O "Little" Town of Bethlehem!

I have been reflecting on that dismal little town of Bethlehem. It is a dark dreary fortified city cut off from the rest of all important and powerful Israel! Today it is surrounded by a high and large wall that has military guarded gates limiting the flow of traffic for Arabs, nonJewish residents, who live inside this tiny financially destitute town. The Church of the Nativity where Jesus was reportedly born is owned and run by the Greek Orthodox. They have regular rituals of prayers and cleansing with incense. All must move out of the way when this all important ritual begins. The church has not been kept up well and you must walk to the front of the sanctuary and then descend into the basement where the Christ-child's manger was to have been.
Groups are channeled down the winding staircase for a brief look, bent over prayer, and then quickly shuffled out. Entry into the church is through a small door where one must stoop in order to keep from bumping one's head. I've been to the church twice and someone has bumped their head each time. Some believe that this is an example of the biblical cliche regarding a camel going through the eye of the needle (a supposed reference to a camelback warrior trying to ride through that narrow entrance -- virtually impossible).
I think about the unimportance of that little town now, and I think about the unimportance of that little town when Jesus was born there. No great five star hotels! Not the Hollywood strip or Wall Street or Pennsylvania Avenue, just a little town where God chose to grace the world with His incarnation. If we are looking up to God, listeing to God's call and following his signs, then we can walk circumspectly in the world without bumping our heads, losing our minds in the shuffle and hustle of what the world says is all important! I might think I have gotten that point by now.
The first Friday in December we have a luncheon at our church for seniors, many from the local nursing homes and assisted living centers. We fed about 275 this year on Friday December 2nd. I was relieved this year when our Sunshine Luncheon director indicated that children would lead the service and that all I had to do was introduce the beginning of Communion, The Lords Supper, and drive the minibus to collect residents at two of our facilities (they didn't have transportation). At Carebridge, the first of the two stops for me, I failed to look up. I failed to see the divine signs! The overhang outside the front of their entrace had a huge sign that read, "9 Foot Clearance!" Our minibus was clearly more that 9 feet and I pulled her into the woodword under the awning. I then backed back out dragging remnants of splintered wood with me and leaving a gash in the top of the minibus and my ego! Ouch!
When I fail to slow down, look around, but especially look up to God listening for His calling and following His signs, I am sure to bump my head, to injure my ego. Who am I without the "I am" of all life? Nada! I am glad that the church forgives me for my inadequacies, even as God forgives us all for riding in bumper cars through life. That was fun as a child, but not as an adult!
Hmmm!
Dr. Fitz

Following the Star during 2011 Advent

This year our theme for Advent (the season where we prepare for the coming of Jesus) is “follow the star.” Clearly the language of faith is countercultural. We are challenged by God to take a little language coarse, like how we teach ESL (English as a Second Language) to some of our international church members and friends. Our understanding of star gazing is totally different that what the world thinks of when they search for stars.

Our culture is obsessed with following the star(s). Headline news covers great events like weddings and divorces of those we consider stars (Prince William and Kate Middleton), or Tiger Woods and his marital problems. Prime time television has an obsession with star watching too with great shows such as “Dancing with the Stars,” or shows that focus on individuals whose sole aim in life is to become a star, like the old original “Star Search,” or contemporary ones like “American Idol” and “The X Factor.” We wonder, “who might have “the X factor” to become the next great star that the world is looking and waiting for to make our lives so much better? Maybe it’s Kim Kardashian? Isn’t she your hero? Millions of people tune in to watch and cast their votes for their hero dancing or singing stars.

What is a star except a point in the universe that gives off light in the midst of a dark sky. What we now know is that when we gaze into the dark night sky we may be seeing light from a star that has actually burnt out and is no longer there! The light has travelled so far that indeed the object that emitted that light may, in reality, not really be there anymore! That is quickly the case with the cultural stars highlighted in the news or on prime time television. Here today, gone tomorrow! Where is the light and glow of their great illumination? Where is Ronald Regan now? Or John Wayne? Or Marilyn Monroe? Or Michael Jackson?

Contrary to cultural star obsession, our ministers will be leading music, devotions and sermons that focus on the star of heaven that shines to give light on the presence of God. The Bible notes that Jesus is the light of the world.
John 1:4,9 – “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”
Jesus said in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Therefore, our Advent focus isn’t about worshiping stars, or the heavens, but allowing the heavenly star that originally guided people to Christ to reflect and direct us today to the light of life, the light that pokes holes in darkness and enables us to see the light in Jesus Christ, the incarnation of God. When we worship and receive Christ Jesus into our hearts and homes we invite light and love and life into the very center of our being and doing.

