in a question about Catholics. This person asked whether Dr. McGee thought that someone who was in the Roman Catholic Church should "get out" of it, and the writer referred to the Roman Catholic church as "the harlot."

I was pleased that Dr. McGee told the caller that while he didn't agree with all the theological stances of the Roman Catholic Church, he was not going to stand in judgment of an entire denomination of people. Dr. McGee chastised the fellow a bit for wanting to put himself in God's place and be in judgment of others, when he cannot know what is on the hearts of millions of Roman Catholics.

I was reflecting on this and recalled that Jesus was the most severe towards the Pharisees and priests who enjoyed using their knowledge of the law to show their superiority over others. Many times Jesus encounter individuals who fell short of the law -- each time Jesus showed compassion and mercy. But he made it rather clear that only God can be the true judge.

In Mark 9:38-41 John is upset because he found someone driving out demons in the name of Jesus Christ. He said he told him to stop because "he is not one of us." Jesus told him not to stop the man, because "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, ⁴⁰for whoever is not against us is for us. ⁴¹I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward."

James is preaching that we should "be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves." (James 1:22). I think as Christians we should care less about minute points of doctrine and more about God's people. If we don't, we may just find ourselves judged far more harshly than even we have judged others.

Peace,

Ray

Keeping it holy

ray@rayreavis.com — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:44:36 GMT

I'll be preaching on 2 Samuel 6:1-19 this Sunday. At first glance it seems like a harsh text. Okay, it really is a harsh text, who am I kidding? It's a harsh text but one that needs to be reviewed.

In this text we read the story of King David bringing the ark of the covenant back to Israel after it had been captured by the Philistines. This was a joyous occasion with much fanfare -- and rightly so. The merry mood ended when one of the oxen pulling the cart with the ark on it stumbled, and Uzzah grabbed the ark to steady it. God struck Uzzah dead.

David was mad at God. Neither he nor his people could understand why God was angry. After all, weren't they bringing the ark of the covenant home? Shouldn't God be glad that they are making a joyful noise unto Him?

I think David probably had good intentions. I give him the benefit of the doubt, anyway, at least until I find something that would show otherwise. The problem is that David and his people failed to look closely at God's word. In Exodus 24:14 God tells Moses that the Ark of the Covenant is to be carried by poles inserted into gold rings along each side of the ark.

I am no biblical scholar, so I honestly don't know what had been put in writing and made widely available at the time, but I imagine God's word was passed along orally at this time. I know that I occasionally have some well educated pastors stumble on my blog, so I'd love to get extra insight as to how enlightened in the scriptures David might have been.

So the big question is: What does this text have to say to us? My initial thought is that it stresses the importance of keeping "it" holy. What I mean by "it," I'm not sure. I think for one, we should keep our worship holy. Just because we have good intentions doesn't make our approach to worshiping God pleasing to God.

So what do you think, am I way off base?

Mothering -- a Calling from God

ray@rayreavis.com — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:59:59 GMT

It has been difficult for me to choose a text to preach on this Mother's Day. I thought I had picked my text a month ago, but God has been tugging me towards these goals:

I want to suspend Children's Church and have them stay with their mothers in the sanctuary for the message. This of course affects what I preach on and how I tell the story. I want to tell the children how important mothers are. Since the people who work in Children's Church are all mothers (well, other than Zakk), I think they would be too modest to throw as much importance on motherhood as is warranted.
This can be a difficult day for the women who for one reason or another have been unable to have children of their own. I also know that I have at least one adoptive mother in one of the congregations. For this reason, I want to honor the contributions all women make toward the development and safety of our children.
I want to stress the value of women in a way that strengthens marriages.

That's a tall order, I know. So now you see why I've been looking for the story that exemplifies these points.

My main text is going to be Exodus 1:15-2:10 -- the story surrounding Moses' birth. I like this story because there are many brave women who are involved in saving and raising Moses to be a man of God. There are:

Shiphrah and Puah -- the Hebrew midwives who defied Pharaoh's orders to kill Hebrew boys immediately following childbirth.
Jochebed -- Moses' mother who hid him for three months to save him. Then she loved him enough to build the papyrus boat and float him down the Nile.
Pharaoh's daughter -- Who defied her father's orders and adopted this child as her own to save him.

Why study the Bible?

ray@rayreavis.com — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:00:50 GMT

One principle I have stressed in my short tenure as a pastor is the importance of Bible study. I am trying very hard to re-introduce my congregations to weekly group Bible study. So far, I mostly have the same devoted folks who are also the same few who show up to Sunday School.

Most of these people are older, and they have probably been studying the Bible longer than I have been alive. But as hard as it may be to understand, you never grow too old or too mature in the faith to stop studying God's word.

Especially helpful is the practice of coming together with others to study the Bible. New insights are gained when a familiar passage is reviewed from a fresh perspective. I'm amazed when I go to a monthly lectionary study/covenant group, and some "long in the tooth" pastor hears something someone else's take on a passage and expresses that this has made them think of things in a new way.

I also believe our brains are like a kitchen cabinet. I drink coffee pretty much every day. So the coffee in our cupboard is right in front where I can get to it. We have a jar of honey in our cabinet, but if I were to need that jar of honey I would probably have to unload four cabinets just to find what I needed. If I were in a hurry, I would probably just have to do without.

Keeping God's word fresh in your mind is even more important than your daily coffee (and that's big)! Having His word fresh on your mind will help guide you through the days, keeping true to God's purpose in your life. You may also find great comfort in recalling a passage that deals with God's promise during times of trouble or fear.

At least that's the way this rookie pastor sees it.

Peace,

Ray

And I will write it on their hearts

ray@rayreavis.com — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:33:06 GMT

I was reading the passage from Jeremiah 31:31-34 where God promises a new covenant and how God will write the law on the hearts of Israel. I've been thinking on this one for some time, and I've come up with some interesting takes on how the law is written in our hearts.

I believe that we are created already pre-wired to want to know God. I have spoken to atheists and agnostics who had burning questions -- questions that almost embarrassed them to ask. I think this passage seeks to give some explanation for their curiosity.

I believe it is up to each individual to seek God and to learn more about God's ways through the study of the scripture. But particularly in this day and age, you wouldn't have anyone converting to be a Christ-follower without the Holy Spirit drawing them nearer.

When I was discerning my call to the ministry (who am I kidding? I'll always be discerning my call) I once thought I wanted to be an apologist. An apologist is one who uses argumentative writing and speaking to defend the faith of Christianity in an intellectual way. I enjoy the writings of apologists, so they certainly have their place, but like preachers, their words would be useless without God tilling the fertile soil of the minds of would-be followers. This is because if someone isn't ready to believe in God, there is nothing I can do with words to convince them.

I know there are other pastors out there. How do you wrestle with the reality that our words are useless if they fall on ears that aren't ready to hear? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should stick to "preaching to the choir," we must evangelize the unbelievers. My point is that unless the Holy Spirit has already gotten through to that person -- even if that is only planting questions about spirituality -- our work is futile.

Thoughts?

Peace,

Ray