January 2010

The tragedy in Haiti has brought out the best and worst in people, as it seems all tragedies do.

Aid is pouring into Haiti and will ultimately climb into the billions of dollars.  This week several church members called the office to see what we were going to do about it.  That is happening all across this country.  (FYI, all money donated to Sardis for relief in Haiti will go straight to our Baptist mission partners for work directly in Haiti.)  You’ve read or seen heroic and heart-warming stories in the news.  The response from around the world encourages you when you think about human nature.

On the other hand, looting is spreading in Haiti.  More American soldiers are being sent to Haiti in hopes of controlling the chaos and keeping a lid on violence.  Now televangelist Pat Robertson entered the news for claiming that God was punishing Haiti because it made a pact with the devil 227 years ago.

Never mind that the “pact with the devil” story stands on very shaky historical grounds, Robertson betrays the loving God of Jesus Christ by claiming that God is so callous as to maim, destroy and kill tens of thousands of people for something one of their ancestors might have done well over 200 years ago.  Robertson uses the Dominican Republic, the country on the other half of the island of Hispaniola, to bolster his case.  Haiti’s poverty, ecological resources, political structures are much worse than the Dominican Republic; therefore Robertson concludes, God must be punishing Haiti.

This is the moral reasoning of those who believe in the prosperity gospel.  Never mind how you’ve lived your life, if you have money and success, you must be righteous because it is obvious God has blessed you.  If you are poor, and endure tragedy, no matter how religious you may seem at the surface, you must have made a “pact with the devil” at some point, because it is obvious God has not blessed you.

From Jesus to Job, biblical speakers lambasted such thinking and declared that God is on the side of the poor.  Let us join God in praying for and contributing to Haiti and leave people like Robertson talking about the devil.  And hopefully the best in people will overcome the worst ideas about God.

 

August 2009

Returning from a vacation of visiting four national parks leaves you amazed at the wonder and beauty of nature.  Within 10 days time we visited Death Valley, Sequoia National Park, Yosemite and Muir Woods, just north of San Francisco.  

“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork,” sang the Psalmist. [Psalm 19:1]  To that I can only add that the wonder of God’s creation is all around us, not just in the sky.

One of the amazing realities about our trip was to experience such a rapid change in scenery and climate in traveling a short distance.  We stood near the lowest elevation point in the United States (-282 feet below sea level) in Death Valley and less than 100 miles as a crow flies was snow-peaked Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous 48 states at 14,496 feet.  More than just facts and numbers, our bodies felt the change.  The high temperature for our day in Death Valley was 113º (which was actually below the average in August of 116º).  The next afternoon we were in the deep forest of the Sequoias around 8,000 feet elevation and the high temperature was 56º.  The kids – quickly using 4th grade mathematics – declared that it was literally twice at hot in Death Valley as in the Sequoias.  (I didn’t go into how that would have changed if we’d been using Cº instead of Fº.  Tour guides shouldn’t be killjoys.)

When we climbed Lembert Dome, one of the smaller granite peaks in Yosemite, we came across a few small pines that had somehow managed to send roots into the cracks and crevasses of this solid granite mountain top.  They couldn’t have been more than 2 feet tall, but spread out horizontally by more than 10 feet in order to stay low on the rock and down from the beating of the winds whipping across the solid surface.  Just a few miles down the road from these short and wide trees was a Sequoia grove with trees nearly 300 feet tall and nearly 100 feet in circumference.  

If heaven and earth are witnesses of God’s handiwork, then we certainly have a God who loves variety and wonder, and who delights in the surprising adaptability of nature to whatever circumstances it is placed.  

I can’t help but think God must love this about us as well.  Maybe if we can appreciate such things in nature, we will also love them about our human race.

 

July 2009

Peter Abelard (1079-1142) was one of the more fascinating persons from the Middle Ages.  He became an early pioneer of “the university” – an institution that has been at the center of human progress for nearly a thousand years.  A dazzling debater, he had a flair with rhetoric that was equally matched with a calculating logic.  By the time he was in his early 20’s he had crushed all of his professors in debates, started his own ‘university’ just outside the city walls of Paris, and began stealing their pupils.

Abelard’s most profound text was Sic et No – Yes and No.  In it, he asks 158 questions about Christian beliefs, and with each question he shows how, citing passages, the Church and Scripture answered each question with a ‘Yes’ and also with a ‘No.’  Typically when professors use a dialectic style one side or the other ‘wins’ the debate, and the answer is proved.  In Abelard’s Sic et No, however, the two opposing sides usually end in a draw – with neither side able to claim victory.  

