Saint Matthew's

This is a weekend of quick notes:

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“I feel like I am running in place.”

I hear so many people say it when their lives are just overflowing with stuff to do. There are times when it appears as though you are hiking up a tall mountain with 60-lbs of gear strapped to your back and chain a ball is tied around your ankle. To do lists become your enemy while you try to tick just one item off the list. In the end, it really does feel like you are running in place.

That was my week.

It was not overly busy or stressful time. Oh, there was that head cold I battled, but overall, it just seemed like I was not accomplishing anything. In fact, a lot of what I wanted to get done this week kept being pushed off until later and later in the week in the hope that I would find some time – any time – to tackle those to do’s and check them off. But this didn’t happen. Yes, I promised a congregational letter and yes, it is coming, though it will be sent this coming week. My visits were canceled for a couple of days because of my head cold, so those will be completed this week. And yes, planning for Holy Week got pushed off my calendar this week. Of course, that will be added to next week.

I’ve always wondered if Jesus had one of these types of weeks where He was just walking in place. How would our Lord deal with a growing list that needed to get done? My guess — First, He would probably pray and then, second, He would begin to do the work He needed to get done, all with a glorious joy in His heart.

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Last week in my Pastor’s Note, I took up a lot of space to deal with the issue of the violation of your privacy by a couple people in our neighborhood. As Christians, the life of balance in which we live — while sinners, we’re saints — is an ultimate challenge. There was probably a time when we all wanted to strike out against those who violated our privacy or erected some rather ugly signs against our church, but we didn’t because while we had those sinful impulses, our faith took over and kept us from acting. Instead, our faith pushed us to pray for our enemies. That is as wonderful an example of what is means to live life as Christ would like us to live as we can imagine.

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On our church website, I have  (at least for a good chunk of Lent) uploaded a daily verse of the day. The “Lenten Verse Challenge” is a small way that you use can increase your knowledge of Holy Scripture. Please take a look at it.

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Just a reminder: please review our Holy Week schedule that is found this week here in our SMM section. Yes, we will have services each morning at 7:15, each noontime, and evening at 7:oo. If you have just a little time, please join me for some time of prayer and reflection on God’s Word.

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With all of the heavy rain hitting our area today, we can all be thankful that it isn’t snow. Just imagine how much of that white stuff we would be getting if it was cold enough…

No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

Revelation 22:3-4

I felt it yesterday morning and I probably looked terrible. But I struggled onward and upward yesterday. That is, until around 2pm when my festering head cold won the day. I was beaten.

This morning, I woke up feeling ugly, but at least my throat isn’t scratchy.

I will be heading over to the office to complete a number of little projects. Hopefully, my head will clear up a bit today.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 2:2

I must confess … I went to bed late last night, or early this morning, take your pick of verbiage. Crawling into bed at 1:30am is never a good thing when your schedule begins at 7:00am. Last night, I wasn’t drinking or even out with friends. Instead, I spent time at home with someone and we ended up talking for a long time.  By the time I placed my head on my pillow, I laughed to myself that my usual 3:30 – 4am wake up would be really, really bad today.

Thankfully, my body kept me sleeping until 6:30. My brain also gave me a rather weird dream — a couple of people from my old vicarage church played a starring role. When the time came for my body to awaken from sleepy land, I had an immediate fright when I stared at the digital clock across the room — those red, blaring numbers shocked me to get going.

It is really a rarity to wake up so late during the week. Since my day begins at 7:15am with Morning Prayer in church, those red numbers zapped me and caused me to rush around the house like a chicken with its head cut off. Rushing to the kitchen to make coffee. Speeding into the bathroom for a shower. Bouncing off the wall to get dressed, turn on the radio so I have some semblance of what is happening in the world, flipping through the delivered morning newspapers, and figuring out why people send unimportant text messages at 4am. By 7:11am, coffee in hand, I ran into church ready for Morning Prayer (read through John 6; tomorrow is John 7). I rushed not because of the overwhelming crowd that assembles each morning, but because this set time relaxes my spirit and gets me in touch with the Lord. Following the service, I headed back home.

I should admit, my morning newspaper reading is relegated to three newspapers — the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and the Wall Street Journal. Usually later on in the morning I pick up The Record, the local newspaper that seems to have less and less local news is in it everyday. The papers weren’t very exciting this morning, minus the crazy story on the front cover of the New York Post where a woman defended giving her breast milk to her chef husband to make desserts. Following this rather stomach-churning story, I made breakfast (I didn’t use milk), I came to church and started cleaning off my desk and bookshelf.

