Just Happened?

I just happened to be serving as a youth intern the summer following my freshman year at college. In the process, I received a couple of college credits as an independent study by writing a few papers, reading a few books and preaching a few sermons… none of which were particularly painful except for the people who had to listen to me preach.  As the summer was winding down, I just happened to get a call from Eddie Hendrix at Colonial Heights inviting me to come and teach the youth group during their VBS. They almost always hired their own summer intern, but that year they just happened not to have one.  As I said, the summer was winding down, I was getting ready to head back to school and I really didn't want to mess with one more project (I had already written the final paper for the independent study). So I almost turned him down, but I just happened to work with Eddie each year at camp, and felt rather obligated to help him out.

A few days later, I just happened to get a call from Alan Smith, my college roommate, who just happened to go to the same church where I was teaching the VBS for that week. He told me that there just happened to be this girl at church that he really wanted me to date, and he offered to “fix-me-up” on my one and only blind date. He just happened to be going out of town that week or else he would have probably taught that VBS class himself, and I would have never gotten the call. And by the way, the girl just happened to be drop dead gorgeous!

OK, to make a long story short, I taught that class and stayed with the family, but I don’t remember anything about that. But I do remember that date… literally. It was August 9, 1975. We had three dates before that VBS week was over. (Maybe that’s why I don’t remember much about the class; my mind was totally on something else!)

I don’t have a theology where God is the great Puppet-master pulling the strings and micro-managing every detail of the universe. For example, I’m not sure God sends His angels to make sure I get a perfect parking place when I am going somewhere and running a bit behind. I do thank Him for things like that even though I’m not sure He caused them directly (kind of like Tim Tebow and touchdowns). But I don’t think all of those random things that just happened to happen to bring Lynn and me together just happened to happen at all. God has blessed my life in many different ways in my life, but so many of those ways just happen to revolve around the outcome of that blind date.

And today just happens to be her birthday. Happy birthday, sweetheart!

Beyond Family

Like most churches, we try very hard to be "family friendly."  After all, the traditional family is under attack in our world today, so the church wants to be a shelter for families in this culture of storm.

• So we have a family minister and often talk about family values.
• We have sponsored family retreats and had marriage seminars.
• We even had plans for awhile to build a family life center.

Some churches have "singles ministers" and "singles retreats," but I have never heard of a "single life center."  Sometimes some people get lost in the shuffle when we focus too much on family values.

You see, the church has not always been quite as "family friendly" as we see it today, and least not in one sense.  Listen to the following letter written by a distraught parent to a government official complaining about a dangerous new cult:

I am writing to you to plead on behalf of my son. All of his life, this boy has had the best education that money could buy, and he was well on his way to a great career as a lawyer. But just when it seemed his future was secure, he was suddenly snatched by some weird religious sect who now controls every move that he makes. It is as if he is no longer part of our family nor the world that he lived in before they took him. Sir, I implore you and the government to investigate this cult and stop the dangerous influence that this sect is having on our young.

What cult is being described? The church!  This is a composite of several letters from parents in the third century complaining to government officials about Christianity.  Christians were on the outs with the culture of Rome for several reasons, one of which is that were were seen as a threat to families!  But didn't Jesus predict that this would be the case? Yes, the Bible stresses family values and family responsibilities. But when people are serious about following God, that commitment can have a negative impact on their families.

51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law." (Luke 12: 51-53)

Yes, the church must be all for families, but then we also have a higher calling. Church is to BECOME a family; we are to live as a band of brothers and sisters in a common bond that transcends family and  becomes family to those who have no family. The church does not exist to simply serve our families; the church exists to transform our families and make them a part of the family of God.

The Problem with Thanksgiving

You know the story of that very first Thanksgiving Day in the English colonies, right? You know, the one where Captain John Woodlief and those 38 colonists who had just had arrived in the Virginia colonies from Berkeley, England and set aside a day of giving thanks to God at the Berekley Hundred (later renamed Berkley Plantation) on December 4, 1619 where Woodlief proclaimed--

Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.

Oh, you haven’t heard that story? That because those Johnny-come-lately Pilgrims from Massachusetts arrived at Plymouth Rock with a publicist, so that now everyone just “knows’ that the first Thanksgiving was in Massachusetts with the Pilgrims after the whole colony almost froze to death following that first bitter winter in 1622. But the very FIRST Thanksgiving Day was in Virginia. OK, so actually the first Thanksgiving in the New World was one led by Spanish explorer Juan de Onate held one near El Paso, Texas in 1598, but that one doesn’t count because it was in Texas! They probably had chili and burritos and guacamole or something (actually, that sounds pretty good).

