The Financial Crisis from One Christian's Perspective (Part 4)

The recent public displays of outrage by some members of Congress, people who both knew about the dangerous, deceptive, and greedy practices of the mortgage lenders and investment banking firms and encouraged them, may be imbued with the moral purity of Claude Rains, who, in the film, Casablanca, closed down Rick's Cafe Americain, where he did his gambling because he was "shocked, shocked" to learn that gambling was going on.

But grandstanding or no, House Government Oversight and Reform chair Henry Waxman stood in for millions of Americans the other day when he doggedly questioned the CEO of now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers, Richard Fuld. Whether between 2000 and 2008, Fuld pocketed the $480-million claimed by Waxman or the $250-million claimed by Fuld, the guy raked in a lot of cash from a company he was apparently steering toward oblivion.



Is it fair that while thousands lost their jobs, thousands more lost their shirts, and the whole country was thrown into a financial crisis, people like Richard Fuld make off with millions?

Is it fair that a company that got bailed out last week had the gall to spend millions to take its execs to a spa?

Clearly, the answer to both of those questions is, "No."

But what makes us say that?

The Bible is quite clear in saying that God commands honesty and fair dealings of those who do business. It condemns usury, the levying of steep and imprisoning interest rates by those who make loans, like those charged by today's pay day lenders. It commends forthrightness in weights and measures, what we would call "truth in advertising."

When God came into the world in the person of Jesus, He dramatically underscored God's command for honesty in matters financial, as well as God's condemnation of greediness in business dealings, when He "cleansed" the temple in Jerusalem.

You may remember that Jesus entered the temple, the center of Jewish religious life and the place that the presence of God was said to dwell, and turned over the tables of the "moneychangers." He let loose the animals they were selling for use as sacrifices there.

Who were the moneychangers? They were unscrupulous business people who conspired with the temple authorities on a moneymaking scheme that preyed on people's piety and trust.

To the temple, you know, pious Jews came to offer sacrifices to God. The wealthiest could afford to sacrifice lambs. Poorer worshipers could offer birds and the poorer still were allowed to make cereal offerings. Lambs, doves, and cereal were all to be purchased from vendors in the temple courtyards. But they could only be purchased with temple currency.

And how did the faithful get that? They got it by exchanging their currency from the "real world" with the moneychangers, also in the temple courtyard. They charged exorbitant fees for the temple money. Along with the temple priests and elders, the moneychangers got very wealthy with this scam, while the true believers who lived in occupied Judea struggled to get by.

By His "temple tantrum," Jesus condemned these practices and most people who read about it today will say, "Right on!" But why do the preponderance of people who read about and have Jesus' action explained to them side with Him?

Simply put, the Biblical laws commending honesty and fair play and the Scriptural passages that condemn fraud and gouging, are written on our hearts. Theists and non-theists, irrespective of the wide variations in their specific codes of morality, seem, instinctively to know and broadly agree on what might be called the basics of financial fair play.

This is why those who say that you can't legislate morality are wrong. Of course you can legislate morality. In fact, when government is operating with something like integrity--or as close as any of us is capable of operating with integrity, all it ever does is legislate morality.

Take something as innocuous as speed limits or traffic lights on our highways. Why do governments impose them? Speed limits exist because, as part of our common morality, we value life. We want to ensure safety. We have traffic lights and STOP and YIELD signs for the same reason.

We live in a pluralistic society, not a theocracy. Yet our laws usually reflect a moral consensus, a common appropriation of the moral standards I believe that God has imprinted on every one of us, applied to particular times and places by people trying to live and work together.

Of course, there are lots of times when governments behave immorally. (That's to be expected of human beings.) But, interestingly, when governments misbehave, pass immoral laws, or administer immoral policies, they seem never to say, "There's no such thing as moral right." Instead--whether it's a legislator on the take caught on videotape claiming that he only appears to be doing something wrong or a dictator perpetrating a holocaust, the wrongdoers try to twist our common moral standards, portraying themselves as being in the right.

But, in the end, we don't buy it.

And it isn't just the actions of government that are viewed through the prisms of our common moral awareness. Our inborn sense of fairness can also be stirred by the actions of others. (Though it should be said that, given our common human weaknesses, we're generally quicker to see others' faults and wrongs than our own.)

That's why so many people, irrespective of their political affiliations, react to the financial crisis and say, "It isn't fair and something needs to be done about it."

And even if members of Congress charged with oversight have spent most of the past two decades overlooking the practices of unscrupulous lenders and investment bankers, fnow affecting a Claude Rains-like horror, from where I sit, from one Christian's perspective, I agree: It isn't fair.

[To read the first three installments of this series, see here, here, and here.]

The Importance of Rest

I may have to work on my communications skills.

I said something today during a group discussion that elicited a gasp from at least one of my clergy colleagues.

It happened at a workshop for the ELCA pastors here in our portion of southern Ohio. The workshop was called Recognizing and Dealing with Depression. The event was initiated by Pastor John "Jack" Jackson, who serves as president of our grouping of twenty-or-so congregations which make up what we call the Scioto Conference. Jack, who is observant of human behavior, capable of sniffing out denial readily, had discerned that many clergy, who spend their lives as caregivers, often don't take very good care of themselves. This was true, he saw, not only with physical health, but also with emotional and spiritual health as well. Many clergy, as hard as it may be to understand, are depressed.

I got to hear two of the three presenters: Dr. Evelyn Kirkhart, a counseling psychologist, and Dr. Yvette Hensley, professor of pastoral care at Trinity Lutheran Seminary. Both were outstanding as, I'm told, was Pastor Mark Nodo, a psychologist and counselor, the first presenter of the day. Sometime, I may write more about the numbers of things I learned, as well as those things I already knew but found reinforced in what they had to say.

But now, back to the gasp I mentioned at the beginning.

Both Kirkhart and Hensley, in their own ways, emphasized that getting sufficient rest is an important strategy for staving off depression. Now, that ought to be obvious, I guess. But as I heard these two experts articulate that fact, I thought of all the people I've known through the years whose struggles with varying levels of depression were either triggered, or more commonly, exacerbated, by the frenetic paces at which they lived their lives. They failed to get rest and that made their depression worse.

It wasn't just to give us a day to worship Him that God established the Third Commandment: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." God wants us to take a day to recharge our batteries by laying low and getting reconnected with God and God's people. It's energizing to do that. God also wants us to close our eyes and sleep.

After the presentations, we were encouraged to join in on conversation. It was at this point that I decided to make a confession, one which I think was misunderstood.

The point I was trying to make was that before coming to my current parish, which has had a high number of deaths and hospitalizations since I arrived here and which also has an atypically high number of shut-ins (elderly who live in nursery facilities or are homebound), I realized that my previously loosey-goosey approach to sabbath rest wouldn't work. For the first twenty-three years of my pastoral ministry, I admitted, I decided on Sunday nights which day of the coming week I would take off. I might take any one of the six days other than Sunday, a workday for a pastor no matter what.

I elicited a gasp because at least one of my colleagues evidently thought I was saying that in the first twenty-three years of my ministry I had never taken a day off. Looking back, I understand how that impression was created.

But, not true. Had it been that long since I'd taken time off, I doubt that I would still be around. All work and no play not only makes Joe a dull boy, most of the Presidents in my lifetime stand as vivid testimony as to how unremitting work ages a human being.




















One of the problems with the approach I used for twenty-three years is that if you're so flexible about your day off, it's easy to justify letting time away from the job to get squeezed out of your week. It can be too easy to never get away and to be hurtful to family, relationships, one's body, and effectiveness as a pastor. I think that by having my office at home, being available as a room father when my kids were smaller and as a coach or a chaperone for events as they grew older and by having regular dates with my wife, I think that my family would report that I avoided some of the pitfalls of that overcome workaholic pastors.

But when I came to my new parish last November, I realized that my old ways would have to go the way of the passenger pigeon.

So, I announced when I arrived at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan last November that I would take a set day off. Whenever my work necessitated my working on the designated day off, I've taken a different day away from the job that week.

