Friday, April 18, 2003
TGIF: Thank God, it's Friday. On Good Friday, God opened up the possibility for all to receive the free gift of eternal life! What an awesome thing God's love for all people is! "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," the book of Romans says. The greatest act of love the world has ever seen was done for you and me. If that doesn't make this a good Friday, I don't know what does.
Sunday, April 13, 2003
Knowing Who You Are
Palm Sunday, April 13, 2003
[Message shared with the people of Friendship Church]
Some of you have heard me tell the story before of a colleague’s memory from his teen age years. Several different times, when this guy had hot dates, he needed to get the car keys from his dad. Each time, as his dad flung the keys across the room to him, he told his boy, “Never forget who you are, son.”
That was my colleague’s dad’s gentle way of reminding his boy that, even if he didn’t think so, his life had significance. He was a child of God whose actions and words mattered, for good and bad. If he would always remember who he was and what his values were, this dad was saying, he wouldn’t go wrong.
Each of us wants our lives to have significance. But each of us must decide what that means. Each of us must decide what the true measure of a good life is. Is it possessions, power, influence, sexual conquest? Or is it faithfulness to God’s call of love of God and love of neighbor over the long and sometimes rocky haul of life?
As we meet Jesus in our Bible lesson for this morning, it’s clear what Jesus regarded as the true measure of a life. For months, in the face of opposition and death threats, Jesus had pursued His mission of bringing God’s kingdom to all people. Jesus was more than just a human being, of course. Jesus was also God—all-powerful, all-knowing. He knew full well how dangerous it was for Him to pursue His mission. He also knew what fate awaited Him in Jerusalem. He knew that He would be betrayed or abandoned by His closest followers, that He would be arrested, that He would be whipped and beaten brutally, that He would die a horrible death on a cross.
But Jesus also knew Who He was: the Suffering Servant Who had come to take our rightful punishment for sin. And He knew what He valued. He valued obedience to the will of God the Father. He valued our lives. So, He kept on being true to His mission. And He went to Jerusalem, the place where His values and His mission came face to face with a world bent on rejecting Him and killing Him.
This past Friday night, our exchange student Sarah, was telling me about the elaborate schemes for cheating on tests she’s seen from her classmates back in Germany. Girls who usually wear pants to school will wear skirts on days of major tests, writing information on the insides of their hems and flipping them over to find answers. Leather pencil bags are popular; students have found that they can use erasable pens to jot down answers that can only be seen when held under the light just right. The green desks in their class rooms make it easy for students to conceal crib notes they’ve put on them in pencil. Some kids conceal answers in emptied Chap-Stick containers. As I listened to all of this, I couldn’t help but thinking, “During all the time it takes for these kids to cheat—the seeming easy way, they could have actually learned the material, the way they think is too difficult.” When our measure of what makes our lives successful or happy or fulfilling are wrong, we always look for the easy way. Not so with Jesus.
Back at the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, you may remember, He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. The devil told Jesus repeatedly, “Look, I can do whatever I want on planet earth right now. If you’ll just follow me, you won’t have to go to a cross. You won’t have to die. You won’t have to suffer. You won’t have to take the difficult path. You can take the easy one.” After Jesus refused the devil every time, the New Testament book of Luke tells us that the devil left Jesus, waiting for a more opportune time to lure Jesus away from the difficult path—the right path—toward the easy path, the wrong one. The events of Palm Sunday brought six days of intense temptation to Jesus. Everywhere He turned, He was tempted to take the easy path, to avoid the cross, to forego suffering in our place. But Jesus always remembered Who He was and what He was about.
Jesus entered Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday so that He could enter the lives of those who will welcome Him. And over the centuries, those who, like the first Palm Sunday crowd, welcome Jesus into their lives have found that Jesus takes the difficult path of loving us and sticking by us in order to change our lives for the better forever. If we will choose the difficult path of following Jesus, He will bring blessings to us here and give us eternity with God!
Writer Vicki Schad tells about a conversation she had with a friend whom she had known for more than ten years. The conversation though, amazed Vicki:
As they were talking, their chat turned to family histories. Vicki listened as her friend told her--for the first time--the horrifying story of child abuse, suicide, and alcoholism in her family. As [Vicki] listened, she couldn't help but compare her friend's family history with her life as Vicki knew it [now]...[She thought of] her friend's strong love for her husband, the solid home environment they had provided for their children, and the faith she had in God. Vicki remembers her growing amazement at the contrast between the dreadful background into which her friend had been born and the reality of her present life. When her friend had finished, and after a moment of silent reflection, Vicki asked, "What has made the difference? How were you able to move away from that background?" Her friend set down her coffee cup and smiled. "It sounds almost too simple, but when Jesus entered my life He broke the pattern."
It isn’t easy to break old patterns of thinking and living. This morning though, I want to tell you that If we will let Jesus in, He can break those old patterns. He can help us to fulfill our life’s promise.
But don’t misunderstand. Welcoming Jesus into our lives won’t set us down an easy path. Becoming the people God made us to be is a difficult journey that will only be finally completed after Jesus has welcomed us into heaven. Often, welcoming Jesus into our lives now will only make our lives more difficult. But whenever we dare to invite Jesus in, good things happen.