At any rate, the idea of a Thanksgiving Day was not held as a "perpetual" celebration in either Massachusetts or Virginia.  Thanksgiving Day was never more than a local and sporadic event until until Abraham Lincoln made it an annual national holiday observance in 1863. Which means that “first” thanksgiving in Massachusetts took place after a bitter winter almost destroyed a whole colony and the first national Thanksgiving Day was observed DURING the tragedy of the Civil War that almost destroyed our nation. We still observe Thanksgiving Day, but it has little to do with struggle and more to do with eating ourselves silly and then complaining about how stuffed we feel!

But that’s not the real problem with Thanksgiving. The real problem is that we set aside this one day to reflect on and give thanks for our blessings (in which we overindulge) and then ONE DAY later…  we rush out for  “Black Friday,” the biggest shopping day of the year.  We forget all about Thanksgiving Day in our rush to run out and get more stuff. The idea of Thanksgiving was born from struggle and the awareness of God’s goodness despite our difficulty and hardship. Now we seem to believe that we deserve all the good things we have, and we can’t even have of day of reflection on Thanksgiving without turning it into an excuse to shop until we drop getting more, more, more. Will Rogers drew this contrast between Thanksgiving Day then and now:

In the days of our founders, people were willing to give thanks for mighty little, for mighty little was all that they expected. But now neither government nor nature can give enough but what we think is too little. In the fall of the year, if the founders could gather in a few pumpkins, some potatoes, and some corn for the winter, they were in a thanking mood. But if we can’t gather in a new car, a new radio...and some government relief, why we feel that the world is against us.

It’s ironic that the more and more we have for which to be thankful, the harder and harder it is seems to get to be truly thankful. As the late Andy Rooney would say, “Why is that?”

The Ultimate Undelete

I was in Memphis in August of 1985 desperately trying to finish my master’s degree. Why? Well, I had been told that I had until the end of the year to finish my research project, but then I got a call (while at camp at the end of July) telling me that I had until the end of August before the statute of limitations kicked in. Of course, I left grad school in 1980 with only that silly project to complete, so I guess it really wasn't the schools fault that I had put it off so long. Actually it the real reason was eschatological; Jesus could return at any moment, so why waste all that effort on a thesis?

As I worked late one night typing away on my paper, I somehow hit the wrong button and deleted the whole thing. Gone. I loaded up my backup diskette (remember 5 1/4 inch floppies?), it was unreadable. So there I was a week away from my deadline, and all I had was a blinking cursor and a cryptic error code. What saved the day and my degree was some computer nerd named Peter Norton and his “Norton Utilities Undelete 1.0.” My thesis and degree were saved. Thanks Peter.

Wouldn’t it be great if life came with an undelete program? How many times have you said something or done something and wished you could just take back?  What if you could hit a key and life would be restored to its pre-crash status?

• Make the wrong choice after agonizing over a tough decision? No problem. Click undelete and make the right choice this time.
  
• Say just the wrong thing at just the wrong time in the heat of the moment? Just use your undelete key, and this time you get to say just the right thing.
  
• Disappoint someone you love? Disappoint God? Well, just boot up your Spiritual Undelete disk, and everything is restored to its original pre-crash state.

Well, there is no such button. You can’t un-ring a bell. You can't un-send an email (OK, Gmail does have an "unsend" button, but you only get a few seconds to use it). You can’t take back words already spoken. You can’t undo bad things, no matter how many good things you try to put in their place. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. We've all been there, haven't we?

That reminds me of Peter (Peter the apostle, not Peter Norton). One minute Peter was boldly proclaiming, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you" (Mark 14:31). The next minute he was alone, hearing himself say, "I don’t know this man" (Mark 14:71). Over  and over he heard the rooster crowing in his head. In fact, what Peter probably heard over and over were Jesus' words, "Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven" (Matthew 10:33).  And Peter had just disowned Jesus in the most dramatic way possible. Three times. He would have given anything for an undelete key!

While Peter struggled with his failure, something was happening in another part of Jerusalem that would change everything forever. Some of the women went to Jesus’ tomb to finish the process of His burial, and what they found was the ultimate undelete key. An angel appeared, telling them that Jesus was alive! And the angel had a special message for Peter, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” (Mark 16:7).

So why did the angel specifically mention Peter? Why not stop with just “Tell his disciples?” Was Peter mentioned by name because of all the disciples, Peter most needed to see the full implication of the resurrection? Peter was a failure. He denied Jesus and so Jesus would deny Him. It was as simple as that, right? Wrong. The empty tomb changed everything. Peter was about to come face to face with God’s undelete key. Because Jesus was raised from the dead, Peter had another chance.  And we call that second change "the gospel."