Follow the star with us this Advent and watch it reflect on the truth, Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us, and thus we have a light that the world cannot see, doesn’t know and cannot snuff out.

Bridge is Out

I was looking for images to place on our church website regarding "Bridge is Out" as it relates to Josh. 3:7-17 and Matt. 19:23-26. I stumbled across the one inserted above. It challenges us to consider if we'd rather spend the night in the wilderness, where we are, rather than move forward with God in trust and faith. Our God is never stationary, never static. Our God is a God of movement, not merely motion! Our God is ever wanting us to move deeper and deeper into communion with him, until one day, there will be no separation, no broken body that can only partially know of God's glory and love! I have moved 15 times since I got married almmost 30 years ago. Yet in those moves I see God's hand, God's leadership, God's love and God's challenge for me to commit my way to ever deeper experience and presence of God's image. To add to that, I have been blessed with missions all over the world that have enabled me to know how little my perspective really is. I am so excited that God is calling me to continue to move forward, leaving behind stuff that has too many strings! How about you? Up for another move? Ready to either pack your stuff or sell it at a yard sale? Jesus even called us just to take it to Pamlico County and give it to those who lost everything! Some of you have already been doing that! Could you give it all away? Even the new "stuff" that you are using in your everyday living? Could I? Hmmm!
Dr. Fitz

Accommodations

As you reflect back over your life, what are some of the most unique accommodations you have experienced? As a child, youth or adult? Have you experienced less than adequate accommodations at one point or another?

I cannot help but pray and contribute as best possible to those in our community and particularly in Pamlico County whose accommodations have been devastated. Many have lost their homes, furniture and vehicles. Life is not very accommodating for them right now. Many are sleeping in tents, campers and/or on their porches and it doesn’t smell good. Have you been to some of those hard hit areas in Pamlico County since the hurricane? Word is that the mosquitoes are so large and populous that they are catching them in crab pots! Again, that is funny to us, but not to them if they are sleeping and living in such horrible accommodations.

I have voluntarily lived in a tent for a short period of time as a child and young adult on backpacking trips through the mountains or at the beach. I have also lived in a dirt floored hut without power in a squatter village in Zimbabwe, as well as a little hut in Chambuta refugee camp, a small cinderblock home for a month at the Baptist Theological Seminary of Zimbabwe, and then a four star hotel in Harare Zimbabwe. After living is such modest and meek accommodations with indigenous people of Zimbabwe for over four weeks I was unable to comfortably stay in the luxury hotel so I checked out and stayed in the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board Guest House for $3 per night. I gave the saved money to a local pastor who lived in 10 x 14 foot house with his wife and child. They had an old mattress on the floor and the baby slept in a stroller. That pastor subsequently earned a PhD from University of South Africa and became a professor at the Baptist Theological Seminary of Zimbabwe. He has authored several books. While I was working in the investment business for a decade I experienced corporate trips that enabled me to stay at places like The Lodge at Vail, CO and The Breakers in Palm Beach, FL. As I reflect over which accommodations have had the greatest impact upon my life, they are NOT the Lodge or Breakers, but the places where the Spirit of God enabled me to have communion with people from completely different regions and backgrounds. I have been welcomed lovingly and completely into the homes and lives of people who could have condemned and judged me negatively, but instead accommodated me and allowed me to listen to their story, try to learn something new about God and neighbor, and possibly link to my neighbor in a healthier manner.

I am also musing over the countless men and women who have come to assist the New Bern area through Disaster Relief post Hurricane Irene and how they have used our church for their accommodations. The floors are not soft. The Family Life Center hot water heater only has enough for about eight showers before it is empty and cold! Their days working in our community have been long and hard, just like the floors they sleep on in our church. Nights can be long and hard with so many sleeping in one room. Inevitably one or two individuals snore loudly! However, tought accommodations have not kept them away from God’s call to come and help, to come and love, to come and share the glory of Christ with those who have lost their accommodations to natural disaster.

