This Present Economic Darkness

According to an article on CNNMoney, what is killing our economy is people saving too much. All you selfish people hording all your cash rather than rushing out to spend it on cars, houses and plasma TV— well, you are just being un-American! Understand that the “savings rate” is calculated by totaling up after-tax income and then subtracting spending. That means you are using your money to pay down debt, that is considered savings (which makes sense). According to some experts, that is what is wrong with our country!

CNN quoted economist Mark Zandi as saying that the jump in the savings rate since last summer is “the difference between an economy that is growing and one that is struggling mightily.” So if you really want to help the country, then get back out there and “spend money that you don’t have on things you don’t need for people who already have everything” to borrow a really good line from Tony Campolo.

What the article didn’t discuss was how it was spending money we didn't have to buy things we couldn't afford was basically how we got into this present economic darkness in the first place! And the economic stimulus plan that everyone seems to believe we need (and can’t agree on what it should look like) is basically spending money we don’t have in an effort to get us out of this mess.

I don’t pretend to understand the economic crisis, but I do believe that spending money that you don’t have is not a good idea. Paul says, “Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along” (Romans 13:8, The Message). Paul isn’t saying that we are never to responsibly use credit. (If we are never to owe anything, then a mortgage is sinful and the only people buying house would be drug lords). Paul is not against all debt.  But Paul is against our American tradition of wanting stuff so badly that we can’t wait until we can afford it. The person who is truly content will never incur debt trying to get more and more stuff (see Philippians 4:12-13).

What is the way out of this present economic crisis? Start with prayer. Then resolve to do a better job living within your means. And finally give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! We need to realize that most people in the world would love to have our economic woes!  Even at its worst, our standard of living is much better than most people in the world will ever experience!  Maybe we need to think about that a bit more!

Baptism and Understanding

We have just finished studying baptism in our Sunday morning class. With some of that discussion still fresh on my mind, I ran across the follow from Patrick Mead. Patrick's blog is entitled Tentpegs where he answers questions that his readers send him. (I might try that... if I ever get readers.) I thought he handled the question pretty well. Of course, I find myself more in agreement with what other people write when I have no time to write something of my own! Hey, my blog is both good and original. Today it is good; tomorrow I might try to write something original!

I’ve recently had someone tell me that one must understand certain things about baptism to be baptized. I’ve always felt the strongest argument is that we follow Christ, He was baptized, it makes logical sense for us to follow him in baptism. I’ve heard a lot of things that make me think people believe that being baptized except for certain specifications makes it invalid. Is there a question in there? Yes!! You being much smarter than I can sleuth it out right? My question is this: how does one know if one’s own baptism is valid. If someone tells me they’ve been baptized is it my job to question them further?

We’ve answered this question before, but we’ve been doing this so long that it is inevitable that some repetitions will come along. I come across people who question their baptism from time to time. The outward form was good and right but they are afraid they “didn’t know what I was doing” and, therefore, God considers their baptism invalid. It needs to be firmly stressed that that is not a biblical way to view baptism.

Baptism isn’t based on our knowledge, but on our heart. Simply put, your baptism is valid if you wanted to belong to Jesus forever, realized that you needed a Savior, and were declaring your allegiance to Him. There is no need to search for a magic formula (some fear their baptism was invalid because someone didn’t say “for the forgiveness of sins”) and there are no set words that have to be said. Before you write in saying “what about ‘in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’?” let me remind you: to do something in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit doesn’t require their names to be mentioned. You are acting by their authority. I greatly prefer mentioning their names and encourage others to do so but we cannot afford to be dogmatic about this. If I were a police officer and knocked on your door with a warrant in my hand, I would not be likely to say “open up in the name of the law.” I COULD if I wanted to because I am acting in behalf of the legal system, but the possession of the warrant, badge, and gun is sufficient to show in whose interests I am acting.

I would add to the above two more things that must be present: a lot of water and an adult. There is no biblical warrant for the baptism of children or for replacing immersion with sprinkling, pouring, etc. Baptism is a very important part of the Christian walk; a walk that begins with sacrifice and the sign of burial and resurrection — baptism.

To recap: if you were old enough to know what was going on, and if you were desirous of walking with Jesus forever, stepping into line as one of his disciples, and if you knew you needed forgiveness and a Savior, and then you were immersed in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… your baptism is valid. Your knowledge base doesn’t have to be very wide at all. It is a question of God acting on His promise when He sees your heart. I believe He keeps His promises, including those to save imperfect (in morality and knowledge) people like us.

The Road to Cana

Did Jesus ever have a crush on any of the pretty, young maidens in Nazareth? Was his heart ever stirred by romantic love? Was Jesus ever tempted to fall in love, have a family and live a normal life? That was basically the idea behind the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis entitled The Last Temptation of Christ, made into a movie by Martin Scorsese in 1988. The Jesus of Last Temptation was one filled with self-doubts, fears and depression about his identity and mission. The last temptation was rejecting his mission and living a normal life, settling down with (who else) Mary Magdalene. The problem with Last Temptation is not that Jesus was tempted by love, sex and marriage; the problem was that the Jesus Kazantzakis and Scorsese envisioned had no real awareness of himself as Christ the Lord.

So... What if Jesus grew up with his heart in a tug-of-war with the prettiest girl in Nazareth (let’s call her Avigail)? What if thoughts of her torment his dreams? What if he was the only man his age in Nazareth that wasn’t married with a family? What if his unmarried status caused gossip about his dealings with women... and men? What if the pull of love and family was not the last temptation of Christ, but the last temptation before he began his ministry? And what if the woman that was married at the wedding feast of Cana was the girl Jesus had to give up in order to begin his public ministry? And what if Mary pressures Jesus to turn the water into wine because their family was responsible for part of the wedding arrangements?

Now THAT would make a good book! I know, because I just read Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. And it was a very good book! Anne Rice is famous to most people for books like Interview with a Vampire. After years in the wilderness (her memoir is Called Out of Darkness), Rice came back to faith and has dedicated her career to Jesus. Her Christ the Lord series tells the story of Jesus from his first person perspective. The first book is narrated by a 7-year old Jesus just returning to Nazareth after leaving Egypt (see Christ the Lord).

One reviewer says about Rice’s two books (thus far) in the Christ the Lord series, “These two books are to all other Jesus fiction what “The Passion of the Christ” is to all other Jesus movies.” I didn’t know “Jesus fiction” was a literary genre, but these are two very good books. Yes, they are fictionalized. If you want to write about Jesus at age 7, then you have to make stuff up! These books both caused me to stop and think about some of my assumptions about Jesus. Any time an author gets people doing that, it is a good thing.

Super Bowl Sunday

For the second year in a row, the Super Bowl provided our church Super Bowl party with a very exciting game and a heart-stopping finish. This time, it was the WRONG finish, but it was exciting. The game was so good that it was hard to find the time to run back to the food table to replenish supplies (of course, I found the time).

