Does God Want Us to Be Astronauts?

There was a story in the news last week of a church in Tennessee that forced out of its fellowship a family who had “supported” their police officer daughter's lawsuit against the city seeking to get insurance coverage and survivor benefits for her “wife” (they had been married in Maryland). Because her parents attended the legal proceedings with their lesbian daughter, that was seen as “supporting” their daughters sinful lifestyle. The family was given the choice repenting publicly of the sin, leaving the church or being disfellowshipped. I realize that the secular press often is less than accurate when dealing with religious issues, but this story was reported in Christian Chronicle. I also realize that this must have been a very hard thing for everyone involved— the family, the church elders and the church itself. Our postmodern, post-Christian world will make these kinds of cases more common and these kinds of decisions more difficult. We want to be loyal to God, we want to love other people, and we want have a witness to the world. Sometimes it very difficult to do all these things at the same time.

 We live in a diverse, multicultural world that doesn't accept the Bible either as God's word or as moral authority for our lives. What that means is that there are any number of things that are legal in our country but immoral for Christians. We expect that to be the case, don't we? In the Bible, all sexual activity outside marriage (premarital and extramarital) is sinful. Divorce for any reason other than the sexual unfaithfulness of one's spouse is called "adultery" by Jesus Himself. Yet, there is no movement among Christians (at least none that I know about) to make premarital sex, adultery or divorce on grounds other than adultery illegal. Why not? These things are wrong if you accept the Bible, right? But then not everyone accepts the Bible, many who do accept it have wrong-headed notions about what it means ("wrong-headed" in this context means, of course, different from what I think it means).

So is homosexuality really that different? Suppose for the sake of argument that I believe that homosexual practice is sinful and that thus homosexual marriage is outside God’s desire for us. (That should be easy to imagine; it's what I believe). Does that mean I must also believe that homosexual marriage has to be illegal? Must I also believe that homosexual couples must therefore be denied legal rights like survivor benefits or insurance coverage? And must anyone who advocates survivor benefits or insurance coverage for gay couples be seen as supporting a sinful lifestyle and kicked out of the church? Someone might suggest, “But homosexual marriage is an affront and a threat to marriage as God intended it.” But cohabitation without marriage and divorce for reasons other than adultery are a much bigger threats and affronts to marriage, but no one is disfellowshipped because they hang around family members who happen to be in those situations.  And no one demands that they be illegal!

Just because something is sinful doesn't mean it must be illegal. Christians are called to a higher standard than the world, but we are not called to either judge the world or disassociate ourselves from the people in it (1 Cor 5:9-12). Paul says here that we'd have to leave the world (i.e. become astronauts) to totally remove ourselves from sinful people and their sinful choices. But it is before those people and this world that we are called to shine God’s light. If you start kicking people out of church because they hang around sinful people, the first person who will have to go is Jesus!

When All Is Said and Done...

What do Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, Steve Jobs' “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” Stanford commencement speech and Winston Churchill's "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" speech all have in common? They were all delivered in less than 18 minutes! In fact, the Gettysburg Address took just over 2 minutes to deliver! Speeches that have lasting impact don't have to last forever to get the point across. Or as someone put it, "If you don’t strike oil in 18 minutes, stop boring." Notice these three simple factoids...

• Fact One: The greatest sermon ever preached (The Sermon on the Mount) takes about 12 minutes 30 seconds to read out loud (or about 8 minutes if you talk like I do).
  
• Fact Two: The average sermon today (according to one estimate) is about 45 minutes long.
  
• Fact Three: The average preacher takes 3-4 times as long to preach as did Jesus himself. 

So if you can't strike oil in 18 minutes... An article in Christian Post suggests that preachers might ought to keep their sermons to below that 18-minute mark. Andy Stanley's book Communicating for a Change which suggests "every sermon should have one main idea" and that "many pastors are guilty of trying to fulfill the 40-45 minute sermon expectation by filling their sermons with content not essential to the topic." Well, having something to say and having to say something are two entirely different things.  Having to fill time because you are expected to fill time is never helpful.  But only 18 minutes?

I had a friend who quoted am older preacher as saying, “Sermonettes are for preacherettes.” To preach a sermon shorter than 45 minutes somehow shows a lack of seriousness or maturity or creativity. I wonder if this paraphrase from the Sermon on the Mount is too much off the mark—

And when you preach, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. (Matt 6:7, sort of) 

General attention span and audience expectation will vary from place to place. Paul evidently out-preached one brother’s attention span, and when he fell asleep and fell out a window, Paul revived him and went on with the revival!  Someone has observed that “When all is said and done, there is a lot more that is said than is done." That's really the point isn't it, not how long we preach or don't preach.  It is a lot easier to talk about discipleship than it is to live as disciples. Maybe in church and in our lives we need to say less and do more?

So how long are my sermons?  Well, Steve Job’s speech at Stanford was about 14 minutes; Churchill's greatest speech was about 12 minutes. My sermons usually combine a Jobs and a Churchill.

Faithfulness in Real Life

Tuesday morning at 11:00 a.m. at our building we will say our final good-bye and pay our last respects to our sister May Rhodes. May passed away last week after a valiant battle against a host of health issues. May is an great example of someone who refused to let her struggles get the best of her, an example of faithfulness in real life.

Life was not easy for May when she was a girl or a young woman. If she ever shared her story with you, you'll know that this is a tremendous understatement. And in recent years, May's multiple health issues have been a constant and continual struggle for her. And yet, every Sunday that May could possibly and physically be here, she was right here at church, wearing her trademark hat and giving her trademark answer, “I’m doing all right.”

 At May’s side for the last 41 years were husband Gene, also an examples of faithfulness in real life. I don’t know how one holds down a full-time job and then also serves as a full-time care-giver and encourager, but Gene did. He was always here with May and always has a smile on his face, even if sometimes that smile was one of sheer exhaustion. One of the lines from the traditional marriage vows pledges faithfulness “in sickness and in health.” Gene was a man who took that promise seriously and thus provides the rest of us an example of what faithfulness looks like in real life.

How many people use problems in their past or our struggles in their present as excuses to give up on living life with joy and faith that God will make every all right? How many husbands and wives give up on their marriages because of problems and issues that really don’t look all that great when compared to those May and Gene faced every day? Faithfulness in real life is keeping your focus on God and your commitments to one another as you just put one foot in front of the other day after day. Sometimes life doesn't come easily, but God is always good. Thanks May and Gene for showing us what faithfulness looks like in real life. And may God's richest blessings be on the entire family during this difficult time.