Change for a Dollar

Last year, Bill Gates, investor Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg (of Facebook fame) signed the "Gates-Buffet Giving Pledge" in which they promised to donate to charity at least half of their wealth over the course of time. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has already donated $28 billion dollars to charity, and they have pledged to eventually give away 95% of their wealth. A lot of wealthy people don't do that; in fact, few wealthy people do that. One of the criticisms in all the love-fest following the death of Steve Jobs was the fact that he didn't seem to be much of a philanthropist.  Of course, I remember someone telling prospective philanthropists "do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing."  You really do have to admire people like Bill and Melinda Gates who have made a second career out of giving away what they accumulated in their first.

The biggest danger that "Regular Joes" like you and me face when it comes to giving is in thinking that the only giving that makes a difference is that which is done by the wealthy. Sure, Jesus told the story of the widow and her two small coins (Mark 12:41-44), but His point was the size of her sacrifice, not the good that her gift was able to accomplish. Even though their hearts may have been hard and their actually sacrifice was small, surely more actual good was done by the big sacks of gold thrown into the treasury by the Jerusalem fat cats, right? Maybe not. I seem to remember Jesus making the gift of a sack lunch of loaves and fishes go pretty far in helping people. This is God we're talking about, right? Who knows how He can use my gift even though it falls somewhat short of that of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

I ran across the following film parable about the change that our change can do. It's ten minutes long and there isn't a word spoken, but the point it makes is eloquent, And maybe it's message is particularly powerful during this time of the year.



Jesus tells us that a cup of cold water doesn't lose its reward. We have no idea the good that He can accomplish with our small acts of giving and kindness.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

The stale smell of apples reminds me of Christmas. When I was a kid, we’d go to Arkansas for Christmas, leaving as soon as Dad got home for work the Friday before Christmas. We’d eat dinner, open our presents, and clap and cheer… and then put them back under the tree and take off for Arkansas on a 24 hour drive where we stopped only for gas and nothing else. Food was packed in the car, and there was always this big bag full of apples. And by the time we got to Arkansas, the whole car had smelled like too-ripe apples, a smell that still gets to me. But that is part of the ghost of Christmas past for me.

Another ghost of Christmas past was the thumping sound that woke me up one Christmas Eve (actually 2:00 a.m. Christmas morning). I was too old for the Santa thing (or else it would have sounded like reindeer hooves). So I snuck up to the room over the garage and looked out the window to see what was going on, and I saw my Dad and Larry Campbell shooting basketball on the new goal they had just installed to surprise me Christmas morning. Well, I was surprised… I was surprised that Dad could shoot hoops! (I miss you, Larry!)

My most special Christmas memory was the birth of our first child at 8:20 a.m. on Christmas morning. I was up late Christmas Eve playing gin rummy with my sister Sonya, and I had just been dealt a hand only a couple of cards shy of gin when Lynn announced that it was time. I wanted to finish that hand… but everyone else seemed to think that was a bad idea, so off to the hospital we went. With snow falling outside (the last white Christmas we've had, I think) and “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” playing on the radio (which Lynn was not enjoying), little Tressa came into our world to change it forever.

Christmas is different when you have a Christmas baby. Oh, it was a big, big deal the Christmas she was born… in a Catholic hospital! But later it was easy for her birthday to be overshadowed by Christmas itself. Everything is closed, so forget going out to a restaurant and getting “Happy Birthday” sung to you by the wait staff. We had to develop a series of special birthday rules to make sure Tressa birthday remained special-- fruit cake can’t be used as birthday cake, you never combine Christmas presents with birthday gifts (they must stay separate and apart), and under no circumstances can birthday presents be wrapped in Christmas paper! Christmas is different when you have a Christmas baby.

Well, there was little ordinary about the birth of Jesus. He was born of a virgin in a barn and laid in a manger. (When Jesus left a door open and someone said, “Hey, were you born in a barn?” He could say, “Why yes I was!”). And what other baby gets gold, frankincense and myrrh at their baby shower? And while new mothers usually send out birth announcements (what else have they to do),  this time the Father did the birth announcement (Luke 2:8-14). Angels brought to the shepherds “good news of great joy.” The angels use one of the most familiar New Testament words—euaggelizo. What the angels literally said was, “I preach to you a gospel of great joy.” The birth of Jesus is gospel!

We don’t know when Jesus was born, and we aren’t told to make a bid deal about his birthday. But the fact of Jesus’ incarnation, that he really did come in the flesh, is indeed a big deal. It was more or less an accident of history that we started seeing December 25 as the birthday of Jesus. If somehow we decided to follow the Julian calendar and observe Christmas on January 7 (like some do), I don’t think Tressa would mind a bit. But the fact that Christ the Lord was born into our world was certainly no accident. I’m glad we have this special time of the year to remember that fact in a special way.

Christmas with an Attitude

I ran across a list of the 25 “Best Christmas Movies of All Time.” Frankly I was a little surprised that there were 25 Christmas movies, let alone the 25 best ones. Some on the list were the expected classics-- “It’s a Wonderful Life” (#2) and “Miracle on 34th Street” (#3). I had heard of many on the list ( “Christmas in Connecticut” (#7) or “Holiday Inn” (#12), but these were in black-and-white and I’m much too young to remember movies in black-and-white. There were 3 versions of “A Christmas Carol” (one with the Muppets and another with Bill Murray). Actually, the greatest version “A Christmas Carol” was the one starring Mr. McGoo, but you won’t see that one on anyone’s list. “Home Alone,” the most successful movie comedy of all time made the list at #8 (should have been higher). And they did get the #1 Christmas movie of all time right-- “A Christmas Story.”

According to the list, #16 was “Die Hard.” You remember the heartwarming story terrorists who try to blow up a skyscraper… except they’re not terrorists but bank robbers out to steal billions and murder a bunch of people in the process. But then they run into Bruce Willis and hilarious holiday hijinks ensue. But the story takes place during Christmas, so technically it’s a Christmas movie. If “Die Hard” is a Christmas story, then it’s a Christmas story with an attitude!