We were on pins and needles through the first half of the game, and not because of the game. We had a camera crew and reporter from WAVY TV-10 here filming us watching the game! The hook was the Steelers’ coach Mike Tomlin went to high school next door at Denbigh High, so we were there all pulling for the home boy. Actually, the reporter thought that Tomlin had gone to church here, which (to my knowledge) he hadn’t. Any way, we got some press out of the deal. They left after the first half... right before our devotional time. They missed the best part!

Our devotional at halftime talked about serving God and giving Him glory no matter where we are or what we are doing. Kurt Warner, Ben Roethlisberger, Troy Polamalu and many other players talked about God in their pre-and-post-game comments. We need to know that God is with us at our work even if we aren't NFL players and our job happens to be the Super Bowl. Maybe that was what we should have gotten our of the camera crew... people watch us whatever we are doing all the time and we either bring God glory or we don’t.

BTW, for the second year in a row, Tressa was there at the big game. Actually, she wasn’t at the game this year. She was there with Courtney for all the gala, pageantry and parties before and after the game. I gotta talk to that girl about her priorities.

Our Holy God

I was skimming through an old book by Jim McGuiggen entitled The God of the Towel looking for a quote that I just knew was there. It evidently wasn’t there, but I got wrapped up in reading this wonderful book. I think everyone should be forced to read Jim McGuiggen… if they want to. (A little McGuiggenism there). I didn't find the quote I was looking for (that's OK, I'll make one up), but I did run across the following--

Can you imagine what a horror it would be to have a God who was not holy, who was not opposed to unrighteousness and uncleanness. Now that he has taught us and shown us what goodness is, wouldn’t it be horrific beyond speech to discover he cared nothing for kindness, compassion, uprightness, purity, generosity, and justice? But this is an ethical God who can be depended upon to make righteous judgments.

God can be trusted because he is always consistently against sin. A God who was not holy and not opposed to sin would be a tyrant who randomly imposed his law and power over us.  Earlier in the book, McGuiggen says, “A love that isn't holy can't be trusted, and a love that finds no offense in corruption and cruelty isn't holy.” We can trust the love of God because God can be trusted to be against sin. And if God is against sin, that means that he must be against MY sin.

The last thing that we we would want is a God who just overlooks sin.  If God can just ignore my sin, then he can just ignore your sin against me.  Or ignore the holocaust.  Or ignore all the sin in the universe.  But praise be to God that his perfect love and his perfect holiness meet at the cross where he both judges our sin and offers us mercy and grace. That is the only hope for mankind.

Identity Crisis

I got a call yesterday at lunch from one of our local funeral homes.  Lynn (home for a rare lunch together) took the call, handed me the phone, and then went back to work.  I only found out that night when we compared notes that the funeral home director (who has the same name as my grandmother) had begun the conversation, "Is your husband aware that one of his parishioners died today?"  Yikes! 

What she said when I took the phone was that a man who was not part of my church had been by last week to speak with me about his wife's impending death and funeral arrangements.  Well, I was fairly certain that I hadn't spoken to anyone like that (but with my memory, I wasn't totally sure).  What I thought was that Roger had talked with him and made arrangements to do the funeral.  Roger is always looking for ways to be able to preach more, so just I thought he had made the arrangements.  But that turned out not to be the case, so the whole thing remained a mystery.  I had told the funeral home I would be happy to help in anyway I could.

Later, she emailed me the obituary that would run in the newspaper the next day. and sure enough it listed "The Rev. Charles Tucker" as officiating at the funeral service Friday.  It finally dawned on me what was happening.  The obit said that the deceased was a member of Faith Presbyterian Church on Harpersville Road in Newport News.  So what didn't they ask her own preacher to do the funeral?  They had.  His name is Rev. Charles Tucker.  Someone had seen his name on their sign not long ago and had accused me of moonlighting as a Presbyterian.  I don't know how they funeral home got my home number, but they thought they had been talking to the other Charles Tucker the whole time.  I guess they wondered why I appeared to not know what was going on (Of course, I get that a lot!)  At any rate, I don't have a funeral this Friday.  More importantly, it is not the case that one of my church members died yesterday. 

Voted Off the Island

The church office just got a new copy of Churches of Christ in the United States. This is the “directory” of our churches listing contact information (address, phone numbers, email). This data was compiled first in the 1970’s by Mac Lynn of Harding Grad and then Lipscomb. The task was taken over some time ago by 21st Century Christian. We buy a copy ever several years so that people who are travelling or moving to an area can have a start on finding a church with which to worship. The directory really has been helpful at times. 

Where the book is NOT so helpful when it tries to decide who is a real Church of Christ. In the 2009 edition, the largest congregation among us is listed as having 2667 members. In the 2006 edition, our largest church had 6414 members? How did our largest church manage to loose over 4000 members? That’s easy-- they were removed from the book. The Richland Hills Church of Christ started offering an instrumental Sunday morning service (at 11:30 a.m.) in addition to its a cappella worship service (at 9:00 a.m.) Because they offer this instrumental service, they are were “booted off the island” (to quote Mike Cope). There aren't in the book.  They didn’t ask to be removed; they didn't want to be removed. They still very much consider themselves part of our fellowship. But “if the trumpet does not sound a clear call…” If you are traveling to Fort Worth, you won't find Richland Hills listed in the book anywhere.   I envision the opening scene of the old Chuck Connors TV show “Branded” where they rip the stripes off his uniform and break his sword as the theme song plays “What do you do when you’re branded…”

You can read more about this at the Christian Chronicle site.  Ironically, the lead story of this same edition of the Chronicle is entitled “Church in America Marked by Decline,” which laments the decline among the churches in our fellowship in America... as reported by the same directory!  We are booting people off the island on the one hand and moaning about getting smaller on the other. It stands to reason that if we keep drawing our circles smaller and smaller, there will be fewer and fewer who fit inside.

Aren’t we blessed that it is God who knows and keeps His own roll book. If some of the brethren kept it, when the roll is called up yonder, very few would be there!

Tennessee vs Texas

In Bible class last Sunday, I mentioned in passing the Tennessee and Texas traditions as they related to re-baptism of people coming into our churches from other tribes.  Back in the day, the opnion leaders in our movement were major religious periodicals and those who edited them.  Two contrasting and opposing views of the church where championed by The Gospel Advocate in Tennessee and the Firm Foundation in Texas.  The views represented in these two papers really did represent two very different views of the church.

Just in case you'd like a little more background, take a look at this article by John Mark Hicks.  He points out some of the differences in these two traditions through a editorial by George DeHoff in The Bible Banner in 1939 decrying the liberalism at Harding University.  DeHoff sarcastically talks about the things that he "learned" at Harding, things that he didn't really learn but is condemning.  John Mark does a good job showing through DeHoff's article this Texas vs Tennessee conflict, what he calls "the struggle for the soul of Churches of Christ."  While the more strident and narrow Texas tradition won the day (perhaps when Foy E. Wallace came from Texas to edit the Gospel Advocate in 1930), but the other tradition never died out.  Some of the current conflict in our churches can be understood as the legacy of these two traditions.

History

Newport News cancelled school today because it MIGHT snow this afternoon. It snows so rarely in our area that it generally doesn’t take much more than a dusting to cause people to panic. But it is unusual for them to cancel school before it actually starts snowing— especially when 9 times out of 10 when the weather people predict the snow, we don’t get any. Maybe it will snow, but that isn’t likely the reason they canceled school.

Today history is being made 3 hours up I-95 (it might take you a wee bit longer to drive it today). Not long after I post this, Barack Obama will become POTUS (President of the United States). The school system was already expecting half of their people to be out of school-- either in Washington itself or glued to their TV sets. Some of the people Lynn works with were going to Washington without tickets or even places to stay. History is going to be made today, and people want to be part of it. So when the weather man predicted a “probable snow storm” (which around here means “possible snow flakes”), the powers that be canceled school.

In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made the bizarre prediction in an interview with BBC that within the next 40 years “a Negro" would be elected president. His prediction was off by only 4 years! I know there are some who view the new administration with skepticism and cynicism. This is, after all, politics, and there are always different sides of the aisle. I read an interview with some Republicans from Wyoming, and they just couldn’t see the big deal!

But it is a big deal. The biggest disgrace of our history and the biggest cause of ongoing conflict in our country was slavery and the inequities that it brought. (Randy Tanner, who is part Native-American, would want me to add that there have been other national sins in our past). The presidency of Barack Obama will not end our struggle for equality and harmony among the races, but it does feel like a new beginning. That is why so many people are so excited about today. For the first time, someone who looks like them will be their leader. It does have the feel of history. May God bless our new president and his family and keep them safe. May this truly be a new beginning of a nation less divided.

We can use a new beginning. But ultimately, the dividing walls between people cannot be torn down by a president or a Constitution. That will take a cross.

Eye of the Beholder

In 1859, a scholar named Tischendorf was doing some research in the Holy Land collecting old manuscripts to be used in the study of ancient Greek. He asked the monks at an old monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai if they had any old documents he could study. He was given a bundle of old worthless documents that had literally been laying around collecting dust in a neglected corner of the monastery for centuries. No one knew what they were or from where they came. All they knew was that the documents were worthless, and they were more than happy to give them away.

As Tischendorf began reading the manuscripts, a fire began to burn within him that still burns to this day. What he was reading as we would read the Sunday paper was a complete copy of the Greek New Testament copied in the mid-fourth century, only 250 or so years after John put down his pen. It was and is the oldest complete copy of the Greek text in existence and the single most important document for the translation of the New Testament. What the monks saw as worthless was of incomparable value!

Value is in the eye of the beholder. What one person sees as worthless and boring, another recognizes as of infinite value and worth. The original readers of Hebrews were giving up on the church to return to the Judaism of their past. They were discouraged and bored with "feeble arms and weak knees" (Heb 12:12). So the writer asks them, “Don’t you know the value of what you are holding?” The power and value of Christianity is not found in its traditions or institutions or worship. It is in Christ. These discouraged Christians needed to see Jesus, so the Hebrews writer begins by asking them to take a fresh look--

1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. 3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. (Hebrews 1:1-3)

The power of faith is not in finding the right church but the right Christ! May we never get so bogged down in the details of "doing church" that we loose sight of the majesty and glory that is the Christ who is its head! May we ever take a fresh look at Jesus to see the glory and majesty of the God that we serve. At those times when we get the most discouraged, may we turn our eyes upon Jesus!

And to All a Good Night

My blog entry this morning will be a real yawner (so what's new).  A yawner because I stayed up way too late last night watching the BCS Championship game.  After all the hype and debate of who should be there in the first place, Florida and Oklahoma put on a pretty good show as Florida won 24-14 in a much lower scoring game than expected.  I guess all the debate is over now as Florida was crowned the national champion.  After all, they beat the #1 ranked team two games in a row (Alabama and Oklahoma).  They beat the pre-season #1 ranked team (Georgia).  And they beat the defending national champ (LSU).  So all questions are answered.  Except what would Florida do against an undefeated Utah team that trounced Alabama? Or how would Florida fare against Texas, who looked better against Othan did Florida.  Or what would happen if Florida faced USC which looked for all the world like the best team in the land after the Rose Bowl.  In other words, the BCS championship game really answered nothing... except "What would happen if Oklahoma played Florida?"  But it was a good game, and I'm glad I watched it.  I just wish it would have started 3 hours or so earlier so I could have gone to bed on time. 

Test? What Test?

Years ago, several of us got into a discussion that could have been entitled “Goofy Things That Happened In School.”  We traded stories on things that had happened in college classes that were, well, goofy.

• Someone told of a professor at who fell asleep in the middle of his own lecture.  He sat at his desk, reading from notes and talked slower and slower until he was fell asleep.  Look up “boring” in the dictionary, and this guy’s picture is probably there!
  
  
• There was the time a kid fell asleep in Bible class at a Bible College.  The guy behind him woke him up and told him that he’d just been asked to lead the prayer.  So he jumped up and started praying.  Everyone was stunned.  When the prayer was over, the teacher said, "Uh... thank you."  And then went on with his lecture.
  
  
• My favorite was the class at Harding where the teacher really did ask one of the students to begin with the class with a prayer.  After praying for one thing and then another, the student said, “And Lord, please be with us today as we take this test…”  A panicked voice from the back blurted out in the middle of the prayer, “Test!  What test?”

We can all relate to that panicked student.  We’ve all been that panicked student.  If not in school, then in life.  Just when you think that you have everything under control,  there is a test.  It might be a heath problem, a career choice, a financial set-back, or a family crisis.  Whatever its form, the test comes suddenly and takes you by surprise.  We want to blurt out, “Test!  What test?”

James said, "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him" (James 1:12).  Each day that we live is a test of what we say that we believe.  Does this faith stuff really work? Does what we say that we believe only apply in Sunday School and not in the real world.  Every day is a test of our faith.  Are you studying?

Commentary on Evangelism?

Penn Jillette is the front man for the comedy team of Pen and Teller. I have always thought these guys were extremely funny and creative, but then I had only seen them on broadcast TV. I thought George Carlin was hysterically funny when he was on the Tonight Show (and network censors were on pins and needles keeping him clean) but avoided him like the plague when he was uncensored and able to use his 7 words not allowed on TV. In the same way, Penn and Teller can evdidently be pretty crude and vulgar. (Why is that funny anyway?) As it turns out, Jillette Penn, like George Carlin, is an outspoken atheist and critic of religion. The duo features routines where they lampoon the Bible, Christians in general and the horse we rode in on. I must confess BOTH that this annoys me AND Christians often make it much easy to lampoon faith. Watch some of the stuff on Trinity Broadcasting and you know what I mean).