This time of year always makes me think of a man that Ann and I met when I was on our seminary internship. His name was Dan [not his real name] and he was a member of the Michigan congregation where I interned. Back in those days, I was in the habit of reading the whole story of Jesus’ death on the cross—what we call the Passion of Jesus—on Palm Sunday morning. On Palm Sunday, 1983, I read the passion story and Dan sat in the front row. When I came to the part of the story where Jesus was being whipped by Roman soldiers, I caught a glimpse of Dan. Tears were filling his eyes. When I described the pounding of nails into Jesus’ flesh, I saw Dan again; tears were streaming down his face. And when I read of Jesus’ last breath, of His surrender to death, Dan had no choice but to wipe away the tears and bury his head in his hands. But I knew that Dan was crying tears of joy, not sadness.
In many ways, Dan had a tough life. After service in World War Two, Dan came home, fell in love, got married, started a family, and established himself in a career in law enforcement and private investigation. He had a series of health problems which, ultimately required surgery. After the operation, he became addicted to pain medicine. When doctors no longer prescribed that, Dan began to drink. He drank a lot. For years he drank. Although his wife and kids loved him, Dan's drinking—which originally only happened when he sat alone at night and never while he worked—gradually took over his life and was poisoning his every relationship, preventing him from making a living. His wife prayed for guidance. She went to her pastor, who prayed for guidance. Ultimately, they formed an intervention team that confronted Dan. “Dan,” they told him, “you need help. You need to admit you have a problem. You need to dry out. You need to learn to depend on God to help you get free of your addiction.” At first, he was resistant. It’s hard to break old patterns. But Dan came to realize that unless he took the difficult path his family and pastor wanted him to take, he might keep existing, but he would never live. It was Dan’s turn to pray. He surrendered his alcoholism to Jesus Christ and entered an alcohol treatment program. Dan wept on Palm Sunday because he knew that Jesus, Who had called him to walk the difficult path, had saved his life. Dan only lived a few more years after that. His body had been too damaged by years of alcoholism. I’m sure he’s in heaven today because he trusted Jesus with his life. If you talk with his widow, she will tell you that though they had been difficulty, his last years were the best years of Dan’s life and the best years of their marriage.
What is the measure of your life’s significance? It doesn’t reside in grabbing what you can to make this life easy. It’s in taking the difficult path of following Jesus and letting God lead us toward becoming our true selves! That’s the path Jesus took on Palm Sunday. It’s the path He invites us to take today and every day.
[The theme of significance for today's message was suggested by a great sermon given Pastor Michael Foss. In that sermon, he recounted the story of Vicki Schad and her friend; it was taken from Daily Guideposts, 1989, pp.167-168. It is a true story. So are the stories of my colleague's father (which my colleague shared with me) and of Dan, a man I really knew. The elaborate test-cheating schemes from Germany are also true.]
Palm Sunday, April 13, 2003
[Message shared with the people of Friendship Church]
Some of you have heard me tell the story before of a colleague’s memory from his teen age years. Several different times, when this guy had hot dates, he needed to get the car keys from his dad. Each time, as his dad flung the keys across the room to him, he told his boy, “Never forget who you are, son.”
That was my colleague’s dad’s gentle way of reminding his boy that, even if he didn’t think so, his life had significance. He was a child of God whose actions and words mattered, for good and bad. If he would always remember who he was and what his values were, this dad was saying, he wouldn’t go wrong.
Each of us wants our lives to have significance. But each of us must decide what that means. Each of us must decide what the true measure of a good life is. Is it possessions, power, influence, sexual conquest? Or is it faithfulness to God’s call of love of God and love of neighbor over the long and sometimes rocky haul of life?
As we meet Jesus in our Bible lesson for this morning, it’s clear what Jesus regarded as the true measure of a life. For months, in the face of opposition and death threats, Jesus had pursued His mission of bringing God’s kingdom to all people. Jesus was more than just a human being, of course. Jesus was also God—all-powerful, all-knowing. He knew full well how dangerous it was for Him to pursue His mission. He also knew what fate awaited Him in Jerusalem. He knew that He would be betrayed or abandoned by His closest followers, that He would be arrested, that He would be whipped and beaten brutally, that He would die a horrible death on a cross.
But Jesus also knew Who He was: the Suffering Servant Who had come to take our rightful punishment for sin. And He knew what He valued. He valued obedience to the will of God the Father. He valued our lives. So, He kept on being true to His mission. And He went to Jerusalem, the place where His values and His mission came face to face with a world bent on rejecting Him and killing Him.
This past Friday night, our exchange student Sarah, was telling me about the elaborate schemes for cheating on tests she’s seen from her classmates back in Germany. Girls who usually wear pants to school will wear skirts on days of major tests, writing information on the insides of their hems and flipping them over to find answers. Leather pencil bags are popular; students have found that they can use erasable pens to jot down answers that can only be seen when held under the light just right. The green desks in their class rooms make it easy for students to conceal crib notes they’ve put on them in pencil. Some kids conceal answers in emptied Chap-Stick containers. As I listened to all of this, I couldn’t help but thinking, “During all the time it takes for these kids to cheat—the seeming easy way, they could have actually learned the material, the way they think is too difficult.” When our measure of what makes our lives successful or happy or fulfilling are wrong, we always look for the easy way. Not so with Jesus.
