On Prominent Church Members

There's an old joke of the successful Texas oil man who retires to his hometown in Oklahoma.  The little church there is dominated by a rich man who gives the lion's share of the contribution and who in return always seems to get his way.  Anytime anything was proposed that he didn't like, this "prominent member" would say, "Well, I've given a lot of money to this church, I and just think..."  And sure enough, he would get his way.  Finally, the old Texas oil man got tired of this routine.  Just when the man was launching his, "I've given a lot of money" speech, the oil man interrupted him and asked, "Just how much money have you given here?" The man stammered, "Why do you want to know that?"  He answered, "Cause I'm fixin' to buy you out!"  And he did!

Unfortunately, this old joke is not so far fetched.  It is common for "prominent members" of churches to believe that their prominence (money-given, services-rendered, time-spent, family connections or whatever) means they get to have their way.  They expect that their needs or opinions will always outweigh all others.  In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul seems to argue that just the opposite should be true; the parts of the body that are the weakest should be the ones of which the body should take special care—

Those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.

Paul seems to think that the “more prominent” parts of the body of Christ (whoever they may be) should go out of their way to take care of the less prominent parts (whoever they may be). Jesus has already bought us all out, and we should take care of all members of His body.

 

There is a difference between an organization and a family.  In an organization, there is a hierarchy of importance.  Those who contribute the most to the organization are valued the most.  Well, the church isn’t an organization; it is a family.  In a family, everyone is valuable just because they are part of the family.  They may not perform as vital a function in the family as another person, but they are valuable simply because they are family.  Daddy may be the breadwinner and the entire family depends directly upon him.  At the same time, Baby doesn't contribute a single function to the family... except providing constant chaos.  But who is the most important?  Well, everyone in the family is!  Pragmatically, it is Baby who will get the lion’s share of the family's attention because in a family, the one who needs the most attention is the one who gets the most attention.

 

We must make the church the kind of family where there are no prominent members or non-prominent members.  We are family, and we must not allow ourselves to order ourselves based upon the hierarchy of an organization.  We are God's family.  And thus we are of equal value to God and thus to one another.

President-Elect Obama Get's It Right

Did you catch the Barak and Michelle Obama interview last night on 60 Minutes?  Mr. and Mrs. Obama answered a variety of questions from the historical significance of his election to the family's selection of the new first dog. It was a good interview.

But it was the last question of the interview that gave me hope for our future.  Steve Kroft asked Mr. Obama, "As president of the United States, what can you do, or what do you plan to do, about getting a college football playoff for the national championship?"  His response was--

I think any sensible person would say that if you've got a bunch of teams who play throughout the season, and many of them have one loss or two losses, there's no clear decisive winner that we should be creating a playoff system. Eight teams. That would be three rounds, to determine a national champion... I don't know any serious fan of college football who has disagreed with me on this. So, I'm gonna throw my weight around a little bit. I think it's the right thing to do.

There you have it!  Our new president-elect shows that he has the intelligence and conviction to assume the role as leader of the free world.  I now wait with great anticipation for him to launch the first air strike on BCS headquarters!  

Smoke Test

I knew there was some easy way to embed a YouTube (or GodTube) video in the blog.  People not that much smarter than me have been doing all along!  So I just got the bright idea to Google "How to insert YouTube video in blogger" and got a link entitled "How to insert YouTube video in blogger."  Brilliant!  Simply Brilliant!  See yesterday's post for my "smoke test."  (That term is from my Dad's days as a typewriter and calculator repairman; if you plug the newly repaired machine in and it doesn't smoke, it's fixed!) 

Speaking of a smoke test... Jon Wilson sent me an article by Cal Thomas entitled "Religious Right RIP" from the conservative political website Townhall.com.  Thomas argues that it is time for Evangelicals to lay down the sword and pick up the cross.  Those aren't his words, but that is the gist of what he is saying.  The smoke test for advancing the kingdom of God isn't political power but living out God's power in the lives of individual believers.  Let me quote a section of the article and encourage you to read the whole thing.  Good stuff.

Too many conservative Evangelicals have put too much faith in the power of government to transform culture. The futility inherent in such misplaced faith can be demonstrated by asking these activists a simple question: Does the secular left, when it holds power, persuade conservatives to live by their standards? Of course they do not. Why, then, would conservative Evangelicals expect people who do not share their worldview and view of God to accept their beliefs when they control government?

Too many conservative Evangelicals mistake political power for influence. Politicians who struggle with imposing a moral code on themselves are unlikely to succeed in their attempts to impose it on others. What is the answer, then, for conservative Evangelicals who are rightly concerned about the corrosion of culture, the indifference to the value of human life and the living arrangements of same- and opposite-sex couples?

The answer depends on the response to another question: do conservative Evangelicals want to feel good, or do they want to adopt a strategy that actually produces results? Clearly partisan politics have not achieved their objectives. Do they think they can succeed by committing themselves to 30 more years of the same?

If results are what conservative Evangelicals want, they already have a model. It is contained in the life and commands of Jesus of Nazareth. Suppose millions of conservative Evangelicals engaged in an old and proven type of radical behavior. Suppose they followed the admonition of Jesus to "love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison and care for widows and orphans," not as ends, as so many liberals do by using government, but as a means of demonstrating God's love for the whole person in order that people might seek Him?

Through the Eyes of a Child

Someone evidently asked a Sunday School class to write letters to God.  And then someone else put some of their answers into a video on GodTube.  Warning: This pegs the cute-o-meter pretty hard!

Boy, these kids sure have goofy ideas about how God works, right?  I couldn't help but think that God thinks the same thing whenever we wax elloquwent with our best reason explanations of things like the Trinity, free-will vs sovereignity and where Cain got his wife.  "My kids sure have goofy ideas about the way We do things."   God speaks to us in the Bible in "baby talk" because that is all we can understand.  Oh, we must do our best work in trying to understand what the Bible says, but please don't think that God is somehow limited to our limited understanding of what He tells us!  Randy Harris once said, "Don't tell God what He can't do; it annoys Him." We would do well to sing with David the song of ascents in Psalm 131--

My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; 

.....I do not concern myself with great matters 

..........or things too wonderful for me. 

But I have stilled and quieted my soul; 

.....like a weaned child with its mother, 

..........like a weaned child is my soul within me. 

O Israel, put your hope in the Lord both now and forevermore.

A Death He Can Use

"It is not, of course, that we are to run out and actively seek a miserable life like Lazarus’s. Contrary to the misreading of the spiritual advice of earlier centuries (for example, the go-hunt-for-trouble interpretation of Donne’s “Be covetous of crosses, let none fall”), we are not to go searching for loathesome diseases and rotten breaks. Life in this vale of tears will provide an ungenteel sufficiency of such things... The truth, rather, is that the crosses that will inexorably come— and the death that will inevitably result from them— are, if accepted, all we need. For Jesus came to raise the dead. He did not come to reward the rewardable, improve the improvable, or correct the correctible; he came simply to be the resurrection and the life of those who will take their stand on a death he can use instead of on a life he cannot."

-- from Robert Farrar Capon in Kingdom, Grace, Judgment

Blab It and Grab It

I’m not a fan of the kind of religious yellow journalism that is constantly out to nail heretic hides to wall.  I think we have better things to do than sift through someone’s web site sermons and articles looking for heresy.  I’ve had that happen, and it can be annoying.  Anyone who preaches and teaches long enough are going to say things that are imprecise and therefore erroneous.  It isn’t helpful to root around and find those and publish them on your blog.

Saying that, I stumbled across a video on you tube of Joel Osteen's TV show.  Osteen preaches for Lakewood Church, largest church in America; his sermons are broadcast to millions each week.  Osteen is a leading advocate of the Prosperity Gospel, sometimes called “Word of Faith” or “Health and Wealth” or “Name-It-and-Claim-It” (or as someone put it, “Blab-It-and-Grab-It”).  Whoever posted the video put in their own comments, and while most are fairly accurate criticisms, they aren’t exactly done in a sweet spirit.  Watch the video and try to ignore the comments.

