Measuring Sticks

When I was younger, I remember telling my mother or my grandmother how much I loved them. In order to quantify that love and show them just how much I loved them, I would spread out my hands beyond the normal range of any shoulder and say, “I love you this much.” You can imagine that there was a little bit of grunting as I tried to spread my arms further and further apart. I was trying to measure my love.

Often times throughout my children’s lives, they will come up to me with a tape measure and ask, ‘How big am I daddy?” I don’t think it is the number that counts, just the measurement of length that is expressed by putting the end of the tap on the floor and stretching it to the top of their head. Seeing is believing for them when you simply say, “this many,” as you point to the spot on the tape. Children are fascinated by measurement.

Of course, there is always the proverbial “are we there yet?” or “when will we be there?” that begins at the very second you leave the driveway.

I could annoy you all – at least those of you who may know this song – by singing a song from the Broadway production Rent, “Seasons of Love.” It’s a great song that talks about measuring a day, a month, a year. 525,600 is the number of minutes in a year, but the question that is asked in the song is “how do you measure a year in a life.” If I could, I would add audio here, but believe me you would not stop singing it. I think I’ve ruined my night already.

But I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue of measurement a lot recently. I’ve talked about it in conversations in meetings with colleagues and even within the church. What is it that we are doing, and how is that measured in the church? Are we making an impact? Is what we are doing, what we should be doing? Sometimes we use the vision that is expressed as a way of measuring what we are doing. But I’ve been thinking about it even more – pressing the point. How do you measure what you have envisioned?

James Moore tells a story about measurement and our Sunday School Class read it this past weekend. In the story he is talking about a measuring stick.

Some years ago, there was a great professor at Centenary College named Dean Smith. Dean Smith was a saintly man, a brilliant scholar, an outstanding communicator, and a real friend to the students. In one of his famous lectures, Dean Smith talked to the students about how we discover truth and how we determine what is true and false.

After some discussion, Dean Smith suddenly asked the students this question: “how wide is my desk?” The students looked at the large desk and then made their best guesses. A variety of answers range out, “72 inches,” “looks like 75 to me,” “No, 68 inches.” Then Dean Smith said, “These are all pretty good guesses, but how do we figure out which one is most nearly true and accurate?” There was silence in the classroom for a moment, and then tentatively someone said, “Get a measuring stick?” “That’s right,” Dean Smith would say, “To determine which answer is closest to the truth, we have to get a measuring stick and measure.”

Then Dean Smith went to the blackboard. He took a piece of chalk, and in silence, he drew the outline of a cross. With that piece of chalk, he traced over and over the sign of the cross, letting it dramatically sink into the hearts and minds of the students. Then, he stood back and pointed to the cross and said, “Ladies and gentleman, there’s your measuring stick! There’s your measuring stick for truth!” (Moore, Rich in Things that Count the Most, pp 83-84.)

Regardless of whether it is a compass, a clock, a measuring tape or even a young child’s arms, there has to be something that can measure our actions, our truth, our love, our motives, and our lives. That measuring stick in my impression has to be Christ. Moreover, that measuring stick has to be used daily or we will veer off course, be steered in the wrong direction, shoot too far or even underestimate what we are doing. There has to be something by which we measure our life.

The Apostle Paul writes quite simply in his first letter of Corinthians, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him Crucified.” It was his measuring stick for ministry, preaching, teaching and loving. It was his measuring stick for everything that he did. I hope it can be yours too.

This week in worship, we will begin to prepare ourselves for Lent with Transfiguration Sunday. This is the Sunday immediately preceding the start of Lent. Remember that Ash Wednesday services are next week, we begin our Men’s Breakfasts, and on Sunday February 10th our Theology in Film Series begins. But until then, I look forward to seeing you soon.

Please pray for me, and know that I am praying for you.
Greg

Dirty Job?

Do you have a repertoire of channels that you watch on television? Yes, maybe I should have first asked if you watch television. But I assume many of you do, so I asked the first question.

It’s rhetorical. It’s rhetorical, because it just opens the discussion and allows me to say that I do and I’m probably not alone. My channel surfing generally begins in the early channels and moves quickly to the sports channels. But it doesn’t take me long to get to the Food network, the History Channel, and ultimately to the Discovery Channel.

I don’t know why I go to the Discovery Channel so much, but I think it’s because I’m learning something new. I guess that’s why they call it Discovery. Some of my favorite shows on the channel are “How it’s Made,” “Myth Busters,” “Man v. Wild,” and even “Cash Cab.” The latter is less educational, but interesting if you’ve ever seen it.

But my favorite show recently has been, “Dirty Jobs!” Have you seen it?

The premise of “Dirty Jobs” is that the host, Mike Rowe, explores the less than glamorous world of jobs that people do each and every day in less than clean conditions. He calls them the unsung heroes of our lives. They do things that most people will not do.

The Dirty Jobs Website says this about the show.
Our brave host and apprentice Mike Rowe will introduce you to a hardworking group of men and women who overcome fear, danger and sometimes stench and overall ickiness to accomplish their daily tasks. Not one to just stand by, each week, Rowe will assume the duties of the jobs he's profiling, working alongside rattlesnake catchers, fish processors, bee removers, septic-tank technicians and other professionals: average folks tackling extraordinary tasks that simply must get done.

At the end of Dirty Jobs, the producers invite people to write to the show if they think that they perform a dirty job. Presumably, Mike Rowe will come and experience their job first hand. It makes me think about all of the dirty places that I’ve been where people work. I keep encouraging a friend to write about the foundry where they work – it certainly is a dirty job. And then there are all the jobs that I used to see performed on the farm just below our first church in Titusville.

I have actually thought about it from a personal perspective too. I wonder if what we do in the church would qualify as a dirty job. I have a picture on my bookshelf of a mission trip with Habitat for Humanity; I was pretty dirty in that picture. I have some pictures from Russia in our work at the United Methodist Seminary. I even think about painting someone’s home, sorting food, serving homeless at a soup kitchen, or even meeting someone on the streets who most people pass on a daily basis. Does this qualify as a dirty job?

But aside from the few pictures and examples that we can submit – I wonder again, does what we do as a church qualify as a dirty job? Do we do it daily, do we do it enough?

Recently, the church began a Visioning process. The Vision Team has set out on a journey to discover where God is calling us to be. The process and the vision is supposed to engage us and stretch us to points of being uncomfortable. A vision helps us define who we minister to, and a vision helps you decide when you choose to act and what to do. Sometimes, Vision calls us to get our hands dirty and go to the places that we do not want to go, but sometimes where God is leading us to go.

In Matthew 25, Jesus talks about the judgment of the nations and warns us about how we will be judged. I think it’s pretty explicit and calls us to do the things that might land us on Dirty Jobs. It may just call us to do things that we take for granted, and calls us to places that people do not normally go.

Do we do enough? Are we getting our hands and our feet dirty for the sake of the cross? Are you going to the places that no one will go? Where will you be when the Son of Man comes in Glory? For that matter, will I be on my Lay-Z-Boy watching Dirty Jobs, or will I be out there performing one?

“God, we know where we are supposed to be, and yet we are sometimes afraid. Call us to the places of need in our community and in the world, places where we might just get a little dirty for the sake of the cross. Protect us and give us strength, for in all ways we trust you and we do it for you. In Jesus Name. Amen.”

This week in worship we continue with our Congregational Study and talk about the importance of Presence in church. You have to come to hear it and you will understand how important it is to be here. God wants you here, the church needs you here. I look forward to greeting you here.

I have to go now to submit my proposal to Dirty Jobs.

Please pray for me, and know that I am praying for you.
Greg