The Meaning of Blessing

One of my pet peeves is the way many Christians use the word “blessing.”  It’s common to hear someone say "I've been blessed," "It was such a blessing" and so on.  It’s become a religious way of saying "I was lucky," or "Boy, I'm glad that I have that.”

To receive a blessing is to have someone bestow favor upon you.  The Old Testament patriarchs like Isaac and Jacob bestowed blessings upon their children before they died.  The blessing may include material possessions like land or cattle.  But more importantly, the blessing was a bestowal of goodness upon the person.  They were endowed with something special that would affect their character and identity.  Being "blessed" doesn't mean simply receiving something good, or even having things work out well for you.  It's even more than acknowledging that God is the one who is responsible for something good in your life.  Being blessed means that you are different person.  You have been changed in a powerful and positive way.  In Matthew 5, Jesus began his famous “Sermon on the Mount” with the beatitudes: a series of descriptions of how we are blessed in various circumstances.  The beatitudes are not about wonderful things coming your way.  They are about how the things that come your way will change you in amazing ways that draw you closer to our Lord.

A lesser-known passage that helps us understand what it means to be blessed is Psalm 67:

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us,

that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.”

The psalmist seeks God’s blessing for himself and his community, but he does so for a very specific purpose.  It’s not about himself and how he will benefit from God’s blessing.  He wants to be blessed so that everyone will come to know God, and that God’s plan will prevail over the world.

To sum all this up, being blessed means that God transforms us in order for others to blessed and transformed themselves.  We may be tempted to cling to God’s blessings and keep them for ourselves, rather than recognizing that the way they change us can be a way for others to be changed as well.  If we hold onto the blessing for ourselves, we block God’s pipeline of grace and joy for the world.

It’s for us as individuals, but it’s also true for us as a church.  The Lord has blessed Old Union in many fantastic ways.  But the blessings are not meant for us alone.  First, they are not simply heavenly goodies that we can enjoy like trick-or-treaters on November 1.  The blessings that God has bestowed upon our congregation are meant to change who we are.  Pray over this question: “How has God transformed Old Union through the blessings he has given to it?”  Second, our church has not been blessed for its own sake.  We have been blessed so that those around us, especially those in our community, can discover God’s blessing for them through us.  Pray over this second question: “How can Old Union’s blessings bring others closer to God?”

Pittsburgh and the Presbyterian Church

It’s fitting that the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s General Assembly will be meeting in Pittsburgh, beginning on Saturday.  It’s fitting, not just because Pittsburgh, per capita, has more Presbyterians than any other city, and not just because it will be the first time that the national decision-making body will meet in the ‘Burgh since 1959.  In many ways, the character and composition of Pittsburgh and the PC(USA) are similar.  Here are three.

First, Pittsburgh is more like a compact collection of towns than a single city.  Because of the rivers and the hilly terrain, and because of immigration and settlement patterns, the city is made up of many neighborhoods, each with a very distinct personality.  Shadyside and East Liberty may be right beside each other, but they are about as different as night and day.  A few years ago my stepdaughter lived in Bloomfield, which is nice.  But if she lived about a half block in one direction, she would have been in Garfield.  And that would have kept us up at night.

In the same way, our denomination is becoming more like a collection of neighborhoods than a unified church.  It’s not enough to say that you’re a Presbyterian to have a sense of kindred spirit with each other.  We reserve judgment until we know which “neighborhood” you’re from.  Where do you stand on ordination issues?  What’s your perspective on the authority of Scripture?  Are you more concerned about social justice or morality?  In my opinion, recent changes in our denomination have made it easier for us to identify with our neighborhoods.  The new Form of Government allows each presbytery and session to establish its own manual of operations.  So things that are “normal” in one part of the church are unheard-of somewhere else.  Just like, in Pittsburgh, Homewood is completely different from Fox Chapel.  Second, our standards of ordination are now determined more fully by the local ordaining body (session or presbytery) than by national standards.  The potential now exists that someone who is an elder or minister in one Presbyterian “neighborhood” won’t be recognized as such in another one.