Back at the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, you may remember, He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness. The devil told Jesus repeatedly, “Look, I can do whatever I want on planet earth right now. If you’ll just follow me, you won’t have to go to a cross. You won’t have to die. You won’t have to suffer. You won’t have to take the difficult path. You can take the easy one.” After Jesus refused the devil every time, the New Testament book of Luke tells us that the devil left Jesus, waiting for a more opportune time to lure Jesus away from the difficult path—the right path—toward the easy path, the wrong one. The events of Palm Sunday brought six days of intense temptation to Jesus. Everywhere He turned, He was tempted to take the easy path, to avoid the cross, to forego suffering in our place. But Jesus always remembered Who He was and what He was about.
Jesus entered Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday so that He could enter the lives of those who will welcome Him. And over the centuries, those who, like the first Palm Sunday crowd, welcome Jesus into their lives have found that Jesus takes the difficult path of loving us and sticking by us in order to change our lives for the better forever. If we will choose the difficult path of following Jesus, He will bring blessings to us here and give us eternity with God!
Writer Vicki Schad tells about a conversation she had with a friend whom she had known for more than ten years. The conversation though, amazed Vicki:
As they were talking, their chat turned to family histories. Vicki listened as her friend told her--for the first time--the horrifying story of child abuse, suicide, and alcoholism in her family. As [Vicki] listened, she couldn't help but compare her friend's family history with her life as Vicki knew it [now]...[She thought of] her friend's strong love for her husband, the solid home environment they had provided for their children, and the faith she had in God. Vicki remembers her growing amazement at the contrast between the dreadful background into which her friend had been born and the reality of her present life. When her friend had finished, and after a moment of silent reflection, Vicki asked, "What has made the difference? How were you able to move away from that background?" Her friend set down her coffee cup and smiled. "It sounds almost too simple, but when Jesus entered my life He broke the pattern."
It isn’t easy to break old patterns of thinking and living. This morning though, I want to tell you that If we will let Jesus in, He can break those old patterns. He can help us to fulfill our life’s promise.
But don’t misunderstand. Welcoming Jesus into our lives won’t set us down an easy path. Becoming the people God made us to be is a difficult journey that will only be finally completed after Jesus has welcomed us into heaven. Often, welcoming Jesus into our lives now will only make our lives more difficult. But whenever we dare to invite Jesus in, good things happen.
This time of year always makes me think of a man that Ann and I met when I was on our seminary internship. His name was Dan [not his real name] and he was a member of the Michigan congregation where I interned. Back in those days, I was in the habit of reading the whole story of Jesus’ death on the cross—what we call the Passion of Jesus—on Palm Sunday morning. On Palm Sunday, 1983, I read the passion story and Dan sat in the front row. When I came to the part of the story where Jesus was being whipped by Roman soldiers, I caught a glimpse of Dan. Tears were filling his eyes. When I described the pounding of nails into Jesus’ flesh, I saw Dan again; tears were streaming down his face. And when I read of Jesus’ last breath, of His surrender to death, Dan had no choice but to wipe away the tears and bury his head in his hands. But I knew that Dan was crying tears of joy, not sadness.
In many ways, Dan had a tough life. After service in World War Two, Dan came home, fell in love, got married, started a family, and established himself in a career in law enforcement and private investigation. He had a series of health problems which, ultimately required surgery. After the operation, he became addicted to pain medicine. When doctors no longer prescribed that, Dan began to drink. He drank a lot. For years he drank. Although his wife and kids loved him, Dan's drinking—which originally only happened when he sat alone at night and never while he worked—gradually took over his life and was poisoning his every relationship, preventing him from making a living. His wife prayed for guidance. She went to her pastor, who prayed for guidance. Ultimately, they formed an intervention team that confronted Dan. “Dan,” they told him, “you need help. You need to admit you have a problem. You need to dry out. You need to learn to depend on God to help you get free of your addiction.” At first, he was resistant. It’s hard to break old patterns. But Dan came to realize that unless he took the difficult path his family and pastor wanted him to take, he might keep existing, but he would never live. It was Dan’s turn to pray. He surrendered his alcoholism to Jesus Christ and entered an alcohol treatment program. Dan wept on Palm Sunday because he knew that Jesus, Who had called him to walk the difficult path, had saved his life. Dan only lived a few more years after that. His body had been too damaged by years of alcoholism. I’m sure he’s in heaven today because he trusted Jesus with his life. If you talk with his widow, she will tell you that though they had been difficulty, his last years were the best years of Dan’s life and the best years of their marriage.
What is the measure of your life’s significance? It doesn’t reside in grabbing what you can to make this life easy. It’s in taking the difficult path of following Jesus and letting God lead us toward becoming our true selves! That’s the path Jesus took on Palm Sunday. It’s the path He invites us to take today and every day.
