Remember

I have a bad memory. I have such a bad memory that no one will notice if I ever come down with Alzheimer’s. My Dad says that as he has gotten older, he spends more time thinking about the here-after—he goes into a room and then tries to think what he is here after. I can relate to that.

As bad as my memory is, I hope it is not as bad as that of Israel during the Exodus. Something struck me Sunday night during small group that I had never thought about in this way before. I told them that this was going to be a blog entry, and here it is. Exodus 15 tells of Israel celebrating God’s destruction of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea. Moses leads the song of victory, the original “song of Moses” in Exodus 15:1-18. Then his sister Miriam (called “a prophetess”) led the women in singing and dance before the Lord. Her song is in verse 21, “Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. The horse and its rider he has hurled into the sea.”

Now here is the memory problem. The next verses (Exodus 15:22-24) begins the story of Israel moving from the Read Sea to Sinai, and it says this—

22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is
why the place is called Marah.) 24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying,
“What are we to drink?”

Right after Israel sings praise to God for delivering them by drowning the Egyptians in the Red Sea they begin to complain because they have no water. They go from celebrating the God who used water to destroy their enemies to complaining that God didn't have enough water to give them a drink. And it is not just soon after the Red Sea that they complain—it is the very next verse. They go from praising the God of the waters to complaining they have no water.

How could they be so forgetful? If God can drown their enemies, do they not believe that he can give them a drink when they needed it? One verse separates their praise from their protest! But then I can remember some times when the period of time between thanking God for the food and complaining about what we had to eat was pretty short. Or times we the period between praising God in church and complaining about how it was conducted was pretty short. Maybe our spiritual memory isn’t a lot better than that of the Israelites. But I think we can do better.

Trust God and Do Good

“Well, life's not fair!” How many parents have thrown out that line in response to an angry child? The child rebels against some real or imagined slight by stamping his or her foot and yelling, “That’s not fair!” Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn't. But then, life is not fair. And it is important that our children learn this sad but true fact at some point in the lives. And one of the joys of parenthood is that we get to be the ones to break the news to them!

Well, it is important that we learn this important truth too. It is so easy to envy. We look around and see some pretty impious people who seem to be living pretty charmed lives all the while many who seek God struggle. Life is not fair, and there is often little that we can do about it. But one thing that we can do is to choose not to add to the injustice.

David begins Psalm 37 (my daily reading this morning) with the words, “Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong.” It is easy for us to "fret” or “worry” (NLT) when we see injustice. And it is also easy for us to envy the easy life we see in others. But neither worry nor envy are very helpful, are they? David’s answer in Psalm 37:3-4 is much more helpful--

Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Those are two important things we can control. We can trust that God is working in all things for our good. And we can commit to add to the good in the world by doing good things. We can trust God and do good.

Sure, God’s mercy and justice may not seem to come as quickly as we would like it to at times. Sometimes faith means that all we can do is “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Psa. 37:7). In the meantime, we trust God to be God. And we do good.

Faithful Spies

Something hit me as I was reading Deuteronomy 1 this morning. The Israelites were camped on the banks of the Jordan preparing to finally enter the Promised Land. Before they do, Moses will remind them of the history that had led them to that point and the covenant that they had made with God. He reminds them that they had been here before. Forty years earlier, Israel had been camped in the same place waiting to enter Canaan. Spies had been sent into the land to give a report of what lay ahead for them , and their report was one of a land that flowed with milk and honey. But what ten of the spies focused on was that it was a land that flowed with mighty enemies, walled cities and giants. The heart of Israel melted, and their fear caused them to refuse to enter the land. Moses says in Deuteronomy 1:26-27—

But you were unwilling to go up; you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You grumbled in your tents and said, "The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us.

So God respected their choice—they did not enter the land. For forty years the Israelites wandered in the wilderness and an entire generation died never seeing the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It would be their children who would receive the promise. Moses said in verse 39—

And the little ones that you said would be taken captive, your children who do not yet know good from bad—they will enter the land. I will give it to them and they will take possession of it.