And John’s version of the story of the birth of Christ is a Christmas with an attitude. Of course, John doesn't have a birth narrative in his gospel; he saves that for Revelation. In John's version there are no shepherds, no wise men, no little drummer boys, and this is anything but a “Silent Night.” What this version has is a dragon! John’s version in Revelation 12 is Christmas with an attitude! There are two main characters here—

• First, there is a pregnant woman clothed with the sun and has the moon at her feet who is very pregnant and cries out because she is in labor. This woman doesn’t look very much like Mary, because in this story she isn’t Mary. She represents Israel, and later in the story she will morph into the persecuted church. We immediately recognize the son she births—“ he will rule all the nations with an iron scepter” (12:5). The child was snatched up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled to a place where she is cared for by God.
  
• Second, there is an enormous red dragon (Satan) who hotly pursues the woman as she is in labor. He has 7 heads (representing power), and 7 crowns (representing authority), and 10 horns (pointing again to more power). The dragon pursues the woman so he can devour the child she is about to bear. But when the child is taken to heaven to God’s throne, the dragon tries to follow to attack him.

Yep, Christmas with an attitude. This Christ child is not born in the obscurity of a barn and laid quietly in a manger. This birth takes place in the midst of a cosmic conflict. Eugene Peterson, in his book Distant Thunder, writes--

This is not the nativity story we grew up with, but it is the nativity story all the same. Jesus’ birth excites more than wonder, it excites evil: Herod, Judas. Pilate. Ferocious wickedness is goaded to violence by this life. (p. 121)

Angels aren’t singing “Joy to the World” because they are too busy in a pitched spiritual battle with the great dragon. And, of course, they defeat him and the dragon is thrown down from heaven to the earth (Rev 12:9, see Luke 10:18). The good news is that Satan was defeated in his attack on heaven. The bad news is that Satan is thrown down to the earth… with us! (Rev 12:12)

But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.

The bad thing about putting on as nativity plays is that there very few roles in the production so someone always has to play a sheep or donkey. This is definitely not true with John’s version of the nativity play here—we all have a part in this production! The great dragon can’t get to the child, and God protects the mother (now a symbol of the church). So what does the Satanic dragon do next?  He comes looking for her children-- that's your part and mine. And God bless us every one!

Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. (Rev 12:17, NIV)

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. We know that because Andy Williams sings, “It's the most wonderful time of the year; there'll be much mistltoeing and hearts will be glowing, When love ones are near; It's the most wonderful time of the year."  But the very things that we love about Christmas also become dangers for us.

• Yes, Christmas is time for family… and of loneliness for those without families or who have lost parts of their family. (Perhaps that is why depression is so common during the holidays)
  
• Yes, Christmas is a time for tradition and customs, and it is the time when our expectation often exceed our reality (Another reason why depression is so common).
  
• Yes, Christmas is a time for giving and receiving gifts. And it is also the time that we allow materialism to run amok and run up debts we are still paying off in July!

Christmas is a time when we remember the birth of the child that would change all history. We see Christmas card images of Mary-and-child, shepherds, Joseph, the Magi and the rest.  (I saw a picture of one nativity scene with Tim Tebow bowing before the manger).  We sing the carols and try imagine the angels singing to the shepherds. We tell ourselves that “The True Meaning of Christmas" is in the proclamation of the angels. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2:14, KJV). Christmas is a time of peace and good cheer. (Ironic that “Christmas Cheer” for many is what gets slipped into their egg nog!)

But our carols present a one-sided view of the story of that “first Christmas,” the viewpoint of the shepherds, the magi, and the earth! There were things going on surrounding the birth of Christ that were unseen by human eyes on that “Silent Night” outside “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” In Revelation, John shifts our point of view and retells the familiar story from the viewpoint of heaven.

And thus the pastoral serenity of "Silent Night" dissipates into sounds of battle. Viewed from heaven or hell, the reason for the season was all out spiritual warfare. God came down into Satan’s domain to face down the dragon on his own turf, and the old dragon was not about to let that happen without a fight! He used Herod in an attempt to kill the baby Jesus, and he would use many others. All of hell’s fury would be released against that baby boy born that silent and holy night. And as the baby Jesus lay in that manger that night, somewhere in Palestine there grew a tree that would one day be cut down and fashioned into an old rugged cross. It would be that cross that would become ultimate Christmas tree upon which would be hung God’s ultimate gift! So John tells us this Christmas story with an attitude, and we are reminded to always view the manger through the lens of the cross!

RIP Maggie

Last night, we took Maggie to the vet for the last time.  The little pom-terrier mix-mutt was  part of our lives for more than eleven years, and I've had a lump in my throat all day.  I really owe Tracy Brainard an apology.  Years ago she called the church building (in tears) asking for her family to be put on the prayer list because they had just lost a dog.  I think I responded appropriately, but I thought the woman had lost her mind. It's just a dog, right?  No, Maggie wasn't just a dog.  Sorry, Tracy; I understand now.

The picture at right was taken at the pound in Williamsburg where we got Maggie (on one of several visits we had to make before we were allowed to take her home).  They guess-timated that Maggie was 2-5 years old when we got her, so she lived to the ripe old age of 12-16 (and in doggie years, that's... well, you do the math).  She had a good life, but the tumor that had grown from golf ball size through softball size was heading for bowling ball size, and she was deaf and almost blind.  And it was time.  There are many things pets remind us about life-- like that it doesn't last forever.

Angelynn had asked us for a dog since... well, since as long as I can remember.  But we were never going to get her a dog because we're just not dog people.  At some point, Mom told us that we should probably get the child a dog, and Keri started looking at all the area pounds.  And before I knew it, Maggie was living INSIDE our house (which we also said would never, ever happen) and sleeping in our bed (which she continued to do for years until SHE decided she would be more comfortable on the floor at the end of the bed).  I'm still not really a dog person, but I turned out to be a Maggie person.

So I felt like I needed to mark Maggie's passing with something, so Maggie gets one last blog.  I've actually written several about her over the years-- the short piece below was written in March 2008.  It was titled "Maggie the Wonder Dog."

My lunch break yesterday reads a little like an old episode of Lassie. I was home on my lunch hour minding my own business and eating my peanut butter and (no sugar added) jelly sandwich when Maggie started barking. Now usually that means that the mailman has just delivered our mail. There was no mail when I went to the front door, but there was smoke, and lots of it, coming out from behind our across-the-street neighbor's backyard. I got my cell phone and went over to investigate, wanting to make sure someone wasn't barbecuing on a really big grill before I called the fire department. Sure enough, the back yard was on fire. I'm not talking just a little bit on fire; the grass, shrubs, pine needle mulch, split rail fence and several trees were burning and the flames had jumped to the other side of the fence. The smoke was so thick by that time that I couldn't tell how far back it went. 