[The theme of significance for today's message was suggested by a great sermon given Pastor Michael Foss. In that sermon, he recounted the story of Vicki Schad and her friend; it was taken from Daily Guideposts, 1989, pp.167-168. It is a true story. So are the stories of my colleague's father (which my colleague shared with me) and of Dan, a man I really knew. The elaborate test-cheating schemes from Germany are also true.]
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Can We Talk...About a Taboo Subject?
[Better Living column for Community Press newspapers]
My brother is a stand-up comic named Marty Daniels. Recently, the owner of a comedy club booked Marty for an evening performance.
"I see from your web site that you're a Christian," the owner commented when she and Marty met.
"Yeah, I am," he confirmed.
"I'm not into it myself," she told him, "and don’t ever mention it to me."
"You mean like you just mentioned it to me?" Marty asked.
Why is it that people are free to talk with others about any subject under the sun--from lyposuction to hemorrhoids, from sex to breast implants--but can't broach the subject of faith in Jesus Christ?
One reason for it is obvious: Some so-called Christians beat others over the head with their beliefs about Jesus.
I used to be an atheist in part because every time I turned around, I met "Christians" who seemed more interested in proving they were right and I was wrong than in sharing Christ's love. Or, they cared less about me as a person than they did about me as a trophy. (I could picture them at the next meeting of their "Christian hunting club," bragging, "Yep, I bagged me another one of them atheists yesterday!") Christians often make any genuine discussion about Jesus Christ both insufferable and impossible.
But I also fail to see why those who are motivated by love for God and others shouldn't be allowed to share Christ with others. Followers of Jesus know all about their human imperfections. But they revel in the love of a God Who accepts them in spite of their imperfections and is committed to helping them become all that God made them to be. We're excited about how Jesus has changed our lives and about how, if people let Him, Jesus can change every human life for the better.
In fact, it's the mission of every follower of Jesus to share the better living He offers to everyone. Before the risen Jesus went to heaven, He told us to, "Go and make disciples [that means, followers or students of Jesus]" in the whole world. (Matthew 28:16-20) My personal mission statement says, "Using the communication gifts God has given to me, my mission is to personally inspire and lead people to follow and live for Jesus Christ." With a few slight revisions, that probably is the mission statement of every follower of Jesus. "Using my gifts as an auto mechanic," someone might say. Or, "Using my gifts as a lawyer, as a philosopher, as a homemaker, a computer programmer, a teacher..." or as a whatever, "I want to share Christ with others."
The New Testament book of First Peter encourages followers of Christ to always be ready to share the reason they have hope for this life and the next. Jesus, Who died as the perfect sacrifice for our sin and has opened eternity up to all who follow Him, is the reason for our hope. Peter says that as we share the hope of Jesus we’re to be, "...agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble." He also says that when we share the hope Jesus gives to us, we're to do it "with the utmost courtesy." (First Peter 2:8-16)
I personally think that we're also to share Christ with humor. A man named Paul was brought in chains before a king named Agrippa. Paul explained what it means to have a relationship with Christ. Agrippa asked Paul if that in a short amount of time Paul thought he could make Agrippa a follower of Christ too. Paul said, "Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you but also all who are listening to me today might become such as I am--except for these chains." (Acts 26:29)
I'll bet that King Agrippa had to stifle a belly laugh at that. How could you help but love a prisoner who could make jokes about his chains? I'll bet too, that if followers of Jesus displayed Paul's kind of courtesy, love, and good humor, even people like the comedy club owner who wasn't into Jesus and didn't want to hear His Name mentioned would want to find out more about what it means to have Jesus for one's God and best friend!
[Better Living column for Community Press newspapers]
My brother is a stand-up comic named Marty Daniels. Recently, the owner of a comedy club booked Marty for an evening performance.
"I see from your web site that you're a Christian," the owner commented when she and Marty met.
"Yeah, I am," he confirmed.
"I'm not into it myself," she told him, "and don’t ever mention it to me."
"You mean like you just mentioned it to me?" Marty asked.
Why is it that people are free to talk with others about any subject under the sun--from lyposuction to hemorrhoids, from sex to breast implants--but can't broach the subject of faith in Jesus Christ?
One reason for it is obvious: Some so-called Christians beat others over the head with their beliefs about Jesus.
I used to be an atheist in part because every time I turned around, I met "Christians" who seemed more interested in proving they were right and I was wrong than in sharing Christ's love. Or, they cared less about me as a person than they did about me as a trophy. (I could picture them at the next meeting of their "Christian hunting club," bragging, "Yep, I bagged me another one of them atheists yesterday!") Christians often make any genuine discussion about Jesus Christ both insufferable and impossible.
But I also fail to see why those who are motivated by love for God and others shouldn't be allowed to share Christ with others. Followers of Jesus know all about their human imperfections. But they revel in the love of a God Who accepts them in spite of their imperfections and is committed to helping them become all that God made them to be. We're excited about how Jesus has changed our lives and about how, if people let Him, Jesus can change every human life for the better.
In fact, it's the mission of every follower of Jesus to share the better living He offers to everyone. Before the risen Jesus went to heaven, He told us to, "Go and make disciples [that means, followers or students of Jesus]" in the whole world. (Matthew 28:16-20) My personal mission statement says, "Using the communication gifts God has given to me, my mission is to personally inspire and lead people to follow and live for Jesus Christ." With a few slight revisions, that probably is the mission statement of every follower of Jesus. "Using my gifts as an auto mechanic," someone might say. Or, "Using my gifts as a lawyer, as a philosopher, as a homemaker, a computer programmer, a teacher..." or as a whatever, "I want to share Christ with others."
