11-1-2015

Good Morning All!!

         Isaiah 1:17; “learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.”

     On occasion, I would get hooked into coaching one of my son’s “Y” tourney teams.  This is a basketball tourney that the local YMCA organizes as a fund raiser and as a way for different teams to play each other.  As we sat and waited our next game, we saw our opponent walk in.  We were sixth graders at the time and in walked one player who was over six feet tall.  He had expensive “Air Jordan” shoes, an expensive warmup outfit, head band and arm bands.  He looked impressive.  I saw the look in my players’ eyes and then heard them talk.  “I heard he can dunk it”  “I heard he broke some kid’s arm when he blocked a shot.”  “They say he broke a backboard.”  The fear was very evident.

    As we played the game, the young man could not jump.  He was pretty uncoordinated; he had a hard time keeping up.  In the end, he wasn’t much of a factor in the game.  After the game, the much relieved players were talking about him.  “He was horrible.”  “He couldn’t do anything.”  In the end he was what old ranchers call “all hat and no cattle.”  We used to say “all hat, no show.”   The players said he “talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk.”  All three means the same thing; someone talks and dresses the part and looks and sounds good but does not do the job. 

    There are a lot of people in the world who fit this description.  You see them in sports bars watching football or baseball and they have all the answers about what this team or that team needs to do to win; yet they have never played the game in their life.  Or they are the ones sitting at the local coffee shop who have the answer for every civic ill; yet they have never even voted. 

    The Old Testament prophets spent a lot of time telling the Israelites to stop being “all hat and no cattle” when it came to their faith.  The Israelites might have been keeping the laws of the Sabbath or the ceremony of the feasts.  They may have walked around looking pious and righteous but they were “all hat and no cattle.”  They spent their time cheating and swindling those whom they could.  They ignored the needs of the underprivileged and acted differently than they professed.

    This is the same warning or admonition for us.  Your actions put on display your true faith.  You may go to church every Sunday, serve on every church board, put money in the collection plate when everyone is looking but if you walk past your fellow man who is hungry or homeless or in need; you too are “all hat and no cattle.”  Seek God’s forgiveness and ask for his help to help the helpless and to stop and aid the oppressed.  Let your faith shine through.

Father, too often I walk by the hungry and the oppressed.  Move my heart to see their pain and to see your forgiveness in my life.  Move me to reach out and to share your love, poured out upon me, with those who are hurting, lost or in pain.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen     

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret