Are you a dinosaur? I’m not referring to how old you are, or how big you might be. I’m asking about the way that you think. The human brain has evolved quite a bit from the days that T. Rex and his friends roamed the earth. But at times we can allow our more primitive instincts to take over and control the way that we act and think, and we ignore the higher thought processes that we’re capable of. Or, to word it more spiritually (this is a church message, after all), at times we allow our worldly nature to control us, instead of conforming to the spiritual nature that Christ has won for us.
The session and I are spending this year in spiritual development, in order to become better faith leaders for the congregation. As part of our time at January’s session meeting, we used material by Dave Derby of Gospel Recordings to think about how we can overcome our “dinosaur brains.” He outlined seven rules that control how dinosaurs think. For each rule, we discussed examples of when we’ve seen it at work, and we read Scripture passages which describe the kind of thinking that God calls us to instead. Then we thought about what life in our church would look like if we gave up dinosaur thinking for the mind of Christ. This month, I invite you to do the same thing. Here are the seven rules of dinosaur brains. Think about times when you’ve seen people (maybe yourself!) act according to them. Then read the Scripture passages to learn about what God calls us to instead. Finally, think about how your life would be different if you overcame your own dinosaur brain.
1. Be Dominant: Win at all costs, and be sure to get the last word.
Matthew 20:25-28, James 1:19, Genesis 11:1-8
2. Defend the Territory: Hold on to what is yours and what is important to you.
Genesis 12:1-3, Mark 12:13-17, John 11:45-57
3. Get It Now: Act impulsively for instant gratification, instead of long-term rewards.
Genesis 45:1-7, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, James 4:1-3, 13-17, Proverbs 6:6-11
4. If It Hurts, Hiss: Blame someone else if things go wrong.
Numbers 14:1-4, Proverbs 19:3, Matthew 7:1-5, Romans 2:1-4
5. Get the Mate: Do what it takes to make yourself as impressive or attractive as possible.
Acts 5:1-11, 1 Samuel 16:1-12, Matthew 23:1-12, Mark 12:38-40, Luke 14:7-11
6. Like Me = Good, Not Like Me = Bad: Only trust people who are like you.
Luke 9:49-50, 1 Corinthians 9:19-23
7. Fight, Flight, or Freeze: Protect yourself from danger, ridicule, or rejection.
Matthew 6:25-33, Luke 9:22-26, John 15:9-17
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Facing a Gideon Moment
The congregation that I serve has been affected by the financial crisis that our nation is dealing with. A significant amount of money that we raised for our building project has disappeared because of the downturn in the stock market. If we want construction to continue, we will have to increase our loan from $300,000 to $450,000. As we deal with this unpleasant situation, it would be easy for us to respond with despair, frustration, anxiety, or anger. We may want to look for someone to blame for this situation, or we may give up on trying to complete this goal.
Instead, I encourage you to consider this to be a “Gideon moment,” as we trust and work with God. In Judges 6 and 7, God told Gideon that He was sending him to defeat the army that was occupying the land of Israel. In response to God’s call, Gideon assembled an army of 32,000 soldiers to attack a much bigger enemy force. Anyone in their right mind would say that Gideon needed every warrior he could find to join him in the battle. But God told Gideon that he had too many men. Too many! What general who was ever preparing for battle thought that he had too many soldiers? But God wanted Gideon to know that when he defeated them, the victory would come because of God’s power and not his army. So with God’s guidance, Gideon whittled down his forces until he only had 300 soldiers. And with those 300, he defeated the enemy.
When we first started preparations for this building project, we knew that it would only succeed if it was God’s will. At every step, we did our best to ensure that we were following where God was guiding. And by every conventional measure, things seemed to be going well. In four years we raised an incredible amount of money, and we secured a loan with excellent terms from church-related institution to pay for the rest of the construction. Based on what we had been able to raise in the past, we had every reason to believe that we would be able to pay off the loan in three years.
Gideon thought his army of 32,000 could defeat the Midianites, and we thought that we would be able to complete our building project. But God wanted Gideon to know that it was His power, not Gideon’s, that won the victory. And now, perhaps God wants us to know that this building project will not succeed because of our efforts, but because of His power at work in us. A sign in the back of our sanctuary defines faith as “Fantastic Adventures In Trusting Him.” This latest situation is part of the adventure that comes from trusting God. If we could complete this building project on our own, where would the faith be? But if we are brought to our knees and realize that the project will indeed succeed only with God’s blessing, then we are well on our way to living out our faith.
Does this mean that we should sit back quietly and do nothing, because God will take care of it all? By no means! Gideon and his band of 300 men had an army to face, and we have a project to complete. We have work to do together, but we must remember that we are playing our role in the plan that God has for us.
We share this crisis with countless families and institutions across our nation. May the way that we face it as a church be a witness to those around us of what is possible when we trust and follow God.
Instead, I encourage you to consider this to be a “Gideon moment,” as we trust and work with God. In Judges 6 and 7, God told Gideon that He was sending him to defeat the army that was occupying the land of Israel. In response to God’s call, Gideon assembled an army of 32,000 soldiers to attack a much bigger enemy force. Anyone in their right mind would say that Gideon needed every warrior he could find to join him in the battle. But God told Gideon that he had too many men. Too many! What general who was ever preparing for battle thought that he had too many soldiers? But God wanted Gideon to know that when he defeated them, the victory would come because of God’s power and not his army. So with God’s guidance, Gideon whittled down his forces until he only had 300 soldiers. And with those 300, he defeated the enemy.
When we first started preparations for this building project, we knew that it would only succeed if it was God’s will. At every step, we did our best to ensure that we were following where God was guiding. And by every conventional measure, things seemed to be going well. In four years we raised an incredible amount of money, and we secured a loan with excellent terms from church-related institution to pay for the rest of the construction. Based on what we had been able to raise in the past, we had every reason to believe that we would be able to pay off the loan in three years.
Gideon thought his army of 32,000 could defeat the Midianites, and we thought that we would be able to complete our building project. But God wanted Gideon to know that it was His power, not Gideon’s, that won the victory. And now, perhaps God wants us to know that this building project will not succeed because of our efforts, but because of His power at work in us. A sign in the back of our sanctuary defines faith as “Fantastic Adventures In Trusting Him.” This latest situation is part of the adventure that comes from trusting God. If we could complete this building project on our own, where would the faith be? But if we are brought to our knees and realize that the project will indeed succeed only with God’s blessing, then we are well on our way to living out our faith.
Does this mean that we should sit back quietly and do nothing, because God will take care of it all? By no means! Gideon and his band of 300 men had an army to face, and we have a project to complete. We have work to do together, but we must remember that we are playing our role in the plan that God has for us.
We share this crisis with countless families and institutions across our nation. May the way that we face it as a church be a witness to those around us of what is possible when we trust and follow God.
Revelation 2:1-7 – Getting Back to Basics
As we begin to study the letters which John wrote to each of the seven churches, we can notice that the letters follow a specific pattern. Each begins with “These are the words of him who…” and then picks up one of the descriptive phrases for Jesus which we found in Chapter 1. The particular descriptive is frequently something that relates to the particular issue that the church is dealing with. Next, the letter provides an affirmation for how the church has been faithful (except for the notable exception of the church to the Laodiceans). The next element for each letter is a call for reformation: the identification of something that the churches can do to be more faithful (except for the notable exception of the Philadelphians). The letters end with a promise of the reward which the faithful will receive, and the charge “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” The regularity of this formula helps us understand the message for each church.
John begins with a letter the church in Ephesus. Ephesus was a major seaport and the most important city in the region. It was also the center of worship for the goddess Artemis (or Diana). Acts 19:23-41 describes a riot that the worshipers of Artemis incited in reaction to Paul’s preaching of the gospel there.
The affirmation for the Ephesian church was that they were hard-working and conscientious. They were discerning people and sought to avoid the influence of misleading or false leaders. That’s great: these are values which we’d all admire. There’s something almost instinctive, at least in the American “heartland,” about valuing hard work and quality work. And we respect people with sharp minds who don’t just accept every idea that comes down the pick, but probes and analyzes them to sift out what is valuable and get rid of the dangers and problems.
This is all quite commendable, but in the midst of their hard work and careful thought, the Ephesians had strayed from their “first love.” This can be understood two ways. First, they may have forgotten about the condition of love which is the starting point and grounding of everything we are and do as Christians. Church history is riddled with unfortunate examples of believers who became so caught up in doing the right thing and working hard to do it, that they no longer acted in love. The Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials are two quick examples that come to mind. But they’re safe examples because they’re so removed from us. But it’s a danger we still face. It would be easy for the ongoing debate about the role of homosexuals in the church to dissolve into this, if and when those who hold up the Biblical standard against such conduct fail to do so out of love and respect and begin to demonize and break fellowship not only with homosexuals but with those who support them. Many congregations can find sad localized examples of their own: when a longtime member criticizes a new member because she violated a long-standing tradition about how “things are always done here,” or if a dispute about how to handle a situation in the church dissolves into factionalism and bitterness. In each of these cases, the love from which all discipleship begins has been violated.
But there’s a second way to understand Jesus’ criticism that the Ephesians have “forsaken their first love:” they lost sight of their primary call from God. They forgot how their relationship with God and their identity as God’s people started. In the process of developing and growing in faith, they abandoned their roots instead of building on them. This can happen to us, individually and as a church, when we forget why we are doing what we’re doing and obsess over how to do it. They need to heed the exhortation that Paul offered to the Philippians: “Let us live up to what we have already attained” (3:16).
