Mary Lincoln Gets a Do-Over, But We Don't

Or a retrial, at least of the mock variety.

As an amateur student of history, I've always been wary any time we impose contemporary moral standards on historical events, even though as a Christian I believe a baseline of moral standards from God has long existed in the Ten Commandments.

But, it seems that even by the standards of her time, Mary Lincoln was subjected to kangaroo justice in her insanity trial. At the behest of her son, Robert, Mary Lincoln was found insane and confined to an asylum for a time. She never forgave Robert.

Catherine Clinton, author of a book on Lincoln's trial, is quoted in the linked article: "Under the laws at the time, Mrs. Lincoln was denied counsel. There is not better illustration of railroading, as the phrase goes.”

News of this mock trial comes the day after I read the cover article in the October issue of Smithsonian magazine, an excerpt from Henry Wiencek's new book, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves. Wiencek is unsparing in his criticism of Jefferson's treatment of slaves and his careful avoidance of any connection with the emancipation movement, even though Jefferson proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that "all men [sic] are created equal."

In the early draft of that document, of course, Jefferson claimed that the "peculiar institution" of slavery was a barbaric invention of Great Britain imposed on in its North American colonies and held this to be one particular justification for breaking away from the mother country.

"So what?" you might say. "Didn't George Washington have slaves?"

Yes, he did. But, Wiencek joins several other authors who have pointed out in recent works that Washington wrestled with the morality of slavery. Jefferson never did.

Furthermore, Washington worked out a way to emancipate his slaves on his death. That was a far more difficult thing for Washington to pull off than it would have been for Jefferson. Wiencek points out that on his death, Tadeus Kosciusko, the Polish soldier who helped the thirteen colonies win their independence, left Jefferson a handsome sum of money to pay for the freedom of Jefferson's slaves (providing Jefferson with reimbursement for the loss of these "assets"), then providing funds for the freed slaves to establish new lives.

Jefferson had even drafted the Pole's will and was its executor. But, Jefferson refused to take the inheritance or free his slaves!

Besides that, according to Wiencek, in spite of attempts by generations of American historians to whitewash the truth, Jefferson was a particularly violent and cruel slaveholder.

Even by the standards of his time, if we accept Wiencek's reckoning, Jefferson, in the eighteen and early nineteenth centuries, was as guilty of injustice as the late-nineteenth century jury that found Mary Lincoln to be insane.

But this set me to thinking: What level of culpability do we who live in the twenty-first century bear at a time when there are more people bound in slavery, much of it involving the sex trafficking of young children, than any time in history?

The Lincoln jury and, before that, Thomas Jefferson were guilty of overt acts of cruel injustice toward largely defenseless persons. Theirs were the sins of commission, by the standards of any time. But what of our sins of omission, of looking the other way when hundreds of thousands are being violated so cruelly?

The Mary Lincoln "do-over" or retrial was presented for enjoyment and education. The same is true of Wiencek's work on Jefferson as a slaveholder. But there really are no do-overs in life. We can be forgiven. We can make restitution. But we can't relive this day. There are no Groundhog Days in real life. We will either stand for justice or stand in its way.

The prophet Micah, speaking on behalf of God in the eighth century BC, wrote:

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

Tonight, I'm asking for the forgiveness from God offered to us only through Jesus Christ for my sins, including the sins of injustice against my ignored neighbors around the globe.

And I pray that I will be quick to speak and act on behalf of the victims of injustice, whoever they may be.

UPDATE: See here.

One Woman's Solution to Modern Day Slavery

I've mentioned before that there are more slaves in our world today than at any time in history. Here, Holly Boardman talks about her exploration of this subject and one woman's remarkably simple and gratifying solution to this evil.

Human Trafficking Awareness Day, January 12

There are more people being bought and sold as slaves today than at any time in human history. Often, minors are the victims of sex trafficking. This event in Columbus, co-sponsored by the Salvation Army, is designed to help inform people about the depths of this problem and what action steps can be taken. Presumably, it will also give people a lot to pray about!

Human trafficking must be stopped!

[Click on image to enlarge.]

Why We Work (Christians and Work, Part 1)

[This message was shared with the people of Friendship Lutheran Church, Amelia, Ohio, during the Sunday morning worship celebration on August 5, 2007. If you live in or are visiting in the Cincinnati area in the near future, you're welcome to join us for worship.]

