Mom, Apple Pie, Baseball, Chevrolet, Smith and Wesson

          What could be more American than Mom, Apple Pie, Baseball, Chevrolet, Smith and Wesson?  We have strong sentiments about our mothers.  We have an appetite for homemade desserts cooling in the kitchen window (who does that anymore?).  Baseball has been the traditional All-American sport (now superseded in popularity by football).  Chevys have been an icon of Americana (“What’s good for General Motors is good for the USA!”).  And along with our love affair with the automobile a large portion of Americans have had an affection for guns.

            The Second Amendment to our Constitution protects our right to bear arms, and is as rooted in our history as the right of freedom of speech, and supported by one of the strongest lobbies in the country.  I have no problem with people owning guns.  I have family members who love to hunt.  While I am not among them I do benefit from a fair helping of venison stew every now and then.  Hunting is a reasonable activity it seems to me, satisfying a visceral human need, as well as helping to maintain population control among certain species of wildlife.

            Still, I have to wonder why any American citizen needs to have in his or her possession the kind of automatic assault weapons that were owned by Newtown, Connecticut resident, Nancy Lanza, and used by her mentally-ill son, Adam, to kill her and twenty-six other children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday.   There is more gun violence in the US than in any other wealthy nation because we have the least restrictions on gun ownership than any other nation.  Ironically, Newtown is the location of the second largest gun-lobbying institution in the US, the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

            There is a specious argument that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”  But as one of my colleagues has said, “you put enough guns out there, and somebody’s going to get hurt.”   

A few hours before the Newtown murders last week, a man entered a school in China’s Henan province. Obviously mentally disturbed, he tried to kill children. But the only weapon he was able to get was a knife. Although 23 children were injured, not one child died.*

            I expect that what happened at Newtown last week will not lead to the end of recreational gun ownership, or hunting, or anything of the sort, nor should it.  But I do hope we will finally have a reasonable limitation on the kinds of weapons that none but the military need in their possession.

            And lastly, writing as a Christian pastor, I have to wonder how any follower of Jesus could possibly justify a counter argument.            

*Quoted from http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-the-solution-to-gun-violence-is-clear/2012/12/19/110a6f82-4a15-11e2-b6f0-e851e741d196_story.html?hpid=z2

Unconditional

          What sets Jesus apart from the rest of humanity was his capacity to love unconditionally.  This is (along with some additional points), indeed, why we Christians say he was the Son of God.  Jesus loved in a way the rest of us only occasionally do, thus there was something fundamentally different about him --- he was Other than we are. 

He had compassion for the crowds.  He showed kindness to the prostitute.  He offered hospitality to the tax collector as well as the poor.  He showed no favoritism among those of different social strata.  He loved all equally, and fully, with no conditions, no strings attached.  Even as he was crucified he loved them all – loved us all – pronouncing no curses on his persecutors.

          One caveat here:  Jesus did reserve some choice words of judgment for folks who were self-righteously religious.  The 23^rd Chapter of Matthew’s Gospel offers us a stark picture of Jesus as one who could not condone the hypocrisy of the overly-religious Pharisees of his own day.  He was appalled at the way they made their religion not a joy but a burden on the people.  I suspect Jesus was upset because these semi-professional religious folks were implying that God’s love was conditional.  One telling quote is verse 15, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”

          My colleague, Rich Irwin, once said to me that he keeps that verse handy as a reminder that his ministry to people is not to trip them up in have-to’s, ought-to’s, and musts, but to release them for joyful living. 

          As a pastor I must remind myself daily to love people for who they are, not for what they can do for me, or even for what they can do for the church.  That we are loved unconditionally, as Jesus loved, is at the heart of the Christian message, and to love in that way is the essence of Christian discipleship.  Everything else is just decoration.

          Obedience to certain principles of morality and ethics is helpful, of course, but I believe we find our true, authentic selves, not by following principles (no matter how high-sounding), but by responding to being loved unconditionally. 

          Theologian Douglas Adams likens it to his experience of his grandparents.  Parents expect their children to toe the line, to follow the rules, which is all well and good.  But when children fail to measure up, as happens to all of us, grandparents will take them in their arms and love them in spite of their shortcomings.  And when any of us are loved in this way it sets us free to be our best selves.  When we believe there is nothing we can do that will prevent us from being loved, then we are liberated to attempt living at its best, and fullest. 

          God loves, unconditionally, every one of us.  That is the message that Jesus incarnates.  There is nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already does, AND there is nothing we can do to make God love us any less.  Go, therefore, and live . . . and love.  That’s why God made you.  This is the way Jesus saves you.       

A Matter of Life or Death

One of the main reasons I write this blog is because I want to talk about Jesus to the world.  Most of my work – as teacher, pastor, preacher – is aimed at people who already know Jesus, love Jesus, and want to follow Jesus (if though, sometimes, slowly and reluctantly). 

But out there in internet land are billions of people for whom Jesus is . . . well, I don’t know what you’re all thinking about out there when you do think of Jesus.  So many, I suspect, have a rather casual acquaintance with Jesus – someone to admire, someone whose example is noteworthy – but you are not ready to make the claim that Christians do – Lord, Savior, Christ, Son of God?

I was right there with you for several years of my life.  In my early 20’s I had become a respectful agnostic.  I had grown up the son of missionaries, with a Methodist preacher father, and while I was certainly influenced by the example of Jesus, I had turned my back on all the God-talk of my parents, and cast the church aside for sure.  How could any thinking person believe all that stuff?  I had read Bertrand Russell, and convinced myself I was too sophisticated for religion.

Hah!  Looking back I shake my head at how naïve I was.  Some of history’s greatest minds were unreservedly Christian.  Why?  Not because they came rationally to a conclusion that could be proven, but because they somehow encountered the living God.  I believe that happened to me.  Not in a burning bush, or struck-by-lightning-kind-of-way, but in a growing awareness that there was an authenticity to the life of Jesus – an integrity of word and deed that was unmatched in human history – and I sensed that his presence was still with me, with us, in some indefinable way.  And more importantly, I wanted that same sense of authenticity in my own life, so I made the decision to follow Jesus.  It was not a decision based on reason, but a hunch.

I only partially understood what following Jesus meant back then.  I know better now.  To follow Jesus is not without its pain (the cross is a vivid reminder of what following Jesus means).  But to follow Jesus is also a joy that the world cannot give or take away (the resurrection can be understood as a metaphor for that joy).