Rev. 3:20 tells us that Jesus stands at the door of the church and knocks and wants to be invited into our worship services, into our work and witness in the world, into our fellowship and business gatherings. How are we doing at beginning and ending all activities with an invitation for Christ to come in and be at the center of all we are and all we do? Jesus tells us in Matt. 7:7-8, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Jesus will not come into our church or our lives as individuals unless invited! He does not push or manipulate his way into our hearts. Furthermore, Jesus wants to make accommodations for us that will enable us to be in communion with our Creator, God his Father. He promises us that he will go and prepare a place for us and that he will come again and take us to himself so that where he is we may be also (see John 14:3). We are offered accommodations that cannot be acquired with money or any worldly bartering. What Christ offers is permanent and perfect, after we invite him into our lives. The accommodations of Christ offer a place in the palace, the very presence of God’s glory. It turns dirt floors, hard floors, and mosquito infested yards into places of encounter and faith as we walk with Christ through this world. Jesus doesn’t offer four or five star hotel accommodations, neither do we when we invite him in. But he does offer his own home beyond the stars in a place of light that transfigures and transforms all who come in and share accommodations with Jesus, ours with him and his with us!

Dr. Fitzgerald

A Well Oiled Machine

1 Cor. 12:1-14; Gen. 4:9-10
Lord, it sure is great when my car runs well or my A/C, or my computer, or my body and golf game (driver, long-mid-short irons and putter). Lord, when just one little part of any of these breaks down the whole thing is affected negatively. So it is with my body, with my family, and with my church. When one part malfunctions the whole system is affected!

You have created us such that we are to function like a well oiled machine, put together correctly and maintained properly. If either of these two primary tasks in not taken sincerely, then something inevitably will break down prematurely. Furthermore, if and when a part inevitably does break down, it is imperative that the broken part is repaired promptly and completely.

I am indeed my brothers keeper. What happens to any one part of the family system has ultimate significance on the whole system (see Gen. 2:15; Col. 1:17; Gal. 6:10; and Eph. 4:25).

Enough (Easter Sermon April 24, 2011)

Enough!
John 14:8; 2 Chron. 31:8-10; Prov. 13:25
EASTER – April 24, 2011
First Baptist Church
Dr. Steven E. Fitzgerald

John 14:8 – Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
2 Chron. 31:8-10 – 8 When Hezekiah and the officials came and saw the heaps, they blessed the LORD and his people Israel. 9 Hezekiah questioned the priests and the Levites about the heaps. 10 The chief priest Azariah, who was of the house of Zadok, answered him, “Since they began to bring the contributions into the house of the LORD, we have had enough to eat and have plenty to spare; for the LORD has blessed his people, so that we have this great supply left over.”
My extended family would spend a week at the beach July 4th week every year when I was growing up. I can remember by greatest desire during beach week, to grow tall enough to have my head reach the line that would allow me to drive the big boy go-carts! It seemed to take forever for me to become tall enough! By the time I finally reached the proper height to be able to drive the big-boy go carts, my sister had her learners permit and was getting to drive a real car. So then I became jealous that I just wasn’t old enough! I guess now I’m just not young enough? Haa haa!

Enough is a bad word within this world. It highlights the great void in life! We are just NOT:
• smart enough
• tall enough
• pretty enough
• skinny enough
• rich enough
• healthy enough
• strong enough; or
• we don’t have enough hair, or
• we cannot sleep enough, play enough, or vacation long enough!
Or my spouse, or our children, or our parents are just not:
• Loving enough
• Responsive enough
• Caring enough
• Giving enough
• Or they just don’t give me enough space, enough freedom!

We just cannot get enough! When we’re consumed with the cares and concerns of the world, there just never seems to be enough. This life is just a great void, like the days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday for those who had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the consolation of Israel, the hope of humanity! What Jesus did during his lifetime just wasn’t enough!

Easter is a day of surprises though! On Easter, God reinterprets the word ENOUGH for us!

1. Easter is about the fact that God had had enough!
a. Enough of our crying out and then ignoring him
b. Enough of our inability to perceive his presence
c. Enough of evil and death apparently having the upper hand and final word in the world
d. Enough of signs and markers that were misread and misinterpreted

2. Indeed, God had always had Enough – with a upper case “E” – and I want to challenge you today, on this Easter of 2011, that Enough is the nickname of his only Son, Jesus!



This Jesus – “Enough” – was with humanity even in the beginning, in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve had Enough, but the liar lured them into focusing their attention on the need to have everything. Satan’s lie is to lure us into a life pursuing everything, to never be satisfied with Just Enough. The serpent said, “It’s not enough to know God, to be in loving and living relationship with God! You need to be like God and know everything like God does! Then you will be special! That’s more than enough!”