Imagine how surprised I was when I ran across this video of Penn Jillette talking about a man who waited for him after a show to give him a Bible.

Is there a message in there for us somewhere? Does the world view Christians as a bunch of kooks who condemnn everyone else and quoting the Bible, "The fool has said in his heart 'There is no God?" Or do they see us as basically good people who have been transformed by the message we believe and seek to HUMBLY share that message with others. It is unlikely that the gift of a Bible by a good and decent man will not be enough to change Jillette's mind. But people's hearts and minds are never going to be changed unless believers live as good people who humbly and sincerely live the Bible's precepts. If we really believe our message, then we will share it as best we can. Hey, even this evangelistic atheist expects us to share the message if we really believe it. People may be willing to listen if (and only if) they see the message in us. I think it was Francis of Assisi who said, "Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.”

Worship As Reality

It was bound to happen at some point. To be honest, I am surprised it hadn't happened before now. I woke up yesterday morning with a migraine or cluster or really-really-really bad headache. I don’t know what to call them because they have never been officially diagnosed; Mom called them "sick headaches" when I was growing up. Most people on Mom's side of the family get them-- they call it "the Copeland Curse." I call just them migraines because "bad headache" just doesn't do them justice. I don't get them that often, and I have never had a bad one on Sunday when I had to preach. Until yesterday. Yesterday morning I was hurting so bad that instead of reading through the full sermon like I usually do, I laid down in the auditorium beside the pulpit and slept for 25 minutes. (Hey, other people sleep through my sermons...).

But as the worship started, I really stopped thinking about how bad I was hurting. I forced myself to sing, and the more I did, the less distracting was my pain. By the time I got up to preach, I didn't even notice the headache at all. (I did notice that I hadn't "rehearsed" the material as much as I usually do). I got through the sermon and the rest of the service and felt uplifted and refocused by the experience. And then I went home and was miserable sick the rest of the day.

I guess I could chalk this up to adrenaline kicking in and getting me through the sermon, like the athlete who plays hurt. But I also believe that the worship itself was a distraction that got my focus off my immediate problem and centered me in the eternal. I know from experience that these headaches don't last forever, though they sometimes seem like they will. But the truths that we sang, prayed and communed about are eternal ands real. There was something about losing myself in worship that got me over the immediate pain.

Worship as a distraction? In reality, worship centers us on what is REAL and helps us not to focus so much on the distractions around us. Worship reminds us that "God is and all is well" even as we hurt. Asaph struggled when he saw the prosperity of godless, wicked people. This caused for him a faith crisis, "I had almost lost my foothold" (Psa 73:2). He goes on to discuss his envy of the wicked rich around him who thumbed their bose at God and seemed to prosper anyway. What transformed his thinking was worship. He writes, "till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny" (Psalm 73:17). Worship re-centered him in the reality that transcends the temporary pain and injustice of our world. Worship reminds us of what is real. In worship we sing, “I place you on the highest place…” In doing so, we remind ourselves that God is God over our pain, struggle, doubt and fear. Worship remind us of reality; worship becomes reality.

Christmas Memories

I'm sure most of us have a lot of Christmas memories.  I do, largely because so much of the ghost of my my Christmas past was caught on home movies and video. In fact, one of our Christmas traditions is to sit around and watch video of Christmas gone by. We haven’t done that this year yet; no one can remember how to work the VCR! But those memories are as vivid as if I were watching the tape now--

• Memories of Lynn holding up her first cellular phone (which was the size of a suitcase), and saying “I got a car phone” to the camera. The girls still mimic her saying that.
  
  
• Memories of Tressa watching her little sister open a gift and then realizing that it was one of her old toys that we had gotten from the attic and were “re-gifting” (back then we called it “hand-me-downs”). Tressa would start to say, “Hey that’s my…” and then her mother jerked her out of frame.
  
  
• Memories of Angelynn opening a Christmas card, holding up the contents for the camera and saying, “A check!” And then she threw it down behind her as she headed for a package that looked more like a toy.
  
  
• Memories of me as the cameraman waiting until all the gifts were opened and then saying, “Hey, the camera was off; wrap them all up and let's do it all over again.”  The girls love that!
  

Of course, my most vivid Christmas memory is of the Christmas morning we spent in Mary Immaculate Hospital in 1981. If you want a little extra Christmas hoopla, have a baby on Christmas morning in a Catholic hospital!  We headed to the hospital just before midnight on Christmas Eve, and our Christmas baby was born at 8:20 that morning. The first thing the doctor did was to turn on the radio in the birthing room so we could listen to Christmas music. (To this day, Lynn starts doing Lamaze breathing every time she hears “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”). One of my most vivid memories of that day was Lynn hurting (back then, women were women and painkillers were for men) and holding my hand so tightly it hurt… and not letting go for about four hours. I had to visit the facilities, but I couldn’t because she was holding my hand. By the doctor came in and distracted her so that I get to the restroom, I had been doing Lamaze breathing with her trying to manage my own pain. For some reason, she never felt sorry for me. Go figure.

Christmas memories.  Christmas is indeed a special time of year. It is a time of joy and celebration, of home and family, and time off from work. That’s why “Tis the season to be jolly,” right? But not everyone is jolly this time of year. In fact, holidays can be the most depressing time of the year. We have expectations that are never really met in reality. Some don’t have family or good family memories. Some suffer through financial woes and sickness and divorce and the death of loved ones, and these always seem hurt more at this season. There can be a great difference between the way things should be and the way things really are.

While we celebrate the Christmas season, may we remember those for whom this season is very difficult. May we remember Jesus’ words that “It is more blessed to give than receive.” May we also remember what He said about banquets—don’t invite people that can repay you but rather invite those who can’t, “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” Jesus says, “Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Lk 14:14).

When Band-Aids Aren't Enough

The book Night of the Grizzly tells the true story of 1972 bear attack in Glacier National Park. Two young women who were camping in the park were mauled to death in separate attacks by a rogue bear. This story might not play very well today— it actually blamed the bear, not the victims, for the attack. And the heroes of the story were rangers who tracked down and destroyed the rogue bear.

In the story, there were two doctors vacationing in the park that did their best to save one of the victims. Both knew from one look at the victim that she had no chance of survival, but they valiantly fought top save her anyway. As they worked to repair the damage caused by severed limbs and severe tissue loss, they noticed a young, dazed park ranger putting peroxide and Band-Aids on scratches. One of the doctors later remarked how struck he was by the irony. Here was a woman literally eaten alive, and someone was putting Band-Aids on scratches?