My sabbath rest, which includes spending a bit more time reading the Bible than I do the rest of the week and a little more extended time of prayer, has also included the chance for me to spend time with my wife in seeing friends, going shopping, or just hanging out. Last week, my day away included hiking some of the several beautiful caves here in Hocking County with my wife and two of our friends visiting from Cincinnati. The day after these days off, I come back to my work the next day a better pastor and a recharged person.

On this day-of-rest business, I've tried loosey-goosey and I've tried intentional. Intentional works better. I urge you to do the same.

Okay, I'm done. As I resolve to do a better job of communicating my true meaning and save my colleagues from gasping, I'm going to take another bit of advice from today's presenters: Get a good night's sleep. Maybe as I go into REM, I can do some of my lucid dreaming to discern ways to communicate clearly.

[About the pictures above: The one on the left is President George W. Bush in 2000. The one on the right is the president earlier this year.]

The Financial Crisis from One Christian's Perspective (Part 3)

In the previous installment of this series, I named four major ways, from a Christian perspective, that we can avoid making bad financial decisions. They were:

• Recognize that money is morally neutral. It's neither good or bad. It's only what we do with it or do to get it that are good or bad.
  
• Recognize that money is a power. Either we will control it or it will control us.
• Recognize that some people are more adept at making money than others. Those who can should be encouraged to make and use money for the glory of God, the giver of every perfect gift. Those who can't should avoid jealousy. Helping others is an important way that wealth can be used.
• Avoid covetousness.

Note that in none of what I said there did I give any "practical" advice on investing in 401K's, 403B's, IRAs, money market funds, real estate, the stock market, gold, baseball cards, Beanie Babies, or anything else. I haven't said that you should save a certain percentage of your income. I haven't told you to go into plastics.

Frankly, I have no idea what practical advice I might give you on that stuff. More importantly, the Bible is silent on such matters, although I hope that you have sense enough to see that some investments are wiser than others. The Bible does promise that if you ask for wisdom, God will grant it to you. (So, ask for it!) I also believe that God gifts people who can give you good advice on finances if you're willing to listen to them. (Those financially savvy advisers may be one way God answers your prayers for financial wisdom.)

But here's what all four of the above principles have in common: They deal with our attitudes. And really all four of them could, in a way, be subsumed under the fourth one, avoid covetousness.

It's interesting that we have, in the traditional reckoning recognized by my Christian tradition, Lutheranism, ten commandments. Eight of them deal with actions, or at least the implication of actions.*

But then come two commandments, the ninth and tenth, which deal with our attitudes:

• You shall not covet your neighbor's house (ninth)
• You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his cattle, or anything that is your neighbor's (tenth)

To covet is to want something obsessively, desperately. And it isn't just wanting something, like we may want to pay off our mortgage or save enough to put our kids through college. Those desires have more to do with needs or legitimate aspirations for the good of others. They're perfectly legitimate.

Nor is coveting the desire for a better life, the ache for intimacy, or the pining for God which, I believe, lives in everyone of us. Saint Augustine wasn't exhibiting covetousness when he famously said, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you." As John Eldredge convincingly argues in his book, The Journey of Desire, we are fashioned for eternity. So, we have eternal appetites. And while God's eternity has been revealed to us in the experiences of ancient Israel and ultimately, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, we aren't there yet. It's our home and we ache for it. That isn't covetousness. That's being human.

Covetousness happens when we confuse the eternal for the temporary, when we mistakenly think that we are God, with a self-conferred right to own, manipulate, or control whatever we want. We covet when we think that the hole in our soul can be filled by the trophies of the world.

Covetousness can lead to actions. But covetousness is an attitude of mind, a bend of the soul. To overcome covetousness, our attitudes need changing. But how does that happen? Here are a few ideas.

First: We need to change our god. Paul Tillich said that whatever is most important to us is our god, our "ground of being." Our ground of being must change if we're to overcome covetousness.

One of the bad things we inherit as members of the human race though, is an inborn orientation away from the real God, the One Who made this universe. We don't have to be taught to be self-worship. It comes naturally to us. We need to turn away from our sins and our selfish orientation because it's this turning away from God that leads us to believe that everything we want should be ours simply because we want it. In one of my favorite passages of Scripture, and one of the simplest, the Gospel of Mark summarizes the substance of Jesus' ministry before He died and was resurrected:

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:15)

To repent means to turn around. It means to quit following ourselves, our sin, or whatever else we see as most important in our lives and to instead, follow the God ultimately revealed in Jesus. The good news Jesus talks about is that we have new and everlasting life with Him as a free gift.

Second: We need to change our minds. In a passage of the New Testament many of us read or heard in our churches a week ago, the apostle Paul quotes a hymn commonly sung by first century Christians when he writes:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus...(Philippians 2:1-13)

When we turn to the God we meet in Christ (and do it again each day because it's so easy to fall back into the bad attitudes that can lead to Wall Street crashes, personal morality crashes, or relational crashes, among other bad stuff), God begins to reconstruct our minds and our lives. We become, in Martin Luther's phrase, "the Holy Spirit's workshop."

Notice though that we can do little to change our attitudes, even though doing so requires hard work on our parts. We can only make ourselves available to God, giving God access to our whole lives, then watching what God does.

And we can only give God access to our lives by being part of the body of Christ, the Church. As Kathryn Kleinans says:

...the Word of God [through which God imparts life and changes us] comes to us from outside ourselves, breaking into our sinful self-centeredness. We hear God's gracious "for you" most clearly when we hear it in a voice other than our own. We feel God's gracious "for you" when we are splashed with water from the [baptismal] font. When we taste the bread and wine, we confess that Christ is really present, his own body and blood giving life to ours...Faith plugs us in to an ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ. We have power because his power flows through us.

When that happens, God will begin to set aside our self-propelled agendas. It's God's doing, affected through the community of the Church.

But, putting our egos, ambitions, actions, relationships, and wallets under the control and direction of the God made known in Jesus is the hardest thing in the world to do. I've been a Christian now for thirty-two years and I often fail miserably in this surrender business. It hasn't gotten any easier. In fact, in some ways, it becomes harder. But I have learned an ironic lesson:

The more I yield control of my life to Christ, the more Christ frees me to be my truest, best, and happiest self. The more I follow the dictates of my selfish ambitions, the more miserable I become and the more imprisoned to things, people, and shifting whims.

We covet because we think it will free us from the pedestrian concerns of the great unwashed masses. But in the end, the things we covet enslave us to grave-bound stuff, earmarked for oblivion.

A passage in the Psalms, the Old Testament songbook, says:

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

Our greatest, if often unacknowledged, desire is to be connected to the One Who made us and gives us life and to experience the peace and purpose for which we were made. That fulfilling connection can't be monetized or counted. It's a qualitative change of heart, mind, and life that will, if we let God work on us, change what we value, what we seek, and what we do.

When we put God first in our lives, God will begin to change us. What we want will change and what we truly want and need will be ours.

[Next installment: God's justice and the financial crisis.]

*The first eight commandments proscribe the following positive behaviors:

1. Offer worship to only one God (first)
2. Only use God's Name for prayer, praise, and thanksgiving (second)
3. Use one day a week for corporate worship and to heed God's Word (third)
4. Give honor to your parents and others God has put in positions of authority (fourth)
5. Preserve and safeguard the lives of others (fifth)
6. Keep yourself sexually clean, reserving intimacy for marriage (sixth)
7. Refrain from taking your neighbors' property and help them to keep what they own (seventh)
8. Speak the truth in love about others, refraining from gossip or slander (eighth)

Seed, Weed, Feed

[This was shared with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, during worship today.]

Matthew 21:33-46
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus quotes Psalm 118, an Old Testament passage that comes up repeatedly in chapter 21 of Matthew, and describes Himself as the stone rejected by the builders. Jesus claims to be the foundation stone of the universe, the God Who makes us and Who makes new and everlasting life for all who believe in Him possible. But he’s also saying that many who claim to build their lives on God will spurn Him and demand His execution on a cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. The crucified and risen Jesus ushers the kingdom of God into our world and into our lives, but He says that this kingdom will be taken away from those who fail to bear fruit.

What on earth does that mean?

And how does a person go about producing fruit?

Before tackling those two questions, a little background is in order.

Jesus often used fruit as a metaphor for Christians and the lives we lead.