Here’s what hit me. The only information Israel had about Canaan was the report of the spies. Their decision not to enter the land was based on the negative report of ten unfaithful spies. Think of the powerful influence those ten men had on the entire nation of Israel. The whole nation missed having what God wanted them to have because of their negative influence.

You are living as God’s witnesses today. The message of God is mediated to the world around you through your attitudes and actions. Your life and faith is having an impact on the people around you… either for good or bad. Each of us stands in the places of the spies who have seen Canaan and report back to others. The words you speak, the life you live, the faith you exhibit will impact many beyond yourself. Will you be a faithful spy?

God Lives Among Us

At the end of Numbers (my Bible reading today), the Lord is giving Moses detailed instructions for the establishment of cities of refuge (“cities of safety” in the NCV). Murderers are to be executed by the avenger of blood, a close relative of the person killed. The cities of refuge were set up as a place of safety for those who killed someone accidentally to go and receive a fair trial. A clear distinction was made between accidental homicide and intentional homicide-- the intentional murderer was to be executed; the accidental killer was to be allowed to live safely in the city of refuge until the death of the High Priest. The taking of human life was so serious that even accidental killings had consequences; living in a city of refuge was far better than being killed by the avenger of blood, but it did tend to disrupt one's life.

I am not intending to launch into a death penalty debate. I believe that the death penalty is fair and just when it is applied fairly and justly. The high percentage of non-white and poor men and women on death row does suggest that it has not been applied fairly and justly in our system of law. Often the imposition of the death penalty is little more a commentary on the quality of one's legal representation than it is a statement of justice. On the other hand, some acts are so heinous and hideous that not having the option of death penalty is heinous and hideous. I can’t imagine justice for Jessica Lunsford who was abducted, abused over three days, wrapped in a trash bag and buried alive to slowly suffocate without the possibility of a death penalty. But then I wonder if death would have been imposed had Jessica's killer been a young rich guy in a mansion rather than a scruffy drifter in a trailer park.

God’s instruction to Moses concerning the death penalty specifically forbade money from perverting justice. In Numbers 35:31-32, God says,

“Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death. Do not accept a ransom for anyone who has fled to a city of refuge and so allow him to go back and live on his own land before the death of the high priest.”

A person’s money was not to buy them justice. The murder was not to be able to verdict in a trial at the City of Refuge; they were not to be able to pay money and buy themselves free from a death sentence. Justice was to be served. The next verse suggests that justice was impossible without the taking of the life of the murderer (Numbers 35:33).

“Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

Modern minds reason that the death penalty is barbaric and does not value human life. The opposite seems true here. God so values life and so abhors murder that nothing short of the death penalty is justice. The land is defiled by murder, and in a very Old Testament way, it requires blood to cleanse it.

The next verse is an important one, “Do not defile the land where you live and where I dwell, for I, the LORD, dwell among the Israelites.” The moral choices that we make are made even more important by the fact that God lives among us. The moral choices that you and I make are never made in a vacuum; God lives with us and among us. That was important for Israel to remember as they made decisions on matters about justice. It is important for us to remember every day as we decide how we will treat other people, what language we will use, and whether or not we will tell convenient lies rather than difficult truths.

I've Had Enough

I've had enough! I’ve taken it this long and I’m not taking it any longer! So I’m going to do something about it... Monday. For months now I have this interesting little "glitch" in my computer that causes it to hiccup ever so often... and getting oftener. The keyboard freezes, the cursor freezes, the screen freezes—for about 3 seconds. It only seemed to happen in PowerPoint, so I uninstalled and reinstalled that a couple of times. Now it happens in Word and Explorer and Logos (my Bible program), and it happens more frequently. I’ve run all the anti-virus and spyware programs, but my little glitch is still there. This sounds like a little problem and in the grand scheme of things, I guess it is. But it has moved from an anomaly to an irritant to a major annoyance. So Monday I’ll drag out the operating system CD and do a format reinstall. So that probably means that by Tuesday morning, I won’t have my little glitch—I’ll have several great big ones. But enough is enough.

