I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy

I like David Letterman’s Top Ten Lists. I used to never go to bed without watching his monologue just to hear the Top Ten List. And that was back when he came on at 12:30 a.m. after "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" went off. How did I sit up so late back then? I had to "sit up late" last night to watch the season premier of CSI, which goes off at 10:00!) Anyway, some time go I ran across the Top Ten List of “Things You Seldom Hear in Church.”

• “Hey, it’s my turn to sit on the front pew!”
• “I didn’t notice the sermon ran 25 minutes over.”
• “What this church really needs is more announcements!”
• “Personally, I find witnessing much more enjoyable than golf.”
• “Let’s give the $500 a month we pay in country club fees to church.”
• “Who do I see to volunteer to teach the Junior High class.”
• “I just love it when we sing those new songs I’ve never heard before.”
• “Nothing inspires me more than another sermon on giving!”
• “Our list of volunteers is getting to long; we need to cut it down”
• “Nothing is more enjoyable or fun than coming to church.”

Do we often use the word “church” and “enjoy” in the same sentence? Or do we see church as being like medicine… it’s really is good for you, but it tastes bad... and it really isn't good for you unless it does taste bad! And maybe it’s not just church. Maybe we approach the entirety of our Christian lives like that. How many Christians look like they were weaned on a sour pickle? How many believers are joyless pessimists who see life like a glass a half-empty? How many church members are by nature critical of others and critical of things at church?

We act like we don’t understand that the Christian life to be a life of JOY. The noun "joy" (chara) appears 59 times in the New Testament; its verb form (chairo) is used another 72 times. So, there is a lot of joy in the New Testament! In fact, that was the standard Greek greeting. You met someone, you didn’t say, “How’s it going?” You said "Joy be with you." This is the greeting Paul uses, along with the Hebrew “shalom” (“peace”) to begin his letters. This is also the greeting used two other special occasions.

• The angel who told Mary she was with child said, “Joy” (Lk 1:28)
• Jesus met the women after Resurrection said, “Joy” (Matt 28:9)

Joy is mentioned at the beginning (birth of Jesus) and end (the resurrection) of the gospel story itself! The gospel begins and ends with joy. That doesn’t mean that life will always be a happy-go-lucky-pinch-me-I'm-so-excited expereince. But it does mean that our lives should always reflect the joy of the Lord. I think we need to consider our hole outlook on life. If our lives are not characterized by a deeper inner joy that expresses itself in some positive way, it is entirely possible we're not doing Christianity right.

Apocalyptically Speaking

Yogi Berra is a hall of fame Yankee catcher, former Yankee manger, successful TV pitch man and philosopher. Maybe philosopher is not quite right; Yogi has a famous grasp of the obvious that has resulted in sayings known as “Yogi-isms.”

• “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”
• “Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel.”
• “Nobody goes to New York anymore; it’s too crowded”
• “I wish I had an answer to that question because I’m tired of answering it.”

Maybe his most famous Yogism was made when the pennant race came down to Yankees and Red Socks just like it did the previous season. Yogi said, “Yeah, it’s spooky; it’s like deja vu all over again.”

Most of us have felt at some point that something was like “deja vu all over again.” You have a conversation with a child or your spouse and think, “Haven’t we had this talk before?” You sit down to pay bills or go out to mow the lawn and think, “Didn’t I just get finished doing this?”
As we talked about a bit in class last night, the Greeks had a “deja vu all over again” philosophy of history, a view that many still have today. They saw history is a circle, a cycle of repeating events that happen over and over. We say, “History repeats itself,” and sometimes it does seem that the human family makes the same mistakes over and over. It’s like deja vu all over again.
But take that “history repeats itself” view too literally, and pretty soon the point of history is that history really has no point. We are on a treadmill, and endless cycle, an unending “Circle of Life” to use the title of “The Lion King” theme song. Mufstafa dies, Simba becomes king, history repeats itself, and the cycle continues— with no real point, no real meaning and no real hope.

Scripture has a totally different view of history. It presents history as not as a circle but a straight line. History had beginning (“in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”), it has a middle (the coming of the Messiah), and history will also have a definite end (Jesus is coming back to end all things). The prayer of ancient believers continues to be the prayer of the church, “Maranatha.” Come, Lord Jesus (Revelation 22:20).

While I was working on my Wednesday lesson on 2 Peter 3, a thought struck me. It may not be precisely right; that’s the way it is with most of my flashes of insight.

First, some background. I have always had an “amillennial” view of the end time. I think the best way to understand what the scriptures say about the second coming is that Jesus will come back, end time, judge the world and take us to heaven. No literal rapture, Armageddon, or millennial reign. I believe that Revelation is a symbolic picture of the histroical struggle between Rome and the church, and by extension the eternal struggle between good and evil, God and Satan. (See Revelation 17:14). Reverse-engineering the geopolitical events of our day so that they seem to fit into scripture prophesy seems artificial and strained. In fact, every generation from the crusades to the present day have found ways to make Bible prophecy “fit” their day as “the end of days.” We suggested last night that Peter’s point about the end of days is that we be so convinced it is coming one day that we live holy lives today so that we are ready whenever it comes. Peter said, “Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives” ( Peter 3:11).

