Across the Pastor’s Desk by Jim Rushton

Don’t you just love the summer? I do. And like just about everyone else, I enjoy putzing in the yard. I call it good therapy — the fresh air, the sunrise and a sense of accomplishment looking at a freshly mowed lawn.

Yeah, I love the summer. Well, at least for the most part.

You see, there is my neighbor Pete. Pete thinks being neighborly is all about borrowing stuff from your neighbor — all sorts of stuff. And I’m Pete’s neighbor.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind lending out my garden tools, but it would really be great if I got my tools back in the same condition I loaned them out. And sometime’s they don’t come back at all!

And Pete has another habit that annoys me. He sometimes comes over and borrows tools right when I’m in the middle of something — and when I’m getting ready to go worship. Like me, Pete could wait until the afternoon to putz around.

And worship, boy, do I ever look forward to worship — and the time spent afterward with my friends. At worship last Sunday we heard these words from the Gospel of Matthew:

“So, when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer me your gift,” Matthew 5:23-24.

That kind of stops me in my tracks.

I guess I could have been more considerate of Pete. He couldn’t be happy about all the times I cut him off in the middle of a conversation or sent him home empty-handed.

I’ll drop over after worship. Maybe he could even use some help weeding his huge garden this afternoon.

And for me, the real issue is not merely “what would Jesus have me do,” but to dwell on “what Jesus has done for me!”

Yes, here is our living God, giving us his only son, pouring his spirit richly into our hearts, creating his one true church, making me — and all his chosen people — a part of the communion of saints, forgiving us our sins and granting us life and salvation.

 

Jim Rushton is the pastor at First Lutheran Church in Glenville.