Satan’s alternate way it to try to reside in the house of Everything. Too often humans are duped into believing that they can have everything they want. All they need to do is to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. So they spend time, money, energy and attention on what new tricks will enable them to acquire “everything.” Everything is a residence that appears to be at the quiet end of a cul-de-sac. Satan sends you a free set of keys to this house in the mail, unsolicited I might add, and for free! If they fit, this house of everything is yours! The main problem is that as you approach the house at the end of the street, it mysteriously moves further away. It is like walking the wrong way on an escalator! You just go nowhere! It’s like paddling up creek in a swift river! Such is the search and labor to “reside with everything.” It is impossible. You can never have everything. You can never know everything. You can never be everything.

Humanity’s desire to have everything has led to incredible violence. Those who seek to have everything think that they can do so through gaining power and control over the masses. However, God rescued His chosen ones from the violence and influence of pagans in their midst over and over again.

Finally, God sent himself into the world, Enough, Jesus, to show us clearly how to live with Enough! Jesus never had much, but he always had enough, because He was Enough! Relationship with God above and within in order to bless those without was Enough of a job for Jesus’ life.

Just a brief touch of Enough gave new life and healing to people who had been starving and sick and lame. Just think, they were made whole without having to have everything, like the hemorrhaging woman who had spent everything trying to be healed, but was ultimately healed by just touching Enough of Jesus, through faith, to be totally healed, just the fringe of his cloak.

But those who had to have everything said that they were enough, so they had to eliminate Jesus and his description of Enough so that they could control something that they said was everything. Jesus said enough to let us know that their father was the father of lies, the very same one that had been in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve!

Easter reveals the futile attempt of the world to persuade us that secular leaders and religious dictators definition of something that appears to be everything is better than Enough from God! They couldn’t get rid of Enough to maintain power and control and they cannot do so now! God’s resurrection of Jesus is Just Enough, not everything, but Enough for those who don’t believe they have to have everything. Look at the lives of Jesus’ disciples after their resurrection encounter and empowerment with the Holy Spirit to see what happens when we become satisfied with Just Enough! Followers of Jesus have learned that God’s Son gives us enough to love, have joy, peace, patience, kindness and the other fruit of the Spirit.

Jesus is Enough!

1. Jesus’ life gives me enough provision to feed my deepest needs on a daily basis (see Matt. 4:4) I can stop playing the acquisition game and find that I have an excess, excess that is to be shared with others in need. (see 2 Chron. 31:8-10)

2. Jesus’ death gives me enough forgiveness, by God’s grace and mercy, to rid me of living in unresolved guilt! I don’t need to spend my life trying to make up for my past mistakes (mortification). (John 4)

3. Jesus’ resurrection gives me enough hope that I can live my life without fear, thus enabling me to be more present for God and neighbor! I can begin focusing on what is best to bring lost sheep into the house of God rather than what keeps me comfortable. (John 21 – Peter)

The Good news of Easter is that Jesus’ life, death and now his resurrection is Just Enough for me!
• I don’t need to know everything, only enough (Jesus’ nickname).
• I don’t need to have everything, only enough (Jesus)
• I don’t need to be everything, only enough (Jesus) – know that “I am” is in me and with me!

Have you had enough… enough of the world?

Do you have Enough to be satisfied? (John 14:9-10)

If you have Jesus, you will have Enough for this life and beyond. Easter is the truth of God’s gift of Enough to promise us that!

Amen

Recharging my Droid Phone...

I really love the features of my HTC Droid Incredible. It's like having a little computer with me at all times. I can check my email, surf the internet, access my personal and church calendar, have an HD digital camera and video recorder with me at all times and receive and send text messages by voice activation, not to mention Pandora Radio when I'm driving and the Google Maps Navigation feature that far outstrips my expensive GPS which never had updated roads! The main problem I have with this phone is that it runs applications in the background and I'm constantly utilizing an app killer to save my battery life. No matter what I do, the battery life is miniscule when compared to old phones that you only used occassionally for phone calls. The solution to much of this dilemma is that I have seperate power cords at home, in my office and one in my car that runs through the old cigarette lighter spot.

I have also realized that as I have gotten older and as our church has grown larger, I am running more and more applications of God's calling in my life throughout each day and week. Not only do I have to teach twice on Wednesdays, but also the big attempt to spend great amounts of time with God, pen and computer trying to fashion a sermon that will be truthful to God and relevant to those who listen hoping to have a living encounter with God and his grace, love and mercy. In the midst of these teaching and preaching events, I have more and more individuals, within the church and friends of the church, who desire spiritual direction or counselling, and then there are the many visitors that we have comeing to church now that I really want to visit with (meetings scattered on various evenings inbetween).