So I called 911, and 5 minutes later a fire truck pulled up and fireman jumped out and started doing their fireman thing. Fifteen minutes later, a second fire truck pulled up to add its crew to the mix. Firemen were running around grabbing hoses, axes and shovels just like on TV. I watched the show for awhile chatting with another neighbor before going back to work. I went over after supper to chat with the guy across the street and see the damage. It came fairly close to the house, but nothing was really hurt except a fence that he said he has been meaning to replace. If the fire had burned much longer, that could have been very different. 

So Maggie the Wonder Dog saved the day. I still have no idea if she was really barking at the fire or not. She may have glimpsed a squirrel running for its life across the street... which is exactly what any squirrel in the vicinity would have been doing. But there is a good chance I would've have noticed what was going on had she not been barking. So we'll credit Maggie the Wonder Dog with saving our neighbor's house. And then she went out and found Timmy who had fallen down a well.

Good-bye, girl,  Good dog!

Jesus Was an Occupier... of a Cross

I don't get the whole “Occupy Wall Street” deal. According to the movement's unofficial web site, the movement is a protest against “the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations.”  The slogan “we are the 99%” refers to the vast concentration of wealth and therefore power and influence in the top 1% of the population. “Occupy Wall Street” began as a protest rally on Wall Street itself that quickly spread to other cities— locally we had “Occupy Norfolk,” a march that drew literally tens of people (the news said a hundred, but I think they showed the same little group from different angles). Corporate greed and high unemployment seems to be the one thing that these protesters have in common, though some of the rallies that have spread to Europe seem to be more of a place for “football hooligans” to hang out during the off season. Some have compared the OWS movement to the liberal counterpart of the Tea Party movement. I would prefer to combine the best elements of both worlds and create an “Occupy Starbucks” movement.

So why write about something that I admit that I know little about? (If I didn't, I'd never write anything!)  Well, I ran across a speech made by Jesse Jackson to an “Occupy London” crowd earlier this week in which he said, “Jesus was an Occupier, born under a death warrant, a Jew by religion, born in poverty under Roman occupation.” Besides the logical contradiction (Jackson’s statement makes Jesus an “Occupied” rather than “Occupier”), I bristled at the suggestion that Jesus would have been right in the middle of the OWS protests lending his support to the movement.

But then, I also bristle when I read Tony Perkins’ blog “Jesus Was a Free Marketer, Not an Occupier” on CNN’s BeliefNet last week. In Luke 19, Jesus tells the “Parable of the Ten Minas” (Luke's version of the parable of the talents) in which a rich man goes off to be crowned king and gives each of his ten servants a mina (about three months wage) with the command “Put this money to work…until I come back.” (Lk 19:13). Two servants do that—one making 10 minas and the other 5, and as a reward they are made governors of 10 and 5 cities. But one servant hid his in the ground and is condemned for not obeying his master (and now king). Perkins point is that Jesus' parable blesses the free market system and condemns the unproductive servant (who looks a lot like the motley OWS crowd). He writes—

Jesus rejected collectivism and the mentality that has occupied America for the last few decades: that everyone gets a trophy – equal outcomes for inequitable performance. There are winners and yes, there are losers. And wins and losses are determined by the diligence and determination of the individual.

Jesus has the king kill all of political enemies at the end of the parable. (Lk 19:27).  Is Jesus also blessing that kind of political retaliation along with free market capitalism?  The point of the parable is that people thought that the kingdom of God was about to appear (in the form of an earthly overthrow of the Romans). Jesus is telling his disciples that they could not know when the king was coming so they'd better be busy doing His work and being ready for His return all the time. The point isn't how people will be rewarded for their work. Now there is a parable that makes that point-- "The Parable of the Workers in the Field" in Matthew 20:1-16.  There Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who hires workers to work in his fields and then pays them  the same wages whether they have worked all day or only one hour. God’s free-market system is just that—FREE. Grace does means that everyone DOES get a trophy whether they deserve it or not… because none of us can deserve it.

Jesus was neither an Occupier or Free-Marketer. Jesus was Messiah. His message was "the kingdom of God has come near" (Mk 1:15) and "the kingdom of God is within you: (Lk 17:21). Jesus identified with the poor and the homeless (Matt 8:20), so He would be likely be more at home with the OWS crowd than some of them are. But Jesus was also the friend of “tax collectors and sinners” (Lk 15:1), and the tax collectors were definitely not part of the 99% economically. They were social/religious outcasts precisely because they had gotten rich through the economic oppression of the 99%.  And Jesus hobnobbed with them along with poor and homeless.  And Jesus even hobnobbed with those who were definitely the 1% of his society, guys like Simon the Pharisee who were both wealthy and influential (see Luke 7:36-50).

I don’t believe that Jesus would be part of ANY of our political, social or economic movements today— He would not be a Republican, Democrat, Tea-Partier or Occupier...  though he would be happy to hang with any of those folks if they would listen to Him.  Jesus was for people, all people. Jesus was about the breaking of the kingdom of God into the world. He was the Great Physician who had come to heal the sick... all the sick.  He was the Lamb of God who had come to lay down his life for the lost—all the lost. Jesus was too busy touching the lives of people in need to ever have time to occupy anything... except a cross.

Tim, Aaron and Faith in the Workplace

As a lifelong Colts fan, this NFL season was shaping up to be an utter wasteland ( Colts are 0-12), then along came Tim Tebow. Tebow won two national championships and a Heisman trophy in college, but has been routinely panned as not having the skills needed to be a pro quarterback. After going 1-4 at the beginning of this season, the Denver Broncos switched to Tebow and have won 6-of-7 and lead their division. (OK, they have away games at the Bears and Patriots coming up, so the bubble might burst). But I am  pulling for Tebow and the Broncos like I have for no other team since Johnny U. hung us his high tops.

Why? Tebow is a committed Christian who has taken a lot of criticism because of his faith. He kneels during games (panned as “Tebowing”) and thanks Jesus for his success. When asked about his latest comeback win against the Vikings, he told Peter King that he was most proud of the fact he was able to say “hello” in the interview to Blake Appleton, a young fan who is suffering with cancer. He then ended the interview with “Have a good day, Mr. King. And God bless you.” Tebow isn’t the first NFL player to pray or thank God (Kurt Warner, Troy Polamalu, etc.), but Tebow has been mercilessly criticized for his faith. One player taunted him after a sack by striking a prayer pose.