At some point, we all fail miserably. We deny in word or in deed that we know Jesus. Maybe our denial isn't quite as dramatic as was that of Peter.  Or maybe it is every bit as dramatic.  Maybe our crash and burn was just as public and final as was Peter's.  The question is will we, like Peter, accept His forgiveness and move on to greater service and discipleship? Will we live like we believe that the gospel brings broken lives back from the dead?  The gospel is the ultimate undelete.

Just Business

In a scene from the movie, The Godfather, one of the Corleone henchman is discovered to be involved in a plot to betray Michael Corleone, the new Godfather. The plot is discovered, and the henchman is led away to go "sleep with the fishes" or whatever. He says to one of the other henchman, "Tell Michael it was just business; it was nothing personal."

While most Christians (I would assume) aren't involved in organized crime, it is surprising how many do seem to subscribe to this "it's just business" philosophy. The business and financial and career world is a dog-eat-dog rat-race. And to survive, let alone thrive, one must race the rats and eat the dogs right along with everyone else. And so it is all too easy to adopt one set of ethics for business and career purposes and quite another when dealing with family and friends... and church.

In Deuteronomy 24, God through Moses gives Israel a series of laws that pertain to business and financial concerns. Now God understands that we must all make a living-- He came up with that idea! But all of these laws assume that there is a bond of humanity and brotherhood that is more important than getting ahead in business. Notice for example--

• In verse 6, the Jews are forbidden to take a millstone as collateral for a loan; that would take away a man's livelihood and thus his ability to repay the debt.
  
  
• In verses 12-13, when they made a loan was made, particularly to someone poor, the Jews were not keep the collateral overnight. Returning at night a man's coat given as collateral was seen as an act of righteousness in the sight of God.
  
  
• In verses 14-15, wages were to be paid at the end of each day. The poor lived day to day, and they might not make it to a payday at the end of the week. So the payment of wages was done based on the needs of the worker, not the convenience of the owner!
  
  
• In verses 17-18, special consideration was to be given to those who were at a particular disadvantage in financial matters-- widows and foreigners. (I wonder if running sweatshops in foreign countries that pay little and pressure workers to the point where some commit suicide applies here at all?)
  
  
• In verses 19-20, the harvest was to be done in such a away that produce was left in the fields to be gathered by the poor.

The point here is not that we should expect Wal-Mart or Microsoft to do business like this. The point is that Christians should be governed by an unselfishness and heart for people that guides them in their business dealings. It is never the case that any part of our lives is "just business." Indeed, God is our business, and we are glorify Him in our business dealings.

Saints Who Have Never Been Caught

Christians are called to be holy, and we have no choice than to be 100% against sin. The greatest task of the disciple is to put to death whatever belongs to our earthly nature (Col 3:5) and to live lives that are worthy of our calling (Eph. 4:1). Our problem is that we see the sin in other people's lives more easily than we see it in ourselves. Why is it there are so many Christian activists seeking legislation to ban homosexual marriage (because of its attack on traditional family) that never campaign for laws banning heterosexual divorce (the single biggest attack on the traditional family). Why? Because it is so much easier (and much more fun) to focus on the sins of others than on your own sins

Christians have always had a hard time separating the sin from the sinner, and so we often come across as being against sinners. We also seem to insist upon separating the MINOR sins (ones of which we're guilty) from the MAJOR sins (the ones others commit). The most characteristic way that believers from the Pharisees to the present day church have used to show that they are against sin is to be harsh and condemning in their judgment of "the sinners." You don't have to be one of Fred Phelps wackos holding signs and shouting slogans to be guilty of this kind of harsh judgement. So Jesus is speaking to us and not just to long ago Pharisees in Luke 6:37-42.

37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
39 He also told them this parable: “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher.
41 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

We are not to judge other people because we are not God-- it's really that simple. God is morally perfect, and it is that perfection that allows Him to be the judge the world. God is neither above His moral law nor subject to it. He IS moral law; right and wrong flow from God's own divine and perfect nature. We can’t judge others because we don’t have that perfect nature. When we point to the sin of others in judgment and condemnation, we always do so with the beam of our own sin in our own eye. In fact, when I spend my time pointing out the sins of others, my attention is distracted from my own sin and what I need to be doing to overcome it.

We are all sinners; we all struggle with our imperfections. We are called as disciples to struggle together to overcome sin and encourage one another in our Christian walk. What we are never called to do is judge one another. In reality, few things are more discouraging and debilitating in our struggle with sin than the censorious, judgmental spirit of other believers who act as if they have no sin. A.T. Lanta's refers to these as the "Saints Who Have Never Been Caught." His poem contains the following stanza:

I'm a sinner, O Lord, and I know it; I'm weak, I blunder, I fail;
I'm tossed on life's stormy ocean; like ships embroiled in a gale.
I'm willing to trust in Thy mercy, to keep the commandments Thou hast taught;
But deliver me, Lord, from the judgment of Saints who have never been caught.