John begins with a letter the church in Ephesus. Ephesus was a major seaport and the most important city in the region. It was also the center of worship for the goddess Artemis (or Diana). Acts 19:23-41 describes a riot that the worshipers of Artemis incited in reaction to Paul’s preaching of the gospel there.
The affirmation for the Ephesian church was that they were hard-working and conscientious. They were discerning people and sought to avoid the influence of misleading or false leaders. That’s great: these are values which we’d all admire. There’s something almost instinctive, at least in the American “heartland,” about valuing hard work and quality work. And we respect people with sharp minds who don’t just accept every idea that comes down the pick, but probes and analyzes them to sift out what is valuable and get rid of the dangers and problems.
This is all quite commendable, but in the midst of their hard work and careful thought, the Ephesians had strayed from their “first love.” This can be understood two ways. First, they may have forgotten about the condition of love which is the starting point and grounding of everything we are and do as Christians. Church history is riddled with unfortunate examples of believers who became so caught up in doing the right thing and working hard to do it, that they no longer acted in love. The Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials are two quick examples that come to mind. But they’re safe examples because they’re so removed from us. But it’s a danger we still face. It would be easy for the ongoing debate about the role of homosexuals in the church to dissolve into this, if and when those who hold up the Biblical standard against such conduct fail to do so out of love and respect and begin to demonize and break fellowship not only with homosexuals but with those who support them. Many congregations can find sad localized examples of their own: when a longtime member criticizes a new member because she violated a long-standing tradition about how “things are always done here,” or if a dispute about how to handle a situation in the church dissolves into factionalism and bitterness. In each of these cases, the love from which all discipleship begins has been violated.
But there’s a second way to understand Jesus’ criticism that the Ephesians have “forsaken their first love:” they lost sight of their primary call from God. They forgot how their relationship with God and their identity as God’s people started. In the process of developing and growing in faith, they abandoned their roots instead of building on them. This can happen to us, individually and as a church, when we forget why we are doing what we’re doing and obsess over how to do it. They need to heed the exhortation that Paul offered to the Philippians: “Let us live up to what we have already attained” (3:16).
Monday, September 1, 2008
Jeremiah 20:7-18 – Serving a Dangerous God
Jeremiah was a whiner. Plain and simple. Sure, he was one of the great prophets of Jerusalem, and he proclaimed God’s message faithfully during a difficult and dangerous time. But he complained and whined around all the time. Maybe you know some people like Jeremiah: they’re never satisfied and constantly complain about something or other. In fact, the Dutch have even turned his name into a verb; it mean “to complain.” When a child is fussy or whiny, the frustrated Dutch mother will exclaim, “Jeremiah je niet so!” Or, “Quit your jeremiahing!” I gave my mother plenty of practice with that line.
God should have known what he was getting into with Jeremiah. His whining started at the very beginning of his career, when God called him to be a prophet. Picture the scene: the very presence of the Almighty Lord of the universe enveloped Jeremiah and gave him these profound words of commissioning: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Wouldn’t that just blow you away if the Lord ever said something like that to you? Before Jeremiah had even been born, God had great plans for him: to be his messenger to the world. But how does Jeremiah respond? “Oh, God, you don’t want me to do that. I’m just a kid; I don’t know how to speak well.” So God has to go on for nine more verses to convince Jeremiah that he would fill him with the power and ability to do great things in his name. Instead of receiving his prophet’s commission with gratitude, Jeremiah argued. God had to convince him to take the job.
I wonder if God ever regretted it. Sure, Jeremiah did a great job of being a prophet. All of Jerusalem listened to him. Everyone from the king and the high priest down to the foot soldier in the army and the man in the street listened to him. But Jeremiah hated his job. He kept complaining to God about what he was doing. The Bible records at least five or six of his complaints. Well, when it’s in the Bible we give it a fancy name. They’re called “laments.” Doesn’t that sound so much nicer? Well, don’t let the label fool you. Jeremiah whined, complained, and bellyached his way through the chores that God had in store for him.
Now, maybe I’m not giving Jeremiah enough credit. To be fair, he had a remarkably difficult task in front of him. The nation of Judah had lost its spiritual moorings and had drifted away from faithful devotion to the Lord. Oh, they still went through the rituals at the temple in Jerusalem. But it had become an empty meaningless ritual. The gods and idols of the neighboring nations were so much more interesting, and so the people followed them as well. So at first, Jeremiah’s job was to tell everyone to get back to God, to give him the honor and worship he deserved. But it didn’t take long for it to be obvious that the message wasn’t sinking in. So Jeremiah got a different message. Now, because the people had abandoned God, Jeremiah had to go around telling everyone that God was going to wipe out their nation. The pagan empire of Babylon would conquer them, with God’s blessing. That was bad enough. But then, when the Babylonian army attacked and surrounded Jerusalem, Jeremiah went around telling everyone that they should surrender. If they would surrender to the Babylonians, God would spare their lives and help them rebuild. But if they didn’t, he would wipe them out.