What Osteen says in his sermon is that Jesus died on the cross so that we could have a financially prosperous life.  He doesn’t say it quite that bluntly, but then he ALMOST says it that bluntly.  He suggests that Jesus resurrection gives us the abundant life, which is a life of total victory—

Not partial victory where we have a good family and good health but we constantly struggle in our finances.  That’s not total victory.  

The point of the death and resurrection of Jesus is financial prosperity?  Osteen says nothing about sin or forgiveness.  He talks about, well, health and wealth.  One of us is missing the point of the cross, and I don’t think its me!

Here’s my point.  I wonder how many of us act like the point of the cross is finances?  What do we focus on, spend our time on, and worry the most over?  Maybe ol’ Joel is just preaching like many of us are acting.  Maybe that's why so many people listen to him.

Election Day Eve

I’m not sure how it happened, but I have evidently recently become a Greg Boyd groupie.  I first read his book “Letters from a Skeptic,” an exchange of letters between Boyd and his unbelieving father on the nature of faith.  I then started working through his book “God of the Possible,” an introduction to “Open Theism” which argues that the future is only partly known and determined by God.  I’m about a quarter of the way through that one.  

Then I decided to preach an Election Day sermon… which wasn’t on Election Day or had much to do with the election.  I remember that Boyd had this book entitled Myth of a Christian Nation; after reading some quotations from it, I decided that I needed that book before I preached the sermon Sunday.  But I didn’t have time to order it, so I had to go to Lifeway and pay retail.  I called to reserve my copy, and when I got there I discovered they only had the hardback version, so this was really going to set me back.  As it turned out, they had it on clearance for $1.99 plus tax!  I didn’t really use it for the sermon, though I did refer to it in my Sunday night discussion.  To paraphrase Jim McQuiggen, “I think everyone should be forced to read Boyd’s book… if they want to.”

Boyd’s book is summed up by the title of the sermon that inspired it (whose title I co-opted for my discussion last night), “The Cross and the Sword.”  Boyd believes that Christians are called to be citizens of the kingdom of God who live out the sacrificial life of the cross; all governments are part of the kingdom of the sword who “lord it over” and “exercise authority” by the sword (Matt 20:25).  While civil authority is ordained by God, the kingdoms of the world are controlled by Satan (Luke 4:5-7).  The church must live out the kingdom of God on earth, and the exercise of political power is antithetical to that calling.  The subtitle of Boyd’s book is, “How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church.”  

The devil, of course, is in the details, but much of what Boyd says makes sense.  This was the best $2 bucks I’ve every spent.

I Was Just Thinking...

I was just thinking that I needed to write something in the ol' blog.  But then I was also thinking that I really didn't have anything to say... which is a definite problem when its time to blog.  Just as I was thinking that I wasn't thinking of anything to write, I got an email from Wineskins' editor Greg Taylor.  (Well, he didn't write it to me personally, but he did include me!).  As I was reading his note, I started thinking that what he said is what I am thinking too.  So here is what I am thinking today.

This week on the Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor quoted John Adams, who said, "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide."  

Are we in danger of committing democra-cide? 

Isn't it ironic that we are now trying to nurture democratic nations internationally while we rush headlong into the fire that burns with a white hot passionate hatred toward people different from us in our own nation? And we're just talking about people in different parties, to say nothing of the other racial, religious, social ways we express disunity and hatred.

How many times in the last few weeks have you uttered, "He's an idiot" or "She's an idiot" about a candidate or friend who emailed you a newly minted narrative to discredit a candidate? If we think we can barely live in a world led by the party we oppose, what does that say about our world view, what we trust in?

This week, Newsweek's Sally Quinn and Jon Meacham asked the question, "Is there a religious reason to vote for or against Obama or McCain?"

Judging from the pile of desperate emails we're getting, the answer is yes. And many on both sides of the aisle believe there are religious reasons to vote for one or the other party or candidate. 

I'm of the party of people who have grown exasperated at the notion that religion can only be expressed through one particular party. That doesn't make me a Republican or Democrat. My conservative friends think I'm a Democrat. My liberal friends probably think I'm Republican. 

My voter card still says Independent. Maybe next time I get a card, I'll ask if they can record "Christian" on my party affiliation. Because I'm a Christian who believes a particular political party or candidate is not the answer to my prayers. 

Return to Me

Researchers seem to disagree on just how common infidelity is in our culture today.  Some studies suggest that 60% of men and 40% of women will cheat on their spouses; others studies set the figures much lower, at 24% for men and 14% for women.  But even if this lower figure is accurate, that means that 30% of marriages are impacted by unfaithfulness.  And infidelity is the leading factor in between 22-29% of all divorces and only about 35% of marriages survive an infidelity.  That means that with time and work and patience, marriages can survive an affair… but they usually don’t.  (See http://www.infidelity-etc.com/index.php/4)

In Jeremiah 3 (our OT reading for today), God is portrayed as a spouse who has been wounded by Judah’s infidelity in worshipping other gods.  Like many a wandering spouse, Judah wants God to just get over the unfaithfulness, “Will you always be angry? Will your wrath continue forever?” (Jer 3:5).  Judah does not understand how deeply their infidelity hurts God, and she does not really move to change her behavior, “This is how you talk, but you do all the evil you can” (Jer 3:5b).  What God sees in her people is “the brazen look of a prostitute” (Jer 3:3).  And yet God pursues his wandering spouse, calling her to repent and return—

“If you will return, O Israel, return to me,” declares the LORD. “If you put your detestable idols out of my sight and no longer go astray, 2 and if in a truthful, just and righteous way you swear, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’ then the nations will be blessed by him and in him they will glory.” 

Jeremiah 3 begins with God asking, “If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again?”  That is the very thing that Moses divorce law forbids in Deuteronomy 24.  A man could not divorce his wife and then remarry her after she had been married to someone else.  This was to protect women from being divorced casually or on a whim “to teach them a lesson” and then taken back.  Marriage was to be forever, but then so was divorce.  And yet here, God was willing to take back his "wife" Judah after her prostitution with idols, a point God had made to an earlier generation through the life and writings of Hosea.

We need to understand how our sin hurts God.  Sin is not something that our holy God can wink at and overlook.  And yet, God in his mercy and love is always willing to take us back if we will repent.  The call of God to his rebellious people is always “return to me.”

“Would you now return to me” (3:1) 

Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord” (3:12)

“Return, faithless people for I am your husband” (3:14) 

“Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding (4:1)

Excessive Celebration

I’ve mentioned Al Maxey several times in this blog.  If you aren’t subscribed to his Reflections email, you should be.  Al occasionally makes mincemeat our of some of our Church of Christ sacred cows, and he does God’s kingdom (and especially our little corner of it) a great service in the process.  He was also the first preacher I ever heard preacher who wasn’t wearing a tie (he was in a Hawaiian shirt… he was also in Hawaii), so I liked him before he ever said anything!

In this week’s installment of Reflections, he takes to task a preacher who was taking liberal churches to task for the highly offensive practice of... applauding at baptisms.   Players in the NFL sometimes get penalized for “excessive celebration.”  To clapp and cheer when someone gives their life to Christ and has their sins washed away is excessive celebration that has no place in church!

Al points to the celebration at the homecoming of the Prodigal Son where they was music and dancing because the lost was found and the dead was alive again (Luke 15:24).  This is the joy that is expressed in heaven when the lost one comes home (Luke 15:7,10).  It is the kind of joy expressed by the Ethiopian Eunuch who “went on his way rejoicing” (Acts 8:39).  It is hard to see why expressing that joy together in the assembly would be inappropriate.  On the contrary, it is inappropriate not to express joy!

Why would anyone be so critical of spontaneous applause of approval and joy when someone is baptized?  It is basically seen as a worldly violation of worship protocol that is neither decent nor in order.  Al quotes from the preacher (named John Waddey)--

"One way to respond to those trying to justify their practice is to ask if they would applaud at their mother's funeral. If not, why? Would they have applauded at Christ's death and burial? Why not? Baptism is a symbolic re-enactment of the death and burial of Jesus Christ. Is that an appropriate time for applause?"

Waddey rightly points out that baptism is a sacred of reenactment of Jesus death and burial.  But then no one claps (in my experience) when someone goes into the water.  In our experience here at Denbigh, applause break out when the person comes UP OUT OF THE WATER! Baptism is also a picture of Jesus’ resurrection and our resurrection from sin into a new life.  So Al responds to the funeral analogy like this-- 

Waddey wondered if someone would actually dare to applaud at their mother's funeral. John, if she rose up out of that coffin ... YES, I would applaud. God help me, I might even shout and leap into the air! Should we express great joy (as do the angels in heaven) when someone arises from the watery grave? If not, why not, John?! For those who are offended and distracted by such expressions of joy over a brother brought to life, there is ample room outside the Father's house in the darkness with the elder brother! He didn't care for the celebration either!

Amen! I don’t believe that excessive celebration is one of the problems that we have in church… following baptisms or at any other time!

Letters from a Skeptic

I (finally) finished reading Greg Boyd's book "Letters from a Skeptic."  Boyd is founding senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church, an evangelical mega-church in St. Paul, MN.  Trained at Yale and Princeton, Boyd taught for years at Bethel University in St. Paul. He has written several books on theology and apologetics, but "Letters from a Skeptic" is different... and very personal.

The skeptic is Edward Boyd, Greg's father.  The book is an exchange of about 50 letters over three years discussing questions of the rationality of faith in God.  Ed Boyd begins the exchange as a hard-boiled unbeliever with serious questions about his sons faith.  Why is the world so full of suffering? How can you believe that a man rose from the dead? Why do you think the Bible is inspired? Do all non-Christians go to hell? How can I be holy and sinful at the same time?  The discussions were straightfoward and generally free from philosophical and theological jargon asa  son shares with his father why it is reasonable to believe that Christianity is true.  The book ends with Ed Boyd's acceptance of Jesus and a testimonial of the change that faith made in his life.  Click here for a local newscast that reported on the book. 

Toward the end of the book, the issue being debated stopped being the existence of God and the reliability of the Bible-- it was the church.  Or really, it was the kinds of Christians that Ed expereinced in his Catholic upbringing and on religious TV.  These believers seemed to have all the answers and all the rules; he wanted to know how he could ever be righteous on his own. 

Dad, you are perfectly correct! No one can live the Christian life! No one has, does, or ever will (this side of heaven) perfectly live the Christian life! Do you think for a moment that I'm any better at doing the "holiness routine" than you? You know me better than that! It's as impossible for me as it is for you.

But this is just the point, Dad. It is the central motive for all of Jesus' ethical teachings. We are unable to perform our way to God on our own: thus, we need a Savior!

Throughout Jesus' ministry He was confronting people who (like the Christians you've confronted) believed that they were righteous before God on the basis of how good they were. They didn't think they needed a Savior.

So how did Jesus help them? He helped them by showing them what they'd really have to be like if they were to be righteous before God without a Savior.

So, for example, the Pharisees were proud because they didn't appear as sinful as other people, but Jesus tells them they need to "be perfect, even as God is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). Good luck!

So too, some self-righteous folks were proud for never committing adultery, but Jesus (not Paul) told them "if you've lusted after a woman in your heart you've already committed adultery" (Matt. 5:27-28, my paraphrase). 

He makes His point precisely because everyone has lusted in his heart!

Then again, these religious types were very proud because they had never murdered, so Jesus told them "if you get angry or even say 'fool' in your heart towards a brother, you're already in danger of hell fire" (Matt. 5:21-22, my paraphrase). The point, Dad, is that left on our own, we are all "in danger of hell fire. "

The list of verses could go on, but the point would always be the same. If you're going to stand before God on your own basis, Dad, you have to be perfect, for God is perfect. 

Any imperfection is eternally incompatible with the character of God. Being "relatively good" just doesn't cut it. Being "sort of holy" will get no more brownie points in heaven than being a dope-addicted prostitute. One must have God's own perfect righteousness.

In the Eye of the Storm

“In the Eye of the Storm” begins with one of my all time favorite Max Lucado stories.  It concerns Chippie the parakeet and the fact that you never know what live will bring.  There was old Chippie, sitting on his swing and minding his own business when all of a sudden he was “sucked in, washed up, and blown over.”  Here’s the story--

The problems began when Chippie's owner decided to clean Chippie's cage with a vacuum cleaner. She removed the attachment from the end of the hose and stuck it in the cage. The phone rang, and she turned to pick it up. She'd barely said “hello” when “sssopp!” Chippie got sucked in.

The bird owner gasped, put down the phone, turned off the vacuum, and opened the bag. There was Chippie— still alive, but stunned.

Since the bird was covered with dust and soot, she grabbed him and raced to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and held Chippie under the running water. Then, realizing that Chippie was soaked and shivering, she did what any compassionate bird owner would do . . . she reached for the hair dryer and blasted the pet with hot air. Poor Chippie never knew what hit him.

Ever have a day like that?  You think everything is going well, the then the wheels fall off and the roof cave. And maybe you can relate to Chippy after his hard day.  His owner was asked how he was doing and replied, “Well, Chippie doesn't sing much anymore—he just sits and stares.”  

Our Old Testament reading for today is God’s promise to Israel, and to us, to be there when we are sucked in, washed up, and blown over by life.  In Isaiah 43:2-3, God says--

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; 

and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. 

When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; 

the flames will not set you ablaze. 

For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

God never promises to keep us from the storms of life, but He does promise to be with us through those storms.  He promises to restore us and life us up after the storms.  And unlike Chippy, once we are restored, we will sing to the Lord a new song (Isa 42:10-13).

The process of getting from the storm to the new song is called “faith.”

The Ultimate Sacrifice

Gayle Williams was in Afghanistan working with a interdenominational Christian aid group called SERVE (Serving Emergency Relief and Vocational Enterprise), a charity that works with handicapped Afghans.  The 34 year old British citizen was shot and killed this morning while walking to work, targeted for assassination by the Taliban.  Her crime was sharing her Christian faith with others.  

SERVE officials have denied that Williams or any of their people are actively proselytizing to the Christian faith, which is against the law in Afghanistan.  But perhaps a faith real that it drives one half-way around the world to help others in desperate need is enough to seen by the Taliban as evangelistic?  Can one give a cup of cold water be given in Jesus name without it being done in Jesus’ name?  Praise God for people like Gayle Williams; may God bless her family and friends.

What I couldn’t help but wonder is this—if the Taliban started shooting people in American for evangelizing, how many of us would be in danger?

Reflections on the Debate

I participated in a public debate in West Virginia when I was in grad school. No, I wasn’t the disputant (the one debating) or the moderator (the one officiating). I wasn’t even the time-keeper (the one, well, keeping time). I was the guy who sat up on the stage with the overhead projector flashing the slides when one or the other called out, “May I see Slide #317J please.” There were hundreds of slides, so this was actually a big job. Maybe my subsequent fascination with PowerPoint was born on that polemic platform!

The debate got pretty ugly pretty quickly. The moderators kept jumping in with “point of order” objections. The disputants constantly tried to outdo one another’s sarcasm, even to the point of drawing cartoon caricatures of each other on their slides. (Of course, the slides were flashed on the screen with a crisp and professional efficiency). At one point, the disputants called each other “the devil.” After the debate was over, both sides claimed that great victories had been won for the cause of truth. Actually, people came away from the debate having what they believed before the debate confirmed and reinforced. I remember the whole thing being rather embarrassing.