So here’s my flash of insight— right or wrong, good or bad. I think people who do accept and stress those premillennial ideas of rapture, Antichrist and Armageddon do seem to be more focused (maybe obsessed?) on the end time than those of us who take all that “figuratively.” I wonder if we need to a bit more millennial in our mindset! I wonder if we would be better off if we were a little more apocalyptic in our world view! Peter ties the certainty of the second coming to our focus on holy living. So maybe we need to be a bit more focused on the last day so we are a bit more focused on living for God today!

So, anyone have an old copy of Left Behind I can borrow?

God's Favor

It seems that these days I keep bumping into the modern American religious belief that God wants His people to prosper. The idea seems to be that our faithfulness to God will be rewarded by prosperity— material prosperity. God wants us to prosper, and He wants us to believe that we will prosper. Joel Osteen, one of the best known spokesman for this idea, says this—

I believe one of the main ways that we grow in favor is by declaring. It’s not enough to just read it. It’s not enough to just believe it. You’ve got to speak it out. Your words have creative power. One of the primary ways we release our faith is through our words. There is a divine connection between you declaring God’s favor and seeing God’s favor manifested in your life. And some of you are doing your best to please the Lord. You are living a holy consecrated life, but you’re not really experiencing God’s supernatural favor. And it’s simply because you’re not declaring it. You’ve got to give life to your faith by speaking it out.

This teaching is variously known as “the word of faith” or “name it and claim it.” One critic calls it “blab it and grab it.”

I’ve been reading Jeremiah a lot lately... Jeremiah as in "The Weeping Prophet." I don't believe Jeremiah subscribed to this health and wealth theology. Frankly, I think Jeremiah would have been offended by the quote above. Jeremiah faithfully declared the word of the Lord to a people that variously ignored him, made fun of him, accused him of treason and tired to have him killed. None of the things that Osteen would call “God’s favor” seemed to attach themselves to Jeremiah. What Jeremiah declared was "the word of the Lord," and it was not a word of favor or prosperity. In fact, a consistent idea throughout Jeremiah's book is that the prophets of prosperity in his own day are false prophets that deceive the people (see Jer. 5:13, 14:13-15, 23:16)

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I had my yearly (well, it should be yearly) physical this week. It would seems that I am as healthy as a horse. Blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. all on the low end of normal. That is truly a blessing from God, and He gets thanksgiving and praise. But it would be arrogant to think that I did something to deserve God’s favor. It would be more than arrogant to think that those who struggle with health concerns somehow did not do something right to declare God’s favor in their lives.

It seems to me that the idea that what we do somehow earns or engages God’s favor in material things (health and wealth) is really not that different from suggesting that we do religiously deserves salvation. God gives grace to who God gives grace. God gives the gifts of wealth, success and prosperity to some. Some (like Jeremiah) receive the gifts of struggle, hardship and
difficulty. To all who seek him and live our their faithfulness, God gives the gift of Himself. That is the ultimate favor of God!

The Dance of the God-Struck

As the ark of the covenant of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David dancing and celebrating, she despised him in her heart. (1 Chronicles 15:29)

It is not hard to imagine David dancing before the Ark. In fact, we see David’s heart dancing before God all through the Psalms. So, I guess it makes sense that we would see the rest of him dancing for joy as the ark is brought home to Jerusalem. And David's dance here was not some highly-stylized liturgical choreography; it was rather an expression of celebration and thanksgiving. It was not the dance of the stage but rather the dance in the end zone. David’s dance was where worship meets pure joy. (OK, that sounds a little too much like Max Lucado; I must have read that somewhere, but I don’t remember where).

But David’s wife Michal is right there to throw the flag on David for "excessive celebration." As she watched David’s dance from a distance, there was nothing but coldness and criticism in her heart. The word here “despised” means “to hold in contempt.” It is the same word for used to describe how Goliath dismissed David in 1 Samuel 17: 42. David was lost in joy and thanksgiving before the Lord; Michal was lost in her own critical spirit.

What is the point of this story? It’s not that we need more dancing in church. But maybe what we do need is less criticism of the worship of others. This story is about David’s heart. Worship, ministry and piety must come from a heart that overflows with God. Michal saw a lack of protocol and propriety; David just saw God. The heart that finds it easy to be judgmental and dismissive based on external appearances is a heart that will not see God. In an article entitled “The Dance of the God-Struck,” Mark Buchanan puts his finger on the essence of this story--

Occasionally we get glimpses of Deepest Reality, intimations of what remains after all else has been shaken out and burned up. This is the reality that earthy things sometimes hint at and sometimes hide… Glimpsing it, that Deepest Reality, can make you do funny things. You can become stony still. Or giddily happy. Or chokingly afraid. It can calm you with uncanny peace, or disrupt you with implacable dread. It can make you, simultaneously, not yourself and fully yourself. It can make kings dance.

Suing God

A Nebraska state senator is suing God, seeking a permanent injunction ordering God to cease all harmful activities. The suit charges God with causing, “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects, and the like.” Chambers also says God “has manifested neither compassion nor remorse.” He asks for the court to grant him a summary judgment and enter a permanent injunction enjoining God from engaging in the types of deleterious actions described in the lawsuit. State Senator Ernie Chambers has filed this lawsuit to prove a point about frivolous lawsuits. He says, "Anybody can file a lawsuit against anybody- even God." So he decided to prove his point by suing God.