Second, the adage “You can’t get there from here” applies to the roads of Pittsburgh.  There’s no neat checkerboard of streets and avenues, like you’ll find in cities built on pancake-flat terrain.  The roads in Pittsburgh follow meandering streams, skirt steep slopes, and accommodate every other geographic challenge that they find.  To make matters worse, the locals have their own names for these highways, which you’ll never find on a map or a road-sign.  If you want to travel from downtown to Monroeville, “everyone knows” that you take the Parkway East.  Everyone, that is, except for the highway signage people, who call it I-376 East.  You won’t find the Tenth Street Bridge between the Ninth Street and the Sixteenth Street Bridges; that’s where the Veteran’s Bridge is (also known as I-579).  Confused?  Don’t worry; you will be.

Once again, Pittsburgh and the PC(USA) have a lot in common.  Sure, we have a labyrinth of confusing bureaucracy, just like any other large organization.  It can be infuriating, as groups seem to work at cross-purposes, oblivious of what others are doing.  But the issue runs more deeply than that.  Some of us have such deeply entrenched convictions that “you can’t get there from here,” if you don’t have the same beliefs.  We’ve lost the ability to see eye-to-eye with each other.  Roads that should connect us only seem to drive us further apart.

But there’s a third way that Pittsburgh and the Presbyterian Church are similar.  For all of their differences, Pittsburghers share a common identity.  We’re proud of who we are, and there are many things that rally us together.  We commiserate over the potholes that spring up faster than PennDOT and the city can fill them.  We’ve all enjoyed summer days at Kennywood Park.  And of course, there are the Steelers.  It doesn’t matter if you come from Manchester or Regent Square or Mount Lebanon; chances are there’s at least one Terrible Towel in your house.  Any differences that we have with each other pale in comparison to the way we all feel about “The Mistake on the Lake” (i.e. Cleveland) or Baltimore, the city of purple pigeons.  If you’re from Pittsburgh and don’t have at least a little bit of Black and Gold in your blood, you’re a rare exception.

I’ll leave it for you to decide: is this something that we Presbyterians have as well?  Do we have a common identity, a common devotion, that trumps anything that disconnects us from each other?  We say that we do: that the saving grace of Jesus Christ and our devotion to our Lord is the guiding principle of our lives and of our church.  But is that how we live?  Is that how our commissioners and delegates will deliberate next week?  Will they interact with the love and respect of brothers and sisters in Christ?  Will they recognize and appreciate each other’s desire to further the kingdom of God?  For all of our sakes, I hope so.

Tax Collectors and Zealots

The Presbyterian General Assembly will meet in Pittsburgh during the first week of July.  This will be the first time since 1959 that elders and ministers from across the country will come to our area to make decisions that steer the course of the Presbyterian Church (USA).  If this year’s meeting of “GA” is like most, some of the issues and decisions will spark controversy and strong disagreement.  In fact, decisions from past GA meetings have led some congregations to leave the denomination because in good conscience they could not remain in fellowship with others with whom they disagree so strongly.  Others are seeking ways to reorganize the denomination so congregations can associate with other “like-minded” people, in order to limit their contact with people who believe differently from them.  It’s natural for us to want to be with people who think like us, and to limit or cut off contact with those who don’t.

Matthew’s description of Jesus’ twelve apostles (10:2-4) paints a different picture.  This small band of men who worked and studied closely together included at least two men who normally wouldn’t want anything to do with each other: Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot.  As a tax collector, Matthew worked to support the rule of the Roman Empire over Israel by taking money from his neighbors and giving it to Rome.  As a Zealot, Simon actively resisted Roman rule.  Zealots were the “insurgents” of the time, and eventually started an all-out revolt against Rome.  In Jesus’ time, it would be hard to find two Jews that would disagree more with each other than Matthew and Simon.  People like Simon wouldn’t even consider Matthew to be real Jew because of the way that he helped their nation’s enemy.  He had abandoned their country and had desecrated their faith.

Even though Matthew and Simon disagreed bitterly over a matter close to their hearts, Jesus brought them together.  Because there were only twelve people in the group, they couldn’t avoid each other.  Jesus forced them to find a way to share fellowship and to work together.  That doesn’t mean that Simon stopped being a Zealot (according to Acts 1:13, he was still a Zealot even after the resurrection), and it doesn’t mean that Matthew quit supporting Rome.  But through the powerful presence of Jesus, who had brought them together, they discovered a way to accept and respect each other…even to love each other.  I suspect that it was possible because Matthew and Simon recognized that they commitment to Jesus overshadowed any other commitments or beliefs that they had.  And I’m sure that the presence of Jesus in their lives showed them how to be reconciled to each other.