Angelynn has been home all week for her spring break. It’s been fun having here around, and it is great that she chooses to spend her week off with Mom and Dad instead of Ft. Lauderdale or someplace. It’s probably good that she doesn’t have any money and doesn’t have to make that choice. Her project today is to get our and nail down a job for the summer (so she’ll have enough money so she can choose where to go next spring break). Anyway, if you know of any summer jobs, give Angelynn a call.

The first day of the NCAA tournament turned out to be pretty boring. The only upset (and one of few close games) of the day was VCU knocking off Duke… and Duke has been pretty ordinary all year. Hopefully it will pick up a bit today with a few upsets. In case anyone is interested, I have Florida, UCLA, North Carolina and Memphis in the Final Four… which means that now none of them have a shot at getting there.

Truth in Exile?

I am in the middle of reading the political-legal thriller Exile by Richard North Patterson. The novel tells the story of Jewish-American lawyer David Wolfe who is called on to defend Hana Arif, a Palestinian professor accused of the assassination of an Israeli prime-minister visiting in San Francisco. To defend his client, Wolfe goes to Israel where he interviews people from all sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, those horribly impacted by a culture of hate and violence. Patterson does a marvelous job variously arguing from Israeli and Palestinian perspectives, convincing and then unconvincing the reader of who is really to blame for the continued violence in a part of the world where nothing is simple and no side is blameless.

At one point in the book, one of Wolfe’s guides in Israel explains that in Israel, truth always has four sides. There is BIBLICAL truth, that which is revealed by God through His holy book, but that truth is always toward the one reading the book-- Jews see God’s promise of Canaan as justifying the Israeli state while Muslims see Ishmael, not Isaac, as Abraham’s favored son. There is also ARCHEOLOGICAL truth, the record left in the dust at hundreds of holy sights across the region. But again, few can agree on exactly what those truths mean. Then there is HISTORICAL truth, the stories and legends of the past handed down from generation to generation, nuanced and transformed in the telling by the teller. Finally, there is POLITICAL truth, what leaders can do with the other three truths to exert power and get their way.

I am committed to God’s truth. For me, that truth is wrapped up in the person and teaching of Jesus Christ, and the New Testament is God’s record of Jesus life and the beginning of His church. I want to be committed to living the life of His disciple and being a part of that church described in the Bible. But I need to understand that while truth is truth, some of the ways that I perceive and practice truth have been impacted by my culture, background and history. Perhaps some of the wrangling and division within Christendom have come from the same kind of sectarian blindness that makes peace in the Middle East impossible. Maybe we can learn better to be absolutely committed to truth as we see it… understanding that the “as I see it” part can be quite flawed at times. As Paul says, "Let God be true, and every man a liar." (Rom. 3:4)

If There's More Daylight, Why Am I So Tired?

I’m having a hard time getting going this morning. I’m always exhausted on Monday mornings—that’s why Monday is my designated day off. So why am I here at the building? Well, if I’m going to get nothing done, I might as well not get it done here! Anyway, the coffee is good. It has been partcularly hard to get going today. I did three daily Bible readings... or rather read the same one three times because I kept dozing off!

I ran across this news article and then remembered why I am so tired today. It’s that hour we lost to Daylight Savings Time!

Clocks spring forward Saturday night and we lose an hour of our weekend. Many of us will take that hour from God. Churches say the first Sunday of Daylight Saving Time is one of the worst for attendance. "When we lose the hour, attendance drops off" by about 15 percent, said Bill Agee, a pastor at Hope Community Church in Springfield, Mo. And his church is not unique. Churches across the country report empty seats and late arrivals.

The article goes on to describe some things some churches do to respond—like serving coffee and donuts. One church even changes its service times by thirty minutes! Well, we didn’t do anything differently… and we were down about 20 percent!

What are the chances that our attendance figures will be up 20% this fall when Daylight Savings Time ends?

Elephant in the Pew

I recently ran across the following story. I was going to use it in my sermon Sunday, but ran out of room. (Most of my blogs is stuff that gets voted out before it makes it to the sermon).