Genesis 2:4b-9, 15
Second Thessalonians 3:6-10

Our son Philip was nine years old when we attended my Dad’s retirement party some sixteen years ago. On the way home, he asked me, “Dad, why do we work?”

There are days when we probably all ask that question. I'm convinced that knowing the answer to it can make a difference in our lives.

Some of you have heard me tell the story of two men cutting stone in the middle of a busy city. A passerby asked one man, “What are you doing?” Disgustedly, the worker said, “Look for yourself; I’m cutting stone.” Well, the passerby could see that much! So, he approached the second worker and asked the same question: “What are you doing?” This worker got a gleam in his eye: “I’m helping to build a cathedral!”

The two men were doing the exact same work. But the first one saw it only as his job. Something to be done with. A task disconnected from the world or any life purpose.

To the second man, cutting stones was a thing of dignity and fulfillment. Part of a greater, common cause.

Polling data consistently indicates that when it comes to their jobs, most people feel more like the first worker than the second. Speaking personally, as a second-career pastor, I can say that I’ve had lots of jobs I didn’t much care for. Most of them made me feel like the first stonecutter. I couldn’t see the point. They were drudgery.

But I’ve also been blessed with other work in my life, mainly that of husband, father, pastor, and community volunteer. In each of these jobs, of course, there are mundane tasks to be done. (As someone once said, "The grass may be greener on the other side, but it still needs to be mowed.")

Yet in these jobs, I feel that God allows me to play my part in building something wonderful in those whose lives I touch.

Not everybody would derive the same kind of fulfillment from my work that I do. “How can you stand dealing with people’s hurts and hospitalizations?” people ask me. To them, the work of a pastor would be draining. For me, it’s energizing.

God has wired each of us differently. And, I’m convinced that one of the most important searches that you and I can undertake in our lives is finding the vocations that make us feel like the second stonecutter.

So, I’ve come to believe that one of the reasons why we work is that God planned things that way. God gives us work to do--as employees, family members, and citizens of our communities.

In our first lesson, part of the Bible’s second account of creation in the book of Genesis, we’re told that God created the first human being and then planted a lush green garden for the man to enjoy. The Bible tells us, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.”

God never meant for the man to sit around and watch the garden grow! God’s intention was always for him--and for all of us--to work. God wants us to all be part of something bigger. God gives each of us our own stones to cut so that we can care for, build, and renew the world He gives us.

This brings us to a second reason why we work. It's this: When we work, we most reflect the presence of the image of God within us. The Bible tells us that we human beings were created in the image of God. There are many implications to that statement, but one of them becomes clear when you scan the opening verses of the Bible as it talks about God. You’ll find phrases like, “God created...God separated...God named...God made.”

You see, God works. God creates. God builds.

And one look at the beautiful world in which you and I live demonstrates that God cuts no corners. There’s something intrinsic to being children of God that impels us to work.

This is something that a young artisan in Florence knew five centuries ago. One day, the Duke of Florence came upon this man and watched, as, with great care, he fit a box together. “What will the box be used for?” the duke asked. “Flowers will be put in it, sir” the artisan replied. “Then it will be filled with dirt. Why take such pains to make each joint and surface perfect?” The young man said simply, “I love perfect things!” The duke could hardly contain his contempt. “”It’s wasted effort,” he said. “No one will see its perfection.” Without a trace of arrogance, the young man said, “I will, sir. Do you think that when He was a carpenter in Nazareth that our Lord Jesus made anything less well than He could?” That duke thought that the young artisan was arrogant. But Michelangelo Buonarroti’s relentless commitment to do work worthy of the God Who made him and all of us is something we appreciate to this day!

So, we work because God has made us for it. And when we work, we reflect God’s image in us. But there’s a third reason that we work. Pastor Steve Goodier tells the true story of an elderly man considered by his townspeople to be both wise and thrifty. “When he died,” Goodier says, “everyone expected the authorities to find money stashed everywhere in his home. [But a]ll they found were a few gallon cans filled with coins. It turned out that he had used most of his money to help put needy young students through college. And the coins filled his pockets as he
walked down the streets of the business districts looking for parking meters that had expired. When he found one, he would drop in a coin. One of his neighbors commented, ‘That explains why he looked so happy and contented!’”

Here was a man who worked in his own special way even after he retired. He knew that another reason we work is to experience the joy that goes with serving others, that goes with being someone others can depend on.

