Sunday Morning Excuses
The story is told of a man who stopped coming to church. His pastor asked him why. He explained that his mother had died and that he no longer had to go to church Sunday mornings.
Sometimes God sends a wake-up call: “Alfred Nobel dropped the newspaper. His brother had just died, and he'd just read an obituary — not his brother's obituary, but his!
An editor had confused the brothers. The headline read, “The Merchant of Death Is Dead.” Alfred’s obituary described a man who had gotten rich by helping people kill one another. Shaken by this appraisal of his life, Nobel changed his legacy, leaving
nine million dollars to fund awards for people whose work benefited humanity.
You and I may not want a similar wake up call. I had one in 2009 when I was diagnosed with cancer. For a while I would look into a room where my family was celebrating a meal and think about what it would be like when I was an observer from another realm.
As a boy on the farm I helped with the chores on days when the temperature was forty degrees below zero. No matter how cold, we followed the ritual of feeding and watering the livestock.
We would chip ice out of the frozen trough to make room for the water. We would pour boiling water into the pump to thaw it. Then we would pump water for the cattle and horses brought from the barn and hurried back to it after a brief drink.
The cattle never argued, “It’s too cold to go out. I’d rather just rest today.” That sounds like familiar Sunday morning excuses. Yes, I’m talking about the need for spiritual food and drink.
There is one verse in the Bible that says a whole nation’s faith lasted exactly as long as grandparents were alive. In Joshua 3 the Israelites are standing at the edge of the Jordan River at the flood stage. The priests step into the water carrying the Ark, and the river stops, piles up upstream, and the whole nation walks across on dry ground.
God tells Joshua to pick twelve stones out of the riverbed and stack them up where you pass the night. And God says when your children ask their fathers in time to come, “what do these stones mean?” You will explain. (Joshua 4:6).
As long as the elders who had seen the river stop with their own eyes lived, their faith held. But the grandparents died, and another generation came along and did not know God. They did not rebel against Him. They just did not know Him. The stones were still standing by the river.
What of our children who have abandoned the church? They are not rebelling, they just do not know. And we are getting older.
It is Sunday morning. The Master has prepared a banquet and sent his servants out to invite guests. (Luke 14:15-24). They begin making excuses: “I bought five yoke of oxen… I just got married…
We have been invited to a deeper relationship with God. Have we visited the Easter celebrations often enough to see the Passover miracle? To know the meaning of the pile of stones? To know the Body and Blood of Christ offered on the altar?
Our grandparents and the saints can still intercede for us and out families. Every Sunday morning we can join in that Banquet the Father has prepared for us.
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