Author: Chuck Griffin

An ordained elder in the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church.

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~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

This Sunday’s sermon at Holston View UMC in Weber City, Va., will be “Samson!” It will be based on stories found in Judges 13-16. If you want to view the sermon but cannot be present, the entire worship service will be available through Holston View UMC’s web page.

Today’s preparatory text: Take time to read the story of Samson.

By Chuck Griffin

With his massive strength and what sounds like really great hair, Samson had the kind of advantages that a leader in any era would find helpful.

Like many such leaders, though, he fell short of what was possible. Certainly, God was with him. Certainly, he did a lot of damage to the Philistines, the enemy God intended Samson to vanquish.

When all is said and done, however, the final results are what matter. The earliest judges, the people empowered by God to lead Israel, brought their people to a time when “the land had rest,” a phrase indicating peace and prosperity. Othniel, Ehud, Deborah and Gideon seem to have had success.

There is no such indication at the end of Samson’s story, or at the end of the story of some of his predecessors. Instead, we simply receive a report of how long they led.

As I read Samson’s story, I try to spot his shortcomings as a leader. I noted Wednesday how he seems to lack humility, even though it is quite possible to be both strong and humble. He kept forgetting the source of his strength, God, and spent much of his time pursuing what Samson wanted.

Trusting in the power of his arms and legs, Samson also tried to do everything on his own. The earliest judges were able to rally the people. To one degree or another, God’s power flowed through them to strengthen the Israelites.

It seems like Samson wanted to underscore the notion that it is lonely at the top, even though that old adage can easily be overcome by a savvy leader who deliberately calls on the help of the best and the brightest available.

Samson’s story is an ancient one, yet the themes within are timeless, and certainly applicable to situations playing out right now in the world. May God guide all who lead, and may those who lead humbly follow God’s guidance, helping their troubled people find a time of rest.

Lord, once again we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Amen.

In Meekness, Strength

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 1 Comment

This Sunday’s sermon at Holston View UMC in Weber City, Va., will be “Samson!” It will be based on stories found in Judges 13-16. If you want to view the sermon but cannot be present, the entire worship service will be available through Holston View UMC’s web page.

Today’s preparatory text: Matthew 5:5 (NRSV)

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

By Chuck Griffin

When we hear the story of Samson, it’s unlikely the word “meek” immediately springs into our minds.

Samson was all bluster and fury, set aside to do God’s work in driving back the Philistines. He also was a lover of war and women. He was monstrously, supernaturally strong and at times showed hints of cleverness. He had seven long, flowing locks of hair that I’m sure caused many young women to love him back. He was gifted the way a Hollywood action hero seems to be gifted.

His story begins in a manner similar to others in both the Old and New testaments. A need arose in history, and God filled that need by providing a child through a previously barren couple. In Samson’s case, at God’s instruction he was set aside from birth as a nazirite for life, a person dedicated to do the Lord’s work. (Typical nazirite vows were temporary.)

We need to be very clear about one aspect of Samson’s story. Nothing about his life prevented him from being meek. It’s an unfortunate circumstance of the English language that “meek” rhymes with “weak,” and we can be guilty of imposing the meaning of the latter onto the former.

Some translators of Jesus’ words in the Beatitudes, the opening of the Sermon on the Mount, use the word “humble” rather than “meek.” That’s helpful. I’m sure many of us can think of an example of the dynamic but humble man or woman, a presence that could merely loom over us but instead brings comfort.

Sadly for Samson, he found humility the hard and painful way. He had to lose his eyes to gain perspective. We can have similar devastating experiences when we forget that God gave us whatever gifts we have, and that those gifts exist to serve God. We are not to toy with them or misuse them.

As Christians, we are to be a humble people, regardless of our strengths. We are blessed to know that Jesus Christ came and died for our sins. That truth alone should astonish us into meekness, as we consider how the strongest of all humbly sacrificed himself for us.

Lord, help us to count our blessings and spiritual gifts, and then having made an accounting, let us be mindful that any successes we have should be for the benefit of your kingdom. Amen.

Someone Please Burn Dinner

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This Sunday’s sermon at Holston View UMC in Weber City, Va., will be “Seeking Signs,” based on Judges 6:36-40. If you want to view the sermon but cannot be present, the entire worship service will be available through Holston View UMC’s web page.