The New Testament book of First Peter encourages followers of Christ to always be ready to share the reason they have hope for this life and the next. Jesus, Who died as the perfect sacrifice for our sin and has opened eternity up to all who follow Him, is the reason for our hope. Peter says that as we share the hope of Jesus we’re to be, "...agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble." He also says that when we share the hope Jesus gives to us, we're to do it "with the utmost courtesy." (First Peter 2:8-16)
I personally think that we're also to share Christ with humor. A man named Paul was brought in chains before a king named Agrippa. Paul explained what it means to have a relationship with Christ. Agrippa asked Paul if that in a short amount of time Paul thought he could make Agrippa a follower of Christ too. Paul said, "Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you but also all who are listening to me today might become such as I am--except for these chains." (Acts 26:29)
I'll bet that King Agrippa had to stifle a belly laugh at that. How could you help but love a prisoner who could make jokes about his chains? I'll bet too, that if followers of Jesus displayed Paul's kind of courtesy, love, and good humor, even people like the comedy club owner who wasn't into Jesus and didn't want to hear His Name mentioned would want to find out more about what it means to have Jesus for one's God and best friend!
Why Do the Innocent Suffer?
[Better Living column for Community Press newspapers]
Why do bad things happen to innocent people?
Like almost everyone, I guess, I have seen really good people, believing people, and children subjected to crushing difficulties, afflicted by illness, or taken far too early by death. Maybe you’re one of those good or believing people or children who have been hit by undeserved suffering or grief. You may be inclined to wonder, “Where is God now? Why am I left to fend for myself in the face of this overwhelming pain?”
I’m not sure that I have any answers. But I do have a few responses.
My first response is that you’re not alone.
When God came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, He underwent suffering. The New Testament book of Hebrews describes Jesus as humanity’s “high priest,” the bridge between God and us. Through Jesus, we have access to God’s help, even in tough times. Hebrews assures us that in Jesus, “we don’t have a high priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
When we’re knocked down by suffering, the God we meet in Jesus Christ “gets it.” God understands our pain. And He promises to be with those who see Him as their Lord “to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
The second thing I want to tell you is to ignore those who try to say that every bad thing that happens to you is your fault. It isn’t!
There are times when bad things do happen to us as the result of our bad decisions. There are times when God, as a loving Father, disciplines us. But don’t let anyone tell you that the loving God of the universe is waiting to wallop you with a cosmic sledge hammer for every mistake you make. God is no monster!
Jesus’ followers—disciples—once pointed a blind man out to Jesus and asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus said neither the guy’s parents or he were guilty of a sin that caused his blindness. Instead, Jesus said that God allowed the man to be blind so that God’s glory could be seen in the man. Jesus proceeded to give the man sight. (John 9)
Sometimes, God allows us to keep suffering even after we’ve prayed. But God’s motive is the same as Jesus’ motive for healing the blind man: to let us see Him at work in our lives. One of Jesus’ followers in Bible times was a man named Paul. We don’t know exactly what it was, but Paul suffered from what he called a “thorn in the flesh.” In the New Testament, he says that he asked God to remove it three times. God refused. As Paul explains it, “...[God] told me, ‘My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’” (Second Corinthians 12:1-10)
God makes our suffering count for something when we go through it with Jesus Christ: He teaches how we can rely on Him and He shows His goodness and power to others through us. On this latter point, it’s been my observation that it’s in those who suffer with Jesus that we most clearly see the presence and power of God.
Only heaven can be described as “paradise” (Luke 23:43). That’s the ultimate destination of all who follow Jesus Christ. This temporary home we call earth and the life we live here will never be totally free of suffering. But it is a place where we can know God intimately, experience fulfillment, love and encourage each other, and go through every high and low with God beside us. Suffering may never make sense. But God’s love is always there.
[Better Living column for Community Press newspapers]
Why do bad things happen to innocent people?
Like almost everyone, I guess, I have seen really good people, believing people, and children subjected to crushing difficulties, afflicted by illness, or taken far too early by death. Maybe you’re one of those good or believing people or children who have been hit by undeserved suffering or grief. You may be inclined to wonder, “Where is God now? Why am I left to fend for myself in the face of this overwhelming pain?”
I’m not sure that I have any answers. But I do have a few responses.
My first response is that you’re not alone.
When God came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, He underwent suffering. The New Testament book of Hebrews describes Jesus as humanity’s “high priest,” the bridge between God and us. Through Jesus, we have access to God’s help, even in tough times. Hebrews assures us that in Jesus, “we don’t have a high priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
When we’re knocked down by suffering, the God we meet in Jesus Christ “gets it.” God understands our pain. And He promises to be with those who see Him as their Lord “to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
The second thing I want to tell you is to ignore those who try to say that every bad thing that happens to you is your fault. It isn’t!
