Kristallnacht: May we never forget

Antisemitism and other forms of bigotry are a blight on the human race. We must remember the horrors unleashed when people pick groups to marginalize, menace, and kill. It is always wrong, more dehumanizing to perpetrators as well as victims.

Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass, should remind us of these grim and important truths.

Today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht... And thus also the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism. pic.twitter.com/BTASSHGJuk

— Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) November 9, 2016

Each of us is created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

Each of us has been carefully crafted in our mothers' wombs (Psalm 139:13-14).

And God took on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ in order to accept our rightful punishment for sin, death, so that in rising, He could give life to all who turn from sin and trust in Him (John 1:14; Romans 5:7-9; Romans 4:25-5:1; 2 Timothy 2:11-13).

In other words, every human life is precious to God and every other human being is our kin, created by God.

And every human being is someone for whom Jesus, God in the flesh, died and rose, able to receive freedom from sin, death, and darkness through faith in Jesus Christ (John 8:36; Acts 2:36-39).

Bigotry and the violence it incites are abominations to God and stains on the human race. Kristallnacht happens again every time the humanity of others is disdained simply because they don't look or believe "like us."

There is a horrible irony when it comes to antisemitism, Kristallnacht, and the Holocaust. The whole human race, in fact, owes the Jews a special debt of gratitude. And Christians, saved by their faith in Jesus, God, Who came into the world a Jew and a rabbi, owe the Jews their eternal lives!

As imperfect and fitful in faith as all of us when it comes to following God and obeying His command to love Him and love others, the Jews nonetheless returned again and again to God, recorded and maintained God's Word of promise, and family into which God in the flesh was born and nurtured in His humanity. The first Christians, the first to share the Good News (Gospel) of new life for all who believe in Jesus--Paul, Peter, John, Luke, Mark, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Nazareth, Stephen, James, Philip the Evangelist, and others--were all Jews who understood that in Christ, God was giving Jews and Gentiles a new covenant predicated and built on the old one that God made through Abraham and Moses.

Kristallnacht was an early indicator of what Hitler and the Nazis were about to unleash on the Jews and the world. Today, bigotry and the discrimination, persecution, and violence they spawn still exist. May we learn the awful lessons of Kristallnacht and the Holocaust and let God reign over us through King Jesus so that we learn to truly love God and love others.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

The Doritos Ad and How To Disagree With Each Other

The reaction of the National Abortion Rights League (NARAL) to the Doritos Super Bowl ad in which two expectant parents see their child by sonogram was strange. They lamented how the ad "humanized" fetuses.

In a post on his blog, Russell Moore argues that it isn't parents who humanize the children they observe in a mother's womb, but God.

Then, Russell gives a warning against self-righteousness by those who consider themselves "pro-life":

...it would be easy for those of us who are pro-life to see this as merely more evidence of how abortion advocacy sears the conscience and blunts even common-sense moral intuitions. But our response here should not be self-congratulation. This small window into the way moral reasoning works ought to serve as a warning to us.

We cannot “humanize” what is already human, but we can certainly dehumanize the humanity around, or within, us. The abortion lobby wants the “fetus” to be thought of only in clinical language, as though he or she were merely an “it,” tissue to be disposed of. Those who oppress the poor want them to be thought of merely in economic categories, as drains on the “system,” not as image-bearers of God. Those who want to “consume” pornography want to think of those on the screen as images, not as people with stories and hurts and families. We too often want to think of our enemies—whether on the geopolitical stage or in our office coffee-room conflicts—as exemplars of total evil, not as each one a representation of God’s creation wisdom. We want to be justified in our actions, by reassuring ourselves that there’s no judgment to come.

He continues:

When those we dehumanize are seen, despite our best efforts, as human, we either repent or we become angered. That’s why Jesus’ hometown was enraged when he pointed to the truth that God, through his prophets, went outside the bounds of Israel to minister to a Syrian soldier (Lk. 4:27-28). I fear that some of us would have a similarly angry response to a sermon about ministry to a Syrian refugee.

In our sin, we want to keep our illusions–whatever they are–that enable us to silence the conscience within us. We want to, in short, walk in darkness. But Jesus is the “light of the world,” the light from Galilee that illumines the nations and ultimately the entire cosmos.

Abortion is a serious issue. And while there are times when it may be seen as, in the words of a statement from a Lutheran body that no longer exists, "a tragic option"--such as in the cases of rape, incest, or when a mother's life is in danger--it's sad and sinful when it's used as nothing but a belated form of birth control. A fetus is formed in the womb by the hands of God. And like all human beings, every fetus is made in the image of God. So, I think it's right to be horrified by the inhumane response of NARAL to the Super Bowl ad.