Former Bronco quarterback Jake Plummer said that while Tim is a winner, “I think that when he accepts the fact that we know that he loves Jesus Christ, then I think I'll like him a little better.” Tebow, who comes across as quiet and humble, replied simply, “I feel like anytime I get the opportunity to give the Lord some praise, he is due for it." Football analyst Boomer Esiason was been particularly brutal in assessing Tebow, “He can’t play. He can’t throw.” But then he went on to say—

The kid is a tremendous character kid; If he said he wanted to marry my daughter, I'd be happy… But I wouldn't want him to be my first-round draft choice starting quarterback, which he's not capable of being right now.

(Tim, I have two daughters... I'm just saying). But the Broncos keep on winning, and Tebow keeps on pointing to Jesus. But I just have to think that the criticism he has received has nothing to do with football skills (or lack thereof) and more to do with the audacity of being public (and genuine) about his faith.

That brings me to another quarterback who is a dedicated Christian—Aaron Rodgers. Absolutely no one doubts Rodgers ability to play quarterback—he is the best player in the league and his Packers are 12-0. He went through many twists and turns in his career, and his path to the limelight has been less than meteoric. He once said, "God always has a plan for us, a path. Sometimes we wish we knew it sooner, but He always shows up His way." But Rodgers tales a quieter approach to faith--

I feel like my stance and my desire has always been to follow a quote from St. Francis of Assisi, who said, 'Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.' So basically, I’m not an over-the-top, or an in-your-face kind of guy with my faith. I would rather people have questions about why I act the way I act, whether they view it as positive or not, and ask questions, and then given an opportunity at some point, then you can talk about your faith a little bit.

OK, so now I’m also an Aaron Rodgers fan— maybe the Packers can play the Broncos in the Super Bowl. These are two very different approaches to bringing one’s faith into a high profile job. Which approach is the best? God definitely wants us to bring faith to our jobs (see Eph 6:5-7, Col 3:23). That faith must shape and mold us at work just as it does in every other aspect of our lives. And the faith that shows up at work just might influence people around us in more ways than we realize.

What's Forever For?

Not since Zsa Zsa Gabor has anyone been so famous for just being famous than has Kim Kardasian. And of course, what she is most famous for recently is having a lavish, made-for-TV "royal wedding" and then filing for divorce only 72 days later. OK, we are used to celebrity marriages ending early and ugly (can anyone say "Charlie Sheen"), but 72 days? We have food in our refrigerator that is older than that! OK, maybe it wasn't totally shocking when Kardasian released the following from her publicist--

After careful consideration, I have decided to end my marriage…I hope everyone understands this was not an easy decision. I had hoped this marriage was forever but sometimes things don’t work out as planned. We remain friends and wish each other the best.

We don't have cable TV, so I have never, ever kept up with the Kardasians. I also never, ever watch the NBA, I didn't know Kris Humphries, Miss Kardasian's 72-day husband. The suggestion has been made that the whole marriage was simply an excuse to have the wedding which promoted the Kardasian brand and made a lot of money in the process. I don't know about that, but I do know that 72 days is a bit too short a time to "give careful consideration" to buying a new car, let alone something as important as one's marriage.

I'd like to say that this can happen only in Hollywood, but that is, of course, not true. The most extravagant and elaborate wedding that has ever been conducted at our church building also has another distinction. This was back when we had pews, and we had to remove the first two rows of pews to accommodate the string ensemble (including a huge classical harp) that provided the music for the wedding. This was (I believe) the first instrumental music that was ever used in a wedding at our building, but that is the the "distinction" I mentioned above. No, sadly, while this was the longest wedding I ever performed, it was the shortest marriage-- the couple stayed together barely 3 months after the wedding. In retrospect, I think the bride (like Miss Kardasian) wanted a big fancy formal wedding-- what she didn't want was a husband.

Yesterday for no particular reason, a old song lyric came to mind. I couldn't remember the song, just the phrase "if love never lasts for ever, what's forever for." Google reminded me that this lyric comes from the song "What's Forever For" written by Rafe VanHoy and recorded by artists like Anne Murray, T. G. Sheppard, Billy Gilman, and England Dan and John Ford Coley, and it was a #1 hit for country singer Michael Martin Murphey in 1982. Lynn often wonders why I can remember obscure things like song lyrics but can't remember to take the trash out on Tuesdays.  (Uhh... I think I did take it out today... I hope).

I think the song's questions resonate in a world in which people get married so that they can have a big wedding and then get divorced way too often and far too easily. "So what’s the glory in living? Doesn’t anybody ever stay together anymore? And if love never lasts forever, tell me, what’s forever for?" It is exactly that forever to which Jesus points when asked to comment on divorce (see Matthew 19:4-6). The reason that God failed to honir Judah's worship was because they failed to honor the forever in their marriages (see Malachi 2:13-16). Both of these texts lead us to ask the same question posed by this old country song, "If love never lasts forever, what's forever for?"

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.

A Personal Relationship with Christ

How many times have you heard someone talk about having a “personal relationship with Jesus” or a “personal relationship with God?” People are told that they need to “accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.” That kind of language is used to stress the need for each person to make his or her own choice to follow Jesus-- as opposed to adopting or inheriting the religious faith of their parents. And that is surely important. Each of us will “appear before the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor 5:10).  The only way this is going to be a pleasant experience for us is to know the Judge personally.

It may surprise you to find out that the language “personal relationship with Jesus” does not appear in the New Testament. In fact, as Mark Luepke recently pointed out, the word “personal” doesn't really appear in the News Testament. Yes, my NIV uses the term “a trusted personal servant of the king” to describe a man named Blastus (Acts 12:20) and has Jesus talk about those who “gain personal glory” (John 7:18). Nut more literal translations (NASB, ESV) don’t use the word “personal” at all. It’s a bit surprising that this “personal relationship with Christ” mantra of modern Christianity just isn’t found in the New Testament.

Is that really such a big deal? Well, it might be. When many Christians today use the term “personal relationship with Christ,” what they are really talking about is a “private relationship with Christ.” More and more believers are opting-out of church altogether and are choosing to have a more personal religion. The idea is that my religious faith is between only me and God and doesn’t need to involve anyone else. The bottom line, we are told, is that “It’s not about religion; it’s about relationship.”