I watched part of the Obama-McCain debate last night.  So... what did we learn from the debate? McCain is feisty.  Obama is smooth?  That each of them has “a plan” to make things better.., though they are hazy on exactly what those things are.  Surely, the only people coming out of that debate with strong feelings for one candidate or another were people who had gone into the debate with those strong feelings.  

My take on the debate is summed up by this clip from Pat Paulsen and his presidential run back in 1968.  Paulsen was a comedian whose satire on the political process often hit pretty close to home.    He also perfected the ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth.  And is it just me, or did Paulson look a lot like Ron Paul... who also may still be running for president somewhere?

Columbus Day

One of the things we did during our first trip to Ukraine was to visit classes at Kiev State University and talk with the students. This was back in 1993, and most Ukrainians had never seen an American before. So the students got the chance to try out their English on Americans and ask questions about life in America. And we got the chance to do a little preaching. One of the first things they said was “So today is Columbus Day in your country; tell us about that.” Not one of us knew it was Columbus Day; we needed the Ukrainians to tell us.

I needed them yesterday. I came to work and was confused why Cathy wasn’t already here. I even went so far as to pull up the email she sent a couple of weeks ago telling me when her vacation was coming up… and it wasn’t yesterday. It was almost lunch time before it dawned on me that yesterday was Columbus Day, and Cathy is off for all federal holidays. Technically, my contract says that I am supposed to be off for federal holidays, but that does require that I remember when they are!

I did something yesterday that I used to do routinely in my youth but thought I’d never do again. I played over two hours of tennis. Singles. Three sets. And won. Now I might concede that this wasn’t at quite the same level that I played back in my Freed-Hardeman days, though I’m sure Doc Woods would probably add that I didn’t really play at that high a level back then anyway! And it sure did take me awhile to roll out of bed this morning… not to wake up, but just to roll out of bed. I thought I was going to have to take the holiday today that I forgot to take yesterday!

Thy Will Be Done

Someone sent me a transcript of a great commentary piece on faith in America given by Ben Stein on CBS.  Unfortunately like so many other things circulated on the Internet, the piece wasn't completely accurate.  Part of it was indeed commentary by Stein, part was an interview (also on CBS) with Anne Graham Lotz (Billy Graham’s daughter) just after 9-11.  The rest was just made it.  Another example of the fact that most of the stuff circulated over the Internet may have a bit of truth decay.  (Snopes.com is a great place to fact check things you receive to see if they are true.)

Saying all that, the Ben Stein article is actually pretty good, and I'll probably reprint it a little closer to Christmas… if I remember.  And the September 13, 2001 interview with Anne Graham Lotz is good too.  Jane Clayson, the CBS interviewer, asked Lotz,  “I've heard people say, those who are religious, those who are not, if God is good, how could God let this happen? To that, you say?”  Here is her reply--

I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing his hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, God, we're sorry we have treated you this way and we invite you now to come into our national life. We put our trust in you. We have our trust in God on our coins, we need to practice it.

This is a good reminder that we really can’t have it both ways.  We cannot on the one hand reject God in our private and corporate daily lives and then expect His blessings and protection in times of crisis.  God will eventually give us exactly what we want-- to be left alone.  But there are consequences. To paraphrase a line from C.S. Lewis, we can say to God “Thy will be done” or He will say to us “Thy will be done” and then leave us to our choice.

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Isaiah was on a roll this morning.  Well, I was reading him this morning; he got on his roll almost 3 millennia ago.  Writing to the Southern Kingdom of Judah, Isaiah warns against the very sins that would cause the Northern Kingdom of Israel to be destroyed by Assyria.  In fact, Isaiah’s words to Judah in Isaiah 1 sound almost identical to the condemnation Amos directs at Israel in Amos 5.  They both condemn a religiosity that focuses on ritual and ignores holiness and helping others.  Compare Isaiah 1:10-17 with Amos 5:21-27.  Both guys are using the same sermon outline here.  Both guys probably had veins bulging and spit flying as they preached it!  Get that way myself sometimes… which explains why our folks never sit on the front rows!

Unlike Amos, Isaiah turns on a dime and sounds more like Jesus in Matthew 11:28-30.  His voice and his face soften (at least in my staging of the scene) and he offers the quintessential Old Testament invitation in Isaiah 1:18—

18 “Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. 

“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; 

though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. 

There was a time when preachers went soft on the soft and gentle invitation of God.  The fear factor of hell-fire and brimstone was too useful.  You keep your people scared straight and smelling the sulfur.  Today, most of us are too soft on the brimstone and seem to portray God as a cosmic grandfather with lots of goodies and few expectations.

I think we need both pictures!  God hasn’t gone soft on His expectations; it’s still as Hebrews 10:31 suggests, “a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Isn’t Hebrews in the New Testament).  But God is the God of Calvary; the cross is His invitation of love.  He still promises “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”  This message of judgment and forgiveness are two sides of the same coin.

Aaron's Drippy Beard

There are some things that churches today seem to empahsized much more than does God.  For example, while the New Testament talks about "the assembly" of Christians, the details are never really fleshed out.  Churches today really stress the details,  hence all the drama over the "worship wars."  Think about all that has been said and written about the right style, form and format of church music when the New Testament barely has enough material on music to make a good paragraph.

On the other hand, God seems so obviously interested in some things to which the church barely gives lip-service.  How much does the Bible say about unity, peace and harmony among believers?  But we'd rather fight over church music! 

God goes to great lengths to emphasize unity.  Look at the rather unique imagery of Psalm 133 where David extols the the beauty of fellowship and unity.  He affirms that it is good and pleasant when God’s family lives together in peace and harmony.  This little Psalm is dripping (pun intended) with metaphors that emphasize this message of harmony.  There are two types of anointing here that stress the sweetness of unity:

• Anointing of the Priest.  Here the oil runs down Aaron’s beard and onto the collar his robe, joining the priest and the priestly robe are together.  Though the sweetness of the oil isn’t specifically mentioned, that seems to be the imagery here.
  
  
• Anointing of the Mountain.  Here the dew of Mt. Hermon, the highest of the mountains in Palestine and one known for its moisture, falls on (and thus anoints) little Mt. Zion, the hill upon which Jerusalem sits.  So the two mountains are joined by the anointing.
  

Maybe the focus of the Psalm is seen in the second couplet of verse 3— “For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.”  It is God who takes the initiative to make unity possible.  It is on Mt. Zion, at the Temple, in the presence of God that this blessing of unity is given.  This sweetness of harmony is not possible when based solely on human power alone.  Just think about how well people get along today in the region of Mt. Hermon and Mt. Zion!  It was God who made unity possible in Israel.  It is God who makes unity possible today.  And that is Paul’s point in Ephesians 2:17—

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.

Not only does God demand unity, He is working to bring it about in us.  If we keep ourselves close to Him, then we will also stay close to all others who are seeking Him.  When we come closer to the cross, we also come closer to each other!  That’s why unity is no optional extra for those seeking the face of God.  The closer you get to Him, the more you bump into to others seeking to get close to Him as well!

"I Saw Only the Gold"

It is one of those stories that (sadly) you see in the paper all the time.  Richard Harper was having an adulterous affair with Michelle Reynolds.  They were so deeply in “love” that they decided to kill Michelle’s husband Thad Reynolds so they coud be together.  So they did.  The 36-year-old father of four was stabled 19 times as he arrived at the Frito-Lay distribution center where he was a district manager.  There is no happily ever after for anyone in this story; both Richard Harper and Michelle Reynolds will spend the rest of their lives in prison and the Reynolds children will grow up without either parent.