Things may come out of the GA meeting that deeply disturb you.  There may be decisions in our own congregation that annoy you.  There may be people in our church that you can’t stand because their opinions are so different from yours, or because they have done something that offends you.  At times like these, remember Matthew and Simon: brothers in the faith in spite of their strong disagreement.  If Christ was able to bring them together, he can bring us together as well.

Our Community Is the Mission Field

Anyone engaged in international mission puts a lot of effort into learning the culture of the people that they are going to work with.  As one mission trainee put it, “We need to learn the culture in order to be accepted into the culture so that we can work in the culture.”  The explosion of world-wide Christianity happened only after European and American missionaries stopped insisting that converts must live according to western cultural standards in order to be “real” Christians.  It’s easy to cringe when we think about how they made South Pacific Islanders wear heavy woolen clothing and forbade Africans from drumming and dancing.  They confused the gospel with their culture.  Once they became wise enough to realize that the gospel flourishes in every culture, they got out of the way and allowed it to do so.  Now, mission workers seek to understand the culture that they enter, instead of imposing their culture upon their hosts.

This all makes perfect sense when we’re talking about international outreach, but we Christians fail to recognize its importance when we try to share the gospel in our own communities.  When we invite people to join us in the adventure of faith, we expect them to conform to our standards.  They’re supposed to sing the songs that we sing, dress the way that we dress, and do the things that we do.  When we act this way, we’re no different from European missionaries trying to put hoop skirts on Polynesians.

“Wait a minute!” you may protest.  “The people in our communities live in the same culture that we do.  They’re the same as we are.”  Well…are you sure about that?  Do people listen to the same style of music in their cars and on their iPods that they would find in church?  Do churches have the same “feel” as other public facilities in the area?  Does church have a jargon that would be unfamiliar to a non-Christian?  Is the church clueless when it comes to things that matter to people in its town?

Unfortunately, many of us Christians don’t even know the answer to these questions because we live in a self-imposed Christian bubble.  A few years ago, when our church had an “Invite-a-Friend” Sunday, one of our members told me that he didn’t know who to invite because he didn’t know anyone who wasn’t already going to church.  This gentleman is typical of many of us.  The more involved we become in the church, the fewer ties we have to the un-churched community.  And of course, there are elements of the culture around us that we Christians find unsavory: rough language, overuse of alcohol, and questionable fashion choices.  So, we avoid people and places where we find them.  We’re just like missionaries who were appalled at grass skirts and wild dancing.

It’s time for us to view our communities as a mission field with a different culture.  The time is long gone when churches were the center of the community and the focus of its social life.   Like mission workers going to a foreign country, we need to learn about a different language and different lifestyle patterns.  Then, we can help people discover the gospel’s presence in their own way.

The other night I went to a concert at a club in an old church building.  The place was packed (on a Thursday night!) with people who PAID to get in.  The enthusiasm in the place was exhilarating.  But as I enjoyed the music and the crowd, I couldn’t help but to notice the architectural residue from the buildings past use.  This was a place where people used to gather to worship our living God.  Apparently, over time the church became irrelevant to the community it was in, and eventually sold the building and went out of existence.  What would have happened if the congregation would have studied the culture of its community and took the risk of changing its ways so that the same passion that I saw that night would have been directed to Jesus Christ?

When Did We See You?

When I tell people that I’ve been to Ghana, they often ask about the poverty that we see there.  After all, Africa is famous for being poor.  And yes, there is poverty in Ghana.  But there is also affluence.  Becky and I saw cars, homes, and clothes in Ghana that we could never hope to afford.  The prices in some of the stores we visited were way out of our range.  What struck us even more than the poverty was the contrast: well-heeled businessmen driving sleek black SUVs past people living in shacks by the ditch, and children with nothing but a ball of tape for a soccer ball playing outside a beautiful resort.  We asked ourselves, “How can such stark contrast exist in Ghana?  How can the affluent live with themselves when confronted with such desperate need?”  It baffled and bothered us.

As we talked about it, we realized that the gap between the rich and the poor is just as real in the US as it is in Ghana.  According to a 2011 study by Duke University and the Harvard Business School, the richest 20% of Americans own 84% of our nation’s wealth, while the poorest 40% own only 0.3%.  And the gap is growing: over the past 20 years, poor Americans have actually gotten poorer, while the rich have gotten richer.  Even more troubling is the study’s finding that most Americans have no idea how big the difference is between the wealthy and the poor in our country.