In Matthew’s Gospel, for example, Jesus is quoted as saying that believers should produce the fruit of repentance. He says that trees that produce bad fruit will be cut down. He says that every tree produces either good fruit or bad fruit. He also says that a tree will be known by its fruit.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus says that He is the true vine and the Father is the vinedresser. Each believer, drawing life from Him, is a branch. Occasionally, to foster our growth, to prevent us from being disconnected from God, and to ensure that we keep bearing fruit, God will cleanse or prune us, subjecting us to challenging circumstances that will find us either depending more deeply on God or turning away from Him. God’s purpose is to help us to live fruitful lives.

So, what does it mean to lead a fruitful life? Simply put, a Christian bearing fruit is someone who, by their daily interaction with Christ, is living a life that honors God.

Often, Christians who are, in Jesus’ terms, “bearing fruit” will hardly notice what God is producing in them. They’re focused on following Christ, not on looking like Christians.

I once knew a man, we’ll call him Joe, who worked as an engineer for a major manufacturing firm. He learned that another man, I’ll call him John, had joined the congregation where I was the pastor.

“John is an incredible man,” Joe told me. “We worked briefly side-by-side twenty-five years ago and occasionally in the years since, we’ve come in contact when our divisions had to work together on things.”

Joe went on to explain that among the things that impressed him about John were that he was ethical, a hard worker, deeply dedicated to his wife and children, and, in spite of his busy-ness, one who managed both to be involved with his church and to take excellent care of himself, eating right and running several miles a day.

“And John is such a real person,” Joe went on. “But what I really appreciate about him is that he loves Christ without pushing his faith onto anyone. That earned him lots of chances with me—and I was a hard case at the time—to talk about faith issues. In his way, John, more than anybody I know won me over to Christ.”

When I told John about my conversation with Joe, he was shocked. “I don’t remember any of that,” he told me.

There’s a lesson in John’s reaction. Sometimes we Lutheran Christians feel guilty because we don’t go door-to-door asking people if they’ve been saved. Now, I absolutely believe in sharing our faith with others. I absolutely believe that we should tell others about Jesus and invite them to worship, study, pray, and serve with us in Jesus’ Name.

But I’m convinced that the Christians who have the biggest positive impact on others aren’t the ones who spout four spiritual laws and try to guilt others into following Christ.

They aren’t the ones who go around shouting about the need for justice and compassion in our world and then treat those who disagree with them like dirt.

Fruit is a byproduct of our connection to the God we meet in Jesus Christ. John was unaware of the good fruit he was bearing, the witness of his life with Jesus, because he wasn’t following Christ to impress anybody else. He was following Christ because He knew that it’s Christ Who gives us forgiveness, life, hope, confidence, and joy, in good times and bad here, and in eternity. Fruit is Jesus working in our lives, just as the apples from a healthy tree result not from anything that the tree itself has done, but from sun, rain, and cultivation. The more connected to Christ you and I remain, the more fruitful our lives will be.

But unlike a fruit tree that has no control over its exposure to sun, rain, or cultivation, you and I can choose whether we’ll remain close enough to bear the good fruit Jesus talks about. As Pastor Scott Salsman wrote some years ago, “God will produce fruit in our lives if we honor him in the garden of the soul.” So, how exactly does that happen?

First: We seed the garden. One of my favorite passages of Scripture in Isaiah 43:19. It’s in the Old Testament and comes as part of a section of that book, written at least five centuries before Jesus’ birth, which foretells the coming of a saving king. In the verse, the prophet quotes God as saying, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

The point? The living eternal God isn’t stuck in the past. God is always doing new things and often God is doing them in older people. Pastor John Maxwell cites an interview with a doctor he read. The doctor had studied people 100 years of age and older. This doctor found that all these people had one thing in common. Maxwell thought it might be good diets and exercise programs. The doctor could have mentioned good genetics. (In line with that old saying, "The best way to ensure a long life is to pick the right partents.") No doubt each of those things are helpful for long living. But, Maxwell says, “the one thing these centenarians had in common was purpose.” For them, “the future looked bright; they had a reason to live.”

I meet a lot of people who are stuck in ruts. You know what a rut is, don’t you? It’s a grave with the ends kicked out! But people who keep bearing fruit are people who keep seeding their garden. They continue to look for new ways to serve God and neighbor. They keep trying to learn new things so that they can continue living useful Christian lives. So, seed the garden. Be open to God doing new things in your life.

Second: Weed the garden. I’m a terrible gardener. Back when we lived in northwest Ohio, I tried for several years to keep a garden. I should have had a great garden. The soil up there is rich, as you know, part of the old Black Swamp. On top of that, the farmers would always disc the soil for me and then bring good manure for me to spread. In spite of all that though, every year I tried my hand at gardening, I managed to let the weeds get the better of me. But we can’t afford to let that happen to our relationship with Christ. We need to weed our garden.

A fellow I read about had developed a bad habit of misusing God’s Name. That happens any time we use God’s Name for anything other than prayer, praise, or thanksgiving. We tend to think that misusing God's Name is an insignificant thing these days. But whenever we use God’s Name in ways other than God intended, we cheapen God’s Name and dishonor God, we clog up the line of communication between God and us with pointless static.

This fellow became convinced that he needed to break his bad habit. He enlisted his wife and a good friend in helping him to do so. He put a thick rubber band on his wrist. Every time his wife or friend heard him misuse God’s Name, they were to snap him good. After a while, the fellow got tired of having a sore wrist.

However you choose to weed your garden, you’ll be clearing the way for God to bear fruit in your life.

Finally, to bear fruit: Feed the garden. By this, I mean, for one thing, doing what you’re doing right now. (No, not sleeping!) I mean worshiping. We also feed the garden when we regularly spend time in prayer, whenever we receive Holy Communion, and when we read the Bible on our own and with others, in Bible studies. We feed the garden when we connect with Christ every day and with the Church whenever it's possible.

Finding time for this can be really hard, I know. A young mother once told me that with her three kids, all under age of five, the only peace and quiet she ever got was in the shower. She used this time to pray. Her daily shower became the most important few minutes of her day.

A man I know bought a small Bible--one of those slimline editions--and kept it and a daily devotional like Christ in Our Home or Our Daily Bread, in the top drawer of his desk at work. Each day, just before he had lunch, he pulled out the Bible and the devotional and read and prayed.

A farmer, profiled by Mosaic, the ELCA’s video magazine, always gathered with farm hands in the barn in the predawn hours each day in order to read the Bible, what he called “the owner’s maual.”

Each of these three people were feeding the garden, keeping in touch with Christ and the Church.

Jesus Christ came into the world to give us citizenship in the kingdom of God. It’s a free gift to all who turn from sin and trust in Him.

But sometimes our life with Christ can be choked off by indifference and the demands of daily life. If we will commit ourselves to a lifestyle that includes

• being open to the new things God wants to do in our lives,
• ridding ourselves of the old things that drag us away from God, and
• staying in daily close contact with Christ and His Church,

we can bear the fruit Jesus speaks of today, whether we’re 6 or 106, or any other age.

Jesus, the cornerstone, builds great lives in those who follow Him intently.

[Seed the garden, weed the garden, and feed the garden are the three points for this text suggested by Pastor Scott Salsman in the sermon cited above. I'm grateful for the inspiration!]

YES! GO, BUCKEYES!

Thank you to the following bloggers

They linked to Better Living in recent days:
Alyson Love
Rick Moore
John Schroeder
Also, updating: Simply Skimming
Thanks!

Series Resumes on Monday

My new series of posts on the financial crisis will pick back up on Monday.

The Financial Crisis from One Christian's Perspective (Part 2)

The first installment in this series appeared in a shorter form yesterday over at The Moderate Voice, a site to which I've been contributing posts since last November. One of the commenters there said this:

You seem to be blaming all borrowers as if they all knew they would be in trouble with those mortgages. Some of them were not too bright (surprised?) and others too ambitious, hoping they could make it. Some lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

It was never my intention to paint with too broad a brush. My intent, simply, was to say that the greedy lending houses would not have gotten themselves--and the US economy--where they are right now were it not for the success they enjoyed in selling their ephemera to greedy consumers. Not all consumers who are apt to be hurt by this crisis by the time it runs its course were greedy. Not everybody who took out a loan was greedy. But some were. As I said yesterday, "Only those willing to be seduced are seduced."