The first-century preacher Paul know about this, too. In our second lesson, he chastises the members of the church in the Greek city of Thessalonica. He recalls that while he was with them, teaching them about Christ, he kept at his trade as a tentmaker. Paul felt that by working, he was keeping his end of the bargain as a member of the Christian community. In his work, he let others depend on him, just as each of us is called to do as part of our families, our communities, and our church. I like the homely way in which King Solomon reminds us of how each of us depends on one another in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes: “If a man is lazy, the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the house leaks.” We work because God has constructed the world in such a way that we all need each other to do our jobs well. Others are depending on us.

Now there’s a fourth reason for working which, I think, may only make sense to those who are followers of Christ.

In his fine book, Christians in the Marketplace, Pastor Bill Hybels tells the story of a young man his father hired to work in his wholesale produce business one summer. He was a student at West Point and rumor had it, a Christian. As Hybels tells it, many of his dad’s other employees were “rough...hard-drinking, hard-fighting, women-chasing men” who “relished the opportunity to make sport of a nice, clean-cut, all-American...” kid. They wanted to make this young man’s summer miserable.

But they didn’t. Instead, “David, the all-American boy, turned the company upside down.” On his very first day, he befriended some vagrants out behind the company warehouse. He gave them his lunch. Soon, he was doing Bible studies for them. Before the end of the summer, in his quiet, loving way, David had become a valued friend and counselor to some of the most hardened employees of the Hybels company.

I like what Hybels says after recounting this incident. “The shame of the marketplace is that so often it centers on nothing but business. There aren’t enough Davids in the workforce.”

Our daily work isn’t just about keeping the house clean, meeting deadlines, making money, or keeping the boss off our backs, although those can all be worthy goals. And no one should ever use their faith in Christ as an excuse for shirking their duties. (We all have known Christians at work about whom it could be said, "They're so heavenly-minded that they're no earthly good!")

But for the Christian, the key questions as we do our work boil down to a few:
Am I giving God glory?
Am I giving 100% every day?
Am I showing consideration--(another way of asking, Am I giving love) to my employer, my coworkers, my customers, or others I serve?

Many are the days when, I’m ashamed to say, I honestly have to say, “No” to questions like those...
“No, I haven’t been a good husband. I’ve been surly and selfish.”
“No, I haven’t been a good father. I’ve been impatient.”
“No, I haven’t been a good pastor. That sermon could have been much better.”
It’s then that I turn to God in repentance and ask for the power to recommit myself to giving Him all the glory in all that I do.

Why do we work?

• Because God wants us to work; it’s part of being human.
• Because when we work, the presence of God’s image in us is visible.
• Because when we work, we experience the joy of serving others.
• And because when we work, we glorify God.
  

In another one of his New Testament letters, the apostle Paul encouraged a group of first-century slaves who were Christians to work for others with all their hearts, “as though you were working for the Lord and not for others...For Christ is the real Master you serve.”*

We Christians work because when all is said and done, we really work for the One Who loves and works for us every moment of every day.

We work because Jesus Christ, the One Who went to the cross and rose from the tomb for us, loves us and nothing is so important to the Christian than to give back to the God Who gives us everything.

UNNECESSARY, BUT OH SO INTERESTING FOOTNOTE...

[*In his intriguing book, The Victory of Reason, which shows how the Christian tradition in the West fostered the development of rationality, science, and commerce, Baylor University professor Rodney Stark speaks of how central Christianity was to the virtual eradication of slavery in the tenth century. It played a similar role when slavery reappeared in Britain and the United States.

It did so even though slavery existed in Biblical times and was referred to in the Bible, Stark says, because only Christianity, among the world religions, insists on an almighty personal God with a future orientation.

Theology in the Christian tradition became not a matter of interpreting static laws, but of understanding a supremely loving Deity Who has a personality. Conjecture regarding varying pathways is possible in Christian theology in ways it isn't in various religious systems.

With its focus on the future, Christianity allows for a future that can change, that's neither a mere recitation of ancient cycles or a grim march toward inevitable deterioration.

Christians therefore believe that there are new truths to be discovered in God's Word which, because it's inspired by God, its original authors may not even have considered. In the same way that husbands and wives learn new things about one another as their relationships progress, Christ's Bride, the Church, may come to new understandings of God as the Spirit reveals more about God's Word. This is exactly what happened when the Church came to see that the institution of slavery, which the first Christians took for granted, must be abolished.