His students loved this type of thinking.  The Catholic Church did not.  Several of his books were burned.  He was jailed more than once for his teaching.  Each time he would return to his “yes & no” style of teaching.

900 years later young people typically still love the idea that the secrets to life and faith are not so easily settled.  And church leaders still try enforce a set orthodoxy that all must believe.

A few years ago Brian McLaren came out with a “yes & no” book of a different sort.  In A Generous Orthodoxy he basically affirms all the different versions of Christian belief and practice.  He claims both conservative and liberal, mystic and evangelical, fundamentalist and catholic labels for himself.  He refuses to be limited into one Christian belief system, but feels called to celebrate the positive beliefs and practices in each branch of the faith.

For far too long Protestants have argued – protested – against what other groups of Christians believed in order to exclude others and claim the exclusive rightness of their own beliefs.  I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of that game.  I don’t care to be limited by one brand of Christian thought.  Like McLaren I prefer an orthodoxy with some wiggle room, that allows me to examine the beliefs and practices of Christian brands around the world and back in time.  Like Abelard I’d like to hear God’s “yes & no” and wonder what it means.  God’s too big to limit our exploration.  

 

May 2007

      A few days ago I had a great time playing croscet. (Pronounced cr?-sk??)

      Croscet. Maybe you haven’t heard of it. You play it with croquet mallets and a soccer ball on a wide field. Abby told me about it, but don’t feel bad, if you think you’re missing out on a new trend.

      Abby came in the other day and asked me to join her outside for a new game that she just made up. A few minutes later Michael and Hannah joined us along with the boy across the street. Then, Magay came outside and we drafted her in a kids-versus-parents match. Part-way through the match we pretended we were a Spanish family because Hannah thought croscet sounded like a Spanish name.

      So, there we were out on a groomed green lawn in Madrid, maybe, or Barcelona, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea dodging swinging mallets and playing croscet.

      Imagination is a wonderful thing. It’s too bad we Christians don’t use it more often. We could use a good dose of it when reading the Bible. In fact, I don’t know how you can make sense of the Bible if you don’t use your imagination. We approach it entirely too seriously. Maybe we’re afraid of it, and I guess not without reason. Enough preachers have spewed hellfire and damnation from its pages that many of us have been scared away. 

      But I find it full of the laughter of God. Sometimes it is because if you don’t laugh you’ll cry. Its pages chronicle the stubbornness and hard-hearted-ness of humanity. The righteous suffer, the silly fool prospers, the children of Israel are exiled to a far and distant land, the Son of God is crucified. 

      If you use your imagination, however, the storyteller in you will see striking surprises in its pages. A shepherd boy outfoxes a giant. A geriatric couple becomes parents. The last become first and the first, last. The God of the universe becomes a silly child to a peasant couple, dies on a cross like a common criminal, only to be raised again to new life. God’s truth is stranger than fiction. But without imagination we often miss it and often miss it in ourselves. We often give up on ourselves before God has barely had a chance to introduce us to croscet on a lawn in Barcelona overlooking the Mediterranean. 

 

August 2005

      Do you think Jesus was frustrated that he couldn’t solve everything?

      The reality of our Christian belief in the incarnation means that God in Jesus becomes human. Mortal, limited, tied to time and space. As the writer of Hebrews pointed out, Jesus was like us in every way, “yet without sin.” [Hebrews 4:15] So, he never traveled to Europe or China confronting all their problems. The Roman Empire militarily occupied his country when he was born and still governed his people by force at this death.

      The gospels reveal many of the miracles that Jesus performed and John adds, “But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” [John 21:25] Even with all he did, there was still more to do. As a human, Jesus could not solve everything. In a strange way, I find that comforting.

      Because of course I cannot solve everything – no matter my desire, passion, capability, it won’t happen. Some things just are not “solve-able.” Others take years, generations, centuries. I won’t be around that long. And there are even some things that I can solve, that I shouldn’t. Sometimes the school of hard-knocks is the most effective teacher.

      We live in a “can-do” culture. Solving problems, fixing things, finding solutions runs in our societal DNA, much to our advantage. But when a “fixing things” attitude meets an unsolvable situation frustration, anger, despair and apathy may often follow.

      Jesus was aware of his limits. He told the Syro-Phoenician woman that his first priority was to minister to his Jewish people. He told Pilate that if his kingdom were of this world his followers would fight to protect him. Sometimes just being aware of your limits, your boundaries cuts down on the frustration.

      Jesus also chose to be present when things couldn’t be solved. His final words to his disciples were not, “And remember I’ll fix all things.” No, they were, “And remember I am with you always…” [Matthew 28:20] 

      When things are not solvable, the last thing we need is a “fix-it” attitude, or someone AWOL out of frustration. Just being present is a starting point.