The question before us is, from a Christian perspective, how do we avoid making bad financial decisions? How do we keep from being willingly seduced by those trying to palm off financial sugar water?

First: Recognize that money is neutral. It's neither bad or good. It's a tool, a means to ends. One of the most misquoted passages of the Bible says:

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil...(1 Timothy 6:10)

Notice that Paul, the writer of this passage doesn't say that money in itself is evil. He says that the love of it is the problem.

The love Paul describes here is what we might refer to as an addiction, a force at the bottom of a person's every motive and decision. For people like this, money is everything: the scorecard by which they measure their worth, the toy factory, their pleasure-maker.

People who love money make it the central force in their lives. It then supplants all of their relationships, whether with God or with others. It's no wonder then that Jesus says that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person, who is likelier to have succumbed to the addictive power of money, supplanting God in the person's allegiance, to get into God's kingdom.

Second: Recognize then, that money is a power. This insight was first brought to my attention by Richard Foster in his incredible book, Money, Sex, and Power. As Foster explains there, either we will get control of our money or our money will control us. Often, those with a lot of money think that they are in control. And it is true that in many ways, the wealthy can do more than those with less. No one could deny that.

But I have also seen how wealth allows the wealthy to indulge fantasies of invincibility that come to grief when the normal downs in life that can rock all of us hit them harder than those more attuned to reality through their more modest finances.

I've also seen the wealthy become understandably distrustful of others. The wealthy are often assailed by people who "want a piece of the action." This, in turn, can lead to deep cynicism, which is unhinged from reality, too.

Whether it results of delusions of invincibility or the acid of cynicism, money is a power, an addictive power. When we see it as a tool, a means rather than an end, we are on the road to controlling our finances and the impulse to greed.

Third: Recognize that some people are more adept at making money than others. I have several long-term friendships with people who simply have a facility for generating income and making the right choices on what to do with their money to make it grow. They're shrewd about making money. Shrewdness is not a bad thing.

I'm not financially shrewd. I've never been a money-making machine. Now, I could resent that and I won't say that there haven't been times in my life when I haven't been resentful. But the Bible teaches that each of us has gifts, talents, both natural and supernatural, from God. In his book, The Purpose Driven Life, Pastor Rick Warren, who gives something like 90% of the royalties from his writing to the church, says that the thing for the Church to do with members who have the facility for making money is to encourage them to make more. Christians who make a lot of money, aware that this ability, along with every other good gift, comes from God, will be will be able to use money to support a broad array of church, charitable, and community projects. I agree with him.

Those of us who aren't financially shrewd should, instead of being resentful, use our gifts and abilities to their maximum positive effect.

Fourth: Avoid what the Bible calls covetousness. I hope to say more on what that means, why it's counterproductive, and most importantly, what can be done about it, tomorrow.

A Look at The Bible Lessons for This Coming Sunday (October 5, 2008) (Part 1)

[Most weeks, I try to publish at least one post dealing with the appointed Bible lessons for the upcoming Sunday. My hope is that I can at least help the people of the parish I serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, to prepare for worship. Others may find these explorations helpful because we use the same Bible lessons used by most other North American Christians each Sunday. For information on the Church Year and the plan of lessons called the lectionary, see here. This week, this look at the lessons will be broken down into several installments.]

The Prayer of the Day:
Beloved God, from you come all things that are good. Lead us by the inspiration of your Spirit to know those things that are right, and by your merciful guidance, help us to do them, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen

The Bible Lessons:
Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80:7-15
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46

Comments: Isaiah 5:1-7
1. Those who read Better Living regularly are familiar with the consensus theory of much modern scholarship that Isaiah was composed during three different periods of ancient Judah's history, composed by at least three different authors. (It was thought legitimate back in Biblical times for authors operating in the "school of thought" of an esteemed religious leader to write in that leader's name.) Whether all of the theories about Isaiah are correct or not, it's undisputed by scholars of all stripes that our lesson is among the earliest sections of the book to be composed.

2. Based on Isaiah 6:1, it's thought that Isaiah began his activities as a prophet during the last year of the reign of King Uzziah, meaning 743BC. Isaiah prophesied during the reigns of three subsequent kings of Judah: Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Hezekiah's reign ended in 687BC.

3. In the Bible, a prophet was not someone who necessarily predicted the long-term future, although some of the Old Testament prophets, notably Isaiah. did that. But Isaiah, particularly in the lesson for Sunday, exhibits key characteristics of the prophet's work. Prophets:

• saw themselves as messengers who
• addressed current situtations and
• pressed people to deal with those situations in order to avoid future difficulties or even punishment

4. The verses of our lesson come near the end of what is seen as the first major section of Isaiah, chapters 1 through 6. They contain oracles from God with both threats and promises for rebel Judah. (Judah is referred to, basically, as Judea in the New Testament. It's the southern kingdom that resulted from the split of ancient Israel shortly after the reign of Solomon.) In these chapters and in our lesson, God addresses Judah's rejection of God and explains the dire consequences for a nation that owed its existence to God.

5. As both Lutheran scholar Ralph W. Klein and The Jerome Bible Commentary explain, the first two verses of the reading are ambiguous. In what's thought to be a song, are these the words of the singer or of God? But the identity of the speaker in v.3 is clear: God.

6. The lesson presents us with a parable in which "the Beloved," God, is said to have worked hard to create and nurture the vineyard. He did so with the expectation of a great harvest. But, instead, the vineyard "yielded wild grapes." Here, the vineyard is Israel, which because of its increasing separation from God, is living worthlessly.

In v.3, God says, choose whether you'll live for yourselves and your momentary pleasures or for me. If you live for yourselves, death will inevitably follow. If you live for me, you'll not only have Me, but life thrown into the bargain, because I'm the maker and restorer of life.

7. The "fruit" of life without God is injustice, bloodshed, and futility. Injustice, of course, is never God's will for our lives. (See here and here.) For the prophets, justice meant loyalty to God and a commitment to caring for one's neighbor, even the foreigner in one's midst. The New Testament writer James' definition of "true religion" would do well as a definition of Old Testament justice:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:27)

8. Both Klein and the Jerome Commentary point out that the lesson ends with a pun in the original Hebrew (the Old Testament writers loved puns). The Jerome commentary says:

[In the play on words in v.7,] God looked for "judgment" (mispat) and all he found was "bloodshed" (mispah), for "justice" (s'daqa) and he found an "outcry" (s'aqa). Mispat was basically a judgment, the revealed will of God covering the totality of man's [sic] duties, to God, to man [sic], and to himself. S'daqa was the correlative of mispat and it meant whatever accorded with this divine demand. It could be applied to some particular duty or to the quality of the man who lived according to mispat. We translate it as "justice," which meant both the doing of one's duty and the state of being resulting from doing that duty.

9. When Israel goes bad, God says, it isn't for lack of care and attention from Him. Israel is responsible for its own fate.

The Financial Crisis from One Christian's Perspective (Part 1)

Only those willing to be seduced are seduced.

Nobody persuaded into doing the wrong thing can credibly argue, "He tricked me," or, "She jumbled my thinking," or "The devil made me do it." The evil all around may pull at us, but we are the ones who cave into our inborn tendency to do the wrong thing, no matter what the wrong.

Believe me, I know. I do things that are wrong and, in the end, I realize I only have myself to blame.

Only those willing to be seduced are successfully seduced. I've been thinking about that a lot lately as the nation grapples with the financial crisis. It was caused, it's said, by the reckless policies of major lending institutions. Obscene compensation and benefits packages given to corporate CEOs and other company hot shots made things worse.