OK, this is a pretty visceral illustration, but we need to see the point, I think. Doesn’t it seem at times like the church in putting Band-Aids on scratches? We can find ourselves so embroiled in trivial things while the more important things of the faith are ignored. Jesus died to make us one, to tear down the dividing walls between us and we seem intent on building those walls back while the world goes its merry way to hell.

Some of the issues that those in my religious tribe have fought and divided over in the past now seem pretty silly when viewed from the distance of time—multiple cups in communion, individual Bible classes, the support of orphan homes, the use of modern Bible versions, whether or not we worship with instruments, and the list goes on. What is it that seems so important to us today that will seem silly in 100 years? How many people can or can’t hold a microphone during church? Whether or not women can or can’t, must or must not, take a more active role in the worship service? Whether we like to admit it or not, most of the things that we have fought and divided over are about how we do church in the hour or so we are together on Sunday mornings. Is this really the essence of the gospel message?

The world around is bleeding and dying and needs the gospel of the resurrected Savior.  Dare we waste our time and attention putting Band-Aids on the scratches? Perhaps it’s time to not focus so much on what we do “in church” and focus more on being church, the body of Christ ministering to a dying world? How do we do that? Surely we must start by putting down the Band-aids.

Three Dog Night

I'm not talking about the classic 70's rock band.  No, I LIKED them.  "Joy to the World" ("Jeremiah was a bullfrog...) was a classic! No my rant for this morning is about MY three dog night last night.  This morning I was woke up by a dog whimpering or snuffling or whatever.  We have had a little pomma-terrier-whatever mutt named Maggie at our house since 2000 when we finally got a dog for Angelynn.  But Maggie was Angelynn's dog for two weeks; then she became Lynn's dog.  Neither Angelynn nor Lynn had a vote; Maggie chose Lynn.

We didn't know Angelynn harbored this grudge until she came home for summer break this summer with a German Shepherd puppy named Marley.  Her dog.  Marley is almost a year old now, and for the last month (and the next one) Marley has been living with his grandparents (that be us!).  The beast is almost big enough where I could buy him a saddle and ride him to work.  He is a constant bundle of energy who wants to play all the time and will chew anything he can get (I'm on my third pair of shoe strings and I have no slippers... and he literally ate Lynn's homework last week).  OK, I have to admit that he's kinda cute part of the time.  The rest of the time he's lucky I don't keep a loaded gun around.  Of course if I did, he'd probably eat it.

Angelynn came home for Christmas break Saturday, and this time she brought a six-week old Maltese puppy named Bella... for Tressa.  Now Tressa has always said she hates dogs.  All of a sudden she lost her mind or something and had to have this dog.  And guess where little Bella is staying for the next several days?  With us.  This is the dog that woke me up whimpering this morning, and ended up in bed with me!  So a three dog night.

I would say that I love all my grand-dogs and wish they could stay with us forever, but then that would be another Three Dog Night hit-- "Liar."

Who Do We Worship

Back in October, I mentioned a piece by Ben Stein that had been circulated around the internet. Unfortunately, his article was combined with an interview of Anne Graham Lotz and several others and with other stuff made up out of whole cloth and then it all was attributed to Stein. Sites like snopes.com are extremely helpful in separated internet myth from what is true. If we are concerned with truth, it is dangerous to pass along stuff you are emailed or stumble across on the web. A lot of it is simply false.

Anyway, I suggested way back when that Stein’s article (the one he actually wrote) was actually pretty good, and I suggested that I would reprint (repost?) it a bit closer to Christmas. Well, it is a bit closer to Christmas, so here it is straight from his website. (It was written in 2005, so his reference to Nick and Jessica is a bit dated. Maybe replace it with Brad and Angelina?)

Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise's wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It's not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

The Fifth Act

I ran across an old blog by John Mark Hicks, a Bible professor at Lipscomb. John Mark has all kinds of connections here at Denbigh. His father was the preacher in the church where Lynn grew up, so they’ve been friends forever. John Mark and I were old camp buddies, and we were at Freed together. John Mark held a seminar for here at Denbigh several years ago, and Lynn and I have him at Pepperdine for several years now. You can read some of John Mark’s works at his web site.

In his blog, John Mark compares our lives as Christians today “living out biblical theology” to a troop of Shakespearean actors performing a play. The analogy isn’t perfect, but then no analogy is. I thin this one does a good job capturing our task as people who live in God and under the Bible.

Our life in Christ is analogous to a group of Shakespearean groupies who have newly discovered a five act play by Shakespeare. It was previously unknown. But the problem is that the last act is missing. We only have the first four acts. The last act is lost. Suppose, however, these scholars, actors, etc., want to perform this play. How can they perform it without the last act? They will have to improvise. In order to do so, they have to "live and breathe" the works of Shakespeare. They will know all his other works, thoroughly know this present play, understand how his mind works, etc. With their "Shakespearean mind" they write and perform the final act as they imagine Shakespeare would have written it.

The analogy is.... We have Scripture which bears witness to the mind of God in Christ. We have the first act-Creation. We have the second act--Israel. We have the third act--Christ. We have the fourth act--the early Church (Acts & the Epistles). We are the fifth act. And we currently perform that fifth act as best we can imaginatively enter into the mind of God in Christ. We live out that mind; we perform the fifth act on the basis of the first four acts.

John Mark goes on to point out that we don’t have a script for living the Christian life in the 21st century. We come across many questions and issues that could not possible be addressed directly in the Bible. I had a professor that was once asked to speak at big a philosophic conference in Europe on “The Bible and In Vitro Fertilization.” Where do you look in the concordance for verses on that—under “I” or “V?” No matter where you look, you won’t find it there. You won’t find specific verses on the Christian and gene splicing, thermonuclear war or recycling. Our (post)modern world brings us in congress with many issues not addressed in the Bible. All we can do is to we seek the mind of God in Christ through the first four acts of the play, and then seek to live out what God would have written had He written the fifth act.

John Mark adds that God has written the sixth act of the play. We know how the story ends. There will be a new heaven and earth where there is no more of the props that dominate the first five acts-- death, mourning, crying and pain. God will make everything new. That is God’s own breathtaking conclusion to the drama of the cosmos. All we have to do is immerse ourselves in acts 1-4 so that we can Biblically improvise our little part in act 5. If we do that, we will be center stage with Jesus taking our bow after the final curtain.

Christmas Services

"Boy, this must be a busy time of year for you!" I get that a lot when people find out that I'm a minister. This is the Christmas, and churches do a lot of special things during this time of the year. I got a postcard from the Presbyterian church across the street advertising their special Christmas services-- two on Christmas Eve, one on Christmas Day and one the day after Christmas. There have been times in the past when we have done Christmas plays for children. One year we did a big Christmas musical entitled "I'll Be Home for Christmas" that involved 1/2 of our church. We'll have our "Christmas service" this Sunday where we sing Christmas songs and
reflect on the meaning of birth of Jesus. So we're not opposed to that sort of thing (though we usually get someone from internet-land writing in to complain that we would do something so "denominational.")