So, when Paul writes to slaves about their conduct with their masters, he isn't, as some claim, justifying slavery. He's giving instructions for faithful and shrewd living. Paul may not have been enlivened to all the implications of the Gospel which he rightly described as true freedom.

Who knows what new truths about Himself and His Word God may show to His Church in the future?]

See 'Amazing Grace'!

My wife and I joined with some friends on Sunday afternoon to see Amazing Grace, the big-screen treatment of the life and work of William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was the British politician whose forty-plus-year commitment to bringing an end to slavery and the "reform of manners" in his country resulted in the abolition of the slave trade. It all stemmed from Wilberforce's faith in Christ and his relationship with John Newton, the one-time slave ship captain who, repentant for his participation in slavery, became a Christian and a pastor and a composer, most notably of the hymn, Amazing Grace.

This film isn't heavy-handed in its portrayal of Wilberforce and his faith. No matter where you are spiritually, you'll enjoy this movie. Nor does Amazing Grace overlook Wilberforce's faults, such as his battle with addiction to opium or his initial tentativeness to fight for what he believed was right in the political realm.

This is nothing less than a triumph of a movie, full of interesting, inspiring people and story that will stir you and make you feel good! Go see Amazing Grace.

Some past posting about or inspired by William Wilberforce is linked here.

Go to page 9 of the latest issue of The Asbury College Ambassador here to find an interesting article about Wilberforce.

This Looks Like a Great Movie!

Amazing Grace is a big-time motion picture that tells the story of William Wilberforce, the British pol whose faith in Christ led him to combat slavery in his country.

Thirty years before America's bloody Civil War, triggered by those who violently sought to dissolve the United States rather than accept the end of slavery, the sale of human beings was ended peacefully in the British Empire. Wilberforce was the main human instrument of that event.

His efforts were endorsed by a one-time slave ship captain-turned-preacher named John Newton. Newton was the composer of the most well-known hymn in the English language, Amazing Grace. The song literally expresses amazement at the grace of God, extended to humanity through Jesus Christ. Through that grace, those once blind to both sin and God's goodness see their need of forgiveness and God's willingness to grant it to us. God's grace belongs to those who turn from sin and entrust their lives to Christ. They're made right with God through Jesus' cross and they're guaranteed life forever with God because in His resurrection, Jesus destroys death and grants life to all who follow Him.

The story of William Wilberforce demonstrates how Jesus Christ empowers believers certain of eternity to stand up to the demons of this world and extend God's blessings to others. Christianity is more than an otherworldly religion. It's a vital relationship with a living God Who gives us the power to love God and love neighbor in the most practical of ways!

The movie about Wilberforce (and Newton) features an all-star cast. I'm looking forward to seeing it!

Here are study guides for the film.
Here is Wikipedia's profile of Wilberforce.
Here is Wikipedia's profile of John Newton.
Here is information on slavery as it exists in the world today and on what you and I can do about it.

So-Called Christian School Teaches That US Slavery was 'Benign'

A school in North Carolina which calls itself Christian, is teaching very un-Christian things to its students. Mark Sides has posted the details, based on a story from Crosswalk, on his blog.

The school is teaching that the institution of slavery in the United States was not a systematic evil, but a benign institution. Many "Christians" who have advanced this notion through the years, as Mark Sides points out, have done so because of what Biblical scholars call the "household codes" in the writings of Peter and Paul, found in the New Testament. There, both of the apostles give advice on how people can conduct themselves in Christian ways within a variety of social relationships. Included are the relationships among masters and slaves, wives and husbands, parents and children, and governments and citizens, for example. The purpose of these codes was never to defend the institution of slavery as it existed in the first century, but to help Christians, whatever their circumstances, to present a positive understanding of what it means to follow Jesus Christ.

Several points need to be made here:

(1) Slavery, even in the period of the Roman Empire when Peter and Paul wrote, was never a benign institution. It was always evil. But slavery as practiced in the United States and Great Britain through the nineteenth century, was probably even more evil than that.

Often, in Roman times, slaves were able to buy their way out of servitude or others could do it for them. (This was known as redemption, a term that the early Christians borrowed to describe the manner in which Jesus gave His life on a cross, using Himself as the payment necessary to win our freedom from sin, death, and separation from God.) In later America and Britain, people were forcibly stolen from Africa and they and their descendants were consigned to life-long servitude.