Who is to blame for “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes” and the other things mentioned in the lawsuit? Obviously, the blame for much (most?) of what is wrong with the world today can be laid directly at the feet of human beings. Much of human misery comes from things like war and crime, which are purely human constructs. Even much of the suffering from things called “acts of God” can be traced to human rather than divine fingerprints. Many famines have been created or made worse because of human greed; the suffering following hurricane and tsunami is often made worse because of a failure to properly allocate needed supplies. The lion’s share of blame for the state of our world rests solidly on the shoulders of mankind.

And properly understood, the rest of the blame is ours as well. When Adam and Eve rebelled against God and introduced sin into the world, something shifted in the order of things. The world fell. Not just Adam and Eve— something shifted on its axis in the entire created order. Paul describes a creation that groans under the curse of the fall—

19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (Romans 8:19-22, NLT).

When Adam and Eve rebelled again God, there was something fundamentally broken. Not broken just in humans; broken in all creation. We should not be surprised by the seemingly random and unfair suffering that happens in our world. The world is broken; we broke it! Senator Chambers may be making a statement against frivolous lawsuits, but he has the wrong defendant. He should be suing us!

A Trip Down Memory Lane

I just got back from the doctor’s office, and my yearly check-up (which I have without fail ever 2-3 years) reveals that I’m in excellent health. The nurse wanted make sure that I was awake when my blood pressure came back 102/68. But then, it’s Monday; I’m lucky to have a blood pressure on Monday! People that don’t preach have no idea how much a Sunday takes out of the preacher. I don’t get a 30 minute nap on Sunday morning like everyone else!

It took a bit longer than usual to out-process me after my visit. So I’m standing there by the window to the office when I notice a very familiar (and very strong) smell. It was a smell that took me back to my childhood— Fedron. I knew instantly it was Fedron. I looked around the corner and sure enough, there was a repairman working on one of the two office typewriters that they still use to type labels and fill out forms (how quaint). The repairman was using Fedron, and the distinctive smell took me on a trip down memory lane. (Sniff that stuff long enough and it will take you on another kind of trip!)

My Dad was in the office equipment business for years. Fedron was the industrial strength solvent that he used to clean and restore typewriter platens and dissolve the “gunk” (technical jargon) on the typewriter keys. According to a supplier who will sell you a 4 ounce bottle for $10, Fedron is “a clear liquid, blended of highly refined pure chemicals, specially formulated for cleaning rubber, metal, Teflon, silicon, and similar materials.” What they don’t tell you is that it will eat through almost anything else!

Dad bought it in 10 gallon drums or something, and he used it for many different applications. When we bought our first house, the floors were saturated with the smell of the 6 or so adult dogs that the previous occupant kept inside… without ever letting go outside. I mopped the floors with a bucket of Fedron that Dad gave me, and it killed the smell of the dogs. It would have also killed the dogs had they been around! This was strong stuff.

I never thought I would grow nostalgic over the smell of a commercial solvent, but I did. As I stood there smelling the Fedron, I was taken back to summers working for Dad hunched over an Adler 21-C electric typewriter at Bethel High School cleaning the gunk off the keys and getting paid 75 cents an hour… and getting a headache from smelling Fedron. I have a headache now from smelling it in the doctor’s office, but somehow I don’t mind.

Enjoy every day that God gives you. You never know which day you will look back upon as “the good old days!”

Where Were You When...

Where were you when… There have been three events in my lifetime that were so monumental that everyone remembers where they were then they heard that the event had taken place. Oh, there are many personal monumental events that I will always remember— when I was married, when my children were born, when Arkansas beat Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl. But three events are so universal that most who were alive then remember where they werewhen they heard

First, “Where were you when you heard President Kennedy had been shot?” I was in Miss Riddle’s first grade class at deer Park Elementary. They closed school early and sent us home. I remember being really upset when I learned that the president had died. I remember Mom saying, “That’s really a bad thing, but it won’t affect little boys in Virginia.” That made sense, so I went outside to play.

Second, “Where were you when you heard that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had landed on the moon?” I was in the first bottom bunk on the left side of Cabin #2 at Idlewild Christian Camp listening to the radio. (Later it would be against rules to have a radio, but we had a radio that day.) That when we heard that “The Eagle has landed.” I thought that was cool, but I thought it was even more cool that I were getting ready to play softball.

Third, “Where were you when you on September 11, 2001 when you heard about the attack on the World Trade Center.” I was at the church building. We had just started a program where Elaine Denman came to the building once a week to do Christian counseling. Someone called, and we set the TV up just in time to see the second plane hit. It was the most surreal morning that I can remember. Seeing the second crash… hearing of the Pentagon… watching the Twin Towers fall. Unlike the shooting of JFK, we knew that this was going to directly affect us for the rest of our lives. Terrorism came home. It got real.

God has blessed us with many things in the world, but what He does not ever promise is a world without hardship, tragedy and death. What God gave us is a world in which we are free to make our own moral decisions. That freedom allowed a handful of evil men to turn airplanes into bombs and turn the murder of 3000 innocent people into a political statement. But that freedom also allowed those brave fire fighters and police to rush into the burning Twin Towers and military personnel to climb through the flames at the Pentagon in a valiant effort to save others.