There are times when bad things do happen to us as the result of our bad decisions. There are times when God, as a loving Father, disciplines us. But don’t let anyone tell you that the loving God of the universe is waiting to wallop you with a cosmic sledge hammer for every mistake you make. God is no monster!
Jesus’ followers—disciples—once pointed a blind man out to Jesus and asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus said neither the guy’s parents or he were guilty of a sin that caused his blindness. Instead, Jesus said that God allowed the man to be blind so that God’s glory could be seen in the man. Jesus proceeded to give the man sight. (John 9)
Sometimes, God allows us to keep suffering even after we’ve prayed. But God’s motive is the same as Jesus’ motive for healing the blind man: to let us see Him at work in our lives. One of Jesus’ followers in Bible times was a man named Paul. We don’t know exactly what it was, but Paul suffered from what he called a “thorn in the flesh.” In the New Testament, he says that he asked God to remove it three times. God refused. As Paul explains it, “...[God] told me, ‘My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’” (Second Corinthians 12:1-10)
God makes our suffering count for something when we go through it with Jesus Christ: He teaches how we can rely on Him and He shows His goodness and power to others through us. On this latter point, it’s been my observation that it’s in those who suffer with Jesus that we most clearly see the presence and power of God.
Only heaven can be described as “paradise” (Luke 23:43). That’s the ultimate destination of all who follow Jesus Christ. This temporary home we call earth and the life we live here will never be totally free of suffering. But it is a place where we can know God intimately, experience fulfillment, love and encourage each other, and go through every high and low with God beside us. Suffering may never make sense. But God’s love is always there.
Learning About Washington Through Hamilton
Last night, I finished reading Richard Brookhiser's Alexander Hamilton, American. It's not so much a biography as it is a biographical essay about America's first Secretary of the Treasury and the primary author of The Federalist Papers, the series of essays that appeared in American newspapers in the late 1780s to argue that the Constitution should be adopted. Brookhiser has given a good account of Hamilton's life and I highly recommend it.
Interestingly, one of the most affecting passages in the book comes not in discussing Hamilton, but Hamilton's mentor, George Washington. Brookhiser quotes a letter by Congressman Fisher Ames regarding Washington's demeanor as the first president delivered his first Inaugural Address:
"...his aspect grave, almost to sadness; his modesty, actually shaking; his voice deep, a little tremulous, and so low as to call for close attention."
Like all good leaders--and I agree with historian Garry Wills' assessment that Washington was the greatest political leader in human history--Washington was a good actor. But I don't believe that the performance that Ames described was an act. Washington had tasted enough of applause to know how meaningless it ultimately is and how in the end, we are called to do our best no matter what the crowds may think of us. Washington was genuinely humbled by the unprecedented task he was taking on, the presidency of a republic that, if he did his job right and built a strong foundation for the American future, would require him to voluntarily give up absolute political power for the second time in his life.
It isn't easy to walk away from being in control! The despot Saddam Hussein ultimately had power wrested from him. Now, like Washington before them, American leaders must demonstrate that they can walk away from power as our national government prepares to turn Iraq over to a duly-constituted Iraqi government. Negotiating the landmines of foolish self-will and deep resentments of America that exist in the Middle East and throughout the world will require great wisdom (not to mention great selflessness) on the part of American leadership.
Fortunately, there is a place where our leaders--and all of us--can go for wisdom and anything else we may need to do and be our best. "If you don't know what you're doing," the New Testament book of James says, "pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get His help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought." (James 1, as translated in The Message by Eugene Peterson.)
Interestingly, one of the most affecting passages in the book comes not in discussing Hamilton, but Hamilton's mentor, George Washington. Brookhiser quotes a letter by Congressman Fisher Ames regarding Washington's demeanor as the first president delivered his first Inaugural Address:
"...his aspect grave, almost to sadness; his modesty, actually shaking; his voice deep, a little tremulous, and so low as to call for close attention."
Like all good leaders--and I agree with historian Garry Wills' assessment that Washington was the greatest political leader in human history--Washington was a good actor. But I don't believe that the performance that Ames described was an act. Washington had tasted enough of applause to know how meaningless it ultimately is and how in the end, we are called to do our best no matter what the crowds may think of us. Washington was genuinely humbled by the unprecedented task he was taking on, the presidency of a republic that, if he did his job right and built a strong foundation for the American future, would require him to voluntarily give up absolute political power for the second time in his life.
It isn't easy to walk away from being in control! The despot Saddam Hussein ultimately had power wrested from him. Now, like Washington before them, American leaders must demonstrate that they can walk away from power as our national government prepares to turn Iraq over to a duly-constituted Iraqi government. Negotiating the landmines of foolish self-will and deep resentments of America that exist in the Middle East and throughout the world will require great wisdom (not to mention great selflessness) on the part of American leadership.
Fortunately, there is a place where our leaders--and all of us--can go for wisdom and anything else we may need to do and be our best. "If you don't know what you're doing," the New Testament book of James says, "pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get His help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought." (James 1, as translated in The Message by Eugene Peterson.)
Pray without ceasing. That's what the Bible tells us to do. With world events where they are right now, this seems like a particularly good time to follow that directive. Here's some of what I'm praying about these days...