Becky and I saw the contrast between the rich and the poor in Ghana, while rarely noticing in the US, for two reasons.  First, we do a better job of hiding the poor from sight in our country.  The rich and middle class live in certain areas, and the poor live somewhere else.  If you don’t go to  certain neighborhoods and communities, you don’t have to see them.  And second, we’ve trained ourselves not to see them.  We’ve learned how to ignore the needy until we don’t even notice that they exist.  At the monthly deacons meeting, we struggle to identify people that we can help.  They’re in our community, but we don’t see them.  Becky and I noticed the contrast in Ghana only because we were in a different culture, where we didn’t know how to ignore what we didn’t want to see.

Politicians may engage in or accuse each other of “class warfare,” but for us Christians this is a wake-up call to do something.  In the parable of the sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31-46), Jesus cursed the goats because they failed to help him when he was hungry, thirsty, a stranger in need of clothes, sick and in prison.  Perplexed, they responded, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?”  They did not help, because they did not see the need.  They were blind to the poor and distressed people all around them.  I’m ashamed to say that those goats sound an awful lot like me.

Thankfully, we worship a Lord who gives sight to the blind and wisdom to the foolish.  I urge you to seek the Lord’s help to open your eyes to the need that surrounds us, so that you may respond with the love and justice of Christ.

The Gospel According to Shark Tank and Moneyball

The other evening I saw part of the TV show “Shark Tank” for the first time.  Apparently, it’s a chance for inventors to pitch their products to potential investors.  As I watched, a man who wanted to sell recyclable sneakers made a pitch to investors to put $50,000 into his concept.  The first four potential investors turned him down for one simple reason: “You aren’t asking for enough money.”  As they explained to him, the $50,000 would only be enough to process a first order, leaving him with no capital for inventory and production costs to go any further.  Ironically, they refused to give him any money because he should have asked for more money.  I’m no expert on recyclable footwear and business strategies, but I was struck by the way his limited vision for his product and his company hurt him.  He failed to comprehend the magnitude of the opportunity in front of him.  By trying to be prudent and start small, he lost the opportunity entirely.

Then a couple days later, we watched the movie “Moneyball,” a baseball movie starring Brad Pitt.  In one scene, the stars watch a video clip of a baseball player whose goal when he’s at the plate is simply to get to first base.  He never tries to turn his hits into a double.  Then, on a rare occasion, he hits a long ball and decides to round the corner to get to second base.  But when he does, he trips and falls.  Frantically, he literally crawled across the dirt to get back to first base.  The opposing players double over in laughter: not because of how foolish he looked trying to get back on base, but because he had hit a home run and didn’t even know it.  Sheepishly, the batter picked himself up off the dirt and rounded the bases, to the applause and laughter of everyone in the stadium.  He had a home run, but could only think about getting to first base.

I wonder: how often is this is case for us when we come before God?  Do we think too small, by imposing limitations upon what we think God is willing to do for us?  Do we set our sights too low by being willing to settle for $50,000 or first base, when God’s plans for us are so much more?  In the process of not wanting to impose on our Lord, or going beyond what we think is reasonable, we discount our expectations.  When we do, we risk losing out on the riches of God’s grace because we haven’t asked for enough.

Let me be clear.  When I am speaking about asking from God, I’m not referring to the wealth and health and fame that purveyors of the “prosperity gospel” offer.  Focusing upon such worldly, self-centered interests blinds us to the true riches that God offers, and in fact has already supplied us through the powerful work of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps we do not ask for enough because we don’t want to impose upon God.  But is that even possible?  Remember, this is the Lord of all creation, with limitless, over-abounding glory.  The only way we could impose upon him is if granting our request would somehow diminish his own glory.  And that is impossible for God to do, for two reasons.  First, think of infinity as the mathematical metaphor for the glory of God.  Infinity minus fifty thousand is still infinity.  Infinity minus fifty bazillion is still infinity.  No matter how much God grants to us, it is no imposition upon him, because he continues to have inexhaustible glory, power, wisdom, and honor.