(2) No matter how benignly slavemasters in this country may have treated their slaves, those slaves were still regarded as property, akin to cattle and hogs, by their masters.

In his new biography of George Washington, historian Joseph Ellis, recounts that Washington was probably a benign slaveholder, anxious to keep slave families together. The father of our country regarded slavery as an unambiguously immoral institution. (In that sense, Washington was light years ahead of his fellow Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, who notably held in the Declaration of Independence that all human beings are endowed by God with "certain inalienable rights...[such as] life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.")

But even Washington allowed economic considerations to trump moral ones when it came to slavery. He only freed his slaves after his death, and primarily did so, Ellis suggests on good evidence, because in the changing national economy, Washington feared that slaveholding would be too great a financial burden for his wife and other heirs.

Washington was deeply perplexed when slaves who had been with him for some time, escaped while he served as President in the northern cities of New York and Philadelphia. He had at least one slave forcibly returned during this period and at least one other successfully escaped, refusing Washington's enticements to come back to Mount Vernon. These were slaves who, by the standards of the time, were treated well. Yet, they longed for their freedom and their supposedly "benign" master was loathe to grant it to them. There was nothing benign about American slavery.

(3) While some "Christians" attempted to justify American slavery before its forcible demise during the Civil War, Christians were also in the forefront of attempts to abolish the evil institution.

The Beecher family, for example, dedicated Presbyterians, fought to end slavery in the US. The entire abolitionist and Underground Railroad movements were rooted in Christian beliefs. Perhaps America's most visionary and persuasive abolitionist was William Lloyd Garrison, who operated out of a Christian worldview.

In Great Britain, the dedicated Christian layperson, William Wilberforce, was slavery's greatest and most effective foe. Another forceful spokesperson for the abolitionist cause there was the former slave ship captain turned pastor, John Newton. (It was Newton who composed, Amazing Grace, among other great songs.)

Clearly, these Christians who had seen slavery "up close and personal" did not regard it as a benign institution, but as a violation of God's will for human beings.

(4) Lastly, just exactly what is so wrong about slavery from a Christian perspective? I would say that there are any number of problems with it, but I'll boil it down to a few.

First, it's a violation of God's first commandment, "You shall have no other gods before Me." Whenever one human being forcibly and without provocation, imposes himself on another person, denying that second person the capacity to function as human beings are meant to function and enforces that imposition with violence or the threat of violence, the first person is taking the place of God in the enslaved person's life. Or at least is doing so, in the mind of the slaveholder. American slaveholders worshiped at the altars of self.

Of course, there are legitimate coercive institutions in any society, institutions to which we all submit for the common good. But slavery was never for the common good.

Second, it's a violation of what we Lutherans reckon as the fifth commandment, "You shall not kill." In The Small Catechism, Martin Luther shows that this is more than just a commandment telling us to avoid murdering other people. As he explains it, it also means that, "We are to fear and love God so that we do not hurt our neighbor in any way, but help him in all his physical needs."

In so interpreting this commandment, Luther is echoing Jesus' explanation of it in Matthew's Gospel, "You have it heard that it was said to those in ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire..." (Matthew 5:21-23)

Slavery was an inherently, coercively violent institution that denigrated all held in its shackles, treating them like fools who were less than human.

What Jesus is saying is that anytime we dehumanize or objectivize others, we are guilty of murder. American slavery did that systematically.

Third, slavery is a violation of Jesus' 'Great Commandment,' that we not only love God with every fiber of our beings, but also love our neighbor as ourselves. No loving person would ever desire to enslave or imprison a neighbor unless that neighbor were guilty of some crime and represented a threat. There is a four-letter word then, that can describe slavery: hate.

It was a great good when slavery came to an end. Sadly, we still live with its after-effects, like tremors following an earthquake and no amount of irresponsible talk about its being "benign" can alter the fact that slavery was an unholy evil. No Christian can possibly believe otherwise.

The Strange Peace of Christ

John 20:19-23
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, April 18, 2004)

Some of you have heard me speak before of William Wilberforce. He is one of the great heroes of History. Wilberforce spent his life pursuing two great goals: abolishing slavery in his country of Great Britain and reforming the nation’s manners, making the country gentler and kinder. He approached these goals with utter tenacity, in spite of setbacks and difficulties. On his death bed, Wilberforce learned that slavery had been abolished throughout the British Empire. (This came some twenty years after a battle he'd led the previous two decades to bring an end to the slave trade within Britain itself.)

