My new Pastor Emeritus office is on the second floor of the education building at Trinity Methodist Church. I’ve taken over a cubby in the church library. The library has books, my cubby has a desk, and the second floor has a heating issue. We don’t have any.
I’ve been looking at the weather forecast, and my professional assessment is brrrrr. It doesn’t help that I’ve lost some of my subcutaneous fat. I used to carry my own insulation. Heck, at one time I was on the Hot 100 Ministers list. These days I’d be grateful to make the Lukewarm 40.
So I went to the Wal of Mart and bought a little space heater for my desk area. I just peeled a warning label off the heater. Here’s what it said, verbatim.
Warning–Risk of Heat Stroke. Hypertermia can result in death of infants or others. Use caution to avoid overheating individuals. Read and follow all directions before using.
Overheating was a possibility I hadn’t considered. I was still working on the possibility of feeling my toes. I bought a heater small enough to fit under a desk, and here it was asking me to think about the dangers of a tropical climate.
The label came right off. The warning still applies. I got to thinking about how often I do the same thing with the words of Jesus. I can read them, agree with them, and have them peeled off and in the wastebasket before they interfere with my afternoon.
Take greed. Jesus says to be on guard against all kinds of it because life doesn’t consist in how much we own (Luke 12:15). I’m in full agreement, right up until the thing I didn’t need yesterday goes on sale today. Then I start calculating how much money I can save by spending it.
Or take the speck and the plank (Matthew 7:3–5). Jesus asks why we’re so good at spotting a speck in somebody else’s eye while we’ve got a plank sticking out of our own. I can picture myself reading that one and thinking, “I know somebody who needs to hear this.” And there I go, swinging my lumber around again.
Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount with two people who build houses (Matthew 7:24–27). Both hear his words, and both get the same weather forecast. The one who puts his words into practice builds on rock. The other builds on sand. I can underline that sermon in three colors and still build on sand.
Jesus loves us enough to tell us what can bring the house down. And sometimes taking him seriously is as ordinary as catching myself halfway through an inventory of somebody else’s faults and asking whether I owe that person an apology.
I suppose I could start with the plank. If I ever get it out of my eye, I may have enough lumber to add on to the cubby.
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