It's all true, of course. And these realities are among the reasons that both Democratic and Republican members of the House of Representatives offer for not passing the $700-billion bailout or rescue package forged by the White House and congressional leaders over. "Why should we give $700-billion to these greedy corporate honchos?" It's a fair question.*

I hate it when legitimacy, such as that enjoyed by the captains of the lending industry in recent years, is given by the government. For several decades now, Democratic and Republican Presidents and Congresses have endorsed and allowed the practices of the big investment bankers and mortgage lenders. Presidents lauded the ever-increasing homeownership rates, ignoring the fact that this "progress" was a house of cards erected on financial quicksand, bricks and mortar stacked on onion skin paper. It's high time that the illegitimate practices of the big mortgage houses were changed.

But others' practices need to be changed as well: Those of the borrowing public.

Nobody forced people to get sub-prime loans. Nobody forced consumers to buy houses with no money down, with insufficient income to make loan payments, all on the less-than-shrewd bet that property values would inevitably increase and, borrowing from projected future value, they could refinance their way out of debt. And nobody forces consumers to use their charge cards as revolving loans.

The greed of the now-pilloried corporations was rewarded for the past twenty years by equally greedy consumers who were working the angles to get into houses, to own other things, to effectively steal their ways to more comfortable lifestyles.

Greedy lenders seduced people. But they couldn't have been successful without greedy borrowers who were willing to be seduced.

The Biblical bases for today's Our Daily Bread devotion is Proverbs 1:8-19. For those not familiar with the passage or with the Old Testament book of Proverbs generally, a little background is in order. The book is a collection of wisdom sayings given by God to King Solomon.** These specific verses underscore how important it is for young people to listen to the wisdom given to them by their parents. "Pay close attention, friend, to what your father tells you; never forget what you learned at your mother's knee..." It goes on to say:

Dear friend, if bad companions tempt you, don't go along with them...[when they say]...We'll load up on top-quality loot. We'll haul it home by the truckload."...Don't give [the enticers] a second look; don't listen to them for a minute.***

Then it concludes by saying that the greedy who want to haul in truckloads come to bad ends:

...they lie in wait--to kill themselves! And set an ambush--for their own lives! Such is the end of all who are greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its possessors."****

Here in Ohio yesterday, voters began deciding the fate of two state issues. One will reduce the interest that payday lenders can charge. The other will allow casino gambling in the middle of the state. Payday lenders are predatory, charging as much as 392% in interest rates and casino gambling rarely brings the economic benefits proponents trumpet, resulting instead, in low-wage jobs and in preying most on those who can ill-afford to part with their money. So, I intend to vote yes on limiting the payday lenders and no on casino gambling.

But, don't be mistaken, greed merchants can't make a sale if people aren't buying.

Tomorrow, a few thoughts on how we avoid the enticements of the greedy.

*Proponents argue equally fairly that the bailout is really for the entire economy, restoring liquidity so that deserving consumers and business owners can have the credit they need to buy homes, invest in inventory, and make payrolls.

**Solomon is an interesting case. He began his reign recognizing that to compensate for his lack of experience, he needed wisdom. God was impressed that, rather than asking for wealth or power, Solomon asked for the wisdom to do his job well. But Solomon came to a bad end. He didn't go to the poorhouse. But with his wisdom came the capacity to acquire lots of money, women, property, and power. He became so consumed by these things that he wandered far from God. He oversaw the conversion of Israel into a society of greed-merchants, everyone on the take. Shortly after Solomon's death, the nation divided and, eventually, was conquered by foreigners. When the major object of a nation is to acquire stuff that's of no use to us after we die, the nation, no matter how much it's been blessed, dies.

***This is from The Message's rendering of Proverbs 1:8-10

****This is from the translation in The New Revised Standard Version of Proverbs 1:18-19

[Go here for thoughts on the meaning of 'the American Dream.']

[A shorter version of this piece appears on The Moderate Voice.]

Three preachers got on a bike...

No, that's not the start of a joke. And actually, it should be written in the future tense.

Three pastors will be riding across the United States on a bamboo bicycle built for three next year and, over a period of several months, challenging fellow members from congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to help meet denominational financial commitments to the hunger relief efforts of Lutheran World Relief (LWR). Here's a video about their tour:



As you can see, Tour de Revs is interested in more than just feeding people who are hungry around the world, but like LWR, in fostering sustainability, so that those currently dealing with chronic hunger issues will be able to have food in difficult circumstances.

I also love the suggestion made by "the three revs," that congregations and individuals get involved with local food banks. Here in Logan, our congregation, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, gives monthly offerings of spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, soup, and macaroni and cheese for a local emergency food bank. This bank, CHAP, a local ecumenical effort, "fills in the gaps" for those who suddenly find themselves without food. Another group to which we have given financial support is part of a regional Second Harvest organization. We also give to the hunger relief efforts for which the three revs will be making their ride next year.

With financial uncertainties and the high unemployment here in our state and community, I'm sure that hunger relief efforts will be increasingly important in 2009. At Saint Matthew, we'll be remembering our neighbors, here and around the world.

If you get an opportunity to meet the Three Revs during their bike tour, be sure to say, "Hello." Then, find ways in which you can help alleviate the unnecessary tragedy of hunger, in our own country and everywhere else.

For more information on the Three Revs tour, including their itinerary, go here. There, you'll also find ways in which you can help the Tour de Revs, as well as links to information regarding ELCA Hunger Relief efforts.

When Your Past Sins and Your Faults Torture You

This comes from Faith Alone, a daily devotional composed of Martin Luther's sermons, essays, lectures, letters, and "table talks," the spontaneous comments Luther made over dinner to visitors and students who took notes. The Scriptural bases of the devotion is Hebrews 2:14. I love this:

Because he is God's Son, [Christ] was able to reclaim us and free us from our sins when he shed his blood. If we believe this, we can rub it in the devil's face whenever he tries to torment or terrify us with our sins. This will quickly defeat the devil. He will be forced to retreat and leave us alone.

Here's an illustration that can help us understand how Christ defeated the devil by dying. The fishing hook, which is Christ's divinity, was concealed by the earthworm, which is Christ's humanity. The devil swallowed both when Christ died and was buried. But Christ's divinity ripped open the devil's stomach so that it couldn't hold Christ anymore. The devil had to throw him up. The devil ate something that proved to be fatal. This truth gives us wonderful comfort. Just as the devil couldn't hold onto Christ in death, so the devil can't hold on to us who believe in Christ.

[Above: Martin Luther, Reformer of the Church, 1483-1546]

Saying "Yes" to God with Mouths and Lives

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 21:23-32
This morning, my sermon has two points.

By way of introducing the first point, here are two real life experiences. Experience #1: Back in Cincinnati, I was part of a committee appointed by the thirty-three Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregations in the area there to create a united mission strategy. We were to identify common goals and ways we could work together to share Jesus with others and see our churches grow spiritually and numerically.

In this connection, I was invited to meet with the Church Council of an aging congregation whose membership was dwindling. Attendance on any given Sunday was less than thirty and few of the worshipers were actually from the neighborhood. Finances were in shambles and it appeared unlikely that the congregation would keep its pastor for long. “What steps could we take to improve things?” one woman asked me.

“I can’t be certain,” I told her honestly. “But one thing you might try to do is create a second worship service that would interest the people living in the homes across the street and in the next few blocks.” As soon as I said that, you could see a wall go up around this woman. “Why should we give up what we like?” she asked me. “Keep what you like,” I replied. “But try adding something that’ll demonstrate that you care about your neighbors here and want them to know Jesus. And if that doesn’t work out, try something else with the same aim.”

The rest of the discussion was cordial, but curt. The council thanked me for coming to see them. Within two years, with a mission field of thousands in need of Jesus Christ and His love, that congregation closed its doors.

Every Sunday for decades, the people of that congregation had faithfully worshiped, sung God’s praises through the liturgy, prayed, and said the Creed together. By all exterior measures, they were a faithful Christian community. But something was missing.

Experience #2: Consider the story of a Christian organization called Operation Bootstrap Africa. Headquartered in Minneapolis, it was founded by a Lutheran pastor and his wife, who worked as missionaries in Tanzania. They had been telling others about the new life of eternal forgiveness, hope, and peace that comes to those with faith in Jesus Christ. But they came to believe that something was missing.

That’s when they formed Operation Bootstrap. Their mission was simple: to give witness to their faith in Jesus Christ not just with their words, but also with their actions.

