A nice story I saw on Facebook

Waiting in line to pay for groceries while maintaining a 6ft distance, this man cut in line.

He didn't appear to notice what he’d done. The person he skipped didn't say anything, just maintained the proper distance.

When it was time for the man to pay he reached in his back pocket and pulled out a small note pad.

He’d forgotten his wallet.

He looked a bit disappointed and embarrassed. The person he skipped stepped up and told the cashier they’d take care of his groceries. (Which only consisted of milk and cookies.)

He was more than grateful. He kindly thanked them and off the man went. Upon arrival to the register, the cashier asked: "He cut you off and you paid for his groceries.. Why??"

They calmly replied with a smile:

“I hope that if one day my Dad forgets his wallet, someone will step up and buy his milk and cookies.”

Kindness is a beautiful thing.

~From another page.

Should we be rewarded for our good works?

I read the Columbus Catholic Times, a hand off from a family friend. I'm learning a lot. Just this week I noticed a difference in how Catholics and Protestants use the concept of giving. Catholics suggest "works of mercy" or "works of charity," and Protestants say, we will change poverty, schooling, politics, the environment, etc. if we just chip in $10 for the food pantry, or a backpack for a Highland Elementary school child, or cleaning up a town in Kansas after a flood or tornado. There's a huge difference. We are to give because Jesus gave first, not because we will end poverty (we won't) or make up for the terrible home of a child (we can't). According to Matthew 25, we will meet Jesus in those acts of kindness and service, so we do them without expecting the reward of change. Meeting Jesus is the reward.

Performing a Mitzvah

There were some interesting letters to the WSJ in response to the opinion piece (Norman Podhoretz) on 9-11 which urged liberal Jews to "break free of the liberalism to which they have remained in thrall long past the point where it has served either their interests or their ideals." The writers responded about God's command for good works or mitzvah. Liberal Christians as well as Jews need to listen up here, because oddly enough, some Christians seem to think Jesus invented "good works" as the sum total of his ministry when in fact, nothing he said about how you treat your fellow man was new--he was reciting his religion--Judaism. As Podhoretz points out in his article

"Most American Jews sincerely believe that their liberalism, together with their commitment to the Democratic Party as its main political vehicle, stems from the teachings of Judaism and reflects the heritage of "Jewish values." But if this theory were valid, the Orthodox would be the most liberal sector of the Jewish community. After all, it is they who are most familiar with the Jewish religious tradition and who shape their lives around its commandments.

Yet the Orthodox enclaves are the only Jewish neighborhoods where Republican candidates get any votes to speak of. Even more telling is that on every single cultural issue, the Orthodox oppose the politically correct liberal positions taken by most other American Jews precisely because these positions conflict with Jewish law. To cite just a few examples: Jewish law permits abortion only to protect the life of the mother; it forbids sex between men; and it prohibits suicide (except when the only alternatives are forced conversion or incest)."

Yes, liberal Christians have the same viewpoint--they see the Democratic party as their vehicle to achieve their goals. (And to be fair, conservatives often see the Republican party that way although they are much more suspicious of government.) The readers wrote

"One cannot perform a mitzvah by having the government take one person's property and give it to another."

"There is no argument in the Torah that requires all people to be materially equal."

"The Torah demands personal responsibility from all Jews at whatever station they hold in life."

"The highest form of charity is giving a person independence (work) so that he or she will not have to depend on charity."

"Over the past 150 years classical liberalism and free-market capitalism revolutionized economies and did more to improve the conditions of the poor than any other competing system."

"No where does the Bible instruct us to tax others and rely on government to feed the hungry and clothe the naked."

Amen and amen.