But the furor should also cause all of us, as Moore suggests, to be circumspect about how we view those who disagree with us as evil. Sometimes the people with whom we disagree are simply people with whom we disagree.

We are all sinners and none of us has any hope of anything like moral clarity apart from our submission to the loving Lordship of Jesus Christ. That realization should incite all of us to treat others with the love and consideration I believe is owed to babies in their mothers' wombs and to all people, no matter who they are.

For Jews and Christians, the obligation to love our neighbor is part of God's greatest commandments.

And for Christians, the ability to love others despite our differences is the litmus test of whether Christ really lives in us. When that happens, we can humbly listen to others' points of view, even when we disagree, and say with the apostle John, "We love because [Christ] loved us" (1 John 4:19).[Thanks to my son for posting a link to the Moore article over on Facebook. Please read Moore's really good piece.]
Here's the "controversial" ad.

The Meaning of Your Life

[This was shared during worship with the people and guests of Living Water Lutheran Church, Springboro, Ohio. The church will relocate its offices, worship center, and activity space to Centerville, Ohio in 2016, the first Sunday there scheduled to be on January 10, 2016.]

Mark 10:17-22
Today, I want to talk with you about why you exist, why you were born in this time and in this place, your purpose for living. 

Scripture is clear that God has an intimate hand in the formation and birth of every human being, no matter the circumstances of their conception. With King David, we can confess to God, “...you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made...” (Psalm 139:13-14). 

And this God Who forms us in our mothers' wombs also has a purpose for these lives He has created. 

This purpose is no mystery, even though we may sometimes forget it or try to evade it. 

Forgetting or evading it can destroy our souls, our relationships with God and others, and our lives. 

Forgetting or evading God’s purpose for our lives can do this no matter how many of the world’s markers of success we may possess or enjoy. 

Last winter, I saw an interview with Ohio State head football coach Urban Meyer about a book that had changed his life. 

Meyer had great success as the coach at the University of Florida, where he won two national championships. 

But then, Meyer’s life started going wrong. He had chest pains one night, certain that he was having a heart attack, and was taken to a hospital ER. His self-diagnosis turned out to be wrong. 

Soon though, he announced that he was retiring from the game, only to reverse himself a short time later. 

Then, came the period when, by many accounts, Meyer “lost” his team, no longer able to communicate, work with, or motivate them as he had. Meyer did retire then, taking a job as an analyst with ESPN, but without any clear understanding of how he might spend the rest of his life.

He spent a year doing that and really had no plans to return to coaching, when a friend recommended that he read a book called Lead...for God’s Sake!: A Parable for Finding the Heart of Leadership. 

I've recently read the book. It tells the story of a high school football coach who, like Meyer at Florida, has “lost” his team. He’s stressed, losing his family because of his obsession with winning at all costs, and incapable of enjoying even the victories that had once meant everything to him. 

You can understand why Urban Meyer resonated with this book. Like the fictional coach in Lead...for God’s Sake!, Meyer realized that he had forgotten his whole reason for coaching. In the chase for championships, he had even forgotten his whole reason for living. 

Fortunately, blessedly, this book helped him rediscover those things and he felt that he could take his dream job at Ohio State.

Our Gospel lesson for today tells us about Jesus’ encounter with a man who had forgotten his purpose in life. 

It’s a familiar passage, Mark 10:17-22. It begins: “As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. ‘Good teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’”

It’s an interesting question for two reasons. First of all, it indicates that here is a man of action. He wants eternal life, apparently. He deems it preferable to a life separated from God in hell. So, he asks Jesus, “What must I do?” This is a man whose focus is on doing, performing, getting to the top. He lives like a human doing rather than a human being. 

His question is also interesting because he thinks there’s something that he can do to inherit eternal life. The question is no different from what a modern person of similar position might ask his accountant, “What must I do to decrease my tax liability?” This man who has fallen to his knees before Jesus lives with the delusion that everything, even eternal life, is about doing the deal.

Jesus knows teachable moments, though. 

Verse 18: “‘Why do you call me good?’ Jesus answered. ‘No one is good—except God alone.’” In essence, Jesus is telling the man that whether he knew it or not, he was confessing that Jesus is God. By His rhetorical question, Jesus does nothing to refute the assertion. 

But Jesus has much more to teach. He meets the man where he is, mired in thinking that he could or needed to earn God’s favor. Verse 19: “You know the commandments [Jesus tells the man]: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” 

Here, Jesus references what we Lutherans call “the second table” of the Ten Commandments, the section that gives us God’s will for our relationships with others. As an explication of the command not to steal, Jesus also says we shouldn’t defraud others.