Some of you out there think that Christians are only concerned about heaven and hell.  So sad that you have perceived the gospel through the words of too many radio and TV preachers who are but caricatures of the real thing.  Heaven and hell act as symbols for life and death.  The gospel invites us to live, as Jesus says, “abundantly.” (John 10:10)

I am convinced that all of us are either living or dying.  We make decisions every day that are either life-giving or life-taking.  Sometimes by the choices we make the life we are taking is someone else’s.  Sometimes the life we are taking is our own (you know who you are).

But there are those who regularly, consistently, make life-giving decisions.  You speak words that encourage and affirm.  You take actions that enhance the lives of others, sometimes at sacrifice to yourself, and yet it seems a small price to pay.  Such actions prove the paradox of Jesus’ teaching that it is in giving our lives that we find life, as St. Francis of Assisi prayed, “it is in giving that we receive.”  And once in a while there are those words and deeds are in such harmony with each other that we are all ennobled by their example --- we see LIFE in them.

This is what God seeks to give us in Jesus – life to the full.  Life without guilt (forgiveness of sins).  Life without worry (trust).  Life with purpose (sacrifice for others).  Life full of joy (blessing and abundance).

Each Sunday I preach to a congregation.  Each Sunday I believe that what I have to say matters.  Indeed, it is a matter of life and death.  We are all, each one of us, either living or dying.  Jesus came that we may have life.  Why would you NOT choose to follow him?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holier than I

I just read a chapter in Brian McLaren’s book, Naked Spirituality, in which he implied that appearing “holier than thou,” was not the worst problem of hypocrisy.  The real problem is appearing “holier than I.”  In other words, when we make ourselves out to be more spiritual than we actually are we are walking down a shadowy path that will do damage to our psyche, and harm to others as well.  Of course, we do this all the time, and not just in the religious realm.

When we look down our noses on someone else’s sense of style (“so tacky”), or lack of intelligence (“so stupid”), or political opinion (“idiots!”), we are elevating ourselves above them.  And very likely, we are making ourselves “holier” – more stylish, smarter, or more astute – than we actually are.  The roots of bullying are in this pretension.  Hypocrisy may have nothing to do with religion.  It is rooted, however, in the limitations of our humanity and our insecurities about who we are, which is certainly a problem with spiritual dimensions.

I am guilty, however, in the religious realm.  How many times I have made a judgment about someone else’s faith, “How can they believe that stuff?”  As if my own beliefs are somehow the standard of purity and orthodoxy.  Seems like we could all stand not just a dose but a steady diet of humility.

The Benedictine Rule has at its very heart, the spiritual discipline of humility.  Humility is not attained by effort, but by self-denial.  Such a practice is counter-cultural in a subversive way, without calling attention to itself, like yeast that leavens the whole loaf by disappearing into the dough. I am reminded of the joke, “It’s hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am.”  We’re living in a time, a culture, of celebrity - American Idols, bully politicians, and look-at-me-ism.  I suspect all of it is an overcompensation for our insecurities and anxieties.  And hypocrisy and pretense runs amok.

As I write this blog I am wondering about my own pretense, as if I have something important enough to say that the whole world (or my loyal half-dozen readers) should read.  I pray God may forgive my own hypocrisy.  Forgive my tendency to appear more holy than I really am.  And may I have the perseverance to continue walking in the path of humility until I am made what God would have me to be.

Longing for More at Christmas

Do you ever feel caught between your highest aspirations and the demands of daily life?  Have you ever been frustrated by your inability to reach your dreams for a better world because of the need to buy groceries, cook supper, wash the dishes, bathe the children, get them to bed before you sink into the couch exhausted from the work-a-day routines? Anybody know what I’m talking about?

          The Bible’s book of Ecclesiastes tells us that God has planted the notion of eternity in our minds (3:11), yet we can’t fully know the breadth and depth of God’s plans.  So much remains a mystery.  I think that means that we have a God-planted yearning for God’s will to be done but we are limited in our ability to fully see or do that will.  As pastor of a church I am always caught between what we are as a congregation and what we could be.  I see the gap between the two.  For that matter, I see the gap between what I am and what I hope to be, and I am often frustrated by the distance - frustrated with myself.

          Amy Grant had a popular song many years ago, “My Grown-Up Christmas Wish,” in which she voiced her highest aspirations, “No more lives torn apart, that wars would never start, that time would heal all hearts.”  Each Christmas we are drawn to noble yearnings but also constrained by demands of family gatherings, gift buying, and a list of have-to-dos.  Christmas comes as both bane and blessing for so many of us, as we confront the gap between the Christmas of our dreams versus the Christmas with which we end up.

          All the more reason to take time in Advent, this period of preparation before Christmas, to give thanks for the Savior who comes to us, not only at Christmas but also every day, to fill the gap.  Christ Jesus is the Incarnation , the embodiment of our highest aspirations, and in him we behold the promise of great joy which will be for all people.  In him we see our deepest yearnings for peace, justice, and good will made flesh and dwelling among us.  At the cross we find mercy for our failure to live up to our own noblest desires, and perhaps at the manger we find strength to strive for better.  As you observe a holy Advent season, be thankful for a Savior who fills the gap between what is and what is yet to come, between what we are and what we will become, by grace.

The Calm Between Storms

I’m breathing a sigh of relief, thankful for the silence and solitude.  For two days now there have been no robocalls attempting to scare, manipulate, intimidate, or influence me to vote one way or another.  The TV is back to showing innocuous commercials about cars, shampoo, and beer --- no voice of doom warning me what might happen if one or the other candidate gets elected.  The difference in my mood is measureable.  Ahhhh.

I know the rancor of politics is not over but I’m appreciating this momentary lull, where winners and losers are for the most part being conciliatory.  The storms will return, of course, as surely as hurricane season brings its parade of tropical depressions; some, like Sandy, do build up to pack a wallop.  I know there looms on the horizon the “fiscal cliff,” and there will definitely be political conflict about what to do about it --- this is the way democracy works.  God bless America.

I am a citizen of the United States, and glad of it.  But I was born in Brazil to missionary parents and so I am considered a citizen of Brazil, also.  I have two passports.  I am proud of my Brazilian connection but I pledge allegiance to the Red, White and Blue rather than the Blue, Yellow and Green.  Still, I often feel like a stranger, no matter where I happen to be. 