Today’s preparatory text: Judges 6:17-22 (NRSV)

Then [Gideon said to the angel], “If now I have found favor with you, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Do not depart from here until I come to you, and bring out my present, and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay until you return.”

So Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them. The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that it was the angel of the Lord; and Gideon said, “Help me, Lord God! For I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.”

By Chuck Griffin

Gideon, the character at the heart of my sermon this Sunday, had reason to be frustrated by his circumstances and doubt God. When Gideon first encountered God, life was not good for the Israelites, and Gideon was certain he was one of those little people who could do nothing to change their situation.

In fact, when the angel of the Lord found Gideon, he was threshing wheat in a winepress rather than out in the open, trying to hide his father’s harvest from raiding Midianites. They were one of the nomadic bands regularly harassing and robbing the Israelites.

It’s not hard to figure out the source of the Israelites’ woes. Chapter 6 begins, “The Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years.”

As you read the full story of Gideon, it also becomes clear his family was part of the problem, maintaining an altar to the god Baal and its accompanying pole, a symbol of the fertility goddess Asherah. Gideon’s first task was to tear down these affronts to God and replace them with a proper altar to the Lord. He did this at night, fearing his father and neighbors.

Gideon’s situation makes it easier to understand his repeated need for signs of assurance from God, despite our being told in 6:34 that “the spirit of the Lord took possession of Gideon.”

In fact, I suspect this story enlightens us as to why we as Christians sometimes struggle with discernment, even while we know the Holy Spirit is at work in our church community and our lives. The anxieties and uncertainties of life, particularly the ones rooted in how we relate to our family and neighbors, generate a lot of background noise in our heads. It becomes harder to tune in to what God is telling us.

It would help if an angel would arrive and torch the dinner we just offered. Signs are wonderful gifts from God, and they do focus our attention. Hey, at least for a time, it seems Gideon began hearing from God very directly after receiving a few holy demonstrations.

Never forget the advantage we have, however. We live in the time after Christ. In going to the cross, Jesus Christ tore down the barriers sin had erected between us and God. Preachers say it over and over, but I’ll say it again, for my benefit if for no one else’s.

Stop. Listen. Pray. Listen.

Lord, may the thoughts and images that spring into our minds be gifts from you. May we search your holy word to test what is revealed. And then may we be as bold as Gideon when he was at his best. Amen.

The Game of Life

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This Sunday’s sermon at Holston View UMC in Weber City, Va., will be “Seeking Signs,” based on Judges 6:36-40. If you want to view the sermon but cannot be present, the entire worship service will be available through Holston View UMC’s web page.

Today’s preparatory text: Ecclesiastes 9:11 (NLT)—I have observed something else under the sun. The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise sometimes go hungry, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time.

By Chuck Griffin

I play backgammon, mostly online with other people. The game can be maddening―your moves are limited by rolls of the dice, and dice are fickle.

It is quite possible to lose at backgammon while making no obvious mistakes. Chance simply smacks you down. Of course, on the other side of the board, your opponent benefits from the randomness, having made some mistakes but rolling three doubles in a row, or some other combination that looks like wizardry.

Skill does remain important. Players who understand the principles of risk management and employ them early in the game win more than they lose. Mostly, they keep themselves positioned to take advantage of good rolls while minimizing the impact of bad rolls.

If your only exposure to backgammon is a James Bond movie, I should add that I don’t play for money. I wouldn’t want a district superintendent to get the wrong idea! I also have never worn a white dinner jacket during a game. Actually, I’ve never worn a white dinner jacket.

I do utter the occasional Homer Simpson “Doh!” or Charlie Brown “Aaaaargh!” after an unlucky roll, but I love the game because of the way it mimics life. I think the author of Ecclesiastes would soberly appreciate backgammon—the fastest, the strongest and the wisest don’t always end up winning.

My mind sometimes drifts to theology as I play backgammon. (A drifting mind will quickly put you on the bar, by the way.) At times, I’ve wondered whether it’s possible that original sin corrupted the holy math underlying creation.

The devil certainly seems to be in the dice some days, a miniature expression of the way evil impedes our progress through illness, accidents and other unwanted events.

If that’s true, then we can think of salvation this way: God loaded the dice to work to our advantage. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross rigged the game of life completely in our favor, even though we do not deserve to win.

Perhaps you don’t like my comparing salvation to a heinous act like cheating, but in his own way, Jesus went just as far, describing himself as a burglar plundering the house of a strong man, Satan.