For forty years now, Operation Bootstrap Africa has worked in partnership with the people and government of Tanzania to build more than 3200 classrooms. The organization is now also involved in projects, such as providing youth scholarships, teacher support, student quarters, school desks, and primary health care assistance not only in Tanzania, but also in Zimbabwe and Madagascar. The work of Operation Bootstrap has inspired and uplifted all involved, from the teachers who work hard in primitive conditions to the students who find reason to genuinely praise God and live their thankfulness in a tough environment.

These two stories remind me of the two sons in Jesus’ parable we hear in today’s Gospel lesson. A father has work to be done in his vineyard. He goes to one son who says, “No, I won’t do it,” then thinks better of it and goes out into the vineyard to work. The father goes to his other son, who says, “Yes, I’ll get right on it” and then does nothing. Jesus asks, “Which of the two sons did the will of the father?” Even the chief elders and high priests, the leaders of Jewish religious life who so hated Jesus, conceded that it was the son who initially said, "No," had done the father’s will.

But if Jesus had asked a different question, he might have gotten a dramatically different answer. Bible scholar John Pilch writes about a man who told Jesus’ parable to groups of people in a modern Middle Eastern country and then asked, “Which of the two sons honored the father?” To a person, they said that the first son had honored the father. After all, when the father came to tell him what to do, he had very politely said, “Yes, Dad, I’ll get on it right away.” You see, Middle Eastern culture, ancient and modern, so values the outward show of respect that even though this first son was lying through his teeth, having no intention to honor his father’s will, he had said the right words, shown the right respect, gone through the proscribed hoops.

Now, that may seem strange to us, but this reaction is a lot like the Cincinnati congregation that died. The people of that church certainly talked the talk. But they didn’t walk that talk. They weren't interested in being a church that reached out to others with the Good News of Jesus Christ. They wanted a place where they could be comfortable.

And what makes the story of Operation Bootstrap Africa so inspiring is that it shows real people committed to walking their talk, putting their faith in Christ into action in daily life.

Point #1: God is looking for believers who walk the faith they talk. In Old Testament times, God expressed frustration with His people through the prophet Isaiah, when He said, “These people draw near with their mouths and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me…”

At another place in Matthew's Gospel, Jesus warns, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

Now, we must be careful here. Jesus isn’t saying that if we do good things, we all get into heaven. But He is saying that if He is truly our Lord, if we really have repented for our sin, really do believe in Him, and really seek to follow Him, all of that will be evidenced not just in the words we say on Sunday mornings, but in the lives we lead on Mondays. God is looking for believers who walk the faith they talk.

Point #2: God will show up in the lives of those willing to welcome God into their lives. Remember that Jesus first told this parable to the chief elders and the priests of the temple who indignantly asked Him by what authority He had thrown the religious extortionists whose presence they had licensed out of the temple. Jesus scorned them for not being willing to acknowledge His authority. They honored God with their lips, but when confronted with Jesus, God in the flesh, they wouldn’t say “Yes” to Him. Yet, tax collectors and prostitutes who had spent most of their lives saying, “No” to God did acknowledge Jesus, believe in Jesus, and follow Jesus.

This is sometimes difficult for we good religious people to understand or accept. We can get so comfortable with talking our faith without acting on it, that we’re surprised by the fervor exhibited by people God has touched.

At a conference years ago, I heard Lutheran pastor Don Abdon speak of sharing the Gospel with a person he’d never met before. As Abdon told this man more about Jesus, the man became increasingly receptive. (Now, keep in mind, that Abdon wasn't forcing a bunch of Bible verses down this man's throat! The man was, with increasing excitement, asking Abdon to share more with him about Christ.) After a while, Abdon asked the man, “Would you like to confess faith in Jesus right now?” He enthusiastically said, “Yes!” Abdon was so unprepared for that response that he found himself asking the man, “Are you sure?”

And sometimes the unwillingness of Christians to believe that God shows up in the lives of who they deem as unlikely people can be almost nasty. Another Lutheran pastor, Brian Stoffregen, tells about receiving a telephone call in his office one day. Here's some of what Stoffregen wrote about it:

[The call was from a woman I don't know.] She had been active in a church...Her husband hadn't been involved in church. He lost his right arm in an accident at work. While in the hospital, he had a life-changing experience with God, who had given him the choice of going or staying. He decided to stay. His life has been changed. Prior to his experience, his wife had said to him -- and she didn't know where it came from: "When you see my mother (who had died), don't go with her." With hindsight, the wife is certain that such words could have only come from God. Her life and her understanding of God has changed. The difficulty that she is having, and why she called me..., is that people from her church -- even close friends -- [couldn't] buy her husband's experience with God. "God wouldn't do something like that for someone who didn't believe in Jesus," [seemed to have been] the essence of their message to her. [Or,] "It must have been the devil speaking to him." [Or,] "Going with that person must have meant going to hell."

That woman's fellow church members were like the chief elders who, Jesus said were in similar disbelief about the responses of the tax collectors and prostitutes, first to John the Baptist and then to Jesus. They couldn’t believe that these sinners would say, “Yes” to repentance or “Yes” to a gracious, forgiving God! But God always shows up in the lives of of those willing to welcome God into their lives. God will even show up in our lives!

One of the questions I’ve been asking people at the Getting to Know You Dinners here at Saint Matthew is, “How do you see God at work in the life of this congregation?” I can tell you that the God we know through the crucified and risen Jesus is truly present and working among us. I was moved at last month’s dinner, when a certain Homecoming Queen* mentioned that through Saint Matthew, she was learning how to place herself and her life in God’s hands. God really does show up in the lives of those willing to welcome God into their lives.

And who of us knows for sure all the ways in which God wants to show up in our lives? I surely don’t! That’s exactly why I urge you in your prayer time not only to ask what God is up to in Saint Matthew, but also to ask, “God, what are you up to in my life?" And,"What do you will for me in my life and what do you will for Saint Matthew’s life?” After you’ve prayed that prayer, be prepared to be surprised by God. Be prepared to walk the talk of your faith.

And every day, remember those two points: God is looking for believers who walk the faith they talk AND God will show up in the lives of those willing to welcome God into their lives.

*She is a seventeen year old member of Saint Matthew, as is another member of the Homecoming Court.

Fun!

This promo currently appearing on the Big Ten Network purports to show the conference's head football coaches on home visits to high school recruiting prospects. I love Penn State coach Joe Paterno's bit of intense thespianism at the end.



Also love Jim Tressel's, "You do know about our Buckeye leaves..."

I Knew That OSU Would Beat USC

I just didn't now which OSU. SC's Trojans seem to have trouble with at least one Pac 10 rival every year and in fact, Oregon State beat Southern Cal two years ago, as I recall. All of this is apt to mess up the national rankings, which previously had the University of Southern California Trojans at number one.

In the meantime, that other OSU, my alma mater, The Ohio State University, begins its Big Ten season when it welcomes Minnesota to venerable Ohio Stadium on Saturday. Beanie Wells will be back in the game and Terrelle Pryor will be taking the snaps. Hopefully, the offensive line will be ready to play. The Buckeyes can still have a great year in what is clearly a rebuilding period.

Go, Buckeyes!

A Look at This Sunday's Bible Lessons (September 28, 2008)

[Most weeks, I try to publish at least one post dealing with the appointed Bible lessons for the upcoming Sunday. My hope is that I can at least help the people of the parish I serve as pastor, Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, to prepare for worship. Others may find these explorations helpful because we use the same Bible lessons used by most other North American Christians each Sunday. For information on the Church Year and the plan of lessons called the lectionary, see here.]

The Bible Lessons:
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
Psalm 25:1-9
Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32

The Prayer of the Day:
God of love, giver of life, you know our frailties and failings. Give us your grace to overcome them, keep us from those things that harm us, and guide us in the way of salvation, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen

Comments: Ezekiel
1. A little background on Ezekiel:

The Book of Ezekiel has the most logical arrangement of any of the prophetic books. It contains three sections, each of which addresses a different subject matter. Chapters 1–24 concern the fall of Jerusalem. Chapters 25–39 contain a series of oracles addressed to foreign nations, concluding with a section in which the future of Israel is contrasted with that of the foreign nations. The third section, Chapters 40–48, presents a plan for rebuilding the Temple and reorganizing the restored state of Israel.