As children’s pastor, I listened as a fourth-grade Sunday school teacher shared a concern. Completing a quarter’s lessons on the Ten Commandments, he had asked the kids, "What is the hardest Commandment for you to keep?" Most of them responded, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." We couldn’t understand why fourth graders would find that command such a problem until a mother quizzed her son on what he thought committing adultery meant. Without blinking, the boy replied, "Thou shalt not sass back to adults."

Adult-ery. Talking back to adults. That makes sense, right? Maybe we misunderstand the meaning of adultery too. We want to see adultery as only the act of marital unfaithfulness, but Jesus insists that we understand that unfaithfulness begins in our hearts and minds. To give into lust is to already be unfaithful—to our spouse (or our future spouse) and to our God. Thus to give ourselves to lust is to already commit adultery. But then, that is Sunday’s sermon.

When it comes to lust, we live in a time like no other. While pornography has always existed (witness the ruins of Pompeii), it has never been as accessible. People who would never be caught dead in an adult theater or bookstore can turn on their computer and find anything they can imagine… and a few things they can’t. The web makes pornography highly accessible and practically anonymous. It is a trap that waits to spring shut every time we log onto the web. Porn is not just a problem for “dirty old men in the dark eating salty peanuts with no teeth” (an old Bill Cosby line). At one national Promise Keepers rally, 50% of the men surveyed admitted to viewing porn in the week before the event!

Take the time to view this webcast done by the folks at safefamilies.org. In fact, spend some time on their site. If you don’t already use a filter to block porn sites, they offer one free of charge. In the presentation, they refer to online porn as "an elephant in the pew." It is a big problem that we just want to ignore. Maybe its time to stop ignoring it.

Taking the Grumble Tumble

In Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron begin to grumble against Moses. well, everyone else had been doing it, so now they take a turn. They are mad about his marriage to a Cushite woman; they are mad because Moses is getting the credit for leading Israel. Most of all, they are just mad... so they grumble and complain. No big deal, right? We all complain, right? Well, their grumbling was evidently a very big deal for God! Miriam was struck with leprosy, and she had to spend some time outside the camp. And when all Israel picked up this grumbling, it led to their downfall. Psalm 106:25-26 puts it like this—

25 They grumbled in their tents and did not obey the Lord.
26 So he swore to them with uplifted hand that he would make them fall in the desert.

Grumbling and complaining were not just slips of the lip. They betrayed the negative attitude and spiritual deficits that eventually kept Israel from following God. That is why God is so against grumbling and complaining.

Giving voice to our negative thoughts is something that we do all too naturally and without a lot of thought. But God hears our grumbling, and He seems to take it very seriously. Listen to some New Testament texts—

• 1 Corinthians 10:10- And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.
  
• Philippians 2:14-15- Do everything without complaining or arguing, that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.
  
• James 5:9- Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!
  
• 1 Peter 4:9- Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.

A negative, grumbling, complaining and fault-finding attitude is not simply a problem of temperament. It is a sin that will keep us from pleasing God.

Without Natural Affection

My sermon Sunday mentioned some statistics on the prevalence of domestic violence in our country... and even in our churches. The front page of the CNN news page had two stories this morning that provide tragic illustrations on just how willing enraged parents will go to use their children as weapons to hurt people that they once loved.

• Chytoria Graham was arrested for using her 4-week-old son as a club to attack her boyfriend, fracturing the infant's skull. She admitted that she grabbed her son Jarron by his feet and swung him like a baseball bat. The child was seriously injured.

• Beth Johnson got a phone call from her ex-husband Monday saying, “I've got her, and you're not going to get her." In the background she could her daughter Emily (pictured) screaming “Mommy, come get me, come get me.” Minutes later, Eric Johnson intentionally crashed his rented single-engine plane into his ex-wife’s mother’s home in southern Indiana, killing both himself and his 8-year-old daughter.

Paul says that one of the characteristics of the pagan world of his day (Rom 1:31) and of the world in “the last days” (1 Tim 3:3) was that it was “heartless.” The KJV renders the word “without natural affection.” One lexicon defies this Greek word astorgos ( used only in these two texts) as “hard-hearted toward kindred.” The word comes from storge or “family affection.” Paul description of our “last days world” is of people who are “lovers of themselves” and “lovers of money,” (1 Tim 3:1), but who have no natural love for their own families. Like people who are willing to kill and maim their own kids in order to hurt other people… other people that they should also love.