The New Testament never uses the language of “personal relationship with Christ.” And it certainly doesn't envision a religion that is a private matter between me and God and that everyone else can leave us alone.  In the New Testament, faith in Jesus is ALWAYS communal and lived out in relationship with other believers. Over and over again, Christians are encouraged live their lives of faith together in relationship with one another. There is no personal relationship with God without a living relationship within a community of faith. The cross that brings us closer to God also brings us into a "common unity" with other people of faith. So while the language of “personal relationship with Christ” is not used in the Bible, what we do hear over and over is how we are to live with "one another" or "each other."

• Rom 1:12- That you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith (1 Thess 4:18)
• Rom 12:10- Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.
• Rom 12:16- Live in harmony with one another. (1 Pet 3:8)
• Rom 13:8- Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another (1 Thess 3:12, 1 Thess 4:9, 2 Thess 1:3, Heb 13:1, 1 Pet 1:22, 1 Pet 4:8, 1 Jn 3:11, 1 Jn 3:23, 1 Jn 4:7, 1 Jn 4:11-12, 2 Jn 2:5)
• Rom 14:13- Therefore, let us stop passing judgment on one another.
• Rom 15:7- Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
• Rom 15:14- You yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.
• Rom 16:16- Greet one another with a holy kiss. (1 Cor 16:20, 2 Cor 13:12, 1 Pet 5:14)
• 1 Cor 1:10- That all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you (Phil 4:2)
• 1 Cor 11:33- So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other.
• 1 Cor 12:25- No division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
• Gal 5:13- But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.
• Gal 5:15- If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
• Gal 5:26- Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
• Gal 6:2- Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
• Eph 4:2- Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. (Col 3:13)
• Eph 4:32- Be kind and compassionate to one another (1 Thess 5:15)
• Eph 4:32- Forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Col 3:13)
• Eph 5:19- Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. (Col 3:16)
• Eph 5:21- Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
• Col 3:9- Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices
• Col 3:16- Teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs
• 1 Thess 5:13- Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.
• Heb 10:24- And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.
• James 4:11- Brothers, do not slander one another.
• James 5:9- Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged.
• James 5:16- Therefore confess your sins to each other
• James 5:16- and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
• 1 Pet 4:9- Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.
• 1 Pet 5:5- Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another
• 1 John 1:7- But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another

Some of these passages tell us what we are TO DO with one another—teach, be humble, encourage, show hospitality, etc. And some of these texts warn us what NOT to do with one another—do not lie, do not bite and devour, stop passing judgment, etc. What these verses should tell us is that there is no way to live the Christian faith PRIVATELY. God made us for community and fellowship. He made us for accountability and worship. He did not make us to stay at home and watch religious TV and think that our personal and private religion” is “Christian” in the Biblical sense of that term

Are You a Pretty Good Person?

Most people probably see themselves as a good person.  Even those people you consider to be pretty petty, mean and selfish, they probably consider themselves to be a pretty good person.  And even those people who do demonstrably evil things tend to excuse themselves by say, "Yes, but basically, I'm a pretty good person."  My point is that we generally set the bar pretty low on what it takes to be a good person.  I remember Bob Clark reviewing of Lewis Smedes' book, A Pretty Good Person.  I seem to remember him saying that it was a pretty good book, but I don't remember anything about it-- I was bummed that the guy reviewing the Max Lucado book didn't show up.

I ran across the following video while looking for something to use with my Middle School students in our small group study on the Ten Commandments.  Warning: There is a commercial at the end; feel free to hit the You Tube stop button when you get there.



This little clip reminds us that maybe we're not really the pretty good person we want to think we are.  We think we're a pretty good person, but that's because we're comparing ourselves with other people.  That won't fly.  Paul reminds us "There is no one righteous, not even one" (Rom 3:10).  That is the first of a series of Old Testament quotations that leads Paul to conclude "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin" (Rom 3:20) and "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23). As long as we keep the bar low and compare ourselves with others (and are pretty selective about the others to whom we compare ourselves), we can convince ourselves that we are pretty good people.  But our only real hope at goodness is through an act of God, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." We'll never be good on our own, but in Christ we have a righteousness granted from above.

But that is really not my point.  When a many people "out there" in our increasingly secular world think of "Christians," what comes to their mind is not those who are "a pretty good person." The three words that most come to mind when they hear the word "Christian" are "anti-homosexual, judgmental, and hypocritical." According to David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons in UnChristian (Barna, 2007), many (particularly younger) non-Christians view the church through the lens of what we're against. There are six negative themes that sum up the perceptions and attitudes of younger non-Christian people of Christians-- hypocrisy, treatment of outsiders as conversion targets, hatred of homosexuals, seclusion from the real world, over-politicization, and condemnation. Their perception of us is that we don't come across as pretty good people. In fact, sometimes we can come across as pretty mean-spirited, harsh and condemning in the name of Jesus.

 Sure, many of those people have formed opinions based on perceptions gleaned from the media. If by "Christian," they think Pat Robertson or even Fred Phelps, it is no wonder that they have negative views about us. But most of the people surveyed in the Barna study knew Christians personally, and thus some of their opinions were formed by first hand experience.

So here's my point... finally. While it is not enough for us to be "pretty good people," our Christian faith must lead us to live in the world of non-believers in a that "will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life" (Phil 2:15-16). It is not enough for us to be a pretty good person, but if we don't live so that the people around us see us as a pretty good person, then we more or less invalidate our belief that Jesus makes a difference.

Eating Humble Pie at McDonald's

I don’t really follow pro basketball, so the current NBA lock-out doesn't bother me at all. It amazes me-- the minimum wage in the NBA is $473,604 for a rookie and $1,069,509 for a six year vet. I’m sure the NBA owners make a ton of cash, but it is hard to feel too sorry for any of these guys. I did have a little fun at Labron James’ expense yesterday. I was reading an article on the NBA labor dispute where the writer quoted Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” For some reason that made me think of Labron James and his commercial for McDonalds, so I cobbled together pieces of two You Tube videos—



Predicting 7-8 championships is a lot easier that producing championships. Someone suggested that Labron James has a cell phone that only vibrates—no rings! OK, enough poking fun at Mr. James; he may yet win his bunches of championships… if he ever gets to go back to work.

