Daily Lesson for July 14, 2017

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 16 verse 2:

"All my delight is upon the godly that are in the land, 

upon those who are noble among the people."

Not long ago someone asked me about how my preaching has changed over the years. I told them that one thing I've noticed is that after 12 years of being a pastor and after seven years of pastoring in one place and among one people my sermon illustrations come less now from Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mother Teresa and more from the people of the church. Yes, pastoring is hard and there have been some people over the years who were a challenge. But all in all, church people have been the greatest blessing ever given to me and to my family. They have shown us how to faithful.  How to be kind. How to be generous. How to forgive. How to forgive again. And again. 

I think of the man in our first church who, when we were poorer than Job's turkey, gave us not one but two cars. Not only that; he literally welcomed the homeless into his house to stay -- a client at his law firm who had nowhere else to go. The client was a chef and my friend let him stay in exchange for the man's cooking. He and I hiked the Mt. Mansfield together with the youth from the church. And we spent summer Sunday after summer Sunday at his camp on Lake Chaplain. He was not only a parishioner. He was my counselor and friend. 

There was the woman who painted a scene from Gettysburg while on her travels and gave it to Irie and I our first Christmas together. On the back she wrote these words:

"This painting is based on photos from our trip to Gettysburg. It was a gray, misty overcast day which suited the somber mood of what we were seeing and imagining. The entry trees symbolize the war and hurts while the open gate thru the stonewall hints at possibilities of true reconciliation in the many decades to come."

There was the woman who came to me and told me her story of being abused as a little girl. "I am learning to forgive," she told me. "I forgive every single morning again and again. I forgive 7x77 -- seven days a week for all the 77 years I'm likely to live."

Then there was the old man from another time who refused to vote when Irie came forward to join the church. He didn't vote against her, but he just couldn't bring himself to vote for her either. He sat silently instead, while everyone else raised there hand. I worried about that man. He was good, I knew. I saw it. But he was from another time. And then, a half-year later he showed up at Irie's and my wedding with one really, really nice gift. And later one when we left the church, he told us how good we had been for it. 

"All my delight is upon the godly of the land," the psalmist wrote. 

I think I understand what he was trying to say.