Quote: Meditation On A New Day

As the sky begins to move from blackness to the steel blue of early morning; another day arrives. The curtain is rising on the renewal of possibilities; take a step forward and discover your destiny.

  Mark R. Day

 Copyright by Mark R. Day 7-14-14, all rights reserved

Prayer: Morning Prayer 6-22-14

Morning Prayer  

Gracious and loving Lord we come before you today and open our hearts to your Devine will.  We are a diverse people oh lord, but we are also your people.  We ask that you hear our prayers and that you comfort those who are burdened with afflictions.  Be with the sick and grant them your healing graces, be with those who are in need of council and lead them on a path that will make them whole.  We ask that you  be with our Pastors as they travel home at the end of the Conference, that they may safely return to us.   Oh Lord we ask your blessings on the people of this world who find their lives torn and disrupted by war and famine.  Grant our leaders the wisdom to act out of concern and compassion as they deal with the mightily issues, which threaten the peace of the world.  Gracious God come amongst us and abide within us so that we might become the disciples that you intend us to be.  Give us the strength and the courage to face the obstacles which stand in our way as we travel on the road of Christian Service.  Lord we stand humble and awaiting your call.  We ask all of this in the Name of your Son our Lord Jesus Christ the Keystone of our faith and salvation.

 

Ascribed to Mark R. Day 6-22-14

[Sermon] Message: 'The Character of Discipleship" [for Heritage United Methodist Church 11:00 Service 6-22-14]

Let us go to the Lord in prayer: 

Gracious God grant that the words, I use to communicate your message this morning will find meaning in their hearts of those gathered here today so that we may come closer to you and be prepared as disciples to do your work in both Lynchburg and the greater World.

Amen

Good morning to each of you and may the "Peace of God" be with you.

When Will first asked me to bring the message, while he and Meagan are at conference, I must admit feeling both a sense of excitement and  trepidation.    Stepping up and placing yourself in a new situation is not always easy.  However after a little soul searching, I found that this was an opportunity for me to answer a call from God and to serve my church.   When in due course Will and I meet to discuss the scripture for this morning, and I found the topic would be discipleship, my mind raced with thoughts on the meaning of Peters words and a quote, learned long ago,  from the writings of the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther came to me.  "The human heart is like a millstone in a mill; when you put wheat under it, it turns and grinds the wheat into flour.  If you put no wheat in, it still grinds on, but then it is itself it grinds and slowly wears away." 

Now this may seem an odd quote but I feel it speaks to the very heart of today's text and the need for Christians to be engaged in discipleship.  Have any of you ever gone to an old mill and watched the grinding of wheat into flour.  The mill is alive with motion and activity as it completes its work.  In 1st peter 2:4-5 We are called to be living stones built into a spiritual house and offering spiritual sacrifices.  Each of us has been chosen by God to be living stones and as believers and followers of Christ we, like the Mill Stone, must grind wheat into flour through discipleship and service least we grind ourselves away until nothing is left but broken and worn away stone.

Now if you are like me the question you ask yourself is how can, I be a living stone?   For me the response was found in another quote from Martin Luther.  "Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works."   God call us because we are Christians, this is a consequence of faith and we never know when the call will come nor what form it will take.  

God's Call may come at work, in our home, at church, or anywhere  in the world around us.  Being a Christian means, that we are called to join as a community of believers ready to serve for any purpose that God has in mind.  Peter said the living stones were to be built into a spiritual house.  Such a house has no edge or end, no walls to confine, or to restrict our presence in the world.   And if that description is  true we need not  ask to what purpose our community of believers is being called to perform, but rather we should allow God to lead us as he will.  On our church's website we have a page for missions and at the top of that page we find this statement "The Mission Team seeks to put our call to service into action as the hands and feet of Christ we reach out to our community in love and service. "  If you go to that page you will see many of examples of the living stones at work in our church, but so much more can and should be accomplished.   Everyone of us is called to discipleship, Peter calls it the holy priesthood, which will offer sacrifices acceptable to God in the pursuit of God's Holy will

To be a faithful Disciple we must be willing to  witness  to others the virtue of Service to God.  Christian Discipleship  is more than coming to church.  Singing and reading the words in the hymnal does not fulfill the call to discipleship because discipleship is an active response to the call of God, that will make transformative demands on us as we live out our belief and faith in order to proclaim and expand the community of  Christian.  I know, that it is simpler to say be a disciple than to be one.  We all experience trepidation when faced with unknown outcomes  but if we believe, that becoming a living stone is a joyful experience, which will enrich life and that God never calls us in vain we can overcome all obstacles to discipleship.  Belief is knowing he always has a purpose and accepting this concept this is essentially what it means to be a Christian.   

