Position

Recently, I was amazingly asked, "How do you remain humble when you are obviously gifted?" Obviously this person does not know me very well for two reasons. First, I am not all that humble. Second, I am not all that gifted. My response was, however, above ordinary and I wanted to share it here this morning.

First, I know that when it comes to grace, the unmerited love of God and salvation offered in Christ Jesus, I am simply a beggar. When I tell others about the love of God and the grace I have experienced in my life, I am a beggar telling other beggars where I found bread.

Second, I am to view every person as if they might be Christ. This is not always easy. As Mother Teresa said, "Lord, you come in some costumes that made it difficult to see you today."

The thought that I am a simple beggar and every other person might be Christ puts me in a proper perspective and position.

God and Money and the UMC Clergy

This is a bit of what you might hear from me in a sermon on this Sunday morning:

It is pretty easy to see how we cannot serve God and money, manna, wealth at the same time. Our worship and focus on money often drives us to worry about things beyond our control and listen for things that are not of God. We suddenly worry about things like the stock market, our pension plan, our home equity. But God is not worried about the stock market. As one person said to me recently, “God did not lose a dime in this recession. God didn’t loss a dollar in the Madoff debacle.” God still has every resource in heaven and on earth. The problem is not God’s bank account; it is much more our unwillingness to trust God in all times and in all things.

Take for example, the reality of the United Methodist Clergy. We often speak about things like good news for the poor, there are a group who are going to the city council to speak against cutting the budget to aid the homeless here in Fort Worth. At the same time, we voted to maintain our healthcare coverage at an annual cost of about 4.2 million dollars in 2009 and the cost is going up in 2010. This is not paid for by the clergy. This is the cost handed on to the local churches of the Central Texas Conference in mandated health insurance payments and apportionments. What would happen instead if we pulled that mantel off of your backs and said, “We the clergy of the Central Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church will not take as a benefit any health insurance until all Texans have adequate health care.”

Not so good at this

Ok, so apparently I am not so good at this blogging thing. Again, it is because I have had a couple of friends recently ask me about my posts that I come back to this forum. Apparently, for some I am "a voice in the wilderness," a "social conscious", a "voice unheard." I am not sure exactly what all that means or if it is a good thing.

I will say that being on the CTCYM trip last week reminded me of the great painful divides in our country. Divides of education. Divides of wealth. Divides of race. Who am I that I can afford to go out to eat when just this morning a woman did not have money to eat at all? Who am I that I can receive health care when a brother goes without basic medicines? Who am I that sit in an air conditioned office when an 84-year old woman has not electricity? Who am I that I am not weeping in pain and changing my ways?

Maybe I don't blog more because I am not sure anyone really wants to hear the questions I find myself asking.