Lisa Beamer became probably the most visible face of 911 in the weeks and months following the disaster. Her husband Todd died during the battle to take back the plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field but was supposed to crash into the Capital. She became a source of inspiration and strength with her book and many appearances. Todd’s final words “Let’s roll!” became our unofficial national motto. Lisa shared how it was that she was able to roll on after Todd’s death—

If I were trying to hold my life together based on my human strength, I wouldn't get out of bed. I am so thankful to have my God-given strength and courage. Every day seems like such a dichotomy, because I'm human, with emotions of sadness and grieving. But on the other hand, my perspective is much bigger than just the things that happen in this world.

Today we seek that divine perspective as we remember one of our darkest days as a nation. The courage and sacrifice of those at Ground Zero and the response and resolve of millions across the country help us to see that through the darkness the light still shines brightly. May we always remember those who died that day. May we live daily top bring the light of God into our dark world.

The Dark Night of the Soul

The cover of the September 3, 2007 edition of Time has the picture of Mother Teresa with the provocative title “The Secret Life of Mother Teresa.” (Did they select that title hoping that people would assume something lurid, like she ran a dog-fighting ring or something?) The “secret life” of this the most recognizable nun of history was her constant struggle for faith. In 1946, she heard what she believed to be the voice of God calling her to minister to the poor. Though the voice of God grew quiet, she devoted her life to serving the poor. She lived in what appeared to be cheerful faith to those around her, and that made the publication of her letters expressing doubt that much more jarring. In those letters she felt abandonment; the vividness of her memory of God’s love and voice made His silence that much more unbearable. She writes—

Lord, my God, who am I that You should forsake me? The child of your love— and now become as the most hated one— the one You have thrown away as unwanted, unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no One to answer

Sunday’s Daily Press paper carried an editorial by Michael Gerson, an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post and a former speechwriter for President Bush. He discusses Mother Teresa’s faith-struggle and asks what it might mean for our faith. All believers go through what St. John of the Cross called “the dark night of the Soul.” Perhaps what Mother Teresa reminds us of here is that faith and doubt, struggle and service, questioning and faithfulness can all take place in the same soul at the same time. Gerson says this—

There are lessons in this complicated spiritual life-- that holiness has more to do with obedience than spiritual feelings; that faith can coexist with suffering and doubt; that sainthood can be harsher and more difficult than we imagine… There is no easy answer here, but the question is central to the Christian faith. Other noble religious traditions promise serenity, detachment from striving and release from the suffering of the world. Christianity, in contrast, teaches that grace is found in the worst of that suffering, and through a figure who despairs of God's presence in his parting words. This anguish is not convenient -- "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" is hardly the best religious marketing slogan. But for millennia this abandonment has offered hope that God might somehow be present even in shame, loneliness and betrayal, even on the descending path of depression, even in the soul's hardness and doubt, even in the silence of God himself -- and that all these things may be the preface to glory.

Jesus quotes David from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Both David and Jesus absolutely feel forsaken when they speak these words. But I have to wonder that they also speak those words because we so desperately need to hear them. The act of crying out to God is an act of faith, a desperate faith certainly, but an act of faith. We may read in Mother Teresa’s letters a sense of her feeling of abandonment, but what we see in her life is her absolute abandonment to absolute obedience to the voice of God... even when for her that voice had gone silent.

Only a Step

On December 30, an Arizona driver in a 1991 GMC pick-up was traveling east on State Route 59 just outside of Hurricane, Utah. (Hurricane? I’m sure they get a lot of those in Utah). The driver told police that he was traveling 55 mph (though skid marks indicate he was going closer to 83 mph) when the truck left the roadway. The truck left the road onto the right shoulder when the driver overcorrected and shot back across both lanes and hit and broke through a cement barricade that separated the road from a roughly 200-foot drop down the canyon. The truck finally came to rest and the driver was fine.

Well, he was fine until he looked down! This second pictures adds a little perspective to things, doesn't it? The truck evidently went through the guard rail so fast that it was propelled through the air, spinning it 180 degrees along the guardrail clearing the concrete drainage culvert and coming to rest on a small ledge over looking the 200 foot drop to the bottom of the canyon. There has been a lot of debate if this is real or Photoshop, but the police evidently say that it is real. One Web site ran these photos under the headline, “I bet this guy will be in church Sunday!”

This was an especially close call, But then our lives are really nothing but a series of close calls. Even if you obey all the traffic laws, you are still hurtling down the interstate at nearly a mile minute sitting in a contraption of metal and plastic surrounded by other people doing the same thing. Our hold on life is always very tenuous, is it not? David told Jonathan, "Yet as surely as the Lord lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death" (1 Samuel 20:3). Maybe you don't have Saul breathing down your neck trying to skewer you with a spear. May all you are doing is driving to work... while the driver above is driving on the same road in a new truck! Only a step.

The only way to be ready when your appointment with death comes is to live ready at all times. And obey the speed limit.

I Have Hidden Your Word in My Heart

So, need any more good reasons to keep your Bible close to your heart? How about the case of Pfc. Brendon Schweigart from Andover, Maryland. Schweigart was serving in Iraq when he was hit by a sniper's bullet. The bullet injured him, but not nearly as severely (or as fatally) as it could have because it lodged in the Bible he carried in his shirt pocket. Schweigart says that the Bible “definitely prevented more serious injury, because if it wouldn't have been there, it would have ricocheted off my bullet-proof plate and more than likely would have gone back into my chest, causing more damage.”

