A Different Direction: What's that old saying?

(excerpt from monthly church newsletter)

It’s sunny. It’s raining. It’s crisp. It’s warm. It’s calm. It’s windy. It’s May. Well, it’s been over six months and I am now just beginning to figure out what this is what Michigan weather is all about. What’s the old saying? “If you don’t like the weather wait five minutes.”  And just when we think it’s safe to go outside, the earth shakes.

Perhaps we Californians are a bit jaded, because we didn’t feel the earthquake. It wasn’t until I saw my children’s bedrooms that I realized such an utter mess could only have been caused by a natural disaster.  Which reminds me of an old saying we had in California. “To minimize loss and damage in an earthquake, don’t move to California.”

Jesus also had some wonderful sayings that we have been passing through the generations. In fact, most everything he said has found its way into our modern vernacular.  Some of my favorites in the Gospel of Matthew alone are Mt. 5:4; 6:34; 7:12; 24:4 just to name a few. I invite you to look them up and see how the Bible has influenced our language. 

I believe God sent Jesus to influence the way we speak as well as the way we act towards others. From how we treat our own family members to how we greet a stranger on the street, the way we love others as God loves us is and should always be universal. No matter where we are, the love a Christian shows others can transcend any language barrier society has put in place.

The Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend (May 24), the church will celebrate the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus’ followers and something amazing happened (answer: Acts 2:1-4). The wind blew and the earth probably shook, too.  From this point forward the church took a different direction. It began to break away from it’s Jewish past and speak a different language.

That language was, and still is, the language of God's love.  After all, in the church we have this old saying, “(John 13:34-35).”