Hold your kids a little closer today. Maybe Christians can show such natural affection for our families that we can chase away some of the darkness.

Whoever Is Not Against Us

The New Testament part of my Bible reading this morning was Mark 9, which records an intriging little story that gives us cause to pause. We could call this “The Strange Case of the Unknown Exorcist.” It follows two arguments involving the apostles earlier in the chapter.

• First, they argued over their failure to cast out a demon (9:14-16). They tried and failed to heal a demon-possessed boy, and they were arguing with the teachers of the law in front of a large crowd when Jesus joined them.
  
• Second, they then argued over who was greatest among them (9:33-34). They were embarrassed to admit to Jesus what they argued over, but He knew. He assures them that true greatness in the kingdom of God is found in service to others, not in defending one’s status as compared to others.

This is the backdrop against which we understand the story of the unknown exorcist in Mark 9:38-41. The apostles saw one driving out demons in Jesus’ name, and they were upset and immediately made him stop. Why? “He is not one of us.” If they were being completely honest, they may have added, “… and he is successfully casting out demons which we just failed to do!” The apostles are guarding their turf here just as surely as the Pharisees guarded theirs elsewhere in the gospel story. They don’t want anyone not of their group doing things like this in Jesus’ name. Not only does Jesus rebuke them, but he adds the surprising words, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

The history of the church is littered with petty divisions and turf wars among the followers of Jesus. From the first century onward, we have divided into in-groups and out-groups. These divisions have at times been over real doctrinal differences, but rarely have these involved the central core issues of the Christian faith. Like the apostles, we argue and exclude others who would do things in Jesus' name. Maybe it’s time to have faith that God knows who are His own. Maybe it’s time to recognize that God can accomplish His work through whomever He chooses. He may have people on such a different trajectory than are we that we may not be able to fully endorse or join with them directly. That’s OK. “Do not stop him… whoever is not against us is for us.”

Sins of Our Fathers

Last week, the Virginia General Assembly voted unanimously express their “profound regret” for Virginia's participation in the practice of slavery. It could be argued that Virginia played a unique role in that terrible institution as the first Africans to be forcibly settled in America (probably as forced indentured servants) came to the Virginia colony in 1619. The first plantations built on slave labor were in Virginia, the most celebrated leaders of the Confederacy were Virginians, and the capital of the Confederacy was in Virginia.

So Virgina became the first state to formally apologize for slavery (Missouri is considering a similar action). This resolution doesn’t really do anything legally, but it was intended to send an important symbolic message. Slavery was the single most evil institution in our nation’s history, and its legacy continues to be a source of pain and evil today. Maybe this legislative “sorry about that” is too little and too late, but it seems that Virginia has officially and institutionally admitted both that slavery was wrong and that the Commonwealth was a big part of the problem.

Some feel that such an apology is unnecessary and wrong-headed. No one now in Virginia was personally guilty of slavery. Sure, this little problem, of racism and prejudice remains, and these must be dealt with-- but how can one repent of something of which one is not personally guilty? Well, evidently that is possible. In Leviticus 26:40, Moses is looking forward to a time when Israel would turn from God and then turn back to God. Notice the language here—

"But at last my people will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors for betraying me and being hostile toward me." (NLT)

It seems that God expected Israel to confess the sins of their fathers. They did not inherit the personal guilt of a previous generations that had turned again God, but they did become heir to that tradition of rebellion. Their first step back to God was to acknowledge that the sin of their fathers was indeed sin. Then they could address the legacy of that rebellion.

I am ashamed that my state and my country condoned and participated in slavery so long ago. (But then, was it all that long ago? When I was born in 1956, there were people still living who had been born slaves!). Maybe an important step in moving to racial harmony is to admit that the system that brought Africans to this country and exploited them economically was blatantly and patently evil. Maybe until we acknowledge the sins of our fathers we are not completely open to new life in the present.