There’s nothing wrong with cheating sin and death out of victory, our prize being eternal life.

Lord, help us to see the tremendous advantage you offer us through our belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. As we better understand the eternal life we are given, help us to offer your saving grace to others. Amen.

Gathered for Good

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This Sunday’s sermon at Holston View UMC in Weber City, Va., will be “Babbling in Babel,” rooted in Genesis 11:1-9. If you want to view the sermon but cannot be present, the entire worship service will be available through Holston View UMC’s web page.

Today’s preparatory text: Hebrews 10:19-25

By Chuck Griffin

A couple of ancient truths have gotten a lot of modern confirmation recently.

We are for the most part social creatures, and when we’re separated, we suffer. We can gather for very wrong reasons, however, and suffering can ensue anyway.

Most gatherings have such a clear purpose that we create specific words to designate their types: party, play date, potluck, rally and worship are just a few examples from a very long list.

But even those specific types of gatherings can result in either good or evil. What really matters is whether the right person is invited to the event.

If I say “wild dancing,” you might imagine a party that’s gotten out of control. But what if I tell you I’m talking about King David as he brings the Ark of the Covenant home to Jerusalem?

Or I could talk about “committed worship,” and that might sound good to you, until I clarify I’m talking about a gathering of people who practice human sacrifice.

The Creator, Redeemer and Comforter of the world wants to be in the midst of our lives and included in our gatherings. When we make God the honored guest at any kind of social event, opening our hearts and our group to the influence of the Holy Spirit, good naturally flows from the moment.

Think about gatherings you know of that went well and gatherings that collapsed in a heap of ignominy. Which ones were rooted in Christ’s teachings about love of God and love of neighbor, and which ones were not?

Dear Lord, it can be such a struggle to be mindful of your presence in every moment, inviting you to influence all we say and do in community. Help us live as if we are already in the eternal day when we will be bathed in your holy light. Amen.

Marked for Life

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 1 Comment

During August, the Sunday sermons will be rooted in stories from the Old Testament. This Sunday’s story is found in Genesis 4:1-16, where we learn about Cain and Abel. If you want to watch the sermon but cannot attend Holston View United Methodist Church, it will be available online.

Today’s text: Matthew 28:19-20 (NRSV): “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

By Chuck Griffin

In the story I plan to preach this Sunday, God sentences Cain to the life of a homeless wanderer for killing his brother, Abel.

“Anyone who finds me will kill me!” Cain declares. By some mysterious method, God marks Cain in response to this expression of fear.

In the English language, saying a person has “the mark of Cain” is pejorative, and the story has been used foolishly to justify all sorts of ill treatment of people, including race-based slavery. Cain’s mark was really a blessing, shielding him from violence by others.

Whatever it was that made Cain stand out to those who would do him harm, the mark amounted to undeserved protection from God. We certainly should classify the mark as God’s mercy, and in a way, perhaps it even represents grace, an act of love offered by God to one who has grievously sinned.

We are all sinners, meaning we all deserve death. We all should hope to be similarly marked so we can be protected from what we deserve.

And in fact, it is easy to receive a protective mark, one far better than Cain could have imagined. When we accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God marks us as his. We can think of baptism and confirmation as opportunities to formally accept the mark, which reads “Child of God.”

It also is easier than we might initially think to show our mark to others. As the Holy Spirit works within us, our lives should become signs of the presence of God’s kingdom.

Any time you show love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness or self-control to others, your mark is showing.

Lord, make us wholly yours, and may your Holy Spirit continue to seal us and keep us from the works of the evil one. Amen.

The Constancy of Blood

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During August, the Sunday sermons will be rooted in stories from the Old Testament. This Sunday’s story is found in Genesis 4:1-16, where we learn about Cain and Abel. If you want to watch the sermon but cannot attend Holston View United Methodist Church, it will be available online.

Today’s text: John 19:33-34 (NRSV): But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.

By Chuck Griffin

Christianity links the earliest stirrings of ancient faith to a glorious future. It is through Christ that we discover radical ideas about peace and love, giving us visions of a world where all is set right under God, with healing and rest available for those he calls his children.

We need to remember how such visions are made possible, though. The tapestry of our faith is spattered with blood—in places it is soaked in blood. Sin has forced us to live as primitive people, and God had to debase himself through the Son for us to have any hope of eternal life.