Well, we certainly aren't opposed to doing special things during this special time of the year. But one thing is usually true of our church Christmas services-- they are never on Christmas! Most of our church is from other places, so generally when school lets out, our church lets out and scatters to the four winds. We can't plan anything special during the holidays because we can't count on people being in town. So while many churches are planning big Christmas eve services for next Wednesday, we're trying to decide whether to have services at all! Maybe we'll just anoint next Wednesday as "stay at home night" for the few people who aren't out of town anyway.

So this isn't particularly busy time of year for me. I still have a week of vacation time left, and I think I'm going to take it and let Roger preach the Sunday after Christmas.

The Weight of Our Baggage

In his book The Living Faith, Lloyd C. Douglas tells the story of Thomas Hearne, who was on an expedition to explore to the mouth of the Coppermine River. A few days after they had begun, a party of Indians attacked and made off with most of their supplies. His comment in his journal after this apparent misfortune was, "The weight of our baggage being so much lightened, our next day’s journey was more swift and pleasant." Douglas makes this observation--

Hearne was in route to something very interesting and important; and the loss of a few sides of bacon and a couple of bags of flour meant nothing more than an easing of the load. Had Hearne been hole in somewhere, in a cabin, resolved to spend his last days eking out an existence, and living on capital previously collected, the loss of some of his stores by plunder would probably have worried him almost to death.

Remember the poor widow of Luke 21 who gave her last two copper coins to God? Maybe she was willing to loose everything she had because her heart was moving toward God as the only true source of wealth. Jesus said, “This poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” (Luke 21:3-4)

Once we become settlers, we hoard our blessings of time and talent and money for ourselves. When we continue to explore and move toward God, we may decide that much of our stuff weighs us down and holds us back on our journey. We know in our hearts that we can't take anything with us when we die. Maybe our journey would be "more swift and pleasant" if we didn't travel with so much baggage!

I know that the timing of this post is pretty bad—right before Christmas when we are rushing to add to our baggage. On second thought, maybe the timing is perfect.

Testing the Spirits

When I was a youth minister (long, long ago and not so far away), I met a young man who turned out to be a youth minister in another Christian tribe. We struck up a conversation and shared a cup of coffee. We had a lot of things in common— we had similar educational backgrounds, similar job challenges… and elders. But we also had some basic differences. He had a different eschatological expectation than did I. And he was more charismatic than was I (I have about as much charisma as a rock). So… what do you think we ended up discussing the most— our similarities or our differences? You guessed it! We ended up in a friendly debate over a variety of doctrinal issues.

After we had gone round and round on amillennial versus premillennial end-time theories (why did we get stuck on that?), he finally said, “We getting too hung up on doctrine stuff; why not just stress Jesus?” Then he added, “Maybe if we stress Jesus, maybe all these other things won’t matter so much.” Well, it took me awhile, but I came to see that he was right (Lynn would say that this usually takes a long while.) I still think I was right on the individual issues that we discussed. And I think it is good to have such discussions when they are done in a Christian and brotherly way (and I think they were that day). But I think he was right that our common ground in a common faith in Christ and a common reliance upon His work at the cross trumps makes our doctrinal differences less critical.

My NT reading today begins, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). We are to test the spirits because not all are from God. The Bible says too much about the dangers of apostasy to believe that doctrine is unimportant. The elders at Ephesus would face (and cause) a distortion of the truth (Acts 20:29-31). Timothy would have to deal with the doctrine of demons (1 Tim 4:1-2). But at the same time, we must understand that the gospel is not at stake with every difference or nuance in our understanding. There are some issues over which we fight over and just aren’t worth fighting over! I think Paul may be talking to us when he refers to controversies which are “foolish and stupid” (2 Tim 2:23-24).

Yes, John tells us to test the spirits to see whether they are from God because there are many false prophets in the world. But John’s test of doctrinal orthodoxy is pretty basic, and it says nothing about one millennial positions or mode of church music. He focuses on Jesus, “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God” (1 John 4:2-3).

My youth minister buddy thought that if we would focus more on Jesus, our doctrinal differences might not matter nearly as much. I wish I could have that cup of coffee with him all over again. I think the conversation might be different.

Peace on Earth?

Tis the season to be jolly!  At least that is what some of you tried to convince yourselves as you were out before dawn on Black Friday trying to beat the hordes to the one item that Wal-Mart or Best Buy had on sale for next to nothing.  There are all kinds of stories in the news like this one from Fox News--

According to the Manatee County sheriff's report, 37-year-old Thomas Edward Lackie was arrested last week after he threw a 3-foot Christmas tree at his father. The tree missed, but Lackie then tried to use the steel base from the tree to strike his father. His father and mother were able to grab Lackie's arms to prevent the attack. Deputies say the tree could have caused serious injuries because the metal base weighs about five pounds. Lackie was charged with felony assault.

Someone needs to take a chill pill and a refresher course on "the reason for the season." Trying to brain your father with a Christmas tree seems is a fairly egregious violation of the "peace on earth and good will toward men" that this time of year is supposed to be about.  Perhaps someone went a wassailing a wee bit early?

The pastoral winter scenes that mark many of our Christmas cards belie the fact that this season is the most stressful, hurried and harried time of the year for many people.  Christmas shopping for an every expanding list of gifts, spending money you don't have on stuff we don't need for people who already have everything-- that's not the way to peace on earth or anywhere else. 

If there really is a reason for the season, surely it's not making sure Wal-Mart has a happy new year. 

Silly Love Songs

I was just sitting here thinking about an old Paul McCartney song he wrote in his Wings days entitled “Silly Love Songs.” You know the one—

I read somewhere that this song was written in response to John Lennon criticism that McCartney had sold out and was writing silly love songs that sound more like Engelbert Humperdinck. So McCartney wrote "Silly Love Songs" which became a #1 hit (for 5 weeks) and was one of top songs (#13) of the 1970's.

So why bring up silly love songs? Well, it’s Ezekiel's fault. My daily Old Testament reading brought me to Ezekiel 33. Earlier in the chapter, Ezekeiel is given his famous challenge to be God’s Watchman (33:1-20). It was the job of the watchman to sound the alarm when danger threatened the city. If the watchman sound the alarm and the city fell, then he was absolved of responsibility. But if the watchman failed to raise the alarm, then the responsibility for the city’s demise rested on him. Ezekiel then faithfully acts as God’s watchman as he delivers the news
that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed. (33:21-29).