What makes this story unusual is that all three were members at Hollywood Baptist Church.   Richard Harper was the associate pastor and Thad Reynolds was one of the deacons and did part-time marriage counseling.  The adulterous relationship began because of a church relationship; the murder co-conspirators and victim were all part of the same church family.  Don’t you think at some point someone might have thought, “Hey, this is wrong?”  Maybe before the adultery?  Or at least at some point during the adultery.  Or before the conspiracy?  Or maybe before the murder was actually committed?  How could these good Baptists get to the point where not only was adultery acceptable, but so was murder?  

I don’t know, but likely it was the same basic process that led the man after God’s own heart to commit adultery and murder.  David had an affair with Bathsheba and then murder her husband Uriah so that he could marry her.  Afterward, David was still pious enough to condemn the offender in Nathan’s fictitious story for “pet lamb larceny” and condemn him to death.  It wasn’t until Nathan pointed his long boney finger and said “Thou art the man” than David was knocked off his high horse and onto his knees.

I remember reading somewhere (Irving Wallace, I think) of a Chinese legend of the thief whoso dazzled by the emperor’s gold that he tried to steal it even though it was highly protected by armed guards.  The thief was easily arrested, and they asked him as he was carried off to a certain fate, “Why did you try to steal the gold when all of these guards were around?”  The man replied, “I didn’t see the guards; I saw only the gold.”

The murder of Thad Reynolds reminds us.  The sin of David and Bathsheba reminds us.  We can get so focused on getting we want that we start justifying and rationalizing until what we want to do somehow seems the thing we must do.  That can lead to things like adultery and murder.  And it can lead to a host of other sins as well.  If we are not careful, we can ignore all of God’s safeguards because all that we can see is the gold.

On Wall Street and Martians

Things aren’t looking too good for the ol'  economy right now.  First there was Congress' refusal to pass a $700 billion (that's with a “B”) bailout bill and then Wall Street plummeted in responseto their refusal .  If things keep going this way, I will OWE money to my IRA when it is time to retire!  Most pundits seem to agree that some sort of bailout bill will HAVE to be passed, but then you can see why some in Congress might want a little time to think about it beforwe stroking a check (on our account) for that amount of money.  Who knows where this will end. Surely either Obama or McCain or both will revive the Clinton mantra, “It’s the economy."  Or maybe, “It’s the stupid ecomony!”

Thomas G. Long tells a story that comes from some of the older members at the little country church here he grew up in.  The story was told and retold so many times that parts of it are bound to be apocryphal... but it is a true story nonetheless—

On certain Sunday night in October 1938, the evening prayer services were in full swing when a man named Sam charged into the prayer meeting trembling with fear and excitement. Finally gaining the breath to speak, he shouted, "Martians are attacking the earth in spaceships! Some of ‘em have already landed in New Jersey!" The preacher halted in mid-sentence; the congregation stared at Sam blankly. "I s-s-swear," he stammered, now a little unsure of his footing. "I h-h-heard it on the radio." What Sam had heard, of course, was Orson Welles’s now infamous Mercury Theater radio production of War of the Worlds, but no one in the congregation was aware of that at the moment. For all they knew, the world outside was coming to a flaming end. The little flock looked apprehensively at the preacher, but he was mute and indecisive, never having had a sermon disrupted by interplanetary invasion. Finally one of the oldest members of the congregation, a red-clay farmer of modest education, stood up, gripped the pew in front of him with his large, callused hands, and said, "I ‘speck what Sam says ain’t completely true, but if it is true, we’re in the right place here in church. Let’s go on with the meetin’." And so they did.  

Whatever may come in this life, from stock market crashes to alien invasions, we need to get a tighter grip on our faith and get on with living it.  God is God and all is well.

Rain, Rain... Don't Go Away!

About 12 hours after I finally finished several days worth of mowing (about 5 times), raking (35 bags worth) and then planting (twice for good measure) next year’s lawn, our unnamed almost-but-not-quite tropical storm blew in with a long, soaking rain.  And behold, it is good.  I have never “planned” this so well—I plant, God waters AND gives the increase!  I'm going to have fun mowing the stuff next spring!  Of course, I haven’t inspected the yard very closely yet.  I has rained so much, my grass seed may have all floated away… into Lynn's flower beds!

Even better, about 12 hours later Oregon State blew in like a tornado and rained all over USC’s BCS parade, manhandling the “best team in the country” and showing USC and the national polls for what they are—posers.  Come on, no team is really Number #1 before the season begins or less than a month into the season.  Actually, no team is Number #1 after the season unless there is a playoff to prove it.  (The Giants were supposedly the worst team in the NFL playoffs last year; that's why they play the games).  BCS = Big Contrived Show.

I didn’t stay up for the whole game last night-- that would have been way past my bedtime.  But I did enjoy the first half, listening to the rain falling outside and watching OSU blow USC away!

In the Crucible

Proverbs 17:3 says, "The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart."  Just as silver and gold are purified under intense heat, so the believer’s heart is purified by the heat of the trials which the Lord allows us at times to suffer. Peter promised his readers that they would "suffer grief in all kinds of trials"  (1 Pet 1:6).  He explains why in the next verse--

These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:7)

Hardships, difficulty and trials are the crucible which God uses to refine our faith and burn off impurities.  This trials are not themselves good, but God can use them for good as He refines our faith.  God does not always take away our sufferings because these can help us to grow in faith and character.  There we are to "consider it pure joy" (James 1:2) when these seasons of struggle come because we know that somehwere in there, God is doing His work.

In his first book, On the Anvil, Max Lucado uses a similar image as he asks us to see God as a blacksmith hard at work at his anvil.  We are the tools that are to be found in God’s blacksmith shop.

• Some tools are new and sharp and ready to be used by the blacksmith.  And there are some Christians who are mature and ready to do the Master's bidding, ready spend their lives and be spent in His service.
  
  
• Some tools are broken and no longer useful.  They are discarded in the corner, fit only for the rubbish heap.  And there are some Christians who have given up the quest to be like Jesus and have returned to the world. 
  
  
• Some tools are on the anvil, being repaired and sharpened so they can be useful again.  Most of us are on the anvil being reshaped by God.  He pounds and chisels on us so that we become more and more like Him.
  

This image is a painful one— we are on the anvil to be beaten, thrust back into the fire, beaten some more and plunged into cold water.  Some of you may feel just like that right now.  This process of growth and maturity is both necessary and painful.  But if we will just hold onto our faith, God can use our anvil experiences to create in us something strong and glorious. 

Vanity of Vanities

I’ve been hard at work the last couple of days mowing, thatching, mowing, raking, mowing... and planting grass seed in my yard.  Why?  So that I can complain about having to mow it next spring.  Why go to all the trouble to have grass so that you can cut grass.  Bob suggested on Facebook that it is sheer lunacy.  But I prefer to see myself confirming the endless and meaningless circle of life observed by the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 1:3-8

3 What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? 

4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. 

5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. 

6 The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; 

round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. 

7 All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. 

To the place the streams come from, there they return again. 

8 All things are wearisome, more than one can say. 

The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. 

The sun rises and sets only to return to the same place the next morning to begin its trek again. The wind blows one way and then the next.  I once drove past a vacant lot in Midland, Texas that was filled with old newspapers and plastic bags that hadbeen trapped by the lot’s fence.  I asked about it and was told, “That trash just blows in from Odessa.”  I asked what happens to it and was told, “Oh, it just blows back to Odessa.”  Ecclesiastes would like that.  

Ecclesiastes would also like thatching, planting, and mowing that becomes thatch that is removed again the next fall.  “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher.”  There’s no point, and that’s the point.  Actually, there is a very good point… but I’m just too beat right now to figure out what it is!

What's Wrong With the World? Amazon.com!

I ordered a couple of books just a minute ago from Amazon.com.  They were both paperback books that cost only $11 each.  It has been awhile since I ordered anything from Amazon, and I had forgotten just how easy that whole process is.  I clicked on “checkout” and the website asked me for my email.  I went to type it in, and was surprised when it already knew my email address.  (Chrome must have imported my cookies from Firefox; nice of it to do that, wasn't it?).  Then Amazon came up with a screen with all my data already there—shipping address, billing address, credit card number.  I just had to click on one confirm button and the books are in the mail.