This Sunday I will preach about the first murder recorded in the Bible, Cain’s killing of his brother Abel. Even this is not the first case of blood flowing in Scripture, though. When Adam and Eve realized they were naked, God fashioned animal skins to clothe them, a process that must have been horrifying for these shocked new sinners.

The Old Testament stories in many ways seem bound by blood. Brutal wars and repetitious sacrifices all play their part in a cycle of rejoining God and turning away from God, the people never finding a way to full union with the Holy One.

Even The Way is built upon a bloody path, with Jesus scourged and nailed to a cross to die for our sins. The spear thrust and ensuing discharge from Jesus’ side, recorded in John’s crucifixion account, evoke the image of the blood and water gushing from the temple drainage system, as the priests rinsed away the blood of the animal sacrifices. We are to understand that Christ’s body became the temple for all people.

Let’s not forget, however, that in Scripture, blood equals life. That shedding of Jesus’ divine blood was so perfect a sacrifice that it is continually purifying. We simply have to believe in its effectiveness.

When we take communion to access that purifying grace, we call the bread and juice the “body and blood of Christ.” Using strange, highly symbolic language, the author of the Book of Revelation is able to describe the robes of the believers as having been washed white “in the blood of the Lamb.” 

No doubt, we practice what many would call a blood religion, one with deeply primitive roots. It is astonishing how God has worked among our messes to lift us up to undeserved heights.

Lord, we thank you for your willingness to work through a gruesome and unholy history so that we may find you and establish a full relationship with you. Keep us mindful that while finding salvation is relatively easy for us, it was extremely difficult for Jesus Christ. We are so blessed! Amen.

A Vessel of Grace

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This Sunday’s sermon will be a reflection on deep brokenness and the power of God’s grace, based on both 2 Samuel 11:1-15 and John 6:1-14. If you want to watch the sermon but cannot attend Holston View United Methodist Church, it will be available online.

Today’s text: Matthew 14:13-21 (NRSV)

By Chuck Griffin

Today’s Bible passage is one of those accounts of Jesus feeding the multitudes. These feedings communicate a very important message about God: His grace is abundant beyond human comprehension.

Sometimes that grace is so abundant that it pours through others in surprising ways. Let me tell you about an old friend of mine named Bob Loy, a fellow I really look forward to seeing again one day.

Bob had every reason to feel crushed by the world. He had lived for decades with about 30 percent lung capacity after an accident that nearly killed him. By the time I knew him, he was elderly. His wife became very ill; while staying with her at the hospital, Bob slipped and fell, breaking his leg near the hip.

While Bob was laid up, his wife died. He couldn’t go to the funeral. His sister also died about the same time. Again, he couldn’t go to the funeral. This was a man who had every reason to surrender to despair.

But not Bob. Through a haze of pain, he kept studying the people in what had become a very tiny world for him, a hospital room. He was certain every day somebody near him needed God’s grace, and he was going to be God’s vessel for that grace. I know for a fact that he brought at least one nurse to a belief in Jesus Christ while flat on his back in that hospital bed.

He also showed me a lot of grace. I was a new pastor, and he constantly was encouraging me, even as pneumonia took over those weak lungs and he had to keep pulling at his oxygen mask to speak.

There was a secret that explained his attitude, a secret he had shared with me not long after we became friends. When he was injured in that accident decades earlier, he saw a vision of an entryway to heaven.

His had been the classic case of dying on the table and being brought back. He said his experience was indescribably beautiful, a vision of a stream, a vast plain, and the most glorious mountain he had ever seen. He knew that God was there, and if he crossed the stream, he could not go back. He also knew he had a choice. A young man at the time, he chose to return to his family, he told me.

But he did not forget the vision. He had seen what eternal victory in Christ looks like, if only briefly, and from then on that vision shaped his life, even as he had intermittent struggles.

Again, I knew Bob only late in his life; when it came time to preside at his funeral, I heard story after story of the lives he changed through the decades as he shared his joyous version of Christ’s redeeming power.

I don’t think we are required to have a near-death experience to understand what Bob understood. We have embraced the truth of a Savior who shows us repeatedly that when it comes to the things that matter—love, hope, joy—there is eternal abundance. We simply need to learn to dwell in that abundance, and offer it to everyone around us.