One of the reasons for my sense of strangeness is the fact that our family moved around every four years or so.  I have never had a place that I call home, and so I often feel like a resident alien in whatever town I happen to be living in at the moment.  I have often wondered what it would be like to have been in one place for decades.  For me it is hard to imagine that kind of longevity anywhere.

But there is another reason for my rootlessness.  I belong to yet another country.  I have only seen it in my spiritual imagination as I have reflected on the Biblical witness of Jesus and the prophets.  The parables Jesus tells about the kingdom, and the pictures painted by the prophetic voices have taken hold of me and made me long for the country where God reigns, and I am restless until and unless I reside there.  Sometimes I have felt myself already there, when I have received kindness from strangers, seen enemies embrace, or witnessed forgiveness enfleshed.  I felt myself to be in that country this week as I shared coffee, donuts and deep conversation with African-American pastors as we empathized with each other in our common desire for justice and reconciliation. 

But most of the time I sense that there is a better country than this one and God has put a longing in my heart that cannot be satisfied with things as they are.

Still, I’m not just passing through.  I make my home where I am, and I look for God’s country in every face I see, and in everything I try to do.  And right now, in this quiet space and time, it feels more like home than usual.  And until the next storm comes I think I’ll just enjoy it.  

Who're You Voting For?

I heard Will Willimon, always a provocative Christian voice, once say that he does not think voting is high on the list of Christian duties.  I was surprised because I had always considered good citizenship to be integral to Christian discipleship.  I think the point Dr. Willimon was making is that Christians need to be clear that their primary allegiance is to the kingdom of God and the reign of Christ, and that we sometimes confuse our allegiances between God and country, as if they are one and the same.

          Without getting into a long debate on whether or not our nation is a new Promised Land, as some people think, I would argue that our vote as Christians should matter.  However, I am a bit philosophical about the impact of the Christians in any election.  After all, those Christians who vote for President Obama and those who vote for Governor Romney both believe that their vote is representative of their Christian convictions.  Who’s right?  I guess only God knows for sure.

          We are flawed in our decision-making, and those we elect are flawed human beings, themselves.  Psalm 146 gives us a helpful perspective on the election of leaders . . . “Put not your trust in princes,” says the psalmist.  The psalmist gives a clear-eyed view of the limitations of those who lead us . . . “their plans perish with them.”

          Instead, the psalmist tells us that if we want a merciful, just and peaceful world we should place our hope in God.  The work of God is going on around us all the time as the hungry are fed in soup kitchens, as the homeless are given shelter, as the sick receive care, the stranger is welcomed, the prisoner is set free, the sinner is forgiven.  All these signs of God’s rule happen regardless of whom we elect. 

          So, vote for whomever your Christian conscience leads you to vote for, but don’t expect your candidate to bring the kingdom of God.  Christ and his followers are doing that right now without the help of “princes.”

What You Gonna Do About Jesus?

            I am amazed, really, by the take-it-or-leave-it attitude that so many people have toward Jesus.  Okay, so maybe not everyone is ready to believe in him as Son of God.  I won’t push or insist.  But there is something radically unique about Jesus and I am amazed how anyone can brush him off and what he represents.

Most people admire him.  Thomas Jefferson appreciated his moral teaching though he was not, himself, a Christian.  He couldn’t accept the miraculous.  Interesting, for all of Jefferson’s admiration for Jesus’ morality, he was not particularly moral when it came to his opinions about slavery.  You might excuse Jefferson as simply being a product of his times, reflecting the values of his age. Meanwhile, people like John Wesley and John Wilberforce of the same generation were arguing for the abolition of slavery.  And both Wesley and Wilberforce considered Jesus as Son of God and accepted the miraculous as inevitably a part of his nature.  Perhaps Jefferson would have been a more moral man if he had considered Jesus MORE than a great teacher.

An old argument goes like this:  Jesus was either a great imposter, was crazy, or was what he claimed to be.  If he was an imposter it seems unlikely he would have kept up the charade to the point of dying.  If he was crazy why is there no evidence of erratic behavior.  As Gary Collins, a psychologist quoted * in Lee Strobel’s, The Case for Christ, says,

He was loving but didn't let his compassion immobilize him; he didn't have a bloated ego, even though he was often surrounded by adoring crowds; he maintained balance despite an often demanding lifestyle; he always knew what he was doing and where he was going; he cared deeply about people, including women and children, who weren't seen as being important back then; he was able to accept people while not merely winking at their sin; he responded to individuals based on where they were . . . and what they uniquely needed. All in all I just don't see signs that Jesus was suffering from any known mental illness.

          So, if he was not an imposter or crazy, then he must have been what he claimed to be.  However, what he claimed for himself was always veiled in symbolic language.  He spoke of himself as the “Son of Man,” and rarely made any self-promoting claims to be God.  Yet, those who followed him saw God in him.  They saw in him what countless generations have seen – an authentic life lived in perfect integrity for the sake of others – such integrity of life that he has been the inspiration for imitators throughout history.

          You could do worse than follow a man like that.  So, maybe you’re not ready to call him Son of God.  But don’t make Jefferson’s mistake and simply say he was a great teacher with nice ideas.  For all his brilliance Jefferson’s lack of integrity is no example to follow. 

          So, maybe you’re not ready to embrace the miracles.  What about the very miracle of his incredible life?  Who else has ever lived with such integrity?

What you gonna do about Jesus?  In this take-him-or-leave him world I just can’t imagine anyone leaving him, ignoring him, dismissing him.  Yet they do.  Now tell me who’s crazy.  

         

*Lee Strobel, 1998, The Case for Christ, Grand Rapids Michigan/Zondervan Publishing House, p. 147

Can Christians and Muslims Get Along?

             As I have reflected on the outbreak of violence in Northern Africa and other places, in response to a film that insults Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, I am dumbfounded by the reaction.  What makes Muslims so sensitive to provocation of this sort?  And is there a way to avoid this violence?  And the bigger question is, can Christians and Muslims get along?

There is a radical fringe among Christians, certainly, but the radical fringe among Muslims, the jihadists, is more numerous and more extreme by many degrees.  And we in the western world have a natural tendency to measure Islam by the violence we see among the extremists rather than the peace-loving Muslims, the silent majority, who rarely get media attention.

In a recent radio interview, a Muslim journalist said that there are considerable numbers of radical extremists who grow the beards, and talk the talk, not because they are devout followers of Islam, but because they have political motivations and hatred of the West.  They do not practice their faith at all, but because the radical jihadists suit their political purposes, these hypocrites align themselves with the religious extremists.  In other words, not all jihadists are religious Muslims.  And it is certain that the majority of Muslims are not jihadists.

Still, what do we do about that violent and vocal minority?

There is no simple answer.  We in the western world are angered at the loss of life at the hands of those who attacked the US Embassy in Libya, and we are dismayed at the level of violence overall.  In the Christian world, we have seen the exemplar of our faith, Jesus, insulted and impugned in many ways.  However, while there are those fringe elements who might react with threats of violence among us, most Christians have been incredibly tolerant of blasphemy.  When Andres Serrano drew attention for his photograph of a crucifix immersed in urine, he was sharply criticized, some of the museums that displayed his work drew threats, and some individuals actually have defaced Serrano’s work.  Still – no guns have been fired, no bombs have been used, and no one has been killed.

Our willingness to be tolerant makes the intolerance of some Muslims even more perplexing.  Obviously, we do not understand their sensitivities. 

          I am grateful for the military presence of Americans in the Mideast.  While I abhor war and the use of violence by anyone, some show of force helps protect the innocent from the actions of the extremists.  And while some American soldiers have been guilty of appalling actions in isolated instances here and there, the vast majority have historically shown amazing restraint in the use of force.

          The world situation is complicated.  I simply caution us not to paint all Muslims with a broad brush stroke of radicalism.  I am thinking of my acquaintance Ghassan, who is a deeply devout man of prayer and peace, and a leader in a small house of prayer among Muslims in a community where I have lived previously.  He is equally appalled by the violence of others who claim Muslim faith, as I am appalled when he recounts incidents in which some of his neighbors have threatened him or his family.

          Until the day when God reconciles all of creation, I encourage us all to pray and work for peace, and to be kind to our neighbors --- as Philo is reported to have originally said, “most people you meet are carrying a great burden.” 

                   

Belief: It's Not What You Know

          Early Christianity was not without its controversies and divisions, no less than today.  The apostle Paul’s writings to the Corinthians make this clear.  The disagreements continued into the centuries to come.  One early school of Christian thought came to be known as the “gnostics.”  Among their teachings was the notion that only a select few had access to the necessary knowledge, or “gnosis,” that would gain them salvation or escape from this physical world.

          In time, the gnostics were considered a sect that did not represent the core of Christian teaching, or “orthodoxy.”  However, there are remnants of Gnosticism that linger on.  One of the values of learning the disputes in ancient church history is the way those same issues arise among the people of God even today.  What’s new is old.

          There is a version of Christianity that suggests that you have to believe in certain precepts in order to attain salvation.  They may be the four spiritual laws, or twelve abiding principles, or seven habits, etc., but what they have in common is a presumption that agreement with these precepts leads to salvation.  Salvation becomes a head game, a matter of what you know, or what you think.  And if you don’t think like I do, or know what I know, then you are lost.

          Those last few sentences should sound familiar because they describe the practice of many contemporary Christians; and it is a modern manifestation of Gnosticism.  Almost every church has a few gnostics.  And some of them can be rather virulent. 

          There are passages in the New Testament of the Bible that seem to lean in a gnostic direction, as Paul’s words to the church at Colossae:  “I became [the church’s] servant according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints (Colossians 1:25).”   However, in context, the mystery that Paul is revealing is never intended for a select few but for all the world.  Paul is constantly crossing both geographical and socio-ethnic boundaries to reveal this mystery to all.  And the “mystery” is not so much a body of knowledge as it is a witness to the living presence of Christ available to every believer.

          Belief, then, is not about WHAT you know, but WHO you know.  Or rather, the assurance that you are KNOWN by a God who loves you enough to be with you in your darkest hour, even in the midst of suffering and death.  The essence of Christian belief is not a body of knowledge that sets you apart from everyone else, but the revelation that God loves the world so much that God enters into the worst aspects of the human condition in order to redeem, reconcile, and make new.

          The problem with modern versions of Gnosticism is that they still make salvation into something that believer has to do (or think).  But in orthodox Christianity, the source of salvation is always in what God has already done.  So, salvation is not about thinking the right thoughts, or even believing the right things.  Salvation is about trusting the love God has for us.  The apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian church, " if I understand all mysteries and all knowledge . . . but do not have love, I am nothing (1 Cor. 13:2)."

          I am reminded of the words spoken by priest, Blackie Ryan, in a novel by Andrew Greeley.  Father Ryan says that he doesn’t believe everything the church teaches but what he does believe in, he does so with all his heart.  I invite you not so much to agree with every doctrine of the church (though don’t be so hasty to dismiss it all), but to trust with all your heart the love that God has for all humanity, and thus, for you.  It’s not what you know, it’s Who knows you.

           

Belief as Relationship

          Belief is at least one of the buzzwords of the day.  Even non-religious entities want us to believe in them.  We are encouraged to “believe” in the car we drive, or to “believe” in the store where we buy clothes.  Actually, we often get the message that it doesn’t really matter what we believe in as long as we believe in something.

          No wonder people are confused.  Over 90 % of people in the U.S. say they believe in God, but most of those don’t want to be pinned down to any particular religious tradition.  Maybe you’re one of those free spirits. I offer to you the encouragement that belief does, indeed, matter.  And that belief in something “pinned down,” matters even more. 

          As someone once said, “If we don’t believe in something then we’ll fall for anything.”  So, belief in something particular, something “pinned down,” may matter a great deal.  In Christian tradition there are two ways of talking about belief.  One of these is belief as a body of doctrine.  We find this notion in the short letter of Jude, chapter one, verse three:  “Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the salvation we share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.”

          “The faith . . . once . . . entrusted to the saints,” is a statement about belief as a list of principles to be acknowledged and accepted.  This sort of doctrinal belief is important as a teaching tool in the history of Christianity but it is not, in my opinion, the key way of expressing Christian belief.

          In the Gospel of John, Jesus is constantly exhorting his followers to believe in him, not because of the signs he performs, but because of who he is.  Jesus emphasizes this point in seven different “I am,” sayings:  I am the bread of life, I am the gate, I am the good shepherd . . .

          Belief, as Jesus speaks about it, is not about a body of doctrine to acknowledge, but a relationship to be trusted.  Belief, then, becomes something personal – a living, breathing sense of community with another, rather than head-knowledge to be dissected, explained, and instructed.

          This sense of belief is what makes Christianity unique.  Christian “faith” is not ultimately a system of rules to follow, or a body of doctrine to give assent to, but a relationship to be embraced and lived.  As Jesus says in John, chapter ten, verse ten, “I came that they may have life and have it to the full.” 

          If your life seems to be missing something, I doubt that you need more rules to follow, or more principles to give assent to.  I suspect you just need a relationship that will give your life meaning.  Jesus can do that for you in a way the world cannot.  Jesus can do that for you in a way that even Christian doctrine cannot.  The relationship is what matters.  And it is a relationship you can trust.

Believing in Love

            Recently there was a ruckus in Charlotte, NC, where the Democratic National Convention is being held.  A national organization of atheists had posted two billboards, which were a slam against Christianity and Mormonism, as a slap in the face of both candidates for President.  I’ll quote only the attack on Christianity that read, “Sadistic God, Useless Savior, 30,000+ versions of ‘Truth,’ Promotes Hate, calls it ‘Love.’” (Their quotation marks let us know they aren’t buying what Christians are selling.)

            The purpose of the billboards was actually a slam against religious belief of any kind, inviting readers to put aside faith in anything.  “Join American Atheists!” it proclaimed.  Of course, as I wrote in my previous article, everyone believes in something so even atheists are expecting people to have “faith.” (I can play with quotation marks, too.)  But what they expect us to have faith in is easily as subjective as any religious belief. 

            A second point I would make is that both billboards are a caricature of religious belief.  They take some distortion of basic Christianity and present it as representative of the faith as a whole.  “Promotes Hate, calls it ‘Love,’” for instance.  Unfortunately, the atheists have taken down their billboard because of threats of violence they have received, thus, they feel they have proved their point.  But I do not concede.  (See my post on Who Speaks for Jesus?)

             There are a minority of renegade “Christians” (note the quotation marks) out there who have so distorted the teachings of Jesus that their actions represent more hate than love.  However, they are a minority who get a lot of media attention, out of proportion to their numbers.  Let’s call them the 1%. I dare say that the billboards may have upset my entire congregation, but none would have threatened anyone as a result; the point being that most Christians truly do seek to have their actions guided by love, as seemingly impossible as this might be to atheist imaginations.

            As opposed to the caricature of Christian belief proclaimed by the billboards, most Christians believe in a God of mercy.  We believe that all of humanity needs help, and thus a Savior is necessary.  We do not have 30,000+ versions of truth.  In fact, most churches of varying stripes have amazing unanimity in belief.  The differences between Christian groups have more to do with what we tend to emphasize rather than disagreement over basic belief.  And we do not promote hate.  We may not love as we ought, but we believe in a Savior who does, and I dare say the 99 % are trying to love in the same way.

            Christians deserve plenty of criticism since we fall short of loving in the way we say we believe.  G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and untried.”  In spite of how Christians have fallen short, to love in a self-sacrificial way as Jesus did still seems like something worth believing in.  And it certainly offers me more hope for the human community than anything the atheists are offering.  What do you believe in?            

A Reason to Believe

           Belief is popular right now.  I know it is early to talk about Christmas but it seems that Christmas is the season for believing.  Macy’s had a promotional campaign two years ago.  “Believe,” was emblazoned on their storefront in New York during the Thanksgiving Parade.  What were they asking us to believe?

           Last Christmas, Sears borrowed the idea and promised that they were a store that “gives you something to believe in,” (like great products at a great price!) – Oh, brother!  Coca-Cola advertises on their December billboards – Believe – accompanied by cola-drinking polar bears.

          The popular animated film, “Polar Express,” loosely based on Chris van Allsburg’s wonderful children’s book, takes up the theme of belief, as if it is enough simply to believe in belief, itself, whatever that means.

          For you skeptics out there, I guarantee that even the most cynical person believes in something.  Even atheists believe.  They believe in knowledge, or science, or reason, or . . . something.  I love science, especially the way scientists are always discovering new things that make the old things they used to believe no longer valid.  Recent discoveries about dark matter, string theory, and the possibility of almost infinite parallel universes have caused astronomers and physicists to scrap old theories and come up with new ones.  Hmmm, I guess we’re supposed to take the new theories on faith.  Ooops!  Did I really use that word?  Does that mean that even the scientific method depends on belief of some sort?  I believe it does.

          Anyway, belief is essential to being human.  And everyone wants you to believe their version of truth.  In a sense, everyone is an evangelist.  I met a small-business owner who is a true-believer in American capitalism, and he has an evangelist’s fervor when talking about our land of opportunity.  I know a foodie who believes that being a vegetarian is the only way to live, food wise, and she speaks with evangelical zeal as she tries to make converts of her friends and acquaintances. 

          Belief gives passion to our living.  But passion can also spill over into fanaticism.  And even hatred.  If you don’t believe like I believe then there must be something wrong with you.  And since I don’t agree with that last sentence, then that must mean there is something wrong with me.  Oh my, my.  Belief is essential to being human, yet belief also can contribute to our problems with each other.   Rodney King’s famous quote, “Why can’t we all just get along?” can be answered with, “Because we believe different things.”

          I hope I have your attention.  Belief can unite us.  Belief can divide us.  As a Christian, Methodist, and ordained minister, you may assume I have beliefs that are important to me.  Indeed.  But I also believe that what is essential to believe is that God formed us to be reconciled – that is, to be in relationship, in peace and harmony, with God and one another - maybe not always in agreement, but always in the spirit of reconciliation. 

          If that sounds like an impossibility, then I hope you will stay tuned.  I have more to say about this soon, if you are interested.  I want to give you a reason to believe.

         

No Complaints

“How long can you go without complaining? A few months ago, the pastor of a Kansas City church told people in his congregation he wanted them to test their limits. "The one thing we can agree on," said Rev. Will Bowen, "is there's too much complaining." And so he asked the group to give up complaining, criticizing, gossiping or using sarcasm for 21 days. People who joined in were issued purple bracelets as a reminder of their pledge. If they caught themselves complaining, they were supposed to take off the bracelet, switch it to the opposite wrist and start counting the days from scratch. Rev. Bowen said it took him three and a half months to put together 21 complaint-free days. Now, about a half a million people around the world have requested free wristbands to rise to the challenge.”

I copied the above paragraph from a website called “Daily Good,” http://www.dailygood.org/view.php?qid=2889 which, as you might guess, seeks to tell good news.

I like the idea of disciplining ourselves not to complain.  It reminds me of this little interchange of how-do-you-do’s that I’ve had umpteen times in my life:

          “How are you?”

          “Can’t complain.  Wouldn’t do any good if I did!”

There is the school of thought that if you complain often enough something will happen, as in “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” but I’m fantasizing on what my life would be like if I never heard complaints, and even better if I never, myself, complained.  If I could only be like James in his letter, “Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face various trials (James 1:2).” 

Any institution of human beings has its ups and downs, including gatherings of God’s people.  People have their preferences and agendas and have a tendency to complain if things are not to their liking.  What could be more human?  I suspect my wife would welcome hearing fewer complaints from me.  And what would it be like if our presidential candidates were required to not complain about each other for twenty-one days?  I can only imagine.

I have not challenged my congregation to a 21-day complaint-free challenge, at least not yet.  But could I do it, myself?  Could you?  How long would it take us to accumulate twenty-one consecutive complaint-free days?  Sounds worthwhile, doesn’t it?

Who Speaks for Jesus?

I am sorry to have to write this but there are times I feel embarrassed, maybe even ashamed, by what some Christians say and do.  There are those who claim the name of Jesus and then spew the vilest words of hatred and prejudice imaginable.  I am appalled.  And I apologize to those who have been wounded by these so-called Christians.

In my more than twenty-five years of ministry I have made it a point to not criticize my brothers and sisters of other denominations.  One of the worst things we can do to damage our witness to the world around us is to have a squabble among ourselves. But when I sense that Jesus is being dishonored by these voices I cannot remain silent.  I am reminded of Jesus’ own words to those early disciples, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’” (Matthew 7:21-23)

There is a rising spirit of inquisition among some Christians.  There are those who have appointed themselves as the arbiters of truth, morality and proper doctrine and woe be unto any who stray from their definition of the right path.  I am afraid those of us who allow for some ambiguity in thinking, and who interpret truth with a large measure of grace, have been silent for too long, for fear that these inquisitors will make us their targets.  And for too long these distortions of Christian faith have been in the public spotlight, leading the media to make of us a caricature of the real thing.

The real thing is Jesus, of course, who lived a life of sympathy for the suffering, a life of mercy for the sinner, a life of simplicity regarding possessions, a life lived compassionately toward those on the margins, a life suspicious of power, and made perfect in weakness, a life of sacrifice for others.  A life summed up in his commandment to his disciples, “Love one another, as I have loved you, so you are to love one another.”  A love that was demonstrated in his submissive act of washing his disciples’ feet. 

If the voice you hear speaking on behalf of Christians does not sound like the Christ described in the preceding paragraph, then you can be sure the voice is that of a false prophet, and does not represent the Jesus to whom the Bible testifies.  However, if the voice speaking on behalf of Christians sounds like love, and even better, if the voice is backed up with actions of mercy, then you can be confident that Jesus is being represented in that witness.  Again the words of Jesus, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

   

Love Is the Cure

Elton John has recently written a book entitled, Love Is the Cure.  He wrote the book to raise money for a foundation that is funding HIV/AIDS research.  But Sir Elton, who has been knighted by the Queen of England, does not place his hope for a cure in medical breakthroughs so much as in changed hearts. 

          “Love is the cure,” could be a slogan to address many other ills in our world; a sentiment that has appeared in many other expressions –

·        What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

·        All you need is love.

·        If there’s ever an answer, it’s more love.

·        Love will find a way.

And there is much in Christian scripture that resonates with and supports these ideals –

·        “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

·        “As I have loved you, so you should love one another.”

·        “God is love.”

So, with all this hope in the power of love, why do we have such a hard time actually loving one another?  If we really believe it, why don’t we do it?

          The simple answer is that we are all sinners who fall short of the mark.  For those of you for whom the concept of sin seems backward and unenlightened I challenge you to find another explanation for why even the best of us still can practice a little deception with our spouses, envy of our neighbors, prejudice against our co-workers, etc.  Most of us are not lacking in education or proper moral training.  Most of us know better than to do some of the things we do.  But we still do them.

          And then there are the things we don’t do which we ought to, or could, do – what Christian tradition calls, “sins of omission.”  The list here would be even longer. The way we turn a blind eye to the needs around us is a testimony to the pervasiveness of sins of omission.

          Why don’t we love one another?  Because we are sinners.

          But Christian teaching tells us that God loves us anyway, willing to die in order to demonstrate how much.  This is what we call gospel – good news.  We are sinners, but God loves us anyway, and God’s hope in the gospel is that if we grasp this divine love and it becomes a part of our wills, or as scripture puts it, a part of our “heart, soul, mind and strength,” then perhaps we will learn to love the way God loves.  Wouldn’t that be something?

          I find that most of us need constant exposure to the message of the gospel in order for it to sink in.  Oh, there are those who seem to be changed into radical lovers seemingly overnight.  But most of us need to hear the gospel over and over again.  We are stubborn.  Scripture says we are “stiff-necked.”  Scripture also says we are being changed from one degree of glory into another.  Being changed by degrees takes time, and constant attention to the basics.

          Wade Page, the extremist white power musician who recently killed several people at worship at a Sikh temple, did not overnight become an ideologue willing to kill others.  The change in him happened by degrees, with constant exposure to the politics of hatred.  If we are to overcome such evil in the world it will require the same persistence, but with a different message, of love being shared intentionally, daily, unceasingly.

          Maybe we should write it one hundred times on the blackboard.  Love is the cure.  Love is the cure.  Love is the cure . . . . . . . . . .

This Is My Church

The church Trustees had a great deal on carpet.  If they were willing to go with a mixed pattern of square carpet tiles, they could save a few dollars per square yard of carpeting.  So from Friday to Saturday the carpet layer worked almost ‘round the clock in order to get the carpet down in the hallways of our building before Sunday morning.

The reaction of the Sunday morning crowd was not pretty.  Nor was the carpet.  The mixed pattern of carpet squares looked AWFUL, according to many (although many of the children seemed enthralled, as if they’d never considered carpet to be so interesting!).  Many people were so incensed by the carpet that they became (they said) almost physically sick.  The Trustees were chastened and the poor carpet layer had to come back and undo his hard work and lay down a pattern that MATCHED!  And the initial savings the Trustees intended was lost.

What’s this story got to do with Jesus?  Maybe more than you think.  I mentioned in my last blog/article that somehow we’ve got to make a personal claim on the gospel, like the apostle Paul when he writes, “according to my gospel.”  I believe that same personal claim is necessary for our relationship to the church.  So much contemporary conversation about spirituality seems unattached to anything real, as if we can have our spiritual experiences without relationships to actual people and institutions.  This disembodied spirituality is a copout, an avoidance of the sometimes hard work of living in community.  Authentic spirituality involves relationships with other people and the institutions to which they belong – in Christian terms – the church.

So, when folks get mad about the pattern of the carpet, they are actually making a personal claim about their faith – “This is MY church and I CARE about what happens here.”  While we may think that carpeting is really a small thing in the grand scheme of things, I would rather have people upset about carpeting than for them not to care about their church. 

Sometimes I get frustrated by church folks who get upset about what I consider petty matters.  But at least it means they care.  I’d rather have a dozen people in church who care about what happens in and to their church than to have one hundred people who don’t.  You see, the church belongs to Jesus, and therefore, even for all its failings, it is worth caring about.  And because it belongs to Jesus, it also belongs to me, because Jesus has invited me in on what he’s doing in the world.  The church of Jesus is MY church and I want everyone to care.   

According to My Gospel

There is a phrase that the apostle Paul uses only a few times in his letters in which he refers to “my gospel.”  For instance, take a look in your Bible at Romans 16:25.  I love his use of that possessive pronoun.  In claiming “my gospel,” Paul is making a personal commitment to the good news that he has received in Jesus Christ.

Now surely the gospel that Jesus proclaimed transcends any one person’s individual claim on its message.  The gospel was a good word about a new order of life which Jesus initiated in his preaching, in his wonder-working, in his life, death and resurrection.  So, gospel is a bigger story than how it affects any one person.  And yet, if we do not make a personal claim, or allow the story to claim us, then we have missed the whole point it seems to me.

Jesus invites us in on the establishment of God’s reign “on earth as in heaven,” but if we skip along the edges and never let this godly reign rule in us then we have missed the opportunity for the good news to become our news.  John Wesley was a devout churchman who nevertheless was missing out on the joy that accompanies the good news until one evening during a Bible study on Aldersgate Street - he writes, “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”  The claim of the gospel finally hit Wesley personally.

Of course, the gospel does not belong to the apostle Paul or to John Wesley, but the use of that possessive pronoun is like the language that lovers use when they say to one another, “You are mine.”  Such language is simply an attempt to express the personal claim that comes in a loving relationship – the same kind of relationship in which the gospel invites us to participate.  Because to belong to the kingdom that God is establishing requires just such a relationship with Jesus Christ who says to us, “You are mine.”  And for us to enjoy the full measure of gospel joy requires our personal response to him, as in the words of the old Fanny Crosby hymn, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!”

When I say, “My Jesus,” that does not negate the possibility that he is also “your Jesus,” while also not being limited by our personal claims on him.  God in Christ is able to be all things to all persons for the sake of their joy and ultimate salvation.  May Jesus Christ be yours.

Words to Live By

“Of the writing of books there is no end.”  These words from the Biblical Ecclesiastes, suggests a certain futility in the art of literature.  Words piled upon words --- and has anything really come of it?  “There is nothing new under the sun,” expresses the opinion of this Biblical writer.

In the Gospel of John, the evangelist gives his own spin on the limitations of literature.  As he concludes his version of the life and ministry of Jesus he implies that he could have written much more but he had to stop somewhere (John 21:25). The books that have been written about Jesus since John’s epilogue testifies to our human need to get in the last word, and is proof of the wisdom of Ecclesiastes.

The book of Revelation, traditionally attributed to John but likely written by one of the members of the Christian community influenced by John, adds a more strident warning about the limitations of words.  He ends his Revelation by cautioning anyone from adding or taking away anything to his words.  His counsel, coming as it does not only at the end of his book, but also curiously placed at the end of the Bible, has been interpreted as a warning against messing with scripture unnecessarily.

Still, well-meaning Christians have been “messing with” scripture from its very beginnings.  There is no end to the words that have been added to and taken away from the original texts.  In some measure this is healthy.  These books of the Bible and the way we respond to them witness to the fact that words on a page actually are a living testimony.  They breathe with life and continue to breathe life into the Christian community.  And we cannot help talking and writing about it. One of the liturgical responses that Christians make in response to hearing the scriptures read in worship is, “The Word of God for the people of God!”  To which the people respond, “Thanks be to God!”  This Word from God has so shaped the Christian community that gratitude is the appropriate response. 

But there are so many words in this Word.  Sometimes, perhaps often, people get so lost in the words that they lose any sense of The Word.  Kathleen Norris, in her book Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, describes a woman celebrating her 101st birthday and being asked her favorite Bible verse.  She responded with a verse she had memorized while a child, Mark 14:8, “She hath done what she could:  she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.”  In the verse Jesus is defending a woman who has done an extravagant act of kindness for him. When the 101 year-old was asked what it was about the verse that had captured her attention for over ninety years, she responded, “She did what she could.” (Page 256, Riverhead Books, New York).

So many words.  But sometimes all one needs are a few to sustain a life. 

Hagiography: What?

I am a pastor of a church.  Frequently I conduct funerals or memorial services for church members and others who have died.  Through the years I have discovered that while this can be a difficult task it is often very rewarding.

One of the members of one of my former churches said to me once that I preached better funeral sermons than Sunday morning sermons (one of those conditional compliments!).  Her comment, however, made me reflect on why that might be so.  When a Christian dies I think the responsibility of the pastor is to honor the memory of the person and to witness to the presence of God in that person’s life.  I want to tell the truth about a person’s life, of course, but the truth as God sees it.

We all know that people are flawed.  The Bible puts it this way:  “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)  Christians are not without sin.  Yet it is “the God’s truth” that God delights in each one of us.  God even delights in those persons who deny that God exists.  God even delights in those who don’t believe.  God delights in every creature.  (Zephaniah 3:17;  Psalm 149:4; Genesis 1:31)  So, what I try to do is to see the person who has died through the eyes of God’s unfathomable and uncontainable delight. 

In the early church there was a popular literature called hagiography.  This is a fancy word for describing the study of holiness, particularly holy people, whom we often call saints.  The lives of the saints made for interesting reading at one time.  I think it still does. 

There are two ways of defining saints:  those who are holier than anyone else, and those who are considered holy by God simply by virtue of the fact that God created them.  I prefer the study of everyday saints.  As I have learned to see the deceased through the eyes of God’s delight I have learned also to see living people through that same lens, to see the holiness that is in them (as much as they might deny it).  Perhaps my best sermons are nothing more than an attempt to see the delightful glory of God in the most ordinary of folks.

It sometimes takes practice to tune your vision in this way.  But it is great fun, as well as amazingly humbling, to see people the way God sees them.  Try it.  It may also change the way people see you.

Why Jesus? (Being Part of the Big Picture)

I know I just asked the above question a few blogs ago, but there are many answers to this question, so plenty of blog-fodder. 

I was thinking about my cousin, Mary Ann, presently on a short-term journey to the Central African Republic to conduct a Bible school (for adults) and to encourage the Christian community in the region of Zemio.  The Christians there can use all the support they can get as they have had to deal with the terror campaign of Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army. 

Mary Ann  and her husband, Les, served in Africa as missionaries for over 40 years and in retirement they keep going back for short-term projects and programs like the present one.  The question you may ask is, “Why would anyone do this?”  After all, when retirement comes don’t we all want to put  our work behind us, especially if it puts us in a place that could be a threat to life and limb?

Now, I admit that one of the motivations for travel is the fact that Les and Mary Ann have children still serving in that region, but that is not the only reason they return again and again. They return because they love the people there – after forty years one can’t help but establish a bond.  But they also return because God has called them to something beyond themselves, and they feel both compelled as well as exhilarated by that calling.

Which returns me to the question, “Why Jesus?”   Mary Ann and Les might articulate this differently,  but I think they would agree with me – Jesus calls us out of an unsatisfying life of self-absorption into a life that plays itself out on the grand stage of history.  Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom of God was  breaking in upon the world.  The apostle Paul picked up on the theme by declaring that through Jesus God was doing nothing less than restoring the fullness of creation.

So, maybe all you want out of life is a decent job, a happy relationship with your significant other, or time off for good behavior.  Maybe all you care about is beating your best score in World of Warcraft.  Maybe your biggest dream is to make the cheerleading squad.  Or maybe all you want to do is retire so you can play golf.  Go for it.  Sounds stimulating.

But if you want to be part of something bigger than yourself, if you want to be part of a movement that is changing history, indeed, transforming  creation itself, then that’s “Why Jesus?”  If you haven’t heard this grand vision in the words and life of Jesus, then I suggest you haven’t really been listening.

Walking in Someone Else's Shoes

I couldn’t help it.  While she was still walking across the parking lot, before she had said a word, I was sizing her up.  The way she was dressed, the cut of her hair, the proportions of her figure – too fat, too thin – all these were measures running through my critical faculties.  And then there was the handshake (too firm, too limp), and the sound of her voice (refined or unpolished) that went into the mix of my judgments upon another human being.  None of this was deliberate.  It simply was.

I don’t think I’m that unusual in this regard.  Our tendency to judge one another comes with the territory of being human.  I believe in sin.  I’m agin’ it, as the old preacher used to say, but I am inevitably tied up in it.  If sin is a novel concept to you, or if you think it is a hopelessly outdated idea, then I suggest you have not been paying attention.  All I need to do is see the political news for the day, not to mention all the other news of a sordid nature, to remind me that sin is rampant among us.

 

I am fortunate, though.  I had parents who taught me better.  My parents, too, believed in sin and our need to fight it with every fiber of our being, and to surrender our wills to God in order that we might avail ourselves of divine assistance to overcome sin and recover the image of God in ourselves, AND, to restore the vision to see that image in someone else.

So, from a very young age I was instructed to curb my judgmental tendencies and to train my eyes to see others through the eyes of God.  I was raised to not distrust people who looked or thought differently from me, but to distrust prejudice itself.  I was raised to not measure people by external circumstances but to give people the benefit of the doubt.  In short, I was raised with what we often call The Golden Rule, as I paraphrase it, “treat others the way you want to be treated.” 

Jesus had many things to say about judgment, most of which were warnings that judgment belongs to God, for instance, Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”

As Fathers’ Day arrives this Sunday, I am giving thanks for my Father and Mother who both taught me to measure people with the same grace that I trust God measures me.  I still have to fight my instinct to judge others by the most superficial of standards (sin lies ever ready to rear its ugly head).  But God has worked me over a good bit in my life, helping me to attend more faithfully to the divine image of the person in front of me.  And there’s always the voice of my parents saying, “until you’ve walked a mile in someone else’s shoes . . .”   

  

What We Want and What We Need

We all want something out of church.  Let’s admit it.  Some want the fellowship of good friends who share common values.  Some want moral instruction for their children.  Some want spiritual guidance for their teenagers.  Some want answers to difficult questions.  Some want easy steps to happiness. Some want consolation for life’s troubles.  Some want an energetic worship service with music that makes you want to dance.  Others want just the opposite – worship that is solemn with music that leads to meditation.  Some want a sermon that speaks to the intellect.  Others want a sermon that speaks to the heart. 

I hope it is obvious that no one can have everything they want in a church.  There are too many competing expectations.  How do we manage to have church in the midst of all these differing desires?  Perhaps because we realize, somehow deep down in our heart of hearts, that church is not really about what we want at all, but about what God wants. 

Jesus says, “take up you cross daily and follow me.”  And the more we seek to put aside what we want out of church in order to take up our daily cross the more likely we are to be a church that satisfies our souls.  We sometimes discover that what we wanted was not nearly as important as what we needed, and God always provides what we need as we follow Jesus in this life of daily cross-bearing.

Oh, churches still have squabbles.  And sometimes we have knock-down, drag-out confrontations.  But the more we bear the cross the less we’ll sweat the small stuff and the more likely we’ll find common cause. 

Take a look in the mirror and be honest with yourself.  You want something out of church.  What is it?  Then ask yourself, “What does God want from me?”  When you get in the habit of seeking the answer to that second question you will be closer to helping the church be a gateway to the kingdom of God, and you may find exactly what you need, if not what you want, out of church.