Tonight I will be up in Mahwah at Holy Cross Lutheran Church at 6:00pm for midweek Lenten Services. It should be a good night. Due to this evening’s church service, I did have to turn down some primo tickets with parking to tonight’s Rangers-Devils scrum at The Rock in Newark. Not that I didn’t try to give them away, first, to a real Devils’ fan who didn’t return my message then, second, to someone who I know is diehard Rangers fan, but they didn’t have time.

Oh, well.

Going off to finish a letter, fix up my calendar, and then head out on a visit at 11.

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

Isaiah 30:18

Can you imagine getting suspended from your job for taking the Lord’s name in vain?

An Italian coach in Serie A got the one game boot for using the phrase “porco dio,” essentially calling God a pig.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Psalm 19:14

This evening at 6:30pm, I will be interviewed by Roland Lettner, host of “Studio A” on the Missouri Synod’s radio ministry KFUO-AM. The topic — why do we make disciples?

This is a fabulous issue, especially in light of the slowly dwindling membership of our Synodical body and of all mainline Christian denominations.

Of course, the most important reason we go out and make disciples is because that’s what Jesus tells us to do! In Matthew 28, right before ascending to heaven, Jesus lovingly instructs His disciples that their one mission was to go and baptize all nations in the name of the Triune God.

And that mission to “Go and baptize all nations,” was not just a temporary instruction to a group of 11 people. It was a most faithful and incredibly powerful expression of the love of God that all believers are to take part in always! In baptism, the Holy Spirit opens a heart and mind to believe, trust, and have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, that alone in this faith salvation is yours.

What a great and powerful feeling it is to know that by telling the Gospel to someone, they, too, can become faithful members of the family of God! By the power of the Holy Spirit and through the expression of the Gospel in your life, God works miracles by building faith in the hearts of unbelievers.

Yet, our mission to make disciples is not just to those who don’t have faith. It is a mission to enliven the faith of those who have “let it slide.” How many people do you know consider regular church attendance to be Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve? Or what about those who have, for one reason or another, think that church is not important since they already believe and don’t need to sit in a church on Sunday morning singing dirges and listening to a pastor drone on for 20 minutes?

The mission heart of the Christian is to make disciples and to reach out to those who are disciples but have let their discipleship slide. It is a daily act of a loving church by all members no matter their age, no matter their lots in life.

It should be a fun interview.

With the controversy in our community surrounding the cellular flag pole to be built on a small portion of our property and the attacks made my a tiny, tiny group in our neighborhood against the members of Saint Matthew’s, I was asked last night why haven’t we responded more directly and more harshly.

During the past six weeks, many people here at Saint Matthew’s have reached out to me concerning a letter they received at their homes that not only questioned their Christian faith, but also raised some rather personal issues by a letter writer whom they did not know. They’ve all asked how this unknown person got a hold of their address and how they knew personal information about them and their families. Then they asked me how their church was going to respond. I’ve asked members of the church not to storm over to this person’s home and confront her. Urging restraint and prayer, I am thankfully that we, as a congregation, have acted Christ-like in our response rather than acting as this letter writer did by stooping down into the gutter.

And then, a second letter was mailed to a smaller number of members by another letter writer, a letter that also questioned the Christianity of our church and of our individual members. Then, these same people spearheaded a move to further attack our church by putting up ugly signs against us and the first letter writer wrote a sadly vicious letter to the editor of the weekly newspaper personally attacking our church once again and Saint Matthew’s Voters’ Body president and vice-president. Oh, and yes, she attacked me also, which is nothing new since both of these letter writers have used me as their personal pinata for a while.

Even after these letters were sent and the signs erected, within church I’ve been quiet on the matter, instead stressing the importance of loving your enemies though they hate you.

Yet, many members of our church asked me speak out about the cellular flag pole issue, especially about how their privacy was violated by these letter writers. One even suggested that I had to stand up because I was their pastor and they were being attacked. Therefore, this weekend, I wrote a lengthy “Pastor’s Note” in our weekly bulletin detailing and explaining this matter in as most direct way possible. Yes, I used some rather tough language to describe the letter writers, their actions, the use of an old church directory, and where they possibly received the addresses and information about Saint Matthew’s and the private information that was contained in the letters.

I wrote that the use of a directory by anyone outside of Saint Matthew’s family was in fact the use of a stolen church directory.

I explained that I believed these letter writers’ actions were reprehensible since they used this stolen church directory to attack a our membership.

And I spoke of how Christians, those redeemed by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, respond when hateful people attack you and your church. In my sermon yesterday, I reminded everyone of the good fruit they produce for God and His Kingdom in their own lives, no matter how many times they are maligned and smeared by hateful people. We Christians — we Lutherans — respond not by acting smarmy or putting up signs attacking our enemies.

Instead, we pray for them, we love them though they spit at us.

And that is what we will do.

We know that our actions as a congregation have been dutiful and proper. We didn’t rush into any contract to lease a small portion of our property without proper study and prayer.

For 115 years, Saint Matthew’s has been a strong neighbor to our New Milford, NJ community. We’ve volunteered and served on numerous community boards and organizations throughout our century-plus existence. We’ve helped our neighbors when they’ve been in pain and struggling. We’ve taken our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and have shown in our actions the pronounced love of God as we’ve fed the hungry, clothed the needy, comforted the mourning, and loved the unloved. None of this changes because of the assaults of a tiny, tiny few.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Hebrews 10:23

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Luke 6:41

As many of you are aware, there has been some “controversy” here in the neighborhood regarding the actions of a tiny, tiny number of our neighbors. While we love and respect our neighbors, some do not believe in showing the same respect for God’s house. Their actions have embarrassed a great number of our neighbors. I know this because many of them have told me so.

This weekend, I wrote a Pastor’s Note for our bulletin dealing with one of the issues that has been raised during this “controversy,” namely the use of a stolen old church directory by two of our neighbors who then harassed many members of Saint Matthew’s at their homes.

Continue to read my weekly Pastor Note after the jump.

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My goodness!!

I’ve been thinking about the “outrage” in New Milford over the borough’s contract with Omnipoint Communication and T-Mobile that has allowed the construction of a huge cell tower (one of those towers with antenna branches) down behind Boro Hall and the DPW yard, which just so happens to be right next to the New Milford Swim Club (where boro residents go to relax, including children), the Elk’s Lodge, a children’s playground, the boro’s Recreation Department, two youth baseball fields, and a lot of homes in New Milford.

Children live and play near this huge and powerful antenna tower. And if you listen to some people, the radio frequency waves that will come from this and any cell tower of any size may hurt children.

Where are the people of conscience in our borough? Shouldn’t they be putting up signs saying, “Shame on you, Mayor DeBari and our Boro Council. Stop the Cell Tower?” Where are the personal attacks in the newspaper against our Boro leaders who are going to profit from cell towers near where children play and live? And property values — those homeowners who live near this new tower will have no choice but to see their values drop since they live near this eyesore, won’t they?

Where are the people of conscience???

Oh, wait a minute, there hasn’t been any “outrage.”

If you haven’t caught on yet, my post is an attempt at irony. While on one hand the Boro of New Milford is spending upwards of $50,000 to appeal a court ruling that they were wrong in rejecting an application by Ominpoint to construct a cellular flag pole (not a tree-type antenna) on a portion of our church’s property, on the other hand they are going to make a nice profit on building a tower behind the DPW building near the New Milford Swim Club, a playground and sports area for children, and a neighborhood with many homes where many children live. That contract was signed quickly and the tower has already been erected (minus the antennas right now).

There were no signs attacking our Boro leaders for agreeing to this contract to build this tower in town.

There were no smarmy and ridiculous attacks in the newspaper against our mayor and boro council for allowing this tower.

And, without any evidence to the contrary, our church neighbor New Milford Mayor Frank DeBari hasn’t been spat upon while walking down the street.

I believe the Boro of New Milford acted properly when it agreed to this contract. They “did their homework,” so to speak. They must have researched the health concerns of some “tinfoil hat wearing” scientists. They probably even researched the possibility that home values could drop, and found that this wouldn’t be the case. Boro leaders probably used the same research we used here at Saint Matthew’s.

To Mayor DeBari and our Boro Council, I believe you did your homework and concluded that this tower, with the service it will provide to the residents and the monetary gain to the Boro (which is facing a rather tough budget), would be beneficial to the residents of New Milford.

The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”

Genesis 4:6-7

Today, I selected a two-verse “challenge” from the Book of Genesis. There is a lot of deep theology in these words, something good to ponder over a weekend.