The only reason I can’t make the same point on pride form my life (or yours) is that (thankfully) our bouts with pride and arrogance have not (yet) been posted on You Tube for our viewing pleasure. The verse quoted by the sports writer is just one of many Proverbs than warn of pride--

• Prov 8:13 - “I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech”
• Prov 11:2 - “Pride comes, then comes disgrace, with humility comes wisdom”
• Prov 13:10- “Where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice
• Prov 14:13- “A fool’s mouth lashes out with pride, but the lips of the wise protect them.
• Prov 21:4- “Haughty eyes and a proud heart— the unplowed field of the wicked—produce sin. 
• Prov 29:23- “Pride brings a person low, but the lowly spirit gain honor.”

Why all of these warnings? Because you don’t have to be a millionaire athlete to struggle with pride! We all do. And it is dangerous in ALL of us!

On Being a Visionary

I suppose you've heard that Steve Jobs, the founding visionary of Apple Computers, died this past week from  pancreatic cancer. When I heard the news, I couldn't help but think of my friend Joe Vitello. Joe and I carried on a good humored "Mac vs PC" argument for years, long before Apple came out with their commercials. It bugs me that "Mac" is the cool guy in the commercials, but then Joe was much cooler than me-- he once played drums for Carlos Santana; I once owned a Santana cassette. I also thought of Joe a lot because, like Steve Jobs, Joe died of pancreatic cancer eleven years ago.

I start most mornings skimming through the headlines on Google News and CNN. Both of these have been dominated recently by articles on the life, accomplishments and death of Mr. Jobs. In fact, Michael Oher, the Baltimore Ravens football player featured in “The Blindside” made the news because he had the audacity to admit that he had no idea who Steve Jobs was! For a time the media was all Steve Jobs all the time. Now, I love my iPad and iPod, and I will get an iPhone just as soon as one's available for the $35 a month I’m paying now. But even as an Apple admirer, I was amazed at all the press his passing generated. Some of it was likely due to the fact that no one really realized how really sick he was (some thought he'd make a "one more thing" appearance at the iPhone media event the day before he died).

In the midst of all the Steve Jobs retrospectives that I skimmed, the following post from Brett Harrison on his “Aliens and Strangers” blog caught my attention. (Thanks to Alan Smith for pointing me to this).

I don’t know much about Steve Jobs. Frankly, neither do you. That’s what seems strange to me about our world’s response to his death. We collectively mourn for a man with whom we never shared a meal, a man with whom we never had a conversation.

I’m not suggesting death shouldn’t sadden us. But we do this every time someone in the public eye passes away. Are we grieving the death of Steve Jobs? Or are we simply celebrating the technological advances he brought us — and calling that celebration sorrow, masking our love for things with tears for a man?

I am full of sorrow, though. I recently read this article, which explains why Jobs, on his death bed, authorized a biography to be written about him. Here are his words: 

“I wanted my kids to know me. I wasn’t always there for them, and I wanted them to know why…” 

I am sad for Jobs’ children. And I am equally sad for a nation who praises and glorifies a man simply because he achieved much in the world of business and technology. That’s a polite way to say it, I suppose. Maybe it would be more accurate, or at least more pointed, to say it this way: I am saddened that we worship a man simply because he gave us phones with touch screens. (Well, look on the bright side: at least we don’t place undue importance on the athletic achievements of 18 and 19-year olds.) 

How I wish our society honored those men who love their families with a love that is second only to their love for God.

I think he nails this pretty well.  No one is really a "visionary" if he allows his children to grow up needing to read a book in order to know their father.

Don't Go to Church; Be the Church

Two churches made headlines recently when they cancelled their Sunday morning church services. We did that not too long ago and there were no headlines… except for “Hurricane Irene Batters East Coast.” But New Life Church and Lincolnway Christian Church in Illinois didn't cancel their services because of bad weather; they cancelled services to encourage their members to spend their Sunday outside of their “church services” to engage in Christian service to people in their communities. So they served at grade schools (mulching, weeding, picking up garbage, etc.), shopping centers (free car washes), homeless shelters (serving meals) and low income neighborhoods (proving free home maintenance). The slogan on the T-shirt here says it all—“Don’t GO to church. BE the Church.”

One of our former elders liked to talk about people having limited amounts of “disposable time.” Granted, we often dispose of that time in non-productive ways (a euphemism for “watching TV”). But sometimes asking our members to be at “formal” church service 3-4 times a week leaves them with little time (or maybe “little perceived time”) for other Christian activities. This is especially true for people with children involved in sports and band and scouts and a lot of other great things that require large amounts of time acting as boosters and taxi drivers. We discussed at a recent leaders’ meeting the possibility of reallocating some of our meeting times (or parts of them) for more service-oriented activities. I got the general idea that many were both intrigued and disturbed-- what exactly is “forsaking the assembly” anyway?

The church certainly hasn't outgrown the need for “the assembly of the saints.” But maybe we need to mature to the point where we realize the PURPOSE of the “worship service.” We must not be “neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some” (Heb 10:25, ESV). But the end purpose of our meetings is to help us “think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works” (Heb 10:24, NLT). For too long, Christians have considered coming to church as their religious duty (see this previous post). In reality, our assembly to worship refocuses attention on the Kingship of God, and this allows us to be motivated to out serve our King. The “worship” part of the “worship service” takes place inside the assembly; the “service” part takes place only after we leave. In fact, the service we give to God outside of church is also our “true and proper worship” (Rom 12:2, NIV) or “spiritual worship” (ESV) or “this is truly the way to worship him” (NLT).

“Don’t GO to church; BE the church?” OK, maybe it should be don’t ONLY go to church; be the church.  But I do like the idea of the church making that point by sometimes intentionally shuttering its building and shooing its members out into the community to serve.

Without Fear of Molestation

"Without fear of molestation from the civil authorities." That's a prayer phrase that I heard growing up in many (if not most) of the prayers prayed in church on Sunday mornings. It was right up there with phrases like "ready recollection" and "guide, guard and direct" (which usually came out as one word "guideguardndirect") and other things that I really didn’t understand but repeated in my own prayers nonetheless. Well, I knew what the words "without feat of molestation" meant, but I didn’t really understand that this was really a big problem for churches this side of the Roman empire. After all, I when started to Deer Park Elementary School back in the early 60’s, we still began each day by reciting the Lord’s prayer and absolutely no school activities were ever scheduled on Wednesday nights because that was church night. We didn’t fear molestation from the civil authorities. Even after Madeline Murray O’Hare’s work to remove prayer from the schools (much of which seems to have taken place after her death, if you believe the bulletin articles and email that still occasionally find distribution). The idea of the civil government actually molesting (OK, I always found that word a bit strange) people because of their faith seemed rather remote. And to a degree, it still does.