Several things came to mind when I read this— “Just think how effective his Bible would have been had it been a hardback study Bible with a concordance, maps and study notes!” Or maybe “The bullet probably stopped in Leviticus; a lot of people stop in Leviticus when reading through the Bible.”

God intended his word to be a protective shield. David said, “I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:10-11). When Jesus confronted Satan in the desert temptations, He resisted by quoting scripture. The Bible says, “The word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.” In fact, it says that three times (2 Sam. 22:31, Psa 18:30, Prov 30:5).

On one of our mission trips to Ukraine, Tom Gilliam, became separated from the group when he got off the trolly bus at the wrong stop alone… and the buss pulled away before he realized his mistake. So Tom was alone in the middle of a strange city in the middle of the night… and none of us even missed him! We had been traveling across the city to hand out Bibles, and Tom was carrying several heavy bundles of Ukrainian Bibles. When we found him later, he later told us that he had decided that if anyone attacked him, he would have just hit them with his Bibles! God’s word does come in handy, doesn’t it? Ask Brendon Schweigart. Ask Tom Gilliam.

Living Above the Routine

It officially became Fall last night. I say that because I attended the first high school football game of the new season. Tressa is living out what was once her dream—teaching at Denbigh and coaching the cheerleaders. So we were there to watch her working with her girls… for some reason, the image of “herding cats” comes to mind here! (If Tressa were writing this blog entry, it may be entitled “Careful what You Wish For”)

Although it was a brand new season, it was very much the same old Denbigh football team. There were some flashes of promise, but we got pushed around pretty well by Woodside in a 34-14 loss. And unless Woodside turns out to be very good, Denbigh may be looking at another very long season.

But the game itself was overshadowed by what happened with 5:00 minutes left in the second quarter. After a pretty routine play, the line judge—a man named George French— went down on a knee. The play had been run his way, and I thought maybe he had been bumped by one of the players. But then he just collapsed to the ground, falling over hard on his face. Within a few minutes the rescue squad was frantically performing CPR, and before long an ambulance came and took him to the hospital. He apparently had a heart attack, but as of this morning, there has been no word available on Mr. French’s condition. Keep him in your prayers.

The reaction insider the stadium during this drama was interesting. As you might expect, a hush came over the whole crowd when he collapsed. The other officials gathered around him, one frantically waving to the sidelines for help while another walked about 15 yards away and went down on one knee in obvious prayer. After a brief minute, the announcer in the press box haltingly said, “Uhhh.. now for some scores from some other games.” And in very few minutes, the crowd was back to buzzing and Tressa was back to fussing at her cheerleaders.

You never know when the routine of life will become very un-routine. James says, “You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing” (James 4:14, The Message). We know that… but we don’t seem to live like we know that. We live our lives as if the daily grind is all that matters. But we never know when a routine play (or day at work or short drive or whatever) will turn into a life and death drama. That happened last night at Todd Stadium. It can happen today wherever we happen to be. We must live our lives above the routine so that we will be ready when the routine is shattered.

Spiders and Snakes

Christina Ryan is the reigning Mrs. Tennessee and is in Phoenix to compete in the Mrs. America Pageant. She was just getting ready to walk up an outside staircase at the resort hosting this weekend's competition when she saw a spider on a step. She instinctively jumped away from the spider… and onto a rattlesnake which bit her on the right foot. So she spent a day in the local hospital receiving ten vials of antivenin. She’s fine now… except that she has to walk in high heels in the pageant on a very swollen right foot.

There’s gotta be a metaphor for life in there somewhere! Just when you think you’ve got the spiders beat, up pops the rattlesnake! It’s just like Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, “It’s always something!”

This story made me think of Jim Stafford’s 70’s hit song “Spiders and Snakes.” More seriously, it also made me think of Amos 5:18-20—

It will be as though a man fled from a lion
only to meet a bear,
as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall
only to have a snake bite him.
Will not the day of the LORD be darkness, not light—
pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

Amos describes the smug, self-satisfied and materialistic Israelite who looked forward to the “Day of the Lord” because they thought this would be the time when God would destroy their enemies and give victory to Israel. The Day of the Lord was the time of God's judgment, but it would be directed at them! God would hold them accountable for their sin, and they would not escape His wrath. It would be as though they ran from a lion right into a bear, and then escaped only to be bitten by a snake in their own house. They would not get away. God tells his people that when His day came, in the immortal words of Rambo, “I coming for you!”

OK, besides pegging the meter for references to 70’s pop culture, what is the point here? Actually, Amos makes it rather plainly, doesn’t he? True, eternal safety exists only for the people of God… and only as they live like the people of God. We can’t buy God off with the right rituals and church done “decently and in order.” God is looking for hearts that beat for Him and lives that are lived for Him. Amos continues (Amos 5:21-24) with what for me is some of the most dramatic words of the Old Testament—

"I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

Lost in Translation

"This is next are acts. Calling to inform you. That your order 1. 822. 5. For. 3. 5. When she had gone. Tuesday. this plenty 8. And should arrive within side. Business days or sooner. If you chose to exit out your order. Thank you from next Iraq's. Goodbye."