...that the war in Iraq will soon come to a complete end and that the people of that country will quickly have a government that cares about its people.
...that soon there will be a just peace in the Middle East, just for all people there.
...that God will comfort the families of those who have recently succumbed to SARS.
...that God will help medical personnel find a cure for SARS.
...that God will give wisdom to President Bush and to all world leaders and that all of them will be open to God's wisdom.
Jesus says that He came into the world to give life "and...abundantly" (John 10:10). I don't believe that Jesus means that when we follow Him, we're all going to become rich. An abundant life is one that's crackling with the power of God that comes to us through Jesus. For God's power to crackle within us requires us to be in constant contact with Jesus, the life-giver. "I am the vine and you are the branches," Jesus says. It would be downright suicidal for a branch to say to the vine, "I think I'll go it alone." Yet that's what we do when we fail to pray. (I know because I have failed to pray more than I care to remember!)
I'm not a really smart guy. But here are a few things I do know for sure:
First: Jesus says that without Him we can do nothing. I believe Him. Trying to "crackle with life" on our own is like trying to drive cross country without filling up. You can't take much of a trip that way!
Second: Paul says in the New Testament that with Jesus we can do all things. I have learned this truth repeatedly in my life. When I try to accomplish good things on my own steam, I always come up short. But when I "go with God," following Jesus, God takes my mediocre talents and makes something more of my efforts than they inherently merit. (I have also learned that this applies to every aspect of my life, by the way.)
Better living in this life and the next begins when we respond to God's outstretched hand and we connect with God. That connection happens through prayer in Jesus' Name.
Ephesians 6:18 says:"...prayer is essential...Pray hard and long." (The Message translation) Now more than ever, I believe that's true.
...that the war in Iraq will soon come to a complete end and that the people of that country will quickly have a government that cares about its people.
...that soon there will be a just peace in the Middle East, just for all people there.
...that God will comfort the families of those who have recently succumbed to SARS.
...that God will help medical personnel find a cure for SARS.
...that God will give wisdom to President Bush and to all world leaders and that all of them will be open to God's wisdom.
Jesus says that He came into the world to give life "and...abundantly" (John 10:10). I don't believe that Jesus means that when we follow Him, we're all going to become rich. An abundant life is one that's crackling with the power of God that comes to us through Jesus. For God's power to crackle within us requires us to be in constant contact with Jesus, the life-giver. "I am the vine and you are the branches," Jesus says. It would be downright suicidal for a branch to say to the vine, "I think I'll go it alone." Yet that's what we do when we fail to pray. (I know because I have failed to pray more than I care to remember!)
I'm not a really smart guy. But here are a few things I do know for sure:
First: Jesus says that without Him we can do nothing. I believe Him. Trying to "crackle with life" on our own is like trying to drive cross country without filling up. You can't take much of a trip that way!
Second: Paul says in the New Testament that with Jesus we can do all things. I have learned this truth repeatedly in my life. When I try to accomplish good things on my own steam, I always come up short. But when I "go with God," following Jesus, God takes my mediocre talents and makes something more of my efforts than they inherently merit. (I have also learned that this applies to every aspect of my life, by the way.)
Better living in this life and the next begins when we respond to God's outstretched hand and we connect with God. That connection happens through prayer in Jesus' Name.
Ephesians 6:18 says:"...prayer is essential...Pray hard and long." (The Message translation) Now more than ever, I believe that's true.
Sunday, April 06, 2003
The death of NBC reporter David Bloom came as a sad shock today. Bloom's enthusiasm for his craft and his love of people came through in all of his work. For my family and me, fans of NBC News, Bloom was like a fixture in our home, a familiar face and a sane voice in the maelstrom of world events. His reports from Iraq during the war have been especially outstanding.
His sudden death from an embolism is a cautionary note for us all. Life on this planet is fleeting. It's a brief, but important prelude to eternity. That's one reason why it's so important to have our relationship with God squared away. Eternity lasts a lot longer than life does here and eternity with God is not automatic.
The Bible's most well-known passage is John 3:16. There, Jesus tells a man named Nicodemus: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." God wants to spend eternity with us. But He doesn't force that upon us. When we choose to follow Jesus Christ, we choose to travel through this life and the next one with God.
My prayers are with David Bloom's wife and three girls at this terrible time. I'm thankful for the great work he did as a reporter. His tragic death makes me more committed to sharing the Good News of God's love offered to all people through Jesus Christ. All people who face the uncertainties of this fragile existence--and that's every one of us--need Jesus Christ!
His sudden death from an embolism is a cautionary note for us all. Life on this planet is fleeting. It's a brief, but important prelude to eternity. That's one reason why it's so important to have our relationship with God squared away. Eternity lasts a lot longer than life does here and eternity with God is not automatic.
The Bible's most well-known passage is John 3:16. There, Jesus tells a man named Nicodemus: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." God wants to spend eternity with us. But He doesn't force that upon us. When we choose to follow Jesus Christ, we choose to travel through this life and the next one with God.
My prayers are with David Bloom's wife and three girls at this terrible time. I'm thankful for the great work he did as a reporter. His tragic death makes me more committed to sharing the Good News of God's love offered to all people through Jesus Christ. All people who face the uncertainties of this fragile existence--and that's every one of us--need Jesus Christ!