But it doesn't to Jamie Murray, the owner-operator of the Salt and Light Café in Layton, England. As you might infer from the name of his establishment (Matt 5:13-16), Murray (no relation I trust to Madeline Murrat O’Hare) is a Christian who operates his business in a way that gives honor to God. Since the café opened eight years ago, Murray has been playing Bible texts over the TV screen that can be seen by patrons. Just Bible verses and Bible messages running innocuously on the wall mounted screen. Well, these messages weren’t innocuous to one patron who was offended by the message, and rather than just going to some other establishment for fish-and-chips, he complained to the police who responded by forcing the TV’s to be turned off as a violation of Section 5 of the Public Order Act. When Mr. Murray prays about "molestation by the civil authorities," it is no stock prayer phrase to him!

Neither is it a stock phrase to Youcef Nadarkhani, a Christian minister and leader of a network of Christian house churches in Iran. Bro. Youcef is in prison in Teheran and might possibly be executed by the time you read this for his refusal to recant his faith in Jesus Christ and convert to Islam. In Iran, it is not technically illegal to be a Christian, but it is a hanging offense (literally) to convert from Islam to Christianity.  The Iranian government insists that because Nadarkhani's parents (or perhaps grandparents) had been Muslim, then he was under law Muslim… even though he had not ever practiced that religion. While there are many others in Nadarkhani's position in Iran, none is so prominent in leading Christian churches, and thus the fundamentalist Islamic government is going to make an example of him because of it. Pray for our brother believer in Christ and all our brothers and sisters who live in a situation where "molestation by the civil authorities" because of faith in Jesus is simply a way of life.

We take so much for granted, don’t we?

The Greatest Love of All

Several years ago, Robert Schuller sent me a copy of his book Self-Esteem: The New Reformation. (Actually, he sent it to thousands of preachers, but it made me feel better about myself to think he'd sent it to me personally.) In that book and other writings, Schuller redefined the gospel in terms of self-esteem. Jesus came to give us us back the proper view of ourselves that God intended for us from the beginning. Schuller defined sin as "any act or thought that robs myself or another human being of his or her self-esteem." He suggested that "a person is in hell when he has lost his self-esteem." Thus salvation is being saved from this loss of self-worth, "To be born again means that we must be changed from a negative to a positive self-image--from inferiority to self-esteem, from fear to love, from doubt to trust." Well, if that is the gospel, then perhaps we should see Whitney Houston as a new-gospel singer as she croons, "Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all."

Not only was Schuller wrong, he could not have been more wrong.  The central act of Christianity is the cross where Christ "made himself nothing" (NIV) or "emptied himself" (NET) as He died on the cross (Phil 2:7). The cross was not about self-esteem; it is about shame (Heb 12:2), a shame that we also bear as we follow Jesus outside the camp (Heb 13:13). We are given a new identity as children of God, and that does indeed recast how we view ourselves (1 John 3:1-3). But God calls us to "share in His holiness" (Heb 12:10), and our self-esteem often takes a beating when we see just how short of that we are able to come. Paul is not pumping us our self-esteem when he says, "What a wretched man I am!" (Rom 7:24). The fact that God loves us and that Jesus died for us and that the Spirit indwells us DESPITE our wretchedness does not change the fact that we are indeed wretched. And the greatest love of all is learning to lay down our lives for others (John 15:13, 1 John 3:16).

I really enjoy reading Experimental Theology, the blog of Dr. Richard Beck, a professor of psychology at ACU.  In his most recent blog, he dealt with the idea of self-esteem and Christianity as it relates to the second great command. "Love your neighbor as yourself." Beck suggests that as it is often taught in churches, Jesus is teaching two things here: (1) we must love ourselves and (2) we must love others as ourselves. Thus as Schuller argues (though not to the same degree), the gospel is concerned about pumping up our self-esteem as a platform for loving other. I liked the way he addressed that idea--

Actually don't think Jesus has this very recent, Western psychotherapeutic situation in mind. I don't Jesus is saying anything at all about self-esteem in the second Greatest Commandment. And it worries me a lot that churches are leading with messages of self-love. I don't think Americans need to hear a message that starts like this: "The first thing you need to do is work on loving yourself. And when you've got that down then you can turn to loving others." Because, as best I can tell, a lot of Christians are spending their whole lives just working away on the first part of that equation. Year after year American Christians are spending all their spiritual formation energy on learning to love themselves. And that seems a bit screwy. 

What I actually think Jesus is trying to say in the second Greatest Commandment is that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. As I argue in Unclean, Jesus is trying to blur the boundary between Self and Other. Jesus is trying in the second Greatest Commandment to form an identity relationship between Self and Other, to see our lives as intertwined. The hallmark of this fusion is empathy, the ability to stand in another person's shoes and ask a simple question: "If this were me, what would I want?" Basically, "love your neighbor as you love yourself" is just another version of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Click over to Experimental Theology and read his entire post; I think it will be informative. Let me sum up with how Beck sums up, "The secret, I think, isn't to try to go from a low self-esteem to a high self-esteem. The secret is to just stop playing the self-esteem game altogether. The key is to get out of your head." I like that... I'm just not very good at it.

The Ten Commandments

Message to My Devoted Fans (both of them):  I have comment moderation on the blog set so that anytime anyone comments, I get an email that allows me to allow or disallow the comment from being posted.  This is not so that I can keep disagreements to a minimum (which I'm not opposed to) but a practical necessity sense 90% of the comments I get are spam (somehow I've picked up quite a following of people selling wedding dresses!).  I noticed last week that it had been awhile since I received any requests, and sure enough GMail (by Google) decided that all notices from Blogger (by Google) is all spam.  Anyway, I'll either change the moderation settings or manually check the Blogger dashboard to approve comments.   Sorry if you thought I was ignoring you.

At present, my Sunday morning adult class is undertaking a study of the Ten Commandments and I'm also leading my Sunday night Middle School small group through the same study.  After an introductory lesson setting up the series, we're taking one of the commandment each week and  trying to unpack it for our world today.  Since Middle School students live in a different world than do their parents, the commandment unpacks a little differently.  And we're having much more fun on Sunday nights.