So Amazon is what is wrong with the world today.  It is why Fannie Mae and Merrill Lynch are in such trouble.  It's why consumer debt is out of control (our national revolving credit card debt hit an all-time high in July at just under $970 billion!). OK, so it's not all Amazon's fault, bit it is WAY TOO EASY to buy stuff today!  Two clicks of the mouse and the books are in the mail.  What if I always had to go to the bank to withdraw the money and drive to the bookstore and browse the shelves, etc. Well, I probably wouldn’t buy nearly as much stuff!  And what if you added the step of having to dig up the potatoes to take to the market to sell to make the money to take to the store…  Then I wouldn’t have time to read, so I could skip the whole thing!

The upshot is that it is so easy for us to buy things that we don’t have to stop to ask whether we can afford them or really need them.  We spend money that we don’t have on stuff that we don’t need, all because it is so easy.  

One Thing Is Needed

I've been playing tennis the last several weeks. Actually, I've played tennis since picking it up in high school, and I actually played three years of intercollegiate tennis at Freed-Hardeman (though my teammates would likely disavow knowledge of me actually playing). But I hadn't touched a racket in 10-15 years until recently, some 30 years and 30 pounds past my prime. I used to be one of those defensive specialists who ran everything down and kept the ball in play. I really should have developed a backhand, because I'm not running anything these days!

Back in the day, tennis was extremely important to me. I often played 3-5 hours a day during the season. And not only did I regularly squeegee water off the court after a rain so that we could "hit tennis," I once shoveled snow off the court! I never was really all that good, but I played all the time. For awhile, college was really just an excuse to play tennis, and I didn't let classes get in the way all that much.

Tennis was once a huge priority for me, and then for years it wasn’t even on my radar screen. That is the way it is with a lot of life’s priorities. Things like buying a car, getting a house, going on that dream vacation can seem to be the most important thing (or at least the most urgent thing) in the world… until they are not. Life changes, priorities change, and all of a sudden the things that once seemed critical are all but forgotten. We can spend so much of our time today focused on things that will be forgotten tomorrow. And sometimes in the process we forget what is really important. Jesus told Martha—

You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:40-41)

It’s not that housework wasn’t important, it was just that other things were more important. Martha was so busy wioth the urgent, she almost missed the important. There is nothing wrong with getting the house straight. There is nothing wrong with a new car or house or vacation. Hey, there isn't anything wrong with tennis! But if we aren’t careful, we may spend a lot of time now on things that we will learn later aren’t really that much of a big deal.

By the way, I didn’t play much tennis my senior year. The summer before, I paid a lot of my hard earned cash to a tennis pro trying to fine-tune (or find) my game. But I lost interest in tennis that last season. Why? I found something that was more important... and married her!

Seven Years Later

Seven years ago, four hijacked jetliners crashed and our world was changed. The Twin Towers were destroyed, the Pentagon was attacked, and a third attack was thwarted and a fourth plane lost.  At the end of the day, more than 3000 innocent people were dead, and with them died the unstated but widely held view that terrorism was something that happened in the Middle East and we read about in Time or watched on CNN.

Alan Jackson's song asks, “Where were you when the world stopped turning?”  Most of us can remember exactly where we were and what we were doing that day.  That was the first day that Elaine Denman was to start a counseling ministry in our church building once a week.  We spent all morning in the teen classroom completely transfixed by the TV.  We were watching when the second plane hit and when each of the towers fell.  No work was done that day; a lot of prayers were prayed.  The world didn’t really stop turning, but it was changed forever.

The last war fought on American soil was the Civil War.  (Regardless of what my kids think of my rapidly advancing age, I don’t remember a lot about that war.).  Every war since then has been fought, to use the words of a Word War I era song-- “Over There” 

Over there, over there, send the word, send the word over there
That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming,
The drums rum-tumming ev'rywhere.
So prepare, say a pray'r, send the word, send the word to beware.
We'll be over, we're coming over, and we won't come back till it's over, over there

After September 11, war didn't seem to be just "over there."  This new kind of war fought by fundamentalist Islam against us over here.  It was a new war against a new enemy that didn’t fight fair. This was an enemy without an army, uniform or country that turned our planes into bombs and used our own freedoms toagainst us to bring their terror to our shores.  This was an enemy that seemed to be everywhere, and seemed to be nowhere.  Ironically, our response to 9-11 was to launch a "War on Terror" that has once against sent brave men and women to fight “over there.”

God still reigns over the nations.  Psalm 47:8 is just as true today as it was when the sons of Korah wrote it, “God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne.”  We live in a fallen world where the evil choices of evil people hurt the innocent.  That is not exactly a new development in the history of the world.  Jesus said to those who came to arrest him, “But this is your moment, the time when the power of darkness reigns” (Luke 22:53, NLT).  But just as Jesus looked to God in that time of darkness, so we look to God and his power today.  We pray for His peace. We pray His justice.  We pray for His will.  We pray for His mercy.  And we pray for His coming.  Peace on earth will always be the impossible dream until the Prince of Peace returns.

Who Will Survive?

A recent CNN article explores the question, “Why do some survive disasters while others do not?”  There have been stories in the news recently of people who faced catastrophe while climbing mountains, hiking in the wilderness, sailing, swimming, flying, etc.  Some are found alive after the crisis while othersare not.  Why the different outcome?  Sure the answer can be found in some combination of luck, circumstance, and answered prayer.  But the article points to the fact that those who would appear to be the best suited for survival, what the article calls “the Rambo types,” were often the first to die in these life-or-death struggles while children were the most likely to survive.  

Why is that?  According to the experts, the Rambo-type often trust themselves (their strengthor expereince) and get into trouble making foolish choices and taking foolish risks trying to save themselves.  Small children often will survive the crisis because they're humble.  They rest when they get tired and sleep in the heat of the day; they know they are too weak to try something heroic on their own.  Humility in the wilderness can keep you from trusting in yourself and waiting for others to do the rescuing.

Humility is pretty important in the wilderness of life too.  Jesus tells us, “Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Luke 18:17). A prideful insistence on doing things our own way and going in our own direction will just serve to get us more and more lost.  Pride leads us to say, “I can live my life without God.”  Pride can also say, “I already understand what God expects.”   Humility keeps looking to God in the helplessness of a child and reaching out to be blessed by him.  For such is the kingdom of God.

Strange That's It's Strange

I'm not sure what you think of the nomination of Sarah Palin as GOP VP candidate; I'm not completely sure what I think.  If the first characteristic of a good VP candidate is that they be experienced and presidential because of that "one heartbeat away" thing, then I'm not sure she was the best choice.  My initial reaction to her nomination was “Is this Dan Quayle all over again?”  But then that "experienced and presidential" thing would seem to disqualify one of the presidential nominees as well.  And Palin is the only one of the four who has executive branch experience, so there is that.  

What is beginning to irritate me us how some are beginning to question Palin because of her conservative Christian religious beliefs.  Palin has been a member of the Pentecostal church, although for the last six years she and her family have been members of an independent Bible church.  One writer seems concerned that Palin “shows a strong faith in the Bible and in prayer.” He is critical of statements she made at old her church, reminiscing about "getting saved here, getting baptized." And she had the audacity to ask the church to pray that a new proposed natural gas pipeline program ($30 billion bucks worth) was God’s will.  

The fact that people see a government leader asking for prayers before spending $30 billion as a BAD THING is hard to believe.  Are we really at the point in our country that a public official talking about getting saved and getting baptized is seen as proof that they are weird?  Both presidential candidates have gone to great lengths in interviews emphasize their religious beliefs in order to appeal to certain segments of voters.  The fact that Palin seems to taken her religious views seriously seems strange to some.  That it seems strange to them seems strange to me.