Now, how do you think that message was received?! At the point of greatest crisis in the nation’s entire history, Jeremiah is telling everyone to give up. What do you think Winston Churchill would have done if the preachers of London told everyone that they should lay down their arms and surrender to the Nazis? How do you think Scarlett O’Hare would have reacted if Rhett told her to welcome General Sherman to Atlanta? How would we have responded seven years ago if someone told us to give up, convert to Islam, and hand control of our nation to Osama bin Laden? It’s ludicrous even to imagine doing such a thing, and it’s enough to make your blood boil to think that someone would suggest such a thing. But that’s exactly what Jeremiah did. He marched around the fortifications of Jerusalem, shouting out to the soldiers: “Give up! Put down your weapons! God wants you to let the enemy win.” He went up to the king and demanded that he sign a surrender with the Babylonian general. He stood on the steps of the temple, where everyone was going to ask for God’s deliverance from the enemy, and told them that God had abandoned them and wouldn’t pay any attention to them. To put it mildly, Jeremiah was not a popular fellow. He was arrested, beaten, and thrown into prison. People mocked him and spat on him when he walked down the street. His own family conspired to kill him. Most scholars think that Jeremiah was a relative of the king, partly because that’s the only thing that would have kept him from being executed for treason.
No, maybe Jeremiah had a right to complain. I suspect he had lots of second thoughts about agreeing to become God’s prophet and putting up with all the grief and frustration that it had caused. If we want to understand his prayer of Chapter 20, we need to keep in mind everything that he went through that led to it.
Translation is a funny thing. When we move from one language to another, we can tweak our word choices to make them more acceptable. The opening line of Jeremiah’s prayer is a classic example of translating the teeth out of a message. In the NIV, his prayer begins “O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived.” In the NRSV, Jeremiah complains that God “enticed” him. Other translations say that he overpowered or seduced him. No matter how shocked you may be to hear Jeremiah complain about being deceived, enticed, seduced, or overpowered by God, it’s nowhere near the shock you’d feel if you could read the original Hebrew. Let’s put it this way: the word that Jeremiah used here is the same word that we find in Exodus 22:16, when a man “seduces” a woman and makes her sleep with him. A better translation might be rape. Or, a four-letter word that begins with f. That’s what Jeremiah thinks about being a prophet. He has been violated by God in the most degrading way. In a way that we don’t want to talk about in polite company. So our accommodating Bible translators softened the blow by using nicer words.
But the fact remains. Jeremiah agreed to do what God wanted him to do, and now he was paying the price. He felt used by God. His life would have been so much easier if he could have just done what he wanted to. But instead, because of God, he was living in constant torment and ridicule. God had suckered him into a raw deal with all that sweet talk about being called and set apart from before he was born, about all the glorious things he would do in the name of the Lord.
But the worst of it for Jeremiah was that he couldn’t just quit. He was a prophet, whether he wanted to be one or not. The Lord’s message burned inside of him, trying to get out. Jeremiah couldn’t help but to proclaim it, to do exactly what God wanted him to do. He was in a no-win situation. If he acted like a prophet and proclaimed God’s message, even his closest friends would try to kill him. But if he didn’t, the agony of holding in the message was just too much. No wonder Jeremiah ended his prayer by wishing that he had never even been born.
But in the midst of his prayer, even though he was in such turmoil and distress, even though he was so outraged at what God had done to him, Jeremiah blessed the Lord. He praised God for his might and prayed that his enemies would be vanquished. Even though being faithful had cost Jeremiah so dearly, he committed himself once more to God. He didn’t do it with joy and happiness; he was miserable and wished that he could die. But Jeremiah’s faithfulness didn’t depend upon his emotions. His commitment to God had nothing to do with the “goodies” that would come along with it: riches, honor, joy, peace, eternal life, or whatever. Jeremiah the complainer is for us a shining example of faith: following where God leads, no matter how terrible the path will be.
There are those who try to attract people to faith in God with descriptions of how much better life will be for them if they believe. But Jeremiah’s story seems to fly in the face of these promises. Following God may at times be the toughest kind of life of all. But if we’re like Jeremiah, we do it anyway because we recognize that there’s something more important than having a good life. It’s not about us; it’s about God. Our task is to do whatever it takes to glorify him.
So what do we do if we come upon times when we feel like Jeremiah, when it seems like God has duped us, overpowered us, or even worse? How do respond when life just seems to come apart for us, when God seems to let us down, or even turn on us? At such times, Jeremiah continues to be an example for us. His prayer can be our prayer. Don’t worry about being rude to God, or using nasty language. This is God we’re talking about, after all. If he can create the world by saying a word, if he can redeem the human race on a cross, surely his shoulders are big enough to take anything we hand to him.