 

July 2005

      The faith of the Bible has a vision of hope.

      Walk through the stories of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and you’ll see that the Bible continually weaves stories of hope in and out of its narrative. Just when it’s the end a new beginning is born.

      Adam and Eve are tossed out of the Garden of Eden and begin the human adventure wearing coats that God made for them. The 40-day flood washes away the whole world save Noah’s family inside the Ark. Joseph is sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, but rises to become the king’s right-hand-man. The Israelites spend generations living as slaves in Egypt, but Moses liberates them through God’s power. 

      A shepherd boy faces a giant of a warrior on the plains of a battlefield, yet David’s slingshot drops the mighty Goliath. And years later the shepherd boy becomes Israel’s king. The prophet Elijah flees from the king and queen who want him dead, but on Mt. Sinai he experiences God and returns to finish his work in Israel. 

      The Babylonians reduce Jerusalem to rubble and flatten Solomon’s grand Temple of the LORD. They exile productive prisoners to Babylon. Then, Ezekiel sees a vision of God’s glory over Babylon. Having lost everything, the Jews find a beginning. People of a place – the temple – become people of that book – the Bible. And seventy years later they return to rebuilt their holy city.

      Jesus tells great stories of endings that lead to beginnings. The story of the “Nearly Dead Jew” gets another title when the dying man by the side of the road is met by a good Samaritan. The prodigal son wastes his inheritance, loses his friends, barely survives on poverty wages. Then, he heads home to a loving father and finds welcoming arms and a big shindig. 

      And then there’s Jesus himself. He takes death on Good Friday and turns it into resurrection on Easter. That’s why the apostle Paul – whose own blindness led to his faith – wrote, “In hope we are saved.” [Romans 8:24]  

      It’s just when the fears and failures of life reach their darkest that God is able to shine a new ray of hope into our lives. Don’t be afraid. Don’t give up hope. The Bible tells us so.

 

January 2005

      The tsunami waves that took the lives of more than 150,000 on the day after Christmas were truly a disaster of biblical proportions.

      We have difficulty understanding the perspective of ancient peoples.

      CNN, the Internet, video camcorders, cell phones and the like made it possible for this terrible tragedy to become front-page news all around the world within minutes and hours of its occurrence. Scientific instruments recorded the earthquake half-way around the world and word was being sent (albeit to other scientists) world-wide about the time the waves started crashing down upon Sri Lanka. We are loaded with information about this event – how it happened, who is willing to help, why some survived, how wide the scope was and also how much bigger the whole world is.

      But what if your world was the island in Indonesia closest to the earthquake two thousand years ago and this tsunami hit? Your village would be utterly destroyed, leaving only a handful of survivors. There would be no relief helicopters dropping off food and water. No rebuilding campaign. If you walked two or three days journey to find a protected village, what would you say?

      How could you make sense of it? How would you explain it?

      Would it be possible to not say that God or the gods did this? Would some prophet use the tragedy to convince others that the gods were unhappy with them? Tell them to repent before God sends another wave?

      When we read the bigger than life stories of the Old Testament – Noah’s Ark and the flood, the Egyptian plagues, the prophecies of earthquakes and cosmic destruction – we would do well to remember the tsunami waves.

      The forces of nature are as powerful and destructive as they are subtle and beautiful. And they operate in a cycle of balance – that’s how this blue sphere in the galaxy has sustained life for millions of years.

      Despite our technology and scientific understanding of all that happened, we, still like the ancients, wonder the reason for this and try to make sense of it. 

 

November 2004

      Dan Brown’s novel, The DaVinci Code,which used ancient non-biblical books about Jesus in the plot, has created a gold rush on non-canonical books. (That he completely misrepresented those texts for literary purposes is beside the point.) Go to the religion section in a bookstore and you can find several volumes on the Gospel of Thomas, or the Gospel of Mary, or about the lost books of the Bible, or alternative Christianities.

      The discovery of a collection of ancient texts at Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945 was the first real look at books that had previously only been known by brief references in surviving books from the period. The deteriorated papyrus’ and the Coptic (or old Egyptian) language made the translation of the texts a two and three decade process. In 1979 Elaine Pagels was the first to make these ancient books accessible in The Gnostic Gospels, but even here you read her commentary about them – not the whole texts themselves.

      It’s really only been in the last few years that you could easily buy translations of these ancient texts. So, you might wonder why it took so long to bring these new words about Jesus to the public?