Perhaps we limit our requests to God for what we think is reasonable.  But do you really want God to treat you reasonably?  By reasonable standards, the only treatment any of us would deserve from God would be condemnation and annihilation because of the sinfulness and brokenness that is inherent to our human condition.  Reasonably, we cannot even ask God to grant us our next breath, our next heartbeat, our next thought.  The indescribable glory for us is that God does not treat us with reason; he treats us with grace.  He delights to overwhelm us beyond our wildest dreams.  Why?  The only explanation is simply that he wants to.  It has nothing to do with deserving it, earning it, or reasonably expecting it.  God takes pleasure in being lovingly unreasonable with us.  When we enter the adventure of faith, we abandon standard concepts of what is logical and reasonable.  We cast ourselves into the amazing, overwhelming plan of God that outstrips even our wildest dreams, that goes far beyond what we could ever imagine would be possible.

The greatest irony of all is that God has already given us more than enough.  The baseball player already had a home run, but couldn’t even see it.  We are like him when we fail to recognize the more-than-enough that God has already given us.  Christ has already hit one out of the park for us, and has already bestowed upon us an indescribable bounty of joy, peace, hope, and love.  The Christian journey is not one of receiving more and more blessing from God.  It is the journey of running the bases to discover more and more of the blessing that Christ delivered to us through his redeeming death and victorious resurrection.  The consummation of the ages is merely the time when humanity, and all creation, finally catches up with the superabundance of the cross.

So go ahead: ask for the audacious from the Lord.  You can do it because he has already provided it for you.

Gay Marriage?

We’ve done a funny thing with marriage, and that’s a major reason for our nation’s hot debate about gay marriage. The traditional, typical way that weddings are conducted in our nation is a direct violation of the First Amendment’s freedom of religion. For all of the talk about prayer in public schools and nativity scenes at courthouses, we all seem to forget that members of the clergy act as representatives of the state when we officiate at weddings. I am an agent of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania when I declare two people to be husband and wife. I have this authority, not because of any civil qualifications or appointment, but simply because the Presbyterian Church (USA) has enrolled me as a minister of word and sacrament.

 This system of having church officials invested with civil authority is what our nation’s forebears left Europe to escape. Our freedom of religion is a bulwark against people being baptized into the official state church, whether they’re believers or not. People of other Christian persuasions or other religions (particularly Judaism) were persecuted, imprisoned, and killed. That’s why the First Amendment declares, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” But here we are: clergy in charge of establishing legally binding relationships that we call marriage. Meanwhile, back in Europe, where religious freedom used to be so rare and precious, the religious and legal aspects of marriage are now nicely separated. For example, in my family’s homeland of the Netherlands, marriages are always and only conducted in the town hall, under the authority of a local civil official. If you’re a Christian, you do what my parents did: have a procession from the town hall to the church, where you seek God’s blessing upon your union and dedicate yourselves to him.

 Many Christians (including me) do not think it is proper for churches to bless a same-sex couple’s union as a marriage. This is a religious view of marriage, not the legal or civil aspect that should be the topic of votes, court rulings, and Presidential comments. Let churches, not politicians, judges, and voters, debate the issue of whether or not God considers same-sex partners in the same that he views male-female couples.

 Many citizens (including me) think that sexual orientation should not be a factor that limits or denies human rights, and that same-sex couples should have the same rights and privileges as heterosexual couples. In other words, I and others do not have the right to impose our religious convictions upon our fellow citizens. 

This brings us to the unfortunate issue of language: marriage vs. “civil union.” Understandably, many LGBT (i.e. lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender) citizens aren’t satisfied with civil unions because they seem to be second-rate in comparison to marriages. And, also understandably, many Christian, Jewish, and Muslim citizens don’t want same-sex couples to be “married,” because it cuts against their religious values.

 I suggest that do away with the term “marriage” altogether, as a civil or legal designation. Any couple that seeks to have a legally binding relationship can do so, and we can call that relationship anything we want. Those who desire to commit this relationship to God and to seek his blessing upon it are free to do so, of course. But that celebration and service is a religious ceremony that has no legal authority.

 Not only would this help our nation avoid the religiously-inspired aspects of the gay marriage debate, but it would also help churches reclaim their convictions about marriage. Like many other ministers, I’m often asked to conduct a wedding for a couple that doesn’t care that much about faith. Getting married in the church, by a minister, is the thing to do. I urge them during premarital meetings to dedicate their relationship to the Lord, and they’ll nod their heads and agree. But that’s about it; after the rings are on the fingers and the wedding cake has been eaten, they won’t be in the church again for years. If I am no longer an agent of the state, then people will only want a marriage ceremony at the church if they really want the Lord to be the third partner of their union.