The man must have felt that he had met all the requirements for eternal life because he says to Jesus--was it with pride, relief, or triumph?--in verse 20: “Teacher,...all these I have kept since I was a boy.” 

We’re then told in verse 21 that “Jesus looked at him and loved him.” Those words can sometimes bring tears to my eyes. Jesus looked at this man--this dealmaker, this conqueror of the world--who, in his desire for eternal life, placed his confidence in himself and his good works--and Jesus loved him the way a parent loves an errant child. 

Jesus knew that this earnest man truly wanted to be with God. 

But he thought that his life with God and the meaning and purpose of the life God had given to him, could be captured, slaved for, worked at, claimed as a personal achievement. 

Jesus felt compassion for this man who could, with a straight face, claim that whether in his heart, mind, or actions, he had obeyed God’s commandments and so had earned eternal life. I don’t know of a single human being who could honestly make that claim, including me.

Jesus saw the obstruction between this man and the life with God he wanted. Jesus saw that this man’s understanding of his purpose in life was the same claimed by a bumper sticker popular a few years back: “He who dies with the most toys wins.” 

Jesus continues in verse 21: “‘One thing you lack,’ he said. ‘Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’” 

Let’s be clear here. Jesus is not saying that having wealth is inherently bad. There are many example in Biblical history of wealthy people who followed God: Abraham, Job, Nicodemus, Lydia, Joseph of Arimathea, and others. 

Nor is Jesus saying that everyone who’s wealthy needs to get rid of everything, give it to the poor, and live like paupers, any more than the call to be Jesus’ disciples means that everyone who follows Him has to go to seminary and become pastors. (Thank God!)

It means that when the earthly pursuits of our lives become our whole purpose for living, we need to dramatically change our relationship with those pursuits. 

When those pursuits become so consuming that we forget the reason we’re alive, things need to change. 

In the case for the rich young man, Jesus knew that nothing less than the total separation of the man from his money would allow him to follow Christ by faith into a purposeful life with God on earth and life with God in eternity. 

What earthly pursuits might we have to give up in order to follow Christ? 

Or, with what earthly pursuits must we change our relationship in order to have life with God? 

The things that keep us from following Christ might be, on their face, good things like being a good parent, moving ahead in our careers, keeping a beautiful garden, or coaching a basketball team or a football team. 

When the central character in Lead...for God’s Sake! understands his purpose in life, he doesn’t sense that God is calling him to stop coaching, but to change the purpose for which he coaches. 

And, after Urban Meyer went through his year of soul-searching, he didn’t feel that God was telling him to leave the football sidelines behind. 

In the past, I have erroneously thought that following Jesus meant making Him our number one “priority.” You know, like in a list reading: Jesus, family, friends, country, and so on. I've even preached this.

But what I now realize is this: Jesus doesn’t want to be our highest priority; He wants to be our God and King and Savior. 

He wants to be at the center of how we pursue every priority in life, be it making a living, raising children, getting an education, or enjoying the company of friends. 

He wants us to pursue the purpose of our lives, whatever we do and He makes clear in today’s Gospel lesson that whatever we do that keeps us from pursuing our life’s purpose must be changed.

Now, I’m not being coy. I haven’t mentioned the purpose of our lives until now because every one of you knows what it is. 

The purpose of every human life--and the road to eternity--is to know, follow, honor, and share the God we meet in Jesus Christ with our whole lives. 

Jesus summarizes these purposes for our lives in what we know as the Great Commandment: to love God and to love others; the Great Commission: to teach others about life with God belonging to all who turn from sin and follow Christ and making disciples; and His new commandment: that we love fellow believers with the same self-sacrificing love with which Christ has loved us. 

Jesus invites us to follow and to be transformed by His grace not so that we can learn what we have to do to earn eternal life, but so that, changed and changing over into His image as we fellowship with Him, we will live out the true meaning of our lives.

Along the way, we may become wealthy or earn wins or raise great kids, and, like the rest of the human race, we may have poverty, losses, and troubled children. 

But at the center of a life lived with its intended meaning and purpose will be the God we know Jesus Christ, the God Who made us, saves those who trust in Christ from sin and death, and gives us the only reason worth getting up for in the morning. 

And that reason is simple: To live as human beings certain of our purpose in this life and certain that on the cross, Christ has done everything to give us eternal life with God. 

Follow Jesus wherever you go and you will live out God’s purpose for your life. Amen