Wilberforce's years of fighting for right paid off just as he breathed his last. The source of Wilberforce’s fierce, tough tenacity was Jesus Christ. Wilberforce was an ardent, passionate follower of Jesus. Once, a smug young believer, evidently thinking that there was something missing in Wilberforce’s faith asked him, “Have you found peace?” Wilberforce replied, “No, I have found war.”

Anybody who has ever let Jesus Christ take control of their lives knows exactly what Wilberforce meant. When we accept the fact that we are sinners who live under penalty of death and that only Jesus Christ can set us free to be God’s people for all eternity, we do have peace. We have peace with God. [Romans 5:1] But it’s a strange peace. We see this in today’s Bible lesson.

Set the scene. It’s evening of the very first Easter. Jesus’ first followers are quaking in fear behind locked doors. Now that the Passover has passed, they wonder whether the Roman and Jewish authorities will come after them the way they went after Jesus. Mary Magdalene has come to them with the unbelievable report that Jesus has risen from the dead. Suddenly, Jesus appears among them. His words are interesting. Twice, our translation quotes Jesus as saying, “Peace be with you.” But that isn’t completely accurate. You see in the original Greek in which it’s written, there is no verb in Jesus’ greeting. When that happens, the Greek language usually is making a declarative statement. Jesus would be declaring a fact: You have peace or Peace is yours.

The disciples might have wondered whether Jesus’ recent experiences with death and resurrection had caused Him to take leave of His senses. There was a reason that they were behind closed doors, after all. The Romans and Jewish leaders had executed Jesus and weren’t likely to take too kindly to them either. They were learning what Wilberforce learned nineteen centuries later—and what you and I can sometimes learn: dare to follow Jesus Christ and it just might put you at war with the world!

Jesus Himself had warned those who follow Him that this would happen. He said that He had come with a sword, one that would tear families apart between those who loyally followed Him and those who went their own ways apart from God. Just the night before His own execution, He told the disciples, “In this world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world.” [John 16:33]

The moment you and I try to follow Jesus in our every day lives, some sort of war will be round the corner. A manager in a large corporation once told me, “Mark, if I try to enact my faith at work, I won’t be able to provide for my family. Every single day, I’m ordered to do things that I know are unethical. I’m not even talking about sharing my faith in Christ. I can’t even live it.”

A political office-holder confided to me, “Every politician gives lip service to God and loving our neighbor as God teaches. But if you don’t look out for yourself, you’ll get destroyed.”

More than one teenager has told me, “If you don’t act hard, everybody will dump on you.”

None of that may seem very peaceful to us. And yet, Jesus’ words are right there in our Bibles. He says to all who follow Him: Peace is yours, You have peace. What do we make of that?

First of all, I think we need to redefine peace. We tend to see peace as a trouble-free existence. No problems. No strife. No traffic jams. No unpleasant disagreements. We should know better.

Scientific experiments often create perfect, stress-free environments for lab animals and you know what the result is. Without some external challenge to lift them outside of themselves, they start picking fights with each other. This is true for we human beings, too. One of the books I’ve been reading lately is the second volume of Winston Churchill’s History of the English Speaking People. I was interested in reading about an era of British history I really didn’t know about: the reign of Charles I back in the 1600s. When Charles came to the throne, people were questioning the need for a king and how the people themselves might have a say in national decisions. Charles decided that this would be a good time to lay low, to virtually do away with taxes and disband the Army. Charles thought that if he placed no demands on the people, he could win them over. But it backfired on him. A civil war happened and in the end, Charles was beheaded. Churchill, considering how Charles never challenged his people and tried to create this low-stress, no-hassle environment writes very insightfully:

"In later years..., all England looked back to these placid [times] as an age of ease and tranquility. But man has never sought tranquility alone. His nature drives him forward to fortunes which, for better or for worse, are different from those which it is in his power to pause and enjoy."

In fact, trouble is underrated as a force for good. We need a certain amount of trouble in our lives. Pastor Gerald Mann tells of presiding at the wedding ceremony of a young woman from a wealthy family. On the night of the rehearsal, the dad asked if Mann would like to go to the local airport with him. The enormous wedding cake was arriving from a distant city via private jet. So, Mann tagged along for the ride and watched as this cake was carefully taken from the jet and placed in a waiting car.