God should have known what he was getting into with Jeremiah. His whining started at the very beginning of his career, when God called him to be a prophet. Picture the scene: the very presence of the Almighty Lord of the universe enveloped Jeremiah and gave him these profound words of commissioning: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Wouldn’t that just blow you away if the Lord ever said something like that to you? Before Jeremiah had even been born, God had great plans for him: to be his messenger to the world. But how does Jeremiah respond? “Oh, God, you don’t want me to do that. I’m just a kid; I don’t know how to speak well.” So God has to go on for nine more verses to convince Jeremiah that he would fill him with the power and ability to do great things in his name. Instead of receiving his prophet’s commission with gratitude, Jeremiah argued. God had to convince him to take the job.
I wonder if God ever regretted it. Sure, Jeremiah did a great job of being a prophet. All of Jerusalem listened to him. Everyone from the king and the high priest down to the foot soldier in the army and the man in the street listened to him. But Jeremiah hated his job. He kept complaining to God about what he was doing. The Bible records at least five or six of his complaints. Well, when it’s in the Bible we give it a fancy name. They’re called “laments.” Doesn’t that sound so much nicer? Well, don’t let the label fool you. Jeremiah whined, complained, and bellyached his way through the chores that God had in store for him.
Now, maybe I’m not giving Jeremiah enough credit. To be fair, he had a remarkably difficult task in front of him. The nation of Judah had lost its spiritual moorings and had drifted away from faithful devotion to the Lord. Oh, they still went through the rituals at the temple in Jerusalem. But it had become an empty meaningless ritual. The gods and idols of the neighboring nations were so much more interesting, and so the people followed them as well. So at first, Jeremiah’s job was to tell everyone to get back to God, to give him the honor and worship he deserved. But it didn’t take long for it to be obvious that the message wasn’t sinking in. So Jeremiah got a different message. Now, because the people had abandoned God, Jeremiah had to go around telling everyone that God was going to wipe out their nation. The pagan empire of Babylon would conquer them, with God’s blessing. That was bad enough. But then, when the Babylonian army attacked and surrounded Jerusalem, Jeremiah went around telling everyone that they should surrender. If they would surrender to the Babylonians, God would spare their lives and help them rebuild. But if they didn’t, he would wipe them out.
Now, how do you think that message was received?! At the point of greatest crisis in the nation’s entire history, Jeremiah is telling everyone to give up. What do you think Winston Churchill would have done if the preachers of London told everyone that they should lay down their arms and surrender to the Nazis? How do you think Scarlett O’Hare would have reacted if Rhett told her to welcome General Sherman to Atlanta? How would we have responded seven years ago if someone told us to give up, convert to Islam, and hand control of our nation to Osama bin Laden? It’s ludicrous even to imagine doing such a thing, and it’s enough to make your blood boil to think that someone would suggest such a thing. But that’s exactly what Jeremiah did. He marched around the fortifications of Jerusalem, shouting out to the soldiers: “Give up! Put down your weapons! God wants you to let the enemy win.” He went up to the king and demanded that he sign a surrender with the Babylonian general. He stood on the steps of the temple, where everyone was going to ask for God’s deliverance from the enemy, and told them that God had abandoned them and wouldn’t pay any attention to them. To put it mildly, Jeremiah was not a popular fellow. He was arrested, beaten, and thrown into prison. People mocked him and spat on him when he walked down the street. His own family conspired to kill him. Most scholars think that Jeremiah was a relative of the king, partly because that’s the only thing that would have kept him from being executed for treason.
No, maybe Jeremiah had a right to complain. I suspect he had lots of second thoughts about agreeing to become God’s prophet and putting up with all the grief and frustration that it had caused. If we want to understand his prayer of Chapter 20, we need to keep in mind everything that he went through that led to it.
Translation is a funny thing. When we move from one language to another, we can tweak our word choices to make them more acceptable. The opening line of Jeremiah’s prayer is a classic example of translating the teeth out of a message. In the NIV, his prayer begins “O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived.” In the NRSV, Jeremiah complains that God “enticed” him. Other translations say that he overpowered or seduced him. No matter how shocked you may be to hear Jeremiah complain about being deceived, enticed, seduced, or overpowered by God, it’s nowhere near the shock you’d feel if you could read the original Hebrew. Let’s put it this way: the word that Jeremiah used here is the same word that we find in Exodus 22:16, when a man “seduces” a woman and makes her sleep with him. A better translation might be rape. Or, a four-letter word that begins with f. That’s what Jeremiah thinks about being a prophet. He has been violated by God in the most degrading way. In a way that we don’t want to talk about in polite company. So our accommodating Bible translators softened the blow by using nicer words.