All of this is wonderful because this is my calling. However, like my cell phone battery, if I do not regularly recharge my battery, through Scripture focus and quiet devotional prayer many times a day, then I will burn out, just like Sharon, Barry and others. Perhaps the most emotionally exhausting calling is spending time with those who are hurting and afraid, those whose lives are falling apart. After time with them listening and learning, after trying to assist them to hear of God's presence in the midst of their difficult journey, I usually must have time to recharge immediately.

John Wesley said one time that he had gotten so busy that he was having to move his prayer time up to four hours per day. Why is it that we're the opposite? Too many times when we get "busy," we spend less time in prayer and at the feet of Jesus Christ. The story of Mary and Martha reminds us of the better way. It is to spend copius time at the feet of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. He is the charge of life, the love of life, the gift of life, the sustainer of life as the manifestation of God's very Word made alive.

Recharge frequently or you'll burn out! God's needs you to be running the applications of his presence to the world around you in the unique and specific ways in which he has called you!

Weaning

I am studying for Feb. 13th sermon on the text from Paul's letter to the church in Corinth: 1 Cor. 3:1-9. Paul indicates his great frustration at the fact that he still has to nurse these believers like little babies. There comes a time for us to wean out children, a time to comfort them by removing them from our breast. This is always a time of anxiety and includes some painful withdrawal symptoms, but it is necessary for growth. Ps. 131:2 puts it like this, "I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me." The psalmist has in mind that there is a comfort after the pain. Eugene Peterson puts it this way, "The transition from a sucking infant to a weaned child, from squalling baby to quiet son or daughter, is not smooth. It is stormy and noisy. It is a pitched battle. But, to the weaned child his mother is his comfort though she has denied him comfort. It is a blessed mark of growth out of spiritual infancy."1
How hard was it for you to grow up beyond your parents support? How hard is it for you with children who are older, to let go of them and allow them to grow up? I am writing this mostly to me as I am wrestling with this having 26, 21 and 20 year old children of my own. I ask for your prayers as I try to work this out. I pray for the church as we work this out with God. There is a time to grow up, and it is NOW! Let's move beyond our jealousy's and our division making. We may not be able to change others, but we are responsible for ourselves! Let's start there!
Dr. Fitz

1. Eugene H. Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2000), pp. 155-156.

Losing your mind?

Philippians 2:5 records, "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus," and then goes on to describe that state of emptying self and taking the form of a slave, or servant for God. God does the exalting when we are willing to empty ourselves into Christ. Martin Luther put it this way, "God made the world out of nothing, and it is only when we become nothing that God can make anything out of us." When Peter declared Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the living God, Jesus told him that flesh and blood did not reveal this, but my Father in heaven (Matt. 16:16-17). Paul puts it this way in 1 Cor. 2:16, ""For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ."

Do we? Surely if we have the mind of Christ we are not living according to the cultural ways of self-preservation, or self-glorification. Yet that still seems to be the way that many in the church live! Why? Surely if we have the mind of Christ, according to the way Jesus lived and is described in Philipp. 2:5-11, then what are we doing acting with such arrogance and using manipulation as means to "our" ends?

During prayer in the spring of 1997, I sat alone in my den with the windows open going into a time of Scripture reading, meditation and deep prayer. I could hear the spring birds singing, feel a warm gentle breeze blowing into the room, smell the fresh azaleas and dogwoods, and it was in an instant that I was taken out of my mind. I literally left all my own conscious thoughts and soared out of the house and into the sky. I have subsequently come to fully believe that our minds and our own thoughts are prisons. To take the mind of Christ is to enter a different culture, a different world. I need to move beyond my own limited finite world and agenda. The wonderful experience that morning is not significant in and of itself, but the outcome is what matters. Due tot he peace and presence of God that I experienced then, and subsequent to that time, I have been given a deeper and more lasting peace. This stayed with me throughout that day, and can continue. Only then can I be truly available to serve God and neighbor without trying to use them for my own needs and agenda. I can more fully listen (which has always been a challenge to one who likes to talk so much).
The world of Christ is not one that we can create or recreate. It is one that we are invited to participate in, if we will become nothing, if we will relax and rest in the power, presence and love of God in Jesus Christ. There is no alternative that the world has to offer that compares to this experience. This is what God calls all of us to embrace: sincere worship and obedient service -- as Christ did and does! Through humility, grace and love!
Amen