Lord, fill us with your love so we may pour it out on a hurting world. We declare today that we have no fear of running out of the grace you offer us. Amen.

The One Most Offended

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This Sunday’s sermon will be a reflection on deep brokenness and the power of God’s grace, considering what we find in both 2 Samuel 11:1-15 and John 6:1-14. If you want to watch the sermon but cannot attend Holston View United Methodist Church, the message will be available online.

Today’s text: Psalm 51:4

Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight.

By Chuck Griffin

Psalm 51 shows us the three R’s we should hope to experience after sinning: remorse, repentance and restoration. In its introductory header, we are told the psalm reflects what King David felt and cried out after he came to his senses and realized the terrible stench he had become in the nostrils of God.

The fourth verse is particularly enlightening to me. It reminds me that the effects of sin go far beyond human perception. For us, the problem of sin ultimately lies in what God experiences when his creation, made in love, turns against the maker.

When we think of sin, it’s not unusual to consider its effects in human terms, thinking of the people damaged by sin. Certainly, in the 2 Samuel stories tied to this psalm, we’re quick to consider how Uriah lost his wife and his life because of David’s lust and murderous efforts to conceal his shame. It’s also possible to argue that Bathsheba was a victim of power rape.

The losses they experienced certainly should be remembered. When Jesus summarized the law, he placed love of neighbor right up there with love of God for a reason—created as images of God, people matter.

Psalm 51:4 calls us to remember the source of holiness, however. God defines what is holy simply by existing, and as the only all-powerful, uncreated, eternal being, God has the right to immediately destroy that which he finds obnoxious.

How remarkable that we continue to exist! We should be astonished that remorse, repentance and restoration are available to us.

Yes, God truly is love—love is the only divine emotion that could hold the holy hand in abeyance.

Lord, we thank you for your patient love, expressed so clearly when Jesus Christ went to the cross to expunge our sins. Continue to grow us in grace so that sin comes to an end and we live fully in your eternal presence. Amen.

Strange Voices

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During my sermon this Sunday, I will return to the theme of the Lord as shepherd, probably most familiar to us in Psalm 23. The sermon will be available on Holston View United Methodist Church’s website.

Today’s preparatory text: Acts 17:16-31

By Chuck Griffin

When Paul began to preach in Athens, his was a strange voice amidst a babble of competing ideas. Americans, welcome to New Athens.

Christian Americans at one time were accustomed to the idea that we were the dominant voice in our culture. Any debate, it seemed, was largely limited to what type of Christianity people espoused; Paul’s core message about the crucified and resurrected Christ was commonly understood. Even the people who declined to accept the message likely had been dragged to church at least a few times.

I find it difficult to mark the turning point where secular thinking became truly dominant. In 1980, the British satirist and Christian convert Malcolm Muggeridge published a book entitled “The End of Christendom,” and I know that by the 1990s it was common to talk about Christianity no longer being the baseline of our society.

A couple of weeks ago, I watched a Saturday morning rerun of a 1959 “Wagon Train” episode. It was built entirely around the story of a preacher who lost his faith because of pride, abandoning his flock but ultimately rediscovering grace. I looked at my wife and said, “No one would write a prime-time show that way today.”

For crying out loud, the show had a sermon embedded in it! The slide from 1959 to now seems to have been gradual enough that people weren’t quite seeing it, but fast enough that it’s astonishing in hindsight.

To employ a tired but useful cliché, we are where we are. I think that’s supposed to be accompanied with a sigh, but I would encourage optimism. Let’s try to remember that working in a similar environment, early Christians were quite successful.

Of course, the early Christians we remember were also quite serious, willing to cut against the social grain, surrendering themselves to kingdom work and often paying for their countercultural attitudes with their lives.

Conservative, traditional Christians, having enjoyed Christendom for so long, need to relearn how to be countercultural. So-called progressive Christians are simultaneously dangerous to those around them and amusing—they go to bed thinking they’re countercultural, when mostly they’re just comfortably shifting with the secular sand beneath them.

At this point, I cannot do much to help the progressives. Conservative, traditional Christians: Well, I return to the message I delivered Wednesday. If we are to succeed, we have to deepen our discipleship. We likely need to give up certain aspects of our lives so we can better clothe ourselves in Christ.

A hurting world awaits word of the crucified and resurrected Christ.

Loving Jesus, call us clearly through discipleship so we may always have your voice leading us. Amen.