In 1st peter 2:9-10 we are told we are God's own people called to proclaim the mightily acts of him who called you out of the darkness into his marvelous light. . . Once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.    Now it is our time to share that mercy with the rest of the world.  That can only be accomplished if we all Every man and Woman practice discipleship through Witness, Patience, Faith, and service to those we know and those we have yet to meet.  Let the Mill stone and the Mill be a metaphor for your life in discipleship.  Be filled with noise and activity in the name of Jesus Christ, the Keystone of our house built of living stone, as you complete your work.  Is God calling you today . . . . if so say "It is I Lord, I will come if you call."         

Amen

Presented by Mark R. Day 6-22-14 at Heritage United Methodist Church, Lynchburg, VA.

Letter to the Editor: Battle of Lynchburg Sesquicentennial

On this past Friday afternoon, the City of Lynchburg began a weeklong series of events commemorating the June 17 - 18 Battle of Lynchburg during the American Civil War.   Planning for these events began in 2011 and has involved local museums', heritage organizations, churches, and colleges.  I would like to congratulate Greg Starbuck and  Kevin Shroyer, who provided outstanding leadership for the sesquicentennial  commemoration, and also the Lynchburg Sesquicentennial Committee for the work they have done to coordinate such a massive educational opportunity for the people of Lynchburg and the surrounding counties.  The preservation and inculcation of our history, both as a nation and locally, through events like those planned in Lynchburg this week are critical to ensuring, that our children and all the future generations will understand, cherish,  and honor the story of America and the men and women whose sacrifice and hard work created the great country they have inherited.   I would enjoin my fellow citizens to go to the Discover Lynchburg website or check the Sunday newspaper for the schedule of sesquicentennial  events coming up during the week ahead. 

 

Mark R. Day

Past Commander Department of the Chesapeake Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War

Past Commander Taylor-Wilson Camp 10 Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil WarPast President Lynchburg Civil War Round Table

 

Poem: An Image

What power does an image posses . . . . . . . .?
 
Can it reach through flesh to reach the mortal soul of man . . . . . . . .?

Can an image enrage and confound the passions . . . . . . . ?

The repugnant can titillate and inflame

Enchantment can turn to burden

Horror and Beauty both can provoke the spirit

What power does an image posses . . . . . . . ?

The power to build or destroy.

The power to love or to hate.

The power of life and of death.


Written by  Mark R. Day 5/12/14.   Copyright by Mark R. Day, all rights reserved 5/12/14

Poem: "Life"

Laughter is a disguise for falsehood and love is the blade whose edge cuts deeply

Blue is the unfading and inconsiderate color of sadness while Brown is the color of rebuke and a blighted soul.

Life is the story of actions and consequences

For the human landscape is strewn with contradictions like laughter and sadness, love and rebuke.

Emotion creates a canvas painted with both weaknesses and strengths, which like shafts of darkness and light penetrate the heart and define  humanity.

Joy and despair, bitterness and Ecstasy are the sum of life, and they define the character of mankind

For good or for evil, we all must live, laugh, love, and learn as the fates allow us. 

That is the way of all life; past present, and future.



Written by Mark R. Day 5/12/14.  Copyright by Mark R. Day, all rights reserved 5/12/14

Poem: "Ode to a lost love of my youth"

I watched from the shoreline

As the gallant lady passed

Gray as death lighted by pale morning light.

Once again bound for the sea

My eyes beheld only beauty as she passed

Pleasant memories of comrades filled my mind

Suddenly the horizon engulfed her

She was lost to sight and cloaked by the vastness of the sea

To the Elysian fields has she passed

To Become a faded memory for she is . . . . . gone . . . . forever Gone

Written by Mark R. Day 5/4/14.  Copyright by Mark R. Day 5/4/14, all rights reserved.

[written as an expression of the feelings held for the USS Nassau LHA-4 upon the date of her decommissioning and retirement from active service.  Five years of my youth were lived out on her decks upon the open sea.  As they say you may take the sailor out of the sea, but you can never get the sea out of the sailor.  It may be hard for a landsman to understand the unique relationships that exist between a sailor and his ship; she was a beautiful lady and every man assigned to her loved her with his whole heart.]