That is a message that we received today on our voice mail. Well, actually that is the message as translated by Vonage, our VoIP phone company (at least until Verizon shuts it down). Vonage has this neat feature that takes voice mail and translates it to text and emails it to you. That way you have the message you missed at home sent straight to you wherever you are.

So what is the above gobblely-gook? This is a computer-generated message sent to a computer-based voice mail interpreted by a computer algorithm with no human interaction at all. Very helpful, isn’t it? The message, whatever it is, is lost in translation. Don’t computers make our lives so much easier?

Lost in translation. I wonder if that is what happens with our Christian lives among our non-Christian friends and co-workers.. How often is there a 'lost in translation" disconnect between what we say we believe and how we actually live. We speak of a “peace that passes understanding.” What others see in our lives is the same full-bore, flat-out rat race dominating our life just as it dominates theirs. We may talk about faith in a God that controls the world while what they see in us may be the same fretting, fuming and fussing over life that would be there if God were NOT in control.

Does the gospel lose something in translation between what God calls us to be and what others see? Peter says, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God” (1 Peter 2:12). Boy, talk about a verse that is easier to quote than to live! But then, most Bible verses are that way. How much of the gospel is lost in translation by the way we live it… or don’t live it?

O Fill My Cup

I don’t know whether anyone out there in Blogville gets Al Maxey’s e-newsletter Reflections. Each month there is a long article by Al that appears in Reflections, and all of the articles are posted on his website. Many of his articles, though by no means all, raise questions about some of our traditions in Churches of Christ. Such is the case in the issues I received yesterday.

As you may know, there is a branch of our movement that practices communion with only one cup. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. I have been places that used one cup to emphasize the unity of the church in communion, though I was careful to make sure I sat on the front row so I got the first sip. (In was also wine rather than grape juice; a little germ killer “for thy stomach sake” isn’t a bad idea in such a setting). The problem is that these brothers and sisters insist that one cup is the only right way to do communion. Multiple cups are sinful.

Maxey’s article points to a publication called The Old Paths Advocate (which he renames Odd Paths Advocate) that raised the question of whether or not it was scriptural to refill the one cup during communion. The question was, “What should be done if the assembly proved too large to be able to commune together from the cup normally used by the congregation?” The Old Paths writer points to an elder who decided that the cup could be refilled and then communion continued from that point. That elder argued that as long as one cup was used, it could be refilled as often as was necessary to serve everyone. But this was heresy to the writer in Old Paths Advocate. I'm not making this up; here are his words--

Where is the Bible passage that either explicitly or implicitly authorizes a congregation to refill the cup and continue with the distribution of the fruit of the vine at the place in the assembly where the first cup was exhausted? There is no such scripture… We do not intend to consider even for a moment the idea of 'refilling the cup in an emergency' as described in this article. Such would entail sin and digression. We will not, must not, countenance such a corruption of the Lord's Supper. Uncertain sounds concerning the doctrine of Christ cannot be tolerated.

I thought I had LONG AGO run across all the strange ideas and practices that my religious tradition has come up with in an effort to be scriptural, but this one is a new one to me! I kept waiting for there to punch line in there somewhere. I had a professor who liked to say, “Some positions are so absurd that they must only be stated to be refuted.” This one qualifies, I think.

God calls us to be faithful to Him, and it is through scripture that He reveals His will to us. But continual arguments and divisions over logical nuance has caused more harm to the church than any direct attack of Satan. Paul warns Timothy to warn his people (and us) about such issues, “Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen” (2 Timothy 2:14). And later he says to Timothy, “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels” (2 Timothy 2:23).

So if you will excuse me, my coffee cup is empty and I need to go refill it… if that is OK!

The HOW Versus the WHAT

Several years ago I remember someone asking the question, "What would happen if Paul came to town looking for Christians with whom to worship?" I don’t know exactly how this would happen, but imagine you are coming out of Big Lots or something and there is Paul says, “Excuse me, but can you tell me where the Christians be meeting this Sunday for worship?” The exchange just might go something like this—

You answer, "Sure, they meet right down the street there at the church building right beside the high school." Paul looks a bit puzzled and asks, “Church building? What is a church building?”

You smile and answer, “You know, the church building is the place where we have the auditorium (or “sanctuary” or “worship center”) in which we assemble for worship." But that only leads Paul to ask, “Auditorium?” (or “Sanctuary?” or “Worship Center?”) “What is that?"

Now you are getting a bit frustrated and answer, “Oh, that's the big room where we meet that has all the pews (or chairs) and the podium.” Of course, Paul says, “Podium? What is a podium?”

You answer, “Duhh, that’s where the song leader stands when he leads singing.” And of course, Paul asks, “Song leader? What is a song leader?”

OK, face it-- it is a little bit annoying for those of us in a "Restoration Tradition" to have to admit that there are very few things that we do in the worship and work of the church today that looks anything like what it did in first century. Church today looks so different from the first century that it is unlikely that Paul or Peter would even recognize it as church! Now I think that we are hitting at WHAT the first century church was doing, but we don’t do those things anywhere near HOW the first Christians went about them. We aren’t even close.