One would think that being a prophet of gloom, doom and destruction would be difficult. Just ask Jeremiah how well such a prophet is treated! But Judah’s response to Ezekiel was very different. There was something about Ekekiel that was evidently entertaining, and the people gathered to watch the show. Notice Ezekiel 33:30-32

“As for you, son of man, your countrymen are talking together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, saying to each other, ‘Come and hear the message that has come from the Lord.’ My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to listen to your words, but they do not put them into practice. With their mouths they express devotion, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words but do not put them into practice.

Did the people listen to Ezekiel? Yes and no. Yes, they listened… like they would go to a concert and listen to a silly love song. But no, they did not listen… they did not take his words seriously enough to act upon them. God says, “They hear your words but do not put them into practice” (33:32). The text ends on an ominous note for Judah, ““When all this comes true—and it surely will—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.” (33:33)

Do we ever listen to preaching while not listening to it? Have you ever heard a really good sermon, and then you mentioned that it was a really good sermon to someone. And then they asked you, “Really? What did he say?” And you couldn’t really remember? What’s wrong with that? Listening to God’s word does us no good unless we are willing to act on it. We might as well be listening to silly love songs. We might as well be building a house on a foundation of sand.

My Head Hurts

My head hurts. I started reading an online debate posted on Al Maxey’s website between Al and Darrell Broking. The topic of the debate was “Patternism,” the idea that the NT is a specific blueprint or pattern that determines every aspect of Christianity so that every church will look pretty much alike in every detail. OK, by the way I described the topic, you can tell I’m not a subscriber to that idea. The reason I started reading the debate was an email sent to Al and posted in his Reflections (a weekly email post that I read). Al posts all of his emails-- supporters, detractors and all in-between. Most of the emails aren’t quite so vitriolic as this one--

Al, you are lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut and just as venomous. Hypocrite!! Judgment is coming, and the Hell you deny is awfully hot! It is pretty clear that you belong to the postmodernistic Emerging Church Movement, or the "Church of Make-Believe." You all write about "grace," "the cross," and "love," but you actually root none of these concepts or items in New Testament teaching. You've merely co-opted the imagery to fool folks into accepting your leadership on your journey into theological oblivion and subsequently into the abyss. Blind leader of the blind!! Folks like you are Socialists and Marxists in their social views as well, which is where you will eventually wind up - in the political camp with the far left of the Democratic Party. You're all a bunch of half-baked, ultra-ultra-liberal New Age hippie freak-types who have more in common with the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus and the Nazi Martin Heidegger. By the way, Al, the Nazi Heidegger, your philosophical godfather, says "Sieg Heil" to you in your bunker! We were close to the truth about you when we were ragging on you about the military.

Well, isn’t that special! Can you believe anyone would respond to someone with whom they disagree in such a juvenile, infantile rant?  Would anyone see this as Christlike behavior? Did Jesus say, "They will know you are my disciples by the vehemence and ugliness with which you nail heretics?  No, Jesus said something about love, a topic the author of th email evidently doesn't much appreciate.

Sadly, the author of this paragraph isn’t a ten year-old in need of some serious woodshed time but rather a preacher in our area.  Evidently there aren't enough heretics nearby to root out (he disfellowshipped us several years ago), so he had to go after Al Maxey some 2000 miles away in Alamogordo, New Mexico.  So many heretics, so little time!

What’s the point of bringing this up on my blog? Well, I spent so much time reading through the debate that I might as well get a blog for my trouble… and not just a headache.

Happy Thanksgiving

A man in Arizona calls his son in Chicago the day before Thanksgiving and says, “I hate to ruin your holiday, but your mother and I are divorcing; forty-five years of misery is enough.”  Frantic, the son calls his sister in New York and tells her the news.  She immediately calls and screams at her father, “You are NOT getting divorced. My brother and I will be on a flight tonight; don’t do a single thing until we get there tomorrow. The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife and says, “Ok, Dear, it’s all arranged; the kids are coming home for Thanksgiving and are paying their own way.”

I thought that was hysterical, though it only got a mild chuckle last night at our Thanksgiving devotional.  I guess maybe I just like devious plots that you pull on your kids! 

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday, but thanksgiving itself is a sacred act of worship that we offer to our God.  Many of the passages in the Bible that talk about the giving of thanks to God appear in the context of worship.  Notice some examples--

Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. (1 Chronicles 16:8-9)

With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD: “He is good; his love to Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD. (Ezra 3:11)

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song. (Psalm 28:7)

Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. (Psalm 105:1-2)

Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. Psalm 107:8-9

You are my God, and I will give you thanks; you are my God, and I will exalt you. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. (Psalm 118:28-29)

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods. His love endures forever. (Psalm 136:1-3)

Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:19-20)

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16)

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

I was taught growing up that there are five acts of worship—singing, praying, preaching, communion and giving.  Those work OK if you define them broadly enough to cover all the other acts of worship they don’t cover.  And maybe thanksgiving is just a form prayer (see 1 Timothy 2:1).  But how many corporate worship services do we have that focus on the giving of thanks?  Maybe one a year… during this time of year?  I wonder if there is as close a connection between thanksgiving and our worship as there appears to be in the Bible?

Here’s something that struck me yesterday as I was putting together our thanksgiving devo.  We have only 4 songs in our hymnal that use the word “thanksgiving.”  Only 2 songs have the word “thankful” while 16 us the word “thank.”  It is interesting with the emphasis that is placed in scripture on singing and thanksgiving that this theme isn’t represented any better in our singing worship!

Pay It Forward

A woman pulled up to the drive-thru at a Starbucks in Sacramento, CA and ordered a double-tall, ginger snap latte. (ginger snap?)  When she paid for her coffee, she paid double, thus paying for the person behind her in line.  The person behind her then paid for the person behind him, and the chain effect continued 109 times as people continued to pay-it-forward, buying coffee for the person behind them in line.  April Fredrikson, the Starbucks barista said, “We still recognize that we're all kind of in it together, we're all in the economy thing together and to come here and just like pay it forward and help everyone out, it's really a community contribution.” 

What a great reminder that we are in this community thing together and that means we need to look for ways to pay it forward.  In 2 Corinthians 1:3,4—

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

We receive comfort from God so that we can pay forward that comfort to others.  It works with coffee and other material blessings as well as with the emotional and spiritual support Paul discusses.  John Donne said, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”  God places us in relationship with others so that we can bless them and they bless us.  We are to pay it forward.

On Seeing the Unseen

Hebrews 11 is often called "the hall of fame of faith."  The writer points to the example of the Old Testament faithful to encourage his readers (and us) to live lives of faith.  The theme that appears again and again in this chapter is that these heroes of faith were heroes because they were able to see that which could not be seen.  Faith is being “certain of what we do not see” (11:1). That is the characteristic the writer highlights in these heroes of the faith--

• Noah saw things “not yet seen” (11:7). When God confronted Noah with the message of the coming flood, he had nothing to go on except faith. He had never seen a flood before, and he had certainly never seen an ark! But faith allowed Noah to be able to see the unseen. For him, the real world was that which could not be seen except through faith. And thus, “By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (11:7).
  