But the fact remains. Jeremiah agreed to do what God wanted him to do, and now he was paying the price. He felt used by God. His life would have been so much easier if he could have just done what he wanted to. But instead, because of God, he was living in constant torment and ridicule. God had suckered him into a raw deal with all that sweet talk about being called and set apart from before he was born, about all the glorious things he would do in the name of the Lord.
But the worst of it for Jeremiah was that he couldn’t just quit. He was a prophet, whether he wanted to be one or not. The Lord’s message burned inside of him, trying to get out. Jeremiah couldn’t help but to proclaim it, to do exactly what God wanted him to do. He was in a no-win situation. If he acted like a prophet and proclaimed God’s message, even his closest friends would try to kill him. But if he didn’t, the agony of holding in the message was just too much. No wonder Jeremiah ended his prayer by wishing that he had never even been born.
But in the midst of his prayer, even though he was in such turmoil and distress, even though he was so outraged at what God had done to him, Jeremiah blessed the Lord. He praised God for his might and prayed that his enemies would be vanquished. Even though being faithful had cost Jeremiah so dearly, he committed himself once more to God. He didn’t do it with joy and happiness; he was miserable and wished that he could die. But Jeremiah’s faithfulness didn’t depend upon his emotions. His commitment to God had nothing to do with the “goodies” that would come along with it: riches, honor, joy, peace, eternal life, or whatever. Jeremiah the complainer is for us a shining example of faith: following where God leads, no matter how terrible the path will be.
There are those who try to attract people to faith in God with descriptions of how much better life will be for them if they believe. But Jeremiah’s story seems to fly in the face of these promises. Following God may at times be the toughest kind of life of all. But if we’re like Jeremiah, we do it anyway because we recognize that there’s something more important than having a good life. It’s not about us; it’s about God. Our task is to do whatever it takes to glorify him.
So what do we do if we come upon times when we feel like Jeremiah, when it seems like God has duped us, overpowered us, or even worse? How do respond when life just seems to come apart for us, when God seems to let us down, or even turn on us? At such times, Jeremiah continues to be an example for us. His prayer can be our prayer. Don’t worry about being rude to God, or using nasty language. This is God we’re talking about, after all. If he can create the world by saying a word, if he can redeem the human race on a cross, surely his shoulders are big enough to take anything we hand to him.
Monday, August 25, 2008
What Is Sin?
In 1964, as the US Supreme Court was deliberating an obscenity case, the question came up: what is the definition of pornography? Justice Potter Stewart answered by saying, "I know it when I see it.” That’s how we Christians often respond when it comes to sin: we recognize it when we see it. And, like the old comic movie star Groucho Marx said, “Whatever it is, I’m against it.”
But maybe we don’t always recognize sin, especially in ourselves. Most people have a remarkable ability to ignore the obvious or justify the inexcusable. So if we want to
seek God’s grace to remove sin from our lives and our society, it’s worth taking some time to think about exactly what it is.
Here are six different ways to answer the question “what is sin?” Some may sound familiar to you, and others may make you scratch your head and think. If they do, good! Sin is a dangerous enough thing that we need to be able to recognize it in its many forms, so that we can bring it to God.
1. SIN IS DISOBEDIENCE OF GOD: This tends to be our most familiar understanding of sin. Sin is like breaking the rules. If God tells us not to do something, and we do it anyway, then we’ve sinned.
2. SIN IS ANYTHING THAT HURTS YOURSELF, OTHERS, OR GOD: According to this definition, a sin is something that causes damage. It’s the “common sense” definition. If it hurts you, if it affects other people, or if it offends God, then it’s sin.
3. SIN IS ANYTHING THAT DESTROYS RELATIONSHIPS: Sin is more than what hurts other people; it also hurts the connections between people. According to this definition, sin isn’t just the stuff we do or don’t do. It is also our attitudes that affect how we relate with each other
4. SIN IS THE “TRAGIC DESTRUCTION OF ONESELF:” This fourth definition is a bit like the second: sin is when you destroy or hurt yourself. But this self-destruction means more than causing physical damage to yourself. Sin is whatever prevents you from being the complete person that God wants you to be.
5. SIN IS THE ABUSE AND WASTE OF GIFTS: When we fail to use the gifts and resources that God provides responsibly and faithfully, we sin.
6. SIN IS THE FALLEN HUMAN CONDITION: Sin is more than what we do or don’t do. It’s an unfortunate characteristic of being human.
It’s good to understand what sin is, so that we can recognize it in ourselves. It’s even better to know that we can be freed from it through the work of Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
General Assembly Reflections
I. THE SPIRIT OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY
During my time at GA, I sensed a spiritual struggle, or a number of different spiritual struggles. As with any struggle, different powers had the upper hand at various points during the week.