Who Goes in Your Wax Museum

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. (1 Corinthians 3:5-7)

Years ago I had lunch with a Mennonite businessman who had a dream. He wanted to build a wax museum honoring Christian leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin. He especially wanted to honor Menno Simons, the founder of the Mennonites. He even was willing to throw me a bone, "We’ll even have your guy (Alexander Campbell) in there too." I told him that I didn’t really think people would pay money see wax figures of old Christian leaders

What I could have said was that Menno Simons have most certainly NOT have liked that idea at all. Simons was former priest and Reformation leader who was very influential in the Anabaptist movement. Simons had a profound influence on many later reformers, including "our guy" Campbell. Simons wanted no honor for himself, including having his name on the title page of his books. Instead they were imprinted with "no other foundation can any man lay."

We owe a great debt to those who taught us of Christ. We all stand on the shoulders of those who went before us. I owe a tremendous spiritual debt to my parents (my primary spiritual influences), my grandmother (for all the Bible stories she read me), Bruce Jackson (my preacher while growing up), Rubel Shelly (my professor in college). And there have been many others.

It is proper for me to respect and to honor them... and to be thankful for their influence in my life. But my only allegiance is to Christ. Respect and honor for our teachers can come to compete with that for Christ Himself. Respecting our teachers can lead us to put them on pedestal... or in a wax museum. We can name our churches after them, dogmatize their doctrines and refuse to go beyond their conclusions and practices.

Maybe ol’ Menno Simons was onto something when he imprinted his books, not with his own name, but rather deflected all attention back to Christ. We indeed stand on the shoulders of those who went before us. But we do our spiritual forebears a great disservice if we point to them rather than to Christ.

On Duty and Beyond

I went through the some of the typical teen rebellion stuff when I went off to college. OK, maybe it wasn't typical college rebellion; after all, I went to Freed-Hardeman. My rebellion was that I decided that I wasn't going to go to church on Sunday Wednesday night. I went to chapel every day and that was enough! After all, how much religious suffering was a person required to endure in a week? I would go on Sunday morning because that was required (because of communion), but the other stuff was optional and I was going to opt out. Besides, Charlie's Angels came on during one of those times.

Well, my rebel-without-a-cause phase lasted about two weeks. I had been raised to go to church and I felt horribly guilty not going. I mentioned in a previous post that my Grandmother had a this quaint way of referring to someone who wasn't going to church; she called them "out of duty." She referred to a relative and said, "They are out of duty." I said, "Ohhh..." I had to find out later what that meant. The way she said it sound like they had some dreadful disease. But that is how I felt after my two-week rebellion against going to church, so I went back. Out of duty.

I'm glad I wised up and went to church. I'm also glad that at some point I came to see that worship is about much more than duty. In that previous post I mentioned, I wrote this--

Worship isn't about performing proscribed acts in precise ways; it is about coming into the presence of God in the presence of other worshippers. Church isn't about running the doctrine up the flag pole to salute it and feel holy in the process; it is about falling at the feet of the Crucified One who makes us holy. Church isn't fulfilling a spiritual obligation; it is a precious gift that God gives us to prepare us for our true spiritual duty-- living our lives to His glory. In worship, we come before God to be uplifted, challenged, loved and rebuked... all at the same time. In worship, we draw near to God as God draws near to us. In worship, the real world of the Spirit breaks into our world and draws into the presence of the Almighty.

Is worship a duty? No, not in the sense of membership requirement or grudging obligation. Worship is what happens when people see God. In scripture, when people realize in some way that they are in the presence of the divine, they worship. Moses taking off his sandals. Peter falling down in a boat load of fish. John falling at the feet of the angel who in turn told him to "Worship God!" Worship is a gift that God gives us; ultimately, it is the gift of Himself. The psalms in our reading for today begin with a call to worship--

1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
3 For the Lord is the great God,the great King above all gods. (Psalm 95)

1 Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing to the Lord, praise his name;proclaim his salvation day after day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,his marvelous deeds among all peoples.
4 For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. (Psalm 96)

What is it that church is for us? Do we sing for joy to the Lord and shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation? Will we declare His glory among the nations? Or do we just show up to do our duty?

Around the World in 180 Days

Tuesday, September 2, a day that will live in infamy. OK, maybe that is a little over dramatic for the first day of school. But when you are married to a school teacher, the difference between the last day of summer break and the first day of school is the difference between the alarm clock going off at 4:45 and not going off at all. This morning, Lynn turned off the alarm clock and gave a little sigh... or was it a groan. At least I didn't have to pull her out of bed kicking and screaming like I used to do with the girls. She did point out yesterday that there are only 180 school days left before summer break next year!

This is the day that the Lord has made... even when it is the first day of school. May God bless this year of possibilities and opportunities for all our students and teachers. I know that sanctioned prayer is no longer allowed in public school; I also know that many of our teachers and students would not want to face school without it. Quoting from a back to school prayer guide for a private Methodist School--

Loving God, sometimes a new school year seems exciting or scary or both. Sometimes school is great, and sometimes it is hard. But we know that whether we are excited or scared, you are with us. We know that whether school is great or hard, you are with us. We thank you for always being with us. Help us to remember to show our thanks for your gift of learning by
doing our best every day.

When Your Bridges Collapse

The I-35W bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed during the evening rush hour on August 1, 2007, falling into the river and onto its banks, killing 13 people and injuring about 100 more. No smoking gun has ever found that identifies the precise cause of the collapse, though a design flaw was uncovered that may have contributed to it.

Yesterday, Mike Cope gave links on his blog to two articles that were written shortly after the tragedy by well-known Minneapolis preachers. One of them (John Piper) is writing from a Calvinistic perspective; the other (Greg Boyd) writes from a non-Calvinist position (and directly addresses Piper's position).

The two articles are helpful in struggling with tragedy and our broken world. Like Cope, I "continue to be puzzled with how one squares Calvinism with the apparent open-endedness of the world." I like the way that Boyd ends his article--

I suggest it’s far more biblical, and far more rational, to simply say that in a fallen, oppressed world, bridges sometimes collapse — and leave it at that. Rather than trying to see the vindictive hand of God behind catastrophes, it’s wiser to simply acknowledge that the world is an oppressed place where things sometimes go tragically wrong and focus all of our mental and physical energy turning from our self-centered ways to carry out God’s will “on earth as it is in heaven.”

Through the Eyes of Worship

John Bunyan's famous allegory, Pilgrim's Progress, tells of the journey of a disciple named Christian to a place called Celestial City. In the course of the pilgrimage, Christian stops at Interpreter's house. He was not allowed to continue his journey until he visited a dark room where a man sat in an iron cage. Christian said to him, "What art thou?" The man answered, "I am what I was not once... I am now a man of despair and I am shut up in it, as in this iron cage. I cannot get out." The man had once been a disciple himself bound for Celestial City just like Christian. But now he was hopelessly engulfed in the imprisonment of despair and doubt and a shaken faith.

The despair of the caged man trapped by his own shaken faith has been shared by many people. H. G. Wells, once described God as "an ever absent help in time of trouble." Have you ever felt that way? Asaph in Psalm 73 (my OT reading for today) seems to have felt precisely that way. What Asaph sees in the world does not correspond with what his faith proclaimed. Faith said that God was good to Israel and to those who are pure in heart. But what Asaph saw around him was the prosperity of the wicked. He sums up the plight of the wicked in verse 12, “This is what the wicked are like-- always carefree, they increase in wealth.” As he is struggling with this view of the world, he gets another perspective. As he enters the sanctuary of God, everything comes into clear focus (Psalm 73:16-17).

16 When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me
17 till I entered the sanctuary of God;then I understood their final destiny.