      Well, the short answer is – “There ain’t much there!” The actual texts don’t bring any real insights about Jesus that hadn’t already been raised or practiced in 2,000 years of studying the Bible and faithful discipleship. I don’t mean to imply there’s nothing of interest, nothing to edify your spirit. The Gospel of Thomas has several verses worthy of reflection. And if you are interested in non-canonical gospels, that’s the one I’d recommend you read.

      But if you are really looking for some alternative ways to think about Jesus, some fresh ways to look at Christianity, my advice is to go back to the Bible. The Bible has spawned Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christianity -- communities that think the most important thing is personal morality and salvation; others that think it’s the sacraments; others who believe it’s prayer, and justice for the poor, while others can’t wait until the Second Coming.

      Compare John’s Jesus to Luke’s. Wonder why Paul at one point said women should pray and preach in worship, but then seems to say they should be quiet and defer to their husbands. Ask why Paul supports government authorities, Revelation calls them the Devil and Jesus says give them what’s due.

      Want diversity, alternative Christian thinking? It’s already in the Bible. 

 

July 2004

      A couple of days ago an interviewer asked President Clinton what he was going to do with the rest of his life. The question was interesting because it used to be that presidents just retired. After all what else is there to do after you’ve been President of the United States?

      Now, it seems plenty.

      The former president excluded future elections because he wants to remain flexible as he seeks opportunities that would help bring positive change to our country. One example was how he and former Senator Bob Dole raised college funds for children of 9/11 victims. He held up Carter’s post-presidential work as a model to follow. 

      I’m glad to hear that former presidents and senators continue to search for meaningful ways to live life. The good news is that the search continues for all of us throughout our sacred journeys.

      Some believe that God has already mapped out our lives for us and all we have to do is just discover God’s map and follow it. But I don’t think a blueprint for my life exists. God desires I follow some basic principles – love God with my whole being, love neighbor as self, use my gifts, treat others as I want to be treated, do justice for the poor and outcast, share my faith – for the construction of my life, but God waits for the final product as much as I do.

      I know my children so well that I can accurately predict their actions at a soccer match, or when they get tired, or around strangers. I don’t have a foreknowledge of their future; I just know them.

      Even more so God knows me, the number of hairs on my head have been counted and before a thought reaches my lips it is perceived. God knows me better than I know myself (and still loves me). So, God has an almost certain understanding of what I’ll choose and do. Still, God waits for my choices.

      Finding meaning in our lives is less about finding God’s will and more about living our choices in God’s will – doing the things we are doing with love, justice, generosity, and purpose. And it’s as true for former presidents as for you and me.

 

September 2003

      Despite years of study, untold personal experiments, controlled academic tests, people still believe in luck. It’s been debunked from the halls of academia and debated across bar stools. Still, luck is resilient. 

      Or maybe just lucky.

      Ball players from little league to professional sports wear lucky shirts, rally hats, good luck socks – the unwashed kind tend to be the most lucky, the idea I suppose is that soap suds reduce luck’s potency. (Of course this was probably a rumor started by seven-year-old boys.) People have lucky numbers, lucky charms, read the horoscopes for a forecast on their luck. Some search for Mr. or Ms. Right. (If there really was just one person meant for you, on a planet with five billion people what are the odds you’d ever come within 100 miles of that person?)

      Recently, I heard a woman was removed from an airplane that was transporting the Romanian Men’s Soccer Team. Traveling with women they believed was unlucky. The soccer team doesn’t allow their bus driver (presumably male) to put the vehicle in reverse. When they arrive for a match they all step onto the field right foot first. Of course the Romanian Men’s Soccer Team hasn’t been too successful in the World Cup – maybe they didn’t get that woman reporter off their plane fast enough. After all, skill couldn’t have anything to do with it, could it???

      We often chuckle over the superstitions of previous generations. Yet, attitudes about luck and fate continue with an almost religious devotion. Witness the lottery lines when the stakes get big – the odds are astronomical, but everyone feels lucky. Wayne Oates, psychiatrist and former seminary professor, has called luck a secular faith.

      Sometimes God gets used as a lucky charm. A quick prayer said before a test – barely studied for – in hopes of some good luck. Or pleas to heaven just before the game deciding field goal – to swing football fate. Or the selection of religious jewelry not out of devotion, but to bring good fortune. 

      If all God can bring us is a little luck, then we are all most unfortunate. Real faith and real opportunities in life rely on discipline, not luck. The disciplines of study and skill, prayer and worship, temperance and judgment, investment and generosity. When you work on these, you create your own “luck.” (But don’t tell the Romanian Soccer Team.)

 

June 2002

In the land of David and Goliath they are still throwing stones and launching military might. 