Ezekiel was one of the younger men taken to Babylon in the first captivity, which occurred in 597 B.C. He served as a kind of religious counselor to the Hebrew exiles who were allowed to live in a colony by themselves near the banks of the Kebar River. Scholars generally assume that most of what is contained in Ezekiel was written by the prophet himself. For some time, they believed that he wrote practically the entire book while living in the colony of exiles. However, more recent scholarship has pointed out several reasons for thinking that at least a portion of the chapters included in the first section contains speeches personally delivered by the prophet to the people who remained in Jerusalem until the city fell in 586 B.C.

2. There are two ways in which this passage may cause us some confusion. First, is the assertion, repeated in several different ways, found in the first four verses:

The word of the Lord²³ came to me: What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”? As I live, says the Lord God⁴, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die.

But how do we square that with words that appear in the Ten Commandments?:

I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:5-6)

And while we're at it, how can it be squared with the doctrine of original sin, the notion that we are all born into the common human condition of sin, alienation from God and a predisposition to be turned inward and away from God and others?

And, does Ezekiel uphold a highly individualistic view that reverses the communal orientation of much of the rest of Scripture?

These are big questions, not easily answered in so short a space. But a few thoughts...

(a) Ezekiel is in no way saying that the sins of parents and grandparents are unfelt by subsequent generations. Peer into the history of any dysfunctional family (that, in some ways, is all families, by the way) and you see threads running from one generation to the next.

(b) Ezekiel is saying that each of us is able to turn to God (repent) and live new lives. Our inborn predisposition to committing acts of sin--lovelessness toward God and toward others and ingratitude for the life that God has given to us--can only be overcome, as our Philippians text puts it, when "God is at work" in us. God does this when we turn from sin and trust in the Good News of new life Christ brings to the world (Mark 1:15).

(c) Because sin is an inherently communal thing, in that it always involves either sin against God or others or both, repentance is also a communal thing. This is why we offer both public and private confession in the Church. It's why our private relationship with God and our individual confession of sin is to result in restored and renewed relationships with others. Sometimes, we will need to overtly reconcile with those we have harmed (Matthew 18:15-20).

3. A second issue: What about Ezekiel's insistence that God is fair in the face of the exiled people's assertions that God isn't fair? I mean, just last Sunday, I preached a sermon titled, God Isn't Fair. Ezekiel seems to say that God is fair. Who's right, Ezekiel or me?

First of all, my sermon of last week wasn't based on my say-so. If it were, it wouldn't have been worth a thing and I wouldn't have dared stand in the pulpit! The theme of "God isn't fair" was the thrust of both the Old Testament and Gospel lessons of last Sunday.

But the assertion that "God isn't fair" in those two texts came in response to a different question than the one Ezekiel was addressing during the Babylonian exile. Whether it was Jonah's anger over the hated Ninevites being allowed by God to live in light of their repentance or the johnny-come-lately laborers in Jesus' parable receiving the same pay as those who had worked all day long, the answer was that God isn't fair. God affords grace to all who are repentant. In the eyes of the world, that isn't fair.

But Ezekiel is answering a different question. Or, more accurately, if you read the entire eighteenth chapter, a different set of questions. His people feel that they have been devoted to God, for one thing. And they wonder if it does any good to repent, to turn back to God.

In this sense, God is fair. God will not hold our parents' sins against us or even our own sins, if we will genuinely turn back to God. "For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live," Ezekiel reports God saying. Through Jesus Christ, that is a call that God continues to issue today!

Comments: Philippians
1. Philippians is one of the most extraordiary books of the New Testament. It's a letter written by the apostle Paul to the church in the Greek city of Philippi. Paul founded the church, with the help of his traveling companions, during his second missionary journey, recorded in Acts 16:11-40. The letter was written in about 61AD in Rome, where Paul was a prisoner for his faith in Jesus Christ.

In spite of Paul's grim circumstances, the letter is filled with joy. That joy is rooted in Jesus Christ, Paul says.

2. In our lesson, Paul urged the Philippians to interact with one another with humility. Humility is a repudiation of selfishness and conceit, an embrace of mutual encouragement and servanthood. "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit," Paul writes in the verses just before those of our lesson appear, "but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others."

This is subversive stuff. We all recoil at the selfishness we see in others. Yet we tend to rationalize that our selfishness is okay. But if everybody always looks out for number 1, chaos ensues, as we see in an American society that puts a high premium on indivdualism.

The call to follow Jesus is a call to think less of me, to think of God and others.

3. And as our lesson demonstrates, in calling us to love God supremely and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, God isn't calling us to do any more than He Himself has done in Jesus Christ.

4. But, here's what is most important to see about this passage. Most religions of the world and most ethical people would agree that selflessness is a good thing, even that Jesus' example is a good thing.

Jesus, though, didn't come to be our example. Jesus came to be our Lord and Savior. What that means is that He doesn't just come up to us like a motivational speaker, urging us to learn from His example. As Paul says, through Christ, "it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." In other words, our "job" as Christians is to get out of God's way and let God work and do God's will in our lives. If we want to believe and we want to be more like Christ, the answer is found in our jumping through some proscribed hoops. "Sanctification," the process of becoming more godly, is a matter of daily repentance--there that word is again, which allows God to renew us. This renewal is what Paul talks in Romans 12, where he urges believers in Christ "to be transformed by the renewing" of their minds. Here, he asks people to have the same mind that was "in Christ Jesus." Through daily repentance and renewal, we undergo what I call a holy lobotomy.

5. The words of our lesson probably were the lyrics of a song the early Church sang when it worshiped together.

Comments: Matthew
1. As always, it helps in understanding a specific passage of Scripture to look at its context. Chapter 21 is a pivotal chapter in Matthew's Gospel. It begins with Matthew's account of Palm Sunday, when Jesus entered the holy city of Jerusalem, welcomed by the crowds as a conquering king.

Later, Jesus, the Messiah with heavenly authority over the temple, drives the money changers out of God's house. For the chief priests, this action on Jesus' part brought the question of His authority (as opposed to their own) to the fore. This is why they confront Jesus with the question, "By what authority...?"

2. For "the chief priests and scribes," authority is something acquired from other people or by human tradition. Jesus' authority is constantly authenticated by actions that demonstrate His submission to the Father, the sort of submission about which Paul writes in the second lesson. No matter how many miracles Jesus performed or how often He displayed compassion, they wouldn't be convinced--or allow themselves to be convinced--that Jesus was the Messiah.

3. The parable can be read in several ways. First and most immediately, it's a parable about people who seem to say Yes to God versus people who seem to say No to God. The chief priests and elders publicly confessed faith in God all the time. Yet when confronted with evidence that Jesus was God-enfleshed and called on to repent and believe, they asked what hoops Jesus had jumped through to rid the temple of extortionists and religious profiteers. What authority, they wondered, did Jesus have to issue such a call? The tax collectors and prostitutes had made no pretense of living for God. Yet, when confronted with Jesus, many turned from their sin and believed in Jesus.

Another way in which this parable can be read is in the context in which Matthew presented it. He wrote to a church dealing with tensions between Jewish and Gentile believers, a tension addressed in last week's Gospel lesson as well. The parable, I believe, really comes from Jesus. But Matthew included it and presented it in the way in which He did, because it addressed a circumstance with which the church of his day was dealing.

In today's church, we can see similar tensions between longtime and new members, or long-confessing Christians and people newborn in the faith on fire for Christ.

As Brian Stoffregen says, in His parable, Jesus does more than extol the virtues of those who may initially say, "No" to God and then do His will. He commands both public profession and personal surrender.

To Whom Are You Building Your Monuments?

See here.

A Simple, Powerful Truth

From my colleague and friend, Pastor Glen VanderKloot...

WELCOME to the daily issue of ONLINE WITH FAITH.
ONLINE WITH FAITH is a ministry of Faith Lutheran Church,
2313 Whittier Avenue, Springfield, IL, 62704, Glen VanderKloot,
Pastor.

We encourage you to worship and be involved in a local congregation.