Piling out of the jet and supervising the operation was a slight woman who obviously knew exactly what she was doing. Mann later asked her how she got into this business. She said that as a young wife and mom of three girls, in her early thirties, her husband died. She didn’t have an advanced education and had no idea what she would do. In the midst of thrashing and praying about this, she was invited to a wedding reception. She probably hadn’t wanted to go, but did. The cake was beautiful to look at, but tasted awful. She knew that she couldn’t do much. But she could make beautiful cakes that tasted good.

That was the beginning of a business she enjoyed and that provided for her family. Her success began in a time of trouble that set her to praying. She learned the truth of what Saint Paul writes in the Bible, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” You see, when we’re weak we go to God for strength, insight, wisdom, forgiveness, and the power to go on. That’s why the woman with the successful wedding cake business told Gerald Mann something we should all remember: Trouble is a trigger.

I think that woman was right! Trouble can set you to doing things you never realized that you could do. I believe that even in heaven, God will give us perplexing assignments that will cause us to grow. It’s possible to have trouble and still be at peace!

Peace is not the absence of trouble. Peace is having Jesus at the center of your life, fortifying you to face life’s troubles and to share Jesus’ love with others even in the midst of trouble. One of the songs we sang earlier, It is Well, was inspired by the experience of a Christian missionary in Africa. He and his family had worked for many years to serve the people there and to share Jesus’ love with them in whatever way they could. But there was an uprising and he and his family were threatened. He made arrangements to send his wife and children back to their native country while he remained behind, continuing to serve folks and share Jesus. As his family boarded the ship, someone asked if he might not reconsider and go back home as well. “No,” he said, “it is well with my soul.” That man had peace. He was in the center of God’s will for his life. He was showing Jesus to others and no matter what happened, he had peace.

I don’t understand The Lord of the Rings very well. I do know that J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote the books on which the movies are based, described them as “Catholic,” conveying central truths of Christian faith. This was powerfully portrayed for me in one scene from The Two Towers. Gandulf, a sort of priestly wizard, comes face to face with a king Theoden, who has come under a sort of demonic spell. Gandulf, who has already come through what seems like hell and back, wants to free Theoden. Theoden resists at first and you can see Gandulf’s pain in this contest. But ultimately, Theoden is set free and he becomes once more, the man he was made to be. My son Philip tells me that in the book, Gandulf simply takes Theoden into the sunlight and that revives him.

When we cast the light of Jesus into people’s lives, some will reject Jesus and us. But others will soak it up. A few years ago, some of you will remember, I sat with a Muslim acquaintance at a funeral home. His brother-in-law died and he asked me what I believed happened to people when they die. I did the only thing I know how to do: I told him about Jesus. I said that Jesus died and rose, that He gives new lives and peace with God to everyone who follow Him, and on our deaths, waits to usher us into God’s presence forever. As I left, my acquaintance shook my hand and said, “Thanks, Mark. I don’t know what it was, but when you were talking earlier, it made me feel better.”

The Gospel of John particularly emphasizes that our mission as followers of Jesus is to simply bring people into the presence of Jesus—whether in our words, or deeds, or living. Exposed to the light of Jesus’ love and goodness, they’ll cast one of two judgments on themselves.

They may run from letting God, the world, or themselves see that they’re faulty human beings in need of a Savior and so condemn themselves to life without God.

Or, they’ll run to Jesus and let Him lighten their ways through life all the way to eternity. Our call is simply to be faithful to Christ, irrespective of others’ reactions. [See John 3:16-18 for more on this.]

Peace is not the absence of trouble. Peace is having Jesus at the center of your life, fortifying you to face life’s troubles and to share Jesus’ love with others even in the midst of trouble. Maybe that’s why, just after telling His disciples, Peace is yours, Jesus breathes on them and tells them:

“Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

This past week, you know, my wife flew to Florida to visit our daughter. The flight down and even the landing were a bit turbulent. But she and our friend Pat arrived and had a good visit. Our rides through life may get bumpy. But even then, we have peace. Even then, we can share the peace of Christ with others as we live for Christ, serve in Christ’s Name, and invite others to know Christ too. Today, ask Christ to fill you with His peace and then, filled with His Spirit, invite a spiritually-disconnected person to know Jesus. They may say no...but like you, they just might also say Yes! And whatever they say, Jesus says, “Peace is yours! You have peace!”