The way the Old Testament tells it, God gave the freed Hebrew slaves from Egypt a Promised Land, a place they could call home. Unfortunately, someone else was already living there – the Canaanites. Depending on your perspective, I guess you might call the Promised Land, the Stolen Land. 

We know the Canaanites lived along side their Israelite victors for centuries. The worship of Baal – a Canaanite religion – gave Hebrew priests and prophets fits for 600 years. The Children of Abraham had a reoccurring habit of worshipping Yahweh, the God who freed them from slavery, and Baal, the god their native neighbors prayed to for a good harvest.

Did the Canaanites and the Israelites ever learn to live together?

No one worships Baal anymore. And the Canaanites went the way of their god. (Palestine may be a derivative of Philistia, a coastal people in biblical Canaan, but the people of that heritage intermarried with others for centuries and converted either to Christianity or Islam.) But in reality so did the Israelites. Eleven of the original twelve tribes are gone. Only the Jews, short for Judeans (from Judea), are identifiable – by both race and religion.

It is interesting that when the UN pushed aside the Palestinians to create a homeland for Jewish persons, they recreated biblical Israel, not just Judea – a much smaller territory.

Freedom from Egyptian slavery brought about the first Israel. Survival from the Holocaust and Euro-American anti-Semitism brought about the second. Good news for the Hebrew people, bad news for the Philistines.

What are we to make of God’s justice when it seems that God’s homesteader land policy created injustice? Maybe that’s why God finally claimed only the land mounted by a cross.

The first Israel’s lease on the land from God was tied to justice for the “alien among you.” [Leviticus 19:33-34]  The second Israel can’t expect God’s lease conditions to be any different. 

The road to peace is justice for neighbor.

 

September 2002

When you pray, how do you imagine God? You may have to think about the question, because many of us carry around subconscious images for God inside our heads – images that fly below the radar screen of our awareness.

Some may consciously think of God as a white bearded grandfather type being. Others may imagine God as a strong father figure. While still some may find more comfort in a maternal image for God. And many try to envision God as spirit without any human physical characteristics. Each of these has biblical precedence. 

It’s hard to comprehend a living being billions of years old, not bound by time and space, beyond physical and material form. So, even when our head tells us God is not a giant-sized human in the sky, our hearts look for human images in order to personally connect with God.

While one of the Ten Commandments prohibits making idols of God, the first chapter of the Bible tells us that we are made in God’s image. Jesus, we believe, is the human embodiment of God – the incarnation of God, God with flesh and blood. 

When you pray for forgiveness, do you have to beg God, grovel, make nearly unattainable promises in order to believe God will absolve you? Or do you feel God eagerly awaits the chance to show compassion and understanding?

When you pray for healing – for yourself or another – do you believe God has the power to heal (just maybe not the will)? Or do you think some things are beyond God’s workings and you seek more intangible comforts and healings?

When you pray for peace and justice do you assume God is a righteous judge who will one day bring a verdict, or a commander leading foot-soldiers?

When you pray for guidance do you expect that God will reveal a clear path for you? Or do you hope that God will outfit you with map, compass, and gear for the journey?

What do your expectations about prayer tell you about your image of God? Maybe better images of God would lead to better prayers.

 

October 2001

My three-year-olds have been theologizing lately. 

“God wants us to share,” is a favorite quote from a video they’ve watched at home. Not bad, pretty close to gospel truth, but I’m more interested in the statements they’ve created on their own.

“God wants us to eat all our food.”

“God wants us to pray.”

“God wants us to be nice to sisters.”

“God wants us to clean up our mess.”

“God wants us to be happy.”

      And my favorite thus far, while sitting on the potty, Michael muses,

“God wants us to poop everyday.”

The Old Testament book Leviticus does spend a couple of chapters on personal hygiene, but I don’t remember this last commandment. Where do such holy ideas come from?

Their God wants a lot. Maybe it’s because their parents do. Cleaning up your mess, being nice to your sisters or brother certainly are on our list. Maybe it’s also because they are trying to figure out this life – what you do, what you don’t do, what happens when you do the don’t do’s.

Figuring out what mommy and daddy want, what teacher wants, what God wants, that’s all a part of understanding this life. Steps that lead to the understanding of what I want.

I’m not sure it changes all that much as we grow up. More complex maybe. Or more expensive. 

Scripture tells us that God knows the number of hairs on our heads, [Matt. 10:30] our words before they reach the tip of our tongues, [Psalm 139:4] and loved us before we even knew what love was. [I John 4:19] In other words the One who knows us best, loves us most.

I believe God wants us to know that before all the other wants. Figuring out life isn’t just about understanding what I want, but first understanding that I am wonderfully made and loved. Remember that again today.