And yet, most of our squabbles and fractures in fellowship today is over HOW we do things! It really is hard to imagine Paul getting all worked up over the issue of a single song leader with a mike verses multiple song leaders with a mike when Paul’s church not only didn’t have mikes, we have no reason to believe they song song leaders (“When you come together, everyone has a hymn,” 1 Cor 14:26). The stately hymns of Isaac Watts and gospel songs of Fanny J. Crosby would be just as foreign and strange to Paul was the contemporary anthems of Dennis Jernigan! Flannelgraph would be as much an innovation to Paul as would PowerPoint!

It is all too easy for us to ourselves to get worked up over the HOW’s of church that we ignore some very plain WHAT's. Peter is pretty plain about the WHAT when he says, “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble” (1 Peter 3:8). How are we supposed to do that? The HOW is up to us, but we must do WHAT Peter says here, right?

May we never ignore the WHAT because of our understandable and unavoidable differences over all the HOW's of doing church.

A-Rod and Avalanche Ranch

I was watching sports on ESPN yesterday—one of the few times ESPN bleeds over clearly enough for me to pick it up. (This year we will "real" cable during football season, especially if Tank makes the Eagles again). They were discussing an award given to Alex Rodriguez for reaching the 500 homerun mark in his career. They had a little ceremony with some baseball officials standing with A-Rod on the field. The unveiled the award with a flourish-- too much flourish. The easel folded up like a cheap suit and the plaque bounced down the first base line like a bad bunt! The commentator said, “What was with this award; it looked like something a bunch of kids made in VBS.” The other commentator looked at him blankly; he had no clue what was meant by "VBS." Some people are just culturally challenged like that.

Well, we know what VBS is around here! We are right in the middle of our Avalanche Ranch VBS this week. We’ve had a really good crowd of kids (more than we were expecting) the first two nights, and I don’t see any reason that this trend will not continue. When I was a kid, VBS meant we got a cookie and Kool-Aid. Well, its a bit more than that now! It’s been great watching all the excitement, enthusiasm and childish wonder… and that’s just been Len doing his cowboy imitation during praise-n-worship! I do appreciate all the hard work so many have put in, especially Kati heading everything up and putting it all together.

For some pictures, take a look at http://www.denbigh.org/Events/AvalancheRanch/. If you think these pictures look a bit grainy, you should have seen them before Photoshop. Will King will take some good pictures later, but these will give you an idea.

It's All About God

I made it through our recent trip to Arkansas by listening to several books on CD. Getting lost in a good story is the best way for me to make monotonous miles bearable. OK, I know I should “enjoy the journey” and all, but after 30 years of that same trip (I-64 to I-81 to I-40), the only thing I enjoy about it is getting it over. And listening to books is the best way I know.

The most interesting book was Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel The Lovely Bones. It is the story of Susie Salmon, a 14 year old girl murdered and dismembered by a serial killer who was her neighbor. Susie narrates her story from heaven as she watches her family and friends deal with the aftermath of her death. This was not an easy book to read… but it was even harder to put down.

Susie inhabits her own unique heaven. All the buildings look like 1960-era school building. There are lots of dogs. She has an intake counselor to help her adjust. At times her heaven intersects that of others, so she does have friends. In one chilling scene she meets other victims of the same serial killer. Mostly she sits in a gazebo and watches earth—and she is variously worried, afraid, sorrowful, lonely and bored. She watches her family grieve and struggle and fall apart… and then eventually pull together and survive. She watches her killer evade justice. She watches the place where her “lovely bones” are buried and are never found. She watches her friends grow and change. Mostly she longs to return to her life… which she does in one strange and never fully explained scene.

Susie’s heaven is a stopping place before she moves on. She is told that once she stops longing for life on Earth, then she will go to a heaven that bigger and brighter and fuller. But there is nothing really that compels her there. She sees only earth, and she longs for life there. Ultimately the only real peace she experiences is when her family starts to find their own peace with her loss.

What is missing from Susie’s heaven is God. At the center of the heaven of scripture is a throne. There is no sun and no night because God is the Light. Those in heaven are not looking back on their lives on earth; they are too focused on the glorious joys of being with God. There will be no sadness or fear or pain or loneliness because God is there. We will not long for what we lost on earth because the peace and joy of God will be too great. I liked Susie; I wish she’d have seen the real heaven—the one with God. That is the real point of heaven.

And that is the real point of Earth. We shouldn’t get too focused on Christianity as a way to live so we can see God someday. It is really about living in relationship with God both NOW and FOREVER.

The Daily Grind

Well, my week-long sojourn in Arkansas has come to an end and I’m back home to the old daily grind. (Well, the real daily grind doesn’t start for 2-3 weeks when Lynn goes back to work. I get a little extra sleep when her alarm doesn’t go off at 4:45 a.m.) Angelynn is one of the trainers for Harding’s football team, so she had to be back before the football team starts practice today, so her summer break ended in July. Fall practice has also already started for Coach Tressa who already getting her Denbigh High cheerleaders in shape for football season. Just so that things don’t get too quiet with Angelynn gone, Courtney and her kids are with us for awhile while Tank is in training camp with the Eagles. So the signs are that summer is heading toward being over. Boy time flies when you are having fun, huh?