To us a child is born, to us a son is given

That must be on a million Christmas cards, that passage from Isaiah 9, and it is just one example of the gospel in the Old Testament. Martin Luther writes in his "A Brief Instruction on What to look for and expect in the Gospels," [1522]:

"When you lay hold of Christ as a gift which is given you for your very own and have no doubt about it, you are a Christian. Faith redeems you from sin, death, and hell and enables you to overcome all things. O no one can speak enough about this. It is a pity that this kind of preaching has been silenced in the world, and yet boast is made daily of the gospel. . . Christ as a gift nourishes your faith and makes you a Christian. But Christ as an example exercises your works. These do not make you a Christian."

He could almost be talking to the speakers in the 21st century pulpits and the congregation in the pew, waiting expectantly through warrenized, emerging and peace and justice sermons. Luther's warning almost 500 years ago has fallen on death deaf ears, because people prefer reinventing ways to find God and push away the gift--even in this gift giving season.

"Be sure, moreoever, that you do not make Christ into a Moses, as if Christ did nothing more than teach and provide examples as the other saints do, as if the gospel were simply a textbook of teachings or laws."

In proofing this I noticed I'd written "death" instead of "deaf." But isn't that the end result when churches forget the gospel and preach either law or example, and not the gospel, which Luther says is briefly summarized in Paul's letter to the Romans, 1:1-4.

"The gospel is a discourse about Christ, that he is the Son of God and became man for us, that he died and was raised, that he has been established as a Lord over all things. . . even the teaching of the prophets, in those places where they speak of Christ, is nothing but the true, pure, and proper gospel--just as if Luke or Matthew had described it."

I don't have the almost 60 volumes of Luther on my bookshelves, but I did recently buy from a used book dealer Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings, edited by Timothy F. Lull (Fortress Press, 1989). There is a 2005 edition and parts of it have been scanned by Google. I'm perfectly happy with my $9 used copy because I don't like to read books on a CRT. But if you do, the material I quoted is on pp. 94 and 95 of the 2005 edition.

What he'll miss about President Bush

"I remember coming to the West Wing one morning before the daily 7:30 senior staff meeting and seeing Mr. Bush at his desk in the Oval Office, reading a daily devotional. I remember the look of sorrow on his face as he signed letters to the families of the fallen. When he met with recovering addicts whose lives were transformed by a faith-based program, he spoke plainly of his own humiliating journey years ago with alcohol. When a Liberian refugee broke into tears after recounting her escape to freedom in America, the president went over and held and comforted her.

Little acts behind the curtain like these inspired intense loyalty by staff members. They spoke of someone never too busy or burdened to care -- like when he took time on Air Force One to call my wife when she was sick. The president's true character rendered his media image pure caricature."

Jim Towey writes a very touching remembrance of President Bush. He was director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives from 2002-2006 and is currently president of Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa. When I write analytically of the faith-based initiatives that are in almost every branch of the federal and state governments, I don’t do it to be mean or hostile to "good works." I am sounding an alarm based on Obama's promises. He may be too busy in the beginning dismantling the courts, but it will come.

People in social programs of housing, nutrition, food pantries, summer lunch programs, post prison work, nursing home ministries, fostering abused children, etc., particularly conservative Christians who are heavily involved in these areas to live out their faith with works, need to realize this can be taken away from you much faster than it was given (over a period of almost 20 years). Once you take government money (or, even if you don‘t) to train ex-convicts, or feed Somali immigrants, or provide outings for medicaid patients at the nursing home, the administrators of that program by law, law suit, regulation or political pressure can tell you who you have to hire (Obama has already said he will do this), can pull your tax exempt status which will destroy your funding, your building plans which need to pass code for an expansion, your retirement plans for your staff, your Medicare and Medicaid funding for the nursing home for your people, your right to have adoption programs limited to married heterosexual couples. And don’t forget what you’re allowed to preach from the pulpit about abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, stem-cell research, or any type of morality from polygamy to sex with children in a society whose values come from Hollywood, Wall Street and the Federal government bureaucracy.

Christians, we need to get back to the business of God. Gospel first, works resulting from faith second. And stop depending on kick backs from the government to change lives. The Bible never tells you to do this, nor does it ever say that even if you do it without government help, that the service you perform to clean up, feed or house a person on the outside will change his life or turn him to God. That's an inside job, and it belongs to God.