The Struggle Between Faith and Fear: Will we have faith that God is at work and do our best to cooperate with Him? Or will we allow our fears of the unknown (other people, the future) to dominate our actions and decisions?
The Struggle Between Humble Discernment and Strident Advocacy: As we prepared to make decisions as a group that had many differences, I was overwhelmed by the commitment of many commissioners and delegates to seek humbly and prayerfully to discern God’s challenge and guidance as we worked together. On the other hand, I was dismayed by the stridency with which some people sought to convince others to agree with their agenda. Even when I agreed with the position of some people, their forcefulness troubled me.
The Struggle Between “Justice” and “Truth:” Many of our decisions appeared to be a struggle between “justice,” as some people understand it, and “truth,” as others understand it. I found it unfortunate that these two qualities, which God intends to exist together, were sometimes held up as opposites to each other.
II. THE PEOPLE OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY
One of the highlights of GA was the opportunity to meet such a wide variety of people who are serving God so well in such a variety of settings. Some were old acquaintances that I hadn’t seen for a long time, and others were new to me. I was inspired and excited to learn about the many ways in which people serve God faithfully in our denomination.
III. WORSHIP AT GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Without a doubt, worship experiences were the highlight of GA and literally moved me to tears. Each of the seven worship services were excellent and offered a different style of music and liturgy. Six of the seven sermons were insightful and motivating.
IV. COMMITTEE WORK
The first part of the General Assembly’s work was done by 17 committees, which then reported and made recommendations to the whole assembly. I was assigned to the Committee to Review the Permanent Committees: the ultimate bureaucratic creation! Specifically, we reviewed three of the permanent committees and commissions which do the work of our denomination. Each committee had engaged in three-year self study, and reported their findings to us. Our task was to determine how well they had performed their assigned duties.
PCCE, or the Presbyteries’ Cooperative Committee on Examinations, is responsible for the ordination exams which candidates take as part of the process to become ministers. They did a self-study for the right reasons: to learn how they could do their job better. They had identified four weaknesses in their current process and are already working on ways to address them.
ACREC, or the Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns, is responsible for identifying and dealing with ethnic and cultural issues in our church and society. Apart from what one may think of their purpose (which wasn’t a topic for our committee’s consideration), I have to admit that I wasn’t impressed with the way they organize and conduct their business. They engaged in the process of self-study, but didn’t seem to have learned anything from it.
GAPJC, or the GA Permanent Judicial Commission, makes final rulings on cases that come to them on appeal from presbyteries and synods. We were impressed not only with their meticulous concern to follow proper protocol, but by the spiritual atmosphere in which they do so. It was obvious that they conduct their work in an attitude of worship and prayer, seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, aware of their role in the Body of Christ. They are earnest servants of our church and seek above all to glorify Christ and to serve his people.
V. PLENARY SESSION
After the committees complete their work, we gathered together into a 100,000 square foot room to receive their reports and to act on their recommendations. As you may expect, this was a lengthy, tedious, and sometimes contentious time.
In addition to the difficulties you might expect when 1,000 commissioners and advisory delegates with different opinions try to deal with the work of seventeen committees, several additional factors prevented us from dealing with issues as well as I would have liked.
- First, ongoing technology issues interfered with the smooth flow of information. The network, which was designed to allow us to view business at hand on our laptops, was overwhelmed. The delays and frequent system crashes slowed us down and caused confusion at various points. How ironic, since we were meeting in the Silicon Valley!
- Second, our deliberative process was handled in such a way that discussion was frequently cut short, even on significant issues. My sense is that this came from a desire to move quickly through a heavy docket, and that many commissioners were willing to vote to end debate prematurely in order to do so. I would have preferred for some presentations and formalities to have been shortened or eliminated in order to allow for more people to speak before votes.
I was pleased with the assembly’s actions on most issues, including several that had the potential to be problematic. Two in particular that seemed to be particularly well handled.
- An overture calling for “tolerance and peaceful relations between the Christian and Muslim communities” asked the assembly to “state that the PC(USA) affirms that Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship a common God.” Instead, our final action was to “state that though we hold differing understandings of how God has been revealed to humankind, the PC(USA) affirms that, as children of this loving God, we share the commandments of love for God and neighbor, the requirement to care for the poor.”
- In response to a wide variety of overtures regarding Palestine and Israel, the assembly’s primary action on this subject was a call for “a projected ‘two-state’ solution, a shared Jerusalem, and the human rights of refugees and occupied peoples, and a call to resist extremism and push for reconciliation.”