  
• Abraham saw by faith a city that could not be seen (11:8-10). Abraham was certainly not looking for an earthly city. If that is what he was after, he would have never left his birthplace in Ur, the greatest city on earth at the time. No, Abraham was looking for a city that could not be seen, the city of God. And because he kept looking for that city, he never really quite fit in to the world around him. He was a pilgrim and wanderer in this world. Faith led him to see the unseen as the real world.
  
  
• Moses was also able to see Him who is unseen (11:24-27). Moses made the choice to throw his lot in with the people of God. He chose to be a Hebrew slave rather than the prince of Egypt. Why? Faith gave him a clear view of the reality could not be seen. Because he gave up such power and influence, he never really fit in with the world. And yet, his influence is still felt today in the real world of faith.

The writer wants us to understand two things about the heroes of faith.  First, they saw the unseen world of faith as the true "real world."  Second, in doing so, they never quite fit into the seen world of the here and now.  This is important for people who struggle to live lives of faith. It teaches us to expect hardships and difficulties. When we live in the real world, we should expect to not fully fit into the world of the here and now. That was true of Noah and Abraham and Moses.  Should we expect it to be any different for us? 

After We Die

Roger suggested that I look at Patrick Mead's blog entitled Tentpegs. Patrick (who at one time preached at Grandy Street in Norfolk) is answering tough questions that his readers send in. (If I ever get readers, I may try that. Then again...) Since his question and answer for today is about the passage I preached on Sunday, I thought I would cut and paste it. That and because it is so much easier than writing something of my own. Warning, this is a l-o-o-o-o-n-g blog entry, though it is about average for Patrick's entries--

What happens to the righteous after they die? Do they sleep somewhere until God wakes them up on the last day? Are they conscious at all? Do they go to heaven? Are they in paradise? Are the dead aware of what is going on on earth? When we are resurrected, is it just our bodies or are our souls remade or resurrected, too?

I knew the answers to all of these questions — and more! — when I was a kid. Long before PowerPoint or MediaShout, we had bedsheet sermons, sometimes called "chart" sermons. For those sad, poor, ignorant people who don’t know what I am talking about, a bedsheet sermon wasn’t a lesson on the Song of Solomon but, rather, a bedsheet strung in front of the auditorium and festooned with illustrations, lurid colors, scripture references, and a really cool title. We loved these sermons because there was something other than a preacher to look at during the lesson. Besides, it was as close to "art" as we were allowed to get in the church. (think I’m kidding? When our church bought a Methodist building, my father had them remove or cover the stained glass windows. The beautiful altar rail and furniture on the stage were all removed and replaced with a plain wooden pulpit and a bench seat for the song leader and preacher to use. This was normal in my religious tribe)

An aside: once when we were visited by several Big Preachers in the Brotherhood at the same time, my mother ran out of sheets and had to get creative. She made up a bed for me in a corner of the house. When I pulled back the blanket to climb in I was greeted with huge letters asking "Where Are The Dead?" This is one eight year old that didn’t sleep well that night. I kept fearing that I would unwittingly roll over on the "tartarus" section and, if Jesus came back, he might leave me there.

Anyway, "Where Are The Dead?" was a very, very popular sermon. Most traveling preachers had a version of that bedsheet sermon and it had been made into a tract (religious booklet) and a flimstrip that gave most of us kids the heebie-jeebies. Taking most of its material from the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16, this was a very cool sheet. Dead people who were righteous were "carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom" and deposited in Paradise, one of the three subsections of Hades, the waiting place for the dead. The other two places were Tartarus — a place of torment for the wicked — and the Great Gulf, or the area that lay between Paradise and Tartarus that was so wide that no one could cross from one place to the other.

Then… one day… Jesus would come again. Arrows on the sheet showed souls from Paradise meeting up with Jesus and then meeting up with their resurrected bodies and entering heaven (after formal judgment). Souls in Tartarus met their bodies, too, but they were then tossed from the fire in Tartarus to the fires in hell so their situation didn’t really change much.

There are problems with this view… but there are also problems with every other view I have seen. I love Edward Fudge’s work, for example, and wouldn’t want to engage him in a "smart contest" but I don’t buy his view of this passage — which is anything but traditional. Neither do I accept the bedsheet sermon as entirely accurate.

The fact is… I don’t know for sure what happens next. There. I said it. I have absolute trust in God that He will do the right thing and that I will be with Jesus in heaven for eternity but I am not sure about the process and what I will see or feel or experience from here to there. Many passages are salted throughout scripture saying that we "sleep" but there are others such as this passage in Luke and some in Revelation which show us as being alive, aware, and active after death. In Revelation, we see martyrs talking to God, asking questions, and speaking about things going on on planet earth. At the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah walked with Christ without any mention of them being remade or resurrected just for that one event. Because of passages such as that, I cannot buy the "no consciousness until Jesus returns" teaching.

Neither can I say that we stay in Paradise until judgment day after seeing so many already in heaven in Revelation. I’m not at all sure there is a separate place called Paradise. It might just be another name for being with God. I don’t think the rich man is still in Tartarus (where preachers assured us he was still calling for a drop of water after all these centuries) or that he will then be transferred into hell one day. I think he was burned up, annihilated. I don’t think that people in heaven can see their friends and relatives burning in hell, much less that they can turn a blind eye to that and enjoy heaven while that view is off the port bow, so to speak.

Yet, even if the evil are annihilated out of sight of the righteous, where are the righteous? I find it informative that those who were able to see beyond the veil were not allowed to speak of it. Paul says he saw things "it is not lawful" to speak about. John the Revelator saw and heard something in heaven that the angel told him he was not allowed to repeat. "Do not write" was an strange order to receive after he’d been told to write so many other strange things, but there it is. No one was allowed to enter or see what was there and then give a guided tour later! In case you wonder, that DOES mean I have big problems with those who write about their visits to heaven. I cannot say they didn’t go there because I’m not God and I don’t know for sure. However, I know the brain and I know how the release of chemicals, the behavior of pain receptors, and the clash of memories and expectations can produce incredibly realistic visions and memories of things that never happened. (remember — I’m not a theologian but I AM a scientist who deals with the brain)

While I don’t know what will happen for sure, I am absolutely, 100% sure that we who belong to Jesus Christ are going to love how it all turns out. I am so very excited to get to see it for myself! Contrary to the country song popular right now that states everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to go now… I want to go now! I am Paul in Philippians One; the only reason I can tolerate staying here is because I know that means I have something to do for Jesus. My work, evidently, isn’t finished yet. Sleep, transference into Paradise, or the express train to heaven…. either way, those who believe on the Lord and who walk in His steps are going to love whatever it is that happens next.

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.