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I was at a local grocery store — I can’t reveal the name, but its slogan used to be “Fun for your money! —  looking for a lot of fun for my money in the fresh produce department, and I think I found it when I came across the red peppers. At the checkout, the cashier rang up my five different items, smiled and said, “That will be $10,151.34.” 

“Whoa,” I said. “Is this some kind of pandemic pricing?” She looked at me, shook her head, and gave me a “w-h-a-t-e-v-e-r” look. (Thanks to years of training from my children I recognized it immediately.)

 “Will that be cash or credit?” she asked, look intact.

“I’m thinking mortgage” I said. She gave me more “w-h-a-t-e-v-e-r.”

Eventually the assistant manager came over, and after checking, deduced that actually red peppers were not selling for $14,000 per pound that day – phew! – and we got it sorted out. 

“Are we going to eat that red pepper?” my wife asked me when I told her about all the fun I almost got for my money. “Not a chance!” I declared,  “that pepper is worth its weight in gold!”

“Well, what are you going to do with it if you’re not going to eat it?”

“I’m thinking of getting it bronzed.”

Whether it's red peppers, gold, fun for your money or anything else, be careful about what your heart treasures, Our Savior’s words are plain and clear: “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).
– Pastor Tom 

"So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." 
(Matthew 6:31-34)

Every headline screams for attention, but still Monday’s headline from the NY Times caused me to do a double take: “Bars, Strip Clubs and Churches: U.S. Virus Outbreaks Enter Unwieldy Phase”

“Ah,” I thought, “look at the company churches are keeping these days,” since people don’t usually group bars, strip clubs and churches together. It brought to mind the old Sesame Street song, “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong.” The coronavirus certainly makes for strange bedfellows.

The next thought that came was the once-famous “WWJD” as in “What Would Jesus Do?” Fortunately, we know what Jesus would do because the gospels tell us: Jesus was slandered as a drunkard and glutton, Jesus hung out with low-life tax collectors and sinners of all types, and allowed women of ill-repute to come too close. 

Criticism rained down. Accusations flew of being in league with the devil. But that didn’t keep our Savior from proclaiming "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mark 2:17).  

Question: Is it the presence of sinners that links these three places together: sinners all standing in need of the grace of God, some who know it and some who don’t, the kind you sing about when you sing, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now am found”?

In each of the three places, people are thirsty. It’s just that some have yet to figure out who it is who will truly quench their thirst, heal their soul, and bring them peace unlike any this world can offer: Jesus.

Please pray today for someone you know whose thirst can only be quenched by the Savior. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
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Recently I was talking with one of our not-anywhere-near-ninety church members who told me that the times today “put me in mind of the war when everything was rationed. 


“We needed a ration stamp for sugar and a ration stamp for meat. Then when the stores would get these things, there would be long lines and the people would just keep pushing me back because I was small. We even had to have rations stamps to get a pair of shoes, which we got only once a year on account of the war. 


“And we were quarantined too because they were afraid that we would get bombed. I lived in a coal mine town, and the whistle would blow, and then we had to put blankets over the windows. 


“Main thing is you got to hang in there and do what they tell you, they are trying to save your life! All these things happening today put me in mind of that.


“When my mom couldn’t take us to church, then her brother always took us. The preacher was from out of town and he would eat with us. My father eventually joined the church and even became a pastor too, though he still worked in the coal mines. So don’t take it wrong if people don’t invite you to eat, Pastor Tom. They’re just afraid it could happen to them too.”


It most certainly could! But whether or not it does, let your joy and hope be in the Lord. Offer your strength and encouragement to bolster each other in these hard times. 


Remember to laugh and to smile, and to not take yourself so seriously all the time, for our risen Lord is “standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me” (Revelation 3:20). 


May God’s comfort and joy be with you today.
—Pastor Tom