Additionally, the assembly addressed the issue of civil litigation which has arisen between presbyteries and congregations seeking to leave the denomination. Something like 44 presbyteries are currently involved in lawsuits over this issue; nearly all of which were initiated not by the presbyteries but by the congregations seeking to leave. The assembly voted to provide funds to share the cost of these legal fees. It is projected that this will cost about $2 million, or about a one dollar per member increase in per capita. In order to reduce the potential per capita increase, the assembly will ask for donations to this fund.
Finally, there were two very significant actions by the General Assembly which troubled me deeply, and whose consequences threaten to overshadow the good which came from the assembly. Both of these actions related to the issue of ordination standards, particularly as they are applied to practicing homosexuals. I registered my dissent on both.
- The assembly voted and has asked presbyteries to approve a change to the Book of Order which would replace G-6.0106b (the “fidelity and chastity” clause) with the vaguer and weaker statement: “Those who are called to ordained service in the church, by their assent to the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003), pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, striving to follow where he leads through the witness of the Scriptures, and to understand the Scriptures through the instruction of the Confessions. In so doing, they declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church. Each governing body charged with examination for ordination and/or installation (G-14.0240 and G-14.0450) establishes the candidate’s sincere efforts to adhere to these standards.”
- The assembly removed all previous authoritative interpretations “concerning ordained service of homosexual church members,” and put in place a new authoritative interpretation which reads, in part: “Section G-6.0108 requires examining bodies to give prayerful and careful consideration, on an individual, case-by-case basis, to any departure from an ordination standard in matters of belief or practice that a candidate may declare during examination. However, the examining body is not required to accept a departure from standards, and cannot excuse a candidate’s inability to perform the constitutional functions unique to his or her office (such as administration of the sacraments).”
The first action needs the ratification of a majority of presbyteries; my hope is that past history repeats itself and they don’t. The second, however, is already in place, although future assemblies could change it. The problem with the new authoritative interpretation runs deeper than the debate about gay ordination. (This is the particular issue which gets the attention. But what about a candidate who doesn’t accept the ordination of women? Or any of a variety of theological differences?) This new interpretation means that each session and presbytery is free to set its own standards for ordination, and that there are no longer any shared principles to unite ordination practices across our denomination. There is no guarantee that a minister’s ordination by one presbytery will be accepted in another presbytery. There is no assurance that an elder who is ordained in one church will be recognized as an elder if he or she moves to a different congregation. The process of “credentialing” ministers as they move from one call to another has become impossibly complex, now that there is no “glue” that holds us together.
I suggest that one rather complex and messy but potentially helpful remedy to this dilemma may be the formation of systems similar to “reciprocal agreements” made between colleges and universities regarding the transfer of course work. In higher education, for example, University A may accept particular credits earned at University B for students transferring from one to another. (These reciprocal agreements are particularly important for students who begin at a community college and plan to transfer to a four-year institution.) Perhaps the potential confusion which could come from the new AI would be mitigated by agreements between certain presbyteries and sessions to accept each other’s ordination standards
Thursday, June 12, 2008
On Unity
How good and pleasant it is
when brothers live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron's beard,
down upon the collar of his robes.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the LORD bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore. (Psalm 133 , NIV)
Psalm 133 describes what life can be like when we delight in our relationships with each other. It’s a blessing I hope that we as a General Assembly and as a denomination can enjoy. If so, we’ve got some work to do. At this point, there seem to be three ways that we view some of our fellow PC(USA)-ers.
RESENTMENT: Some of us are like one of my colleagues, with whom I shared a conversation after a rather contentious presbytery meeting. Referring to another of our colleagues, he said that he wanted nothing to do with her. When I reminded him that God established a covenant relationship between us, he replied, “But I don’t want to be in a covenant with her!” Some of us may share that sentiment, even if we don’t express it so boldly.
TOLERANCE: Others of us may look to some groups in our denomination and consider them to be a presence to be tolerated or endured in our fellowship. We’re willing to put up with them, kind of like the way you put up with an annoying rattle in your car that would cost too much to fix.
ACCEPTANCE: Still others may consider ourselves to be enlightened enough to urge “acceptance” of people with different points of view or goals. We don’t understand what makes them tick, but apparently they’re God’s children, too. So we’ll make room for them.
Psalm 133 goes way beyond resentment, tolerance, and even acceptance. The psalmist describes the sense of blessing, nourishment, and richness of lives united by God’s action. It speaks of an enjoyment, and excitement, and a deep desire to be together. Our differences don’t matter nearly as much as the fact that, through the reconciling work of Christ, we belong together. Rather than resent, tolerate, or accept the covenant relationship we have with each other through God’s call, it’s time for us to celebrate it. Yes, even our unity with people who are very different from us, with whom we’d have no relationship at all if we had it our way. God, in his infinite, compassionate wisdom, has seen fit to bring us together. And he did it for a good reason. We haven’t even started to scratch the surface of the possibilities that come from our God-created relationships with each other. Hopefully the San Jose GA will be a place for us to start.
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