How to tell Obama is definitely a Christian

He has a top down, not a bottom up plan/ scheme to change people's lives for the better. That, my readers, is mainline Christianity all the way. I don't know a lot about the Muslim faith, but somehow, I doubt that either up or down to help your fellowman is a top priority. Main line Christianity, such as that of the United Church of Christ of which he is a member, has been struggling with how to best help the poor since the early 20th century but most specifically since a merger of two totally different streams of Christianity created it in 1957. In the 18th and 19th century, the poor, the immigrant and excluded in the United States were reached by various renewals and "awakenings." That's sort of our Methodist, Baptist and Pentecostal branches. Lives were changed from the bottom up--the only material help available was from your own church, which insisted that the drinking, gambling and womanizing had to go if you wanted to share in the fellowship. I know we like to believe the myth that we were somehow a more Christian nation around the time of the Revolution or War of 1812, but that's not true. For many, especially those Anabaptists in my family tree who began arriving in the 1730s, religious freedom was a component of the trip across the pond, but let's face it, they could have never owned land or even a small business in Europe with its rigid class system and rich state churches.

But those who were religious were most likely Protestant, and members of maybe 3 or 4different groups. The reason religious freedom is written into our nation's earliest documents is that these Christians couldn't get along, and each saw the other as a threat, so no one came out on top. Now that was good for our foundation, however, the splits and contentiousness have continued to this day.

The UCC is sort of the great-granddaughter of the Puritans and the German Reformed. The Puritans, or their descendants, gave us Harvard and Yale, the abolitionist movement and some terrific old time religion. They have always been about "purifying" first the church, and more recently society. There is magnificent history and tradition in that denomination. Obama's church, Trinity UCC in Chicago, added another layer to the struggle for justice and freedom, the Black Liberation Theology of Jeremiah Wright via James Cone. Unless you tune into black church radio on Sunday, it could sound quite foreign, but it's really a nice fit for the UCC for whom diversity, multiculturalism, redistribution of wealth, political debate, empowerment, victimhood, and community organizing are right up there with personal faith, the gospel, catechism, liturgy and the Eucharist in other churches.

Unfortunately for the UCC, Obama, and other mainline Christians (like ELCA), top-down change only works briefly if at all--except for the leaders and pastors, for whom it is a rich vein to mine. Mainline churches have shrunk in numbers and power, almost to insignificance. Members have fled to look for spiritual meaning elsewhere, or for none at all. Who wants to attend a worship service that sounds like an election campaign or a call to serve on a committee? In the 1950s the ecumenical movement was a big deal. Christian leaders looked around and said, Surely this isn't what Jesus wanted--that we're all squabbling and spending money on separate "good works" programming. So they merged, and merged, and merged, and fought some more, and split, and split, and after initial huge groups which closed offices in some cities and formed huge bureaucracies in other cities, they've dwindled to groups of angry demonstrators who have more in common with NGOs and government agencies than other gospel directed Christians. Because the poor and their version of "justice" has become their focus, not Jesus Christ, sin and evil is always "out there" somewhere and never their own personal responsibility and need to change. They have to be about rearranging the chairs instead of building the church.

There, doesn't that make sense? So stop spreading those rumors that Obama is a Muslim, and check out what your own church is about.

Fortunately, God looks at the heart,

not the results. While driving to Wal-Mart today to buy a new computer mouse, baby aspirin, Dixie cups, and deodorant, I was listening to a commercial on WJR Detroit urging people to buy book bags for 3500 homeless kids filled with school supplies and hygiene items. To listen to the enthusiasm of the voice overs on the commerical, you would think that this was all it took to turn a kid around--an $18 bag of school goodies. There may never be public school programs to teach young girls that they need to respect themselves enough to finish high school and be married before they make babies, or young boys that they should keep their pants zipped, turn off the music and get a job, but there will always be book bags.