A SECULAR SUNDAY!

A SECULAR SUNDAY!

Jer 20:9

9 Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

          Jeremiah did not have an easy ministry. He was called to take an unpopular message to stubborn people who, by the way, would not only reject the message but abuse the messenger. By the time he got to chapter 20, he had decided to quit. He would simply “not speak any more in his name!”

          Because an ice storm has forced me and most others in our town to abandon church today, I first tried to tune in one of my favorite preachers. For some reason I decided to simply switch the TV off and try a thoroughly secular Sunday. I would pour another cup of coffee and read the bitter details of the stunning upset of my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes. Oh the agony!

          The tree is trimmed and I tried to think like the un-churched. I tried to imagine that X-mas was all about presents and Santa Claus. I looked at the thick pile of ads in Sunday’s paper but, in spite of all the color, I only found one coffee maker that attracted my attention. Mythology and magic is a poor substitute for the holy family in a barn in Bethlehem. It’s not easy being a heathen after you have tasted the truth.

          Like Jeremiah, but for different reasons, I learned that true worship is on the inside “like a fire shut up in my bones.” I don’t like secular Sundays. I agree with the psalmist: “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.”  Ps 122:1

How Tedious and Tasteless

(a really old hymn)

My Lord, if indeed I am Thine,
If Thou art my sun and my song,
Say, why do I languish and pine?
And why are my winters so long?
Oh, drive these dark clouds from the sky,
Thy soul-cheering presence restore;
Or take me to Thee up on high,
Where winter and clouds are no more.

Dear Lord, thank you for the fire that is shut up in my bones. AMEN