As long as Asaph remained isolated from the people of God, from the community of faith, then he struggled with his doubt. But when he goes back to the sanctuary, when he reenters the community of believers, then his faith is renewed and refreshed. It is when he finds himself amid God's people that he begins to see God clearly once again. His faith in God is restored as his participation in worship with the community is restored.

Within the house of God that Asaph gets a whole new perspective of the wicked. He begins to see their prosperity as a house of cards, vulnerable to every wind of chance and fate (73:18-20). This new assessment led to the strong conviction that God does not forsake His own! God is present in the valley of darkness, even in the valley of the shadow of death. He offers comfort in times of distress, counsel in times of perplexity, and strength in times of weakness. So the psalm that began as a bitter cry of disillusionment and lost faith ends with one of the strongest statements of faith and confidence that we find in scripture (Psalm 73:25-28)

25 Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
27 Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
28 But as for me, it is good to be near God.I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.

That sounds like a different man than the one at the beginning of the psalm. In some ways he is different. He is know looking through the eyes of worship.

One of the purposes of worship is to reorient our view of the world around us. It is easy for us to see a world of injustice and randomness. Our word can look for all the world like a place that is out of control. But we get a different perspective when we enter the sanctuary of God and bow before the one on the throne. Worship reminds us of who is sovereign; worship reminds us of who reigns. We need to see that daily, and each week we need a time where we can see that together. The world is a different place when it is viewed through the eyes of worship from the sanctuary of God.

A Child Shall Lead Them

Two weeks ago, Bob made a plea on behalf of Camp Idlewild. Somehow, Bob and I were talked into joining the board of directors for the camp (how did that happen?). One of benefits of this august position is inside knowledge of the financial condition of the camp. Put it this way-- if we were talking medical condition, someone would be reaching for the paddles and epinephrine! Somehow the camp spend several thousand more than it took in this year... and there are unpaid bills that are expecting our immediate attention. We had just had a board meeting the day before, and this was on Bob's mind-- so he shared it with the church. Several people tok the need to heart and made contributions to the camp that day.

Last Sunday, Chris Moore told me that his daughter Ashlyn had been so moved by the camp's need that she had wanted to give her savings to camp (her brother C.J. wanted to do the same thing). Ashlyn and C.J. went to camp for the first time this summer (Ashlyn during the half-week and C.J. with us during Middle School week). They loved it and wanted camp to be there next year-- and they were willing to put their treasure where their heart was (didn't Jesus say something about that?) So during the announcements, Ashlyn, C.J and their mother Kristin came forward and presented me with a check. And Ashlyn wanted to say a few words, so I gave her the mic. Little Ashlyn made this impashioned plea for people to "help the camp so that the camp can help the children." Oh, my! It was cute and convincing. Then after church, Ashlyn planted herself with a bucket by the door with a sign saying, "Help Camp Idlewild." She did the same thing yesterday. Over the last two weeks, Ashlyn helped raise over $2500 for the camp! WOW!

Ashlyn is too young to know (or care) that "we have never done it that way before," allowing children to raise funds in church for a good cause in church. No, she was convicted there was a need, and she had a voice. God can do powerful things through us when we combine our conviction with our voice.

The Cattle on a Thousand Hills

I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. (Psalm 50:9-10)

Israel had this recurring, basic flaw in their worship in the Old Testament. It may be the same basic flaw we have in our worship today. Sometimes they worshiped the wrong gods (a flaw our culture shares), but that isn't the flaw I'm talking about. The flaw was that They misunderstood WHY it was they were to worship God. They thought that worship somehow gave God something that God needed, and thus they were doing God something of a service in worship. (Is this why we call our worship time "the service?") In the Babylonian flood myth The Epic of Gilgamesh, the gods rush to devour the sacrifices offered after the great flood because they were starving. Without humans around to offer sacrifices, the gods had nothing to eat! Evidently, there was some of that thinking going on in Israel.

In Psalm 50, the psalmist Asaph dramatically makes the point that worship does not give God anything. We don’t supply something that is lacking in God when we give acceptable worship. Asaph drives home that point in three ways--

• Everything Israel could give already belonged to God (9-11)
• If God were truly hungry, He would not tell them (12)
• God didn't need their sacrifices or anything else (13)

Israel was like the child who gets Daddy something for Christmas. Whatever the child gives already belongs to the father. If Daddy really needed anything, he would just get it himself; he would not tell the child. But it is important for the child to give Daddy the gift because that teaches the child something important about giving. So the child benefits from giving and the Father takes pleasure in the gift. That is the point of Israel's worship and of our worship today. God demands Israel to continue to give their gifts (50:14-15).

Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”

Like the child who gives Daddy a tie on Christmas morning, the gift of worship shows our love for our Father and deepens the relationship we enjoy with Him. God does not benefit from our worship; we do. And ultimately the gift we receive is the gift of God himself. The Psalm concludes in verse 23--

He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God.

Our sacrifice of worship gives God nothing, but it gives us something crucial. Our gift of worship allows us to better know God, and He takes pleasure in our feeble offering. And that opens the way for us to better see the salvation of God.

Resting Our Weight

1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2).

I read somewhere about a scholar who was translating the Bible into the language of a South Seas island tribe. He ran into a brick wall when he discovered that this language had no word for “trust” or “faith.” Translating the Bible is always difficult, but what do you do when there is no word for faith? One day one of the natives came running into his house, plopped himself in a chair and said, “It's good to rest my weight.” A light bulb went on; that was the word! He translated the Bible word “faith” in God as “resting you weight” on God.” Faith rests itself in God, it changes our way of looking at life.

We will never have peace with God through our own ability to either figure out all the rules or keep all the rules. If we really believe that to please God we must be able to sift through all the Bible as if it were a codebook, figure out all the of its hidden messages and rules, and then keep all of those rules perfectly-- well, that is a recipe for constant conflict. Despite our best intentions, such an approach is destined to bring conflict within ourselves and with others. Such an approach rests our weight on ourselves-- on our intelligence and ability. We simply can't bear up under that kind of weight.

Peace with God comes when we rest our weight on God-- on his wisdom and on his accomplishments. That is the message of the cross. We are saved through what Jesus did for us there... and ONLY because of what Jesus did for us there. The cross is the only structure in the universe that is sturdy enough to hold us under the weight of our sin. That is why Paul refused to boast in any of his many accomplishments. They all paled before the glory of the cross.

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)

Ahoy, Ye Crews!

Our 2008 Vacation Bible School is in the books. For the last several years, it has felt that VBS has been our final act of summer, at least as a church. Once we get through VBS, then the summer with all of its busyness (and people gone on vacations) is bascially over. This year we had Upwards soccer and cheer camp in June, Idlewild Christian Camp (33 of us participated in that) in July, our Mexico mission trip and then finally VBS in August. Whew! The old boring routine looks pretty good right now!

We had about 85 kids ages 2 through 5th grade, most of them not from our church, attend our VBS. The theme this year was from the Veggie Tale movie "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything." The theme verse was Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ, because he gives me strength" (NCV). In Veggie Tale speak, the message is that God can make all of us heroes through the strength of Jesus." The theme song, which we song over and over, was "Calling All Heroes."

We had a great group of adults leading the various activities, some serving for the very first time. Nathan Tanner did an outstanding job as "The Commodore" keeping the kids pumped up. The hard part was getting him to come out of character! Each year I am amazed at how my quiet little wife transforms into such an animated actress when she is teaching Bible lesson. The crafts, snacks and a science lab with experiments all reinforced the Bible lesson.

To tell you the truth, I really wasn't expecting too much from VBS this year; it didn't seem like we were stressing it as much as in the past (but we had so much else going on). Oh, me of little faith! It was great to see all the kids and all the enthusiasm. Some of these kids started with us as preschoolers and now are ready to "graduate" (to Middle School) and were talking about coming back next year as helpers. What even more surprising... Josh and Sylvia were talking Friday night about what we would do next year!