I am a pastor, and with this role comes tremendous responsibilities: to pray, to accurately testify to the gospel, and to Warn! Ezekiel calls this being "a Watchman"; in Old Testament times you needed men who stood on the wall looking for any hint of invading enemies...and then declare danger to the unsuspecting citizens. "Get ready and arm yourself for battle!" Nowadays this is not as easy as it once was: The enemies we face in modern day America are more stealth and disguised; so as a Watchman my job is to keep on the lookout at all times! I listen, creep around, spy on the suspicious, and above all, I watch the news!
This morning I decided to tune into the main-stream news while walking on the treadmill. I try to keep myself in tip-top shape so when I need to creep & spy, I won't be huffing and puffing so I won't blow my cover. Our TV only has basic channels, and with my limited choices I decided to turn on NBC and watch the "Today Show." I heard they really have a good feel for the heartbeat of the nation; and Matt Lauer is the best when it comes to revealing the guts of the biggest stories. The lead story that started at 8:00 am was about a killer tornado in Arkansas, "16 dead." That is big news, and pondering this tragedy as a pastor, I think I need to help people be prepared for human suffering and the reality of death. In fact, I just performed a funeral service on Friday for a wonderful man, the grief was real and for some family members, the service was heart wrenching. If one death is hard, I can't imagine a town losing 16 people in a ten minute twister. Let's be honest, death is a serious problem, it has the potential of being the crisis of our time. But NBC only touched on this subject for 3 minutes -- I timed it because I have a running clock on my treadmill - so maybe I need to be more concerned about something else. Next story: The L.A. Clipper's billionaire owner was recorded talking to his mistress on the phone clearly bashing the black race. Now I know this is a story that is loaded with crisis & drama. One man's foolish actions clearly reveal how we still are a divided nation; some white's still hate blacks and some blacks still hate whites. Maybe, as a minister of the gospel, my energy should be spent on teaching people how Jesus wants all Christians to be agents of 'reconciliation.' We all need to continually try to brake down racial barriers, don't we? We could also use this story as an example of putrid greed - - because a man has money he thinks he can buy and sell people like a slave owner! Sickening! I could talk about Jesus' view concerning covetousness and how some day God is going to demand an account from all of us with what we do with our resources. Scary day! There is one more angle that most of the major media missed with this story...the sanctity of marriage. This billionaire is brazen and shameless about violating his marriage vows. But for some reason this aspect I know will never get any media play...too boring...too normal. (Adultery still makes God sick though!) Guess how long the "Today Show" talked about this story? 2 minutes at the most. Wow, I thought they would milk the race issue a lot longer than that? Maybe it isn't that important after all... Well, after a quick weather report, they finally got down to the real crisis in our time. I knew it was important because it was NBC's main story of the day and they spent a whole 30 minutes discussing the issue. (They are also going to talk about it all week!) I am so glad I watched because NBC helped me understand what is really wrong with the world. Do you know what it is? We need to...it makes me cry just thinking about it... RECLAIM OUR BEAUTY; and we do this by "Loving our Selfie!" I never knew. Listen to the devastating facts they presented, I can barely mention them: - 9 out of 10 women do not like to look in the mirror. One woman said,"It is a 'Frightening experience.'" - A clinical psychologist said that when some women look into the mirror, they actually hate what they see. Sometimes it is so bad that it ruins their whole day! - The mom's despair can then trickle down to the kids; toddlers and infants must cope with the aftermath of a parent's bad mirror sighting. Horror of horrors. (Can you imagine a mom going into the bathroom, looking in the mirror, hating what she sees, and then going back out and saying to her 9 month old baby, screaming, "You did this to me!!! I use to be so pretty, now look at me, I look like a mom!") Simply Horrible! To prove how this problem is now at epidemic proportions, they had the hosts of the "Today Show" look in the mirror and talk about what they hate. Matt Lauer hates his "baldness." I started to sniffle. Savannah Guthrie hates her, "b---s", tragic. The other lady host hates her arms, "they waddle" she said. I started to break down in crocodile tears at this point. But what really got me, was Al Rocker, everybody's favorite weatherman...he hates his "teeth." They don't look like Dwayne Wade's. By this time I was on my knees sobbing for the devastating truth they had to face. And then they told us who is to blame, this is the enemy at the gates - - now I know who to warn everyone about! I can now call out & denounce these wicked fiends in my next sermon. Are you ready for it? Can you handle it? The problem is "Mirrors and Advertisers." What should we do? The answer for mirrors, the psychologist said, is "simple." We can defeat the mirror by looking in it for 50 minutes a day while saying something nice to yourself. Keep repeating it, and don't forget to smile! That will show the mirror that he has nothing on me! Imagine, you can go from hating yourself, to loving yourself in one weeks time! So how shall we combat the advertisers? It is funny, right when they were going to discuss how to stop their undue influence they went to commercial break. The next image on the screen was a 85 pound model with the whitest teeth you have ever seen, selling laundry detergent. When they finally went back to the show, they never talked about advertisers again...hmmmm, I wonder why? So as a pastor I am here to warn all listeners: tornadoes, greed, racial bigotry, adultery and even death is nothing compared to RECLAIMING YOUR BEAUTY. So friends, family, loved ones...we must...I repeat...we must start "Loving our selfies and start talking to ourselves in the mirror." Stand strong soldier, and .... SMILE! If Jesus only knew, maybe he wouldn't of had, as it says in Isaiah 52, "many who were appalled at him - his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness." Instead of dying for mankind's sin, he could of gone to a Jewish beauty parlor and skipped the whole cross thing. If he only knew... what we now know!!!!!
4 Comments
Mark Rawson
4/28/2014 01:01:41 pm
If your job ever becomes dependent on someone else besides YHWH's opinion (aka ratings), you will be preaching "lectures" with the same content. Your tongue in cheek commentary brings out the reality of pop culture life; keep it simple, non-confrontational, and, for Pete's sake, focus on me. Within reason, advertisers don't give a flying rip about how you dis them as long as your deliver the customer to their doors. And yet, there is nothing new under the sun. I wonder if Isaiah and Jeremiah felt the same way about their times.
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Christopher Weeks
4/28/2014 09:20:17 pm
Peace peace they say when there is no peace...
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Mark Rawson
4/29/2014 04:19:11 am
I was thinking more along the lines of; do you even stop to consider that your are cooking your food and bowing down to pray to the SAME PIECE OF WOOD?!!! Do we not recognize the pop culture in our right hand to be a lie? Let alone the fact that it is killing us.
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Christopher Weeks
4/29/2014 04:24:34 am
So true...the idol we make is in our own image...the mirror is the new place to worship!
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