If you have any questions, comments, or prayer
requests please be in touch with us at
pastor@faithlutheran.com
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

A Thought for the Day


The daily discipline of reading, studying, and prayfully
reflecting on God's Word will change your life. It will
transform your heart and will lead to attitudes and
actions that reflect the kind of Christlike behavior
that God deems important for every healthy disciple.

+++++++++
Scripture
Acts 17:11 TNIV

Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those
in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great
eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see
if what Paul said was true.


Prayer: Father, help me to make your written Word a
piroity in my life each day. In the Name of Jesus
Amen!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

To subscribe to Glen's daily inspirations, send an email to olwf1@gliq.net and put SUBSCRIBE on the subject line.

The Reality TV Show with an Audience of One

Adrian Warnock writes about it here.

God Isn't Fair!

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

Matthew 20:1-16
This morning, I’d like to invite you to hear a summary of Professor Daniels’ class, Life 101. Here it is: Life is unfair. You don’t need to enroll in the course, do you? You already know that life is unfair. You know often people whose only qualification is the ability to butter up their superiors become successful. You know that kids who toil away at getting good grades and being good citizens get far less recognition than the ones who can shoot a basketball or hit home runs. You know that bad things happen to good people.

Life is unfair, meaning that when we come to a passage of Scripture like our Gospel lesson for this morning, we get upset. In this parable from Jesus, the landowner stands in for God. Jesus says that this parable tells us what the Kingdom of God is like and it dawns on us that God is unfair too. It isn't fair that people who work for one hour get the same wage as those who baked and sweated while working in the hot sun all day long.

So, here’s the summation of my Life 102 course: God isn’t fair; God is gracious!

Grace is a word we throw around a lot in church. But what is it? Well, an old acrostic takes the letters of the word—G-R-A-C-E—and says that grace is God’s redemption at Christ’s expense.

In other words, because of His charitable love for us, God buys us out of our slavery to sin, death, and pointless living through Christ’s death on the cross.

We don’t deserve the grace of God—it isn’t fair for Him to give us blessings we haven’t earned and can’t earn, but God gives grace to all who turn from sin and entrust their lives to Jesus Christ.

So, in addition to revealing that God isn’t fair, the parable Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson also shows us that God’s grace is an absolute gift. He does this by showing us several truths I want to talk about right now.

First: God seeks us out and extends grace to us. God reaches out to us with grace.

I meet people all the time who say that they’re looking for God or looking for the answers to life’s questions.

Now, God and life will always be shrouded in some mystery for us. After all, we’re all only human. There are limits to our wisdom, our strength, our brainpower.

But we don’t have to look for God or for the meaning of life. In Jesus Christ, God has reached out to us. God can be known by anyone who is willing to be found.

Jesus says: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father but through Me.” No mystery there!

And this Savior Who has died and risen for us comes to us to extend His grace, a freely-given passport to a daily relationship with God in this world and in eternity beyond.

Many of you know Fred Meuser, the former president of Trinity Lutheran Seminary. One day, Fred took several seminary students, including me, out for lunch. He told us, “I was raised in a Christian home and I don’t remember a single moment in my life when I didn’t believe in Jesus.” I read a few years ago that nearly twenty years into retirement, he’s a volunteer tutor in an elementary school in Florida, teaching kids how to read. Fred heard the call of God to His vineyard as a baby in his parents’ arms and he’s spent his life serving in Christ’s Name.

Someone you wouldn’t know is a man I'll call Roy. Roy lived in Clermont County, where we lived for seventeen years. Roy spent most of his life running away from God. And he made a mess of most of his relationships along the way. Then in his seventies, Roy was dying of cancer. He’d read about a new Lutheran church in the area and about the crazy pastor who was going door-to-door to invite people to worship. Roy called me up. “I haven’t been in church for forty years or more,” he said. “I was never baptized. I want to be right with God.” He invited me to his home and we talked about God’s gracious offer of new life to all who believe and are baptized. A few days later, with several family members and friends on hand, Roy was baptized in his living room. Roy opened his ears to God’s call to His vineyard on the brink of death.

It isn’t fair, but it is gracious that the same promise of life with God belongs to both Fred and Roy...and to you and me. In Christ, God is in the business of reaching out, extending grace to all. No matter when we receive it, it’s ours!

So, truth #1, God extends grace to us. Truth #2: God doesn’t give grace based on what we do. The early hires in Jesus’ parable didn’t like the fact that the last hired were given the same pay they received.

Often, we in the Church act as though membership should have special privileges. And of course, there are privileges associated with being part of the Church: We have an extended Christian family with whom we share worship and service in Jesus’ Name, with whom we receive Baptism and Communion, and with whom we can laugh and cry and grow strong in faith. Those are huge privileges.

But these are gifts God grants to us not because we have seniority or because we’ve served long terms on Church Council or because we’ve worn holes in the same pews for fifty years. And they don’t come to us because of all the work we’ve done at church. They are free gifts that God is also willing to give to all who turn to Jesus Christ. Paul writes in the New Testament book of Ephesians, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” God doesn’t give grace based on what we do. God gives grace based on the fact that He is unfair: He loves everyone and wants all to turn to Him and live.

Here’s Truth #3: In God’s grace, all who believe in Him are given useful work as a way of honoring God. In Jesus’ parable, the landowner calls otherwise idle people to work in his vineyard. You know, God never meant for work to be seen as punishment. From the beginning, before the fall into sin, God gave Adam, the first man, work to do. It’s partly because of this that my heart aches for the people here in Hocking County and the people across our state and nation who are unemployed right now. We human beings were made to work, each of us using our talents not just to provide for our families, but to glorify the God Who gave us those talents.

For the Christian, whether in our daily work or in the mission of the Church, work is a calling from God, a way of expressing thanks to God for all His blessings. And, folks, within the Church, there is a lot of work to do, many ways for you and me to thank God for those blessings.

I learned this lesson well from a member of my former parish. Steve is the last guy in the world you’d expect to teach a children’s Sunday School class. His own kids are mostly raised and he spends his days doing highly technical work, developing new products for a company that produces thermostatic instruments. (I have no idea what that means.) For kicks, he coaches high school kids in rec league basketball and restores cars that have been totaled. He chaired our congregation’s building program a few years ago. He led the men’s Bible study. In other words, Steve lives with a full plate. But when we were having a hard time recruiting anyone to teach the third, fourth, and fifth graders on Sunday mornings, Steve stepped up. There’s no razzle-dazzle in Steve’s lesson plans. But he’s been at it for several years now and the kids love being in his class. God has given him useful work in the kingdom.

Just this past week, Ann and I met a man who is eighty. It somehow came out in our conversation that last Sunday, he worked in the church nursery. I learned that he has a three-announcement rule. If announcements asking for volunteers have been made three times at church and nobody else comes forward, he volunteers. “I like to read Bible stories to the kids,” he told us.

The examples of Steve and that man and so many other faithful workers in God’s vineyard confront me with a daily question, “What might I do today to tell God, ‘Thank You’ for Jesus Christ and His cross and the new life that’s mine as a gift of grace?”

I hope that whenever there’s an opportunity to serve or be part of a ministry, whether here at Saint Matthew or in your daily life, you’re asking yourself what you might do to honor and glorify God.

Don’t say...
I’m too old,
I’m too young,
I’m too inexperienced,
I’m lacking in talent,
I don’t have the time,
I don’t know enough about the Bible,
I haven’t been trained.
Just heed God’s call and God will give you not only useful work, but a way to do it.

One thing I tell myself is that if Jesus can make a meal for thousands from a few fish and scraps of bread, He’s surely able to make something good of my measly efforts. God can do things through you—can give you useful work—when you heed His call.

God isn’t fair. Thank God for that! Instead God is gracious.

• God extends grace to us, reaching out to us, happy whether we come to follow Him as children or as senior citizens.
• God doesn’t give grace based on what we do, instead loving us just as we are.
• And by God’s grace, all who follow Him are given work to do that uses our gifts, honors God, and extends Christ’s love to others.

This week and every week, hear God’s call to work in His vineyard and, working side by side with Christ and the Church, experience all that it means to be fully alive!

[A portion of the outline for this sermon was inspired by one from Michael Duduit, which appeared here.]