One of the things the kids seemed to enjoy was this video on how to learn the ten commandments in order by using your fingers.  I gave them a pretest at the beginning, and we couldn't as a group name them all in any order.  After they watched the video once, they had them nailed.  Pretty cool.

On Faith and Being Sensitive

People of faith must often navigate mine fields to live our beliefs in our progressively more and more secular culture. Just ask Dr. Richard Scott, a Cambridge-trained doctor who practices in Bethesda Medical Centre in Margate, Kent in England. He was in a consultation with a young man who was suicidal and had several medical and personal issues. At the end of that consultation, Dr. Scott suggested that he might consider faith in Jesus Christ, a faith that meant a lot to the doctor through the years. Several months later, the young man complained (actually, it was his mother who complained) to the medical authorities that his own faith (likely Islam) had been demeaned. Dr. Scott was called before a medical board hearing, and he must now defend his actions or he could lose his medical license. “A line was crossed because Dr. Scott expressed his personal religious belief to a person who he knew was a vulnerable patient in a way that was plainly liable to cause the patient distress.” Dr. Scott responded, “He had an awful lot of problems, and the thing to know, that God loves us and Jesus loves us and you can deal with stuff in the past, in terms of hurt or guilt or fear of failure, stuff you can only really find through Christianity.”

It strikes me as ironic that Dr. Scott works at a hospital named for the place in John 5 where Jesus healed an invalid, and yet just mentioning the name of Jesus in a conversation with a patient in the context of healing got him brought up on charges!  The good doctor asked the patients permission before sharing his message of faith, and he only offered it at the very end of the medical consult. Religious faith can clearly have a positive impact in dealing with medical issues (see 1, 2, 3, 4).  If that is the case, then how is it inappropriate to offer a faith-based message as a possibility to consider.  Of course, I do understand that the patient was particularly "vulnerable" because of his illness, but it was precisely that vulnerability that caused him to need something else in his life; what he had was clearly not working for him.  The problem here was not the the doctor offered some sort of extra-medical advice to this patient; the problem was that this man of science suggested that there may be something of value in the idea of God.  And those other men and women of science who make up the medical board don't want to admit that God... or at least that they aren't God.

Christians must be sensitive in bringing up the topic of faith in a world where we can no longer assume that most people have it.  There have been more than enough uninformed and insensitive proponents of faith who act like they are spoiling for a fight as they run roughshod overs in a rush to win arguments and defend positions.  But the idea that seems to have become the status quo in our multicultural word is, "It's OK to have faith as long as you don't try to share it with others."  That is impossible for Christians to accept, because one of the tenets of out faith is "Go into all the world and preach the gospel."   Sure, we have to find ways to be sensitive as we share our faith, but we MUST still share it.

Pat Robertson and Nicholas Sparks

Pat Robertson recently made headlines by suggesting that it was Biblically acceptable for the spouse of an Alzheimer’s patient to divorce them and then remarry someone else. Robertson said that he wouldn’t "put a guilt trip" on someone for divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer's disease, arguing that Alzheimer's is itself "a kind of death." So Robertson told a caller asking about struggling with the disease, “if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but to make sure she has custodial care, somebody looking after her.”

His reasoning seems to be that because the Bible teaches that widows and widowers are allowed to remarry (Rom 7:3). Alzheimer’s “is a kind of death,” so the spouse of one Alzheimer’s should also be allowed to divorce and remarry (as long as arrangements are made for a caregiver). By his reasoning, the “Christian” thing would have been for James Garner to have kicked Gena Rowlands to the curb and started dating other women, turning “The Notebook” into “The Little Black Book.” Am I the only one here who thinks that this makes Nicholas Sparks sound more Christian than Pat Robertson?

I can imagine some exasperated wife (maybe mine?) reasoning, “When my husband flops on the couch all day long on Saturday and Sunday watching college and pro football, it’s like he’s DEAD, so that means…” I do know of a Christian wife who divorced her husband because he had lusted after another woman (not sure how she knew that) and thus he had “already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:28). Everyone knows that adultery is grounds for divorce, so she got rid of her husband and felt perfectly sanctified in doing so. Pretty convenient, huh?

Pat, if you want to give people permission to white out the “in sickness and in health” clause in their marriage vows, please don’t blame that on the Bible. Every page of scripture reveals to us the faithfulness of God. The reason that God hates divorce is not simply because God wants to preserve the family as the foundation of society and a safe place in which raise children. No, God hates divorce because God is Himself faithful— His “faithfulness reaches to the skies” (Psalm 57:10). Unfaithfulness contradicts the perfect nature of our Almighty God. When we are faithful, we become participants in the divine nature of the God we serve (2 Pet 1:4). Faithfulness isn’t always easy, but it is always divine.

The Gift of Time

Shelli Eldredge was on vacation in Hawaii, touring with her husband and two sons on mopeds when a terrible accident left her in a coma. She had about fifty broken bones, including a shattered pelvis, broken spine and a crushed skull and facial bones. She was not expected to live, and one of the doctors told her husband that he should seriously consider disconnecting her from life support. She remained in a coma for weeks, and Shelli’s husband Stephen, himself a doctor, thought that it was "pretty apparent that she wasn’t going to wake up." He decided that he was not going to give up, and his "gift of time" allowed what can only be called “a miracle” to take place.

After several weeks in a coma, one of Shelli's doctors walked from one side of her bed to the other and noticed that she tracked his movement with her eyes. Later, after her husband joked with one of the doctors, Shelli laughed out loud. They were all stunned, and Stephen asked, “Shelli, did you hear that?’” She responded by raising her eyebrows. That started a process of recovery, and today, three months after the accident, Shelli is walking and talking and determined to come all the way back. Shelli, Stephen and the boys were recently on the today show telling their story to Matt Lauer.

The gift of time.  I wonder how many troubled marriages that seem to be flat-lining or limping along on life support with no hope of reconciliation could be brought back from the brink if only we would give the gift of time so that God could do His work?  How many struggling Christians who give up on their church and maybe even on God would be given new life and vitality if they just gave themselves and others the gift of more time.  Friendships, jobs, family relationships, church ministry-- sometimes what we need is to give ourselves and others the gift of time so that God can heal and restore.

13 I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. (Psalm 27:13-14)