Or maybe time just flies. Why does time seem to fly faster and faster as you get older? When we were kids, it took forever for Christmas or birthdays to come around; now they come and go with increasing rapidity. While time is fixed and precisely measured, our perception of it is very relative. Two minute seems pretty short when it’s a coffee break but an eternity when you are holding your breath underwater! Does time fly faster as we get older because of the percentages? To a child, a month is a large percentage of their entire life; it not that large of a percentage to us geezers. Or is it that children are more finely tuned to the moment—they enjoy, experience and endure each moment in the moment. As we get older, we fill our present moments with "the daily grind" and put off living for the future moments-- evenings, weekends, and vacations.

It is easy to view Christianity as anything but living in the moment. We look back to the cross (past) that saves us so that we can go in heaven (future). If we are not careful, we may sanctify the past and look the future while we forget all about the present. But Jesus tells that faith means trusting God for today, right now, rather than being anxious about tomorrow. He says, “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matt 6:34, NLT). Today's troubles are enough for today. So is today's joys. And today's daily grind.

Trusting God today means that we won’t to worry about what will come tomorrow. So we must live in the moment… remembering the past (cross) with an eye on the future (heaven). But we live right now in the moment. Today with its "daily grind" is a precious gift from God.

Are You an Ear-Whisperer?

Our biggest local news story is now a huge national news story. Michael Vick grew up here in Newport News. I watched him play when he was at Warwick High School (and Tressa was cheering for Denbigh High). Most people in our area followed his career at Virginia Tech and then with the Falcons. Last week, Michael Vick was indicted on federal charges that he helped to raise and train dogs for the brutal and barbaric “sport” of dog fighting, and the indictment alleges that Vick himself participated in killing of eight dogs which had lost fights. Vick’s career and his freedom are in question at this point. One of the pundits on ESPN said this morning that Vick would never again play for the Falcons and the chances were only 50-50 that he would ever play football again.

I cannot help but wonder if there was not someone close to Vick that recognized the brutality and cruelty of this “sport” that could have been an "ear-whisperer" for Vick. Surely there was a friend, associate or teammate who had Vick’s ear that could have whispered to that that this was a federal crime and that the NFL is getting tough on players who break the law. Sure someone could have pulled him aside and whispered in his ear, “Man, this is NOT a good idea. This is very wrong, and you need to get away from this and right now.” But see, when you are a celebrity, what people tend to whisper in your ear is what you want to hear, not what you need to hear.

There is a lesson here for us all. God has placed us in a community of faith, surrounded by brothers and sisters with a common commitment to living for God. We are not called in scripture “associates” but rather “brothers and sisters.” The church is a spiritual community in which we are tied to one another because we share the same Father. What practical good does that do, however, if we don’t at times whisper in each other’s ear, “This isn’t a good idea. This is wrong, and you need to get away from this right now.” Paul says this in Galatians 6:1--

Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path” (NLT).

If we don’t care enough (or aren’t godly enough) to step in and help out when a brother or sister is making a bad choice, then we are missing something vital in our Christian lives. If we are going to tell people what they WANT to hear rather than what they NEED to hear, we might as well not be part of a church at all... and join the NFL.

Handling Snakes

Monty Long was doing what grandfathers do—he was in his back yard watching his two year old grandson Booker who was playing by a birdbath while a 10-month old Chihuahua named Zoey explored nearby. All of a sudden, the dog darted between the toddler and a large rock, and it wasn’t until then that Long saw the rattlesnake on the rock near the child. The snake struck, but the bite intended for the toddler was taken by the dog.

The grandfather grabbed the toddler and took him to safety, and then he grabbed a pipe and took care of the snake. But the dog had been bitten on the head, which swelled up until it was the size of a grapefruit. Booker’s mother Denise Long said, "You couldn't tell where her eyes were... just this little button that you could tell was her nose." The dog survived, thanks to antivenin from a nearby vet. All he has to show for his ordeal today is a one-inch scar on his forehead. This cute little human-interest story could have been a horrible tragedy if not for Zoey’s heroic act.

OK, I not going to make an direct parallel’s between Zoey and Jesus; Aslan the Lion from C.S. Lewis seems a much more fitting animal kingdom metaphor than a 4 ½ pound Chihuahua. But I could not help but think of a parallel here… because of the snake. In the Garden of Eden, the crafty serpent spewed out venom that threatened to destroy the human race. Adam and even bought the lie (and did their children) and plunged with their prodigy toward destruction. But Jesus would come between us and the snake, and he took the venom that was ours. “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). We put ourselves under the fangs of the old snake, and Jesus took the bit for us.

I have to wonder if this is the reason that one of the miracles to follow believers was “they will pick up snakes with their hands… it will not hurt them at all” (Mark 16:18). And Paul does just that when he was bitten by a poisonous snake while gathering firewood. He rather nonchalantly “shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects” (Acts 28:5). Does an overcoming of poisonous snakes underscore the victory Jesus won at the cross over the old snake Satan? OK, maybe that is a stretch.

By the way, fundamentalist “snake handlers” who use this practice today are often bitten, and when they are, they suffer the same ‘ill effects” that Zoey the dog suffered. And sometimes they die. Paul apostolic pattern for handling poisonous snakes seems to be to get rid of them quickly— not to keep picking them up! I glad that we don’t have to handle snakes. I’m glad that Jesus took care of that for us.