Disciplines That Free: Dying to Live
John 12:20-33
[Shared with the people of Friendship Church, April 6, 2003]
When I was growing up, the school day ended at 3:30. It took about a half-hour for me to walk home and dinner usually happened at our house at about 5:00. My parents had a rule: No after-school snacking. They had a simple reason for this edict. “It’ll spoil your dinner,” they told me. Whether this was true or not, it seems that both my body and mind have bought into the idea. To this day, I crack my wife and kids up because, even though my mom and dad aren’t around to tell me “No,” I try to avoid any snacking before we sit down for dinner. But you know what? This little bit of self-denial seems to work for me. Even though I have a little bit of a spare tire around my middle, I think I’d be a lot bigger and a lot less healthy if I snacked before dinner time.
It’s true that there are times when we may have to give up short-term pleasure in order to realize long-term gains. The student who puts in an extra half-hour to make certain that he understands the geometry law is likely to do well on the test. The athlete who runs another mile or spends a little more time in the weight room will perform better on the field, the court, or the track. The person of faith who takes a few more minutes each day to read the Scripture or pray gains greater peace, more guidance from God, and is sure to bring God’s power to bear on more concerns they pray about.
Self discipline of any kind is rare because it’s so hard and it’s so hard because we’re confused about the meaning of freedom. Ask the average person what freedom is and they’ll tell you something like, “Freedom is being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want.” But let’s think about that for a moment. Let’s imagine a teenage boy whose hormones are popping. He might think that freedom consists of being able to have sex with any girl he wants, any time he wants. But if he exercises that kind of “freedom,” it won’t be long before he becomes a kind of monster, a sexist creep who thinks that members of the opposite sex exist only for his own pleasure. Should he cause a young woman to become pregnant, he’s unlikely to want to take any responsibility for it; after all, he may reason, he was just having fun. Then, of course, there’s the danger he poses to himself. There are the obvious things like STDs (sexually transmitted diseases): AIDS, venereal disease, and so on. There are even psychological dangers that result from two people who treat an intimate sharing of self, which is what God intends for sex to be, as if it were just a momentary joyride; broken hearts often result. Freedom isn’t being able to do what one wants any time one wants to do it.
Real freedom resides in being so free of the shallow values of this dying world that we’re able to reach toward our God-given potential as human beings! Real freedom allows us to live as God designed us to live and to choose that freedom each day. Real freedom means understanding that life in this world is a fleeting thing that can be taken from us without a moment’s notice. Freedom belongs to those who understand that this life is a short prelude to the life for which we were really designed, eternal life. And each of us is presented with a choice. We can live as though this life is all there is, grabbing for every reward this dying planet can offer. Or, we can choose to use this life to prepare for eternity with the God we know through Jesus Christ. The Bible says some interesting things about this choice:
[In Joshua, we find:] choose this day whom you will serve, whether the [false] gods [of] your ancestors...but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. [Joshua 24:15]
[In the New Testament book of First Corinthians, we’re reminded] If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.[First Corinthians 15:19]
[And speaking of the many times he suffered—from stoning to shipwreck, from beatings to imprisonments—that he had endured because of his faith in Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul, who would give his life for Christ, writes in the New Testament book of Romans] I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. [Romans 8:18]
Living with the God we know through Jesus, gaining the freedom to be the people God created us to be, is such an incredible and undeserved blessing that God calls us to be absolutely willing to turn away from this world’s dead-end ways in order to hold onto the life that Jesus offers to us. Jesus knew all about this. On the night before His death on a cross, He prayed in a place called the garden of Gethsemane and He told God the Father:
Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me [in other words, if You will it, make My suffering, cross, and death go away]; [and then Jesus said] yet not My will but Yours be done! [Luke 22:42]
Jesus was willing to die to Himself in order to fulfill His purpose in life: dying for our sins on the cross. Dying to self is what Jesus is talking about in our Bible lesson this morning. You heard and read two other translations of this passage already. Let me read to you the translation of it found in The Message by Eugene Peterson:
[Jesus says] “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds onto life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal...”
Jesus, the Savior Who left behind the perfect pleasures of paradise in order to be the perfect sacrifice for our sin on the cross, is calling us to die to selfishness and self-will so that we can take the offer of free, full, and everlasting life that He gives to all with faith in Him! As one preacher, Michael Foss says, "Living right means dying right." We need to be willing to give up the world’s ideas of success in order to become successes on God’s terms.
From the time I was a little boy until my middle twenties, I ate, slept, drank, thought, and dreamed about politics. The first book I remember reading was about the Presidents. The first trading cards I owned came from the back of a Post Toasties box; they were pictures of the Presidents, every one of them through Dwight Eisenhower. My grandfather used to take me to meet local politicos like the Mayor of Columbus, who lived just down the street from us. In high school, I edited the school newspaper’s editorial page. In college, I was involved with campaigns. My first real job was managing a congressional campaign. In my mid-twenties, I was working for the Ohio House of Representatives in Columbus when something unexpected happened to me: in response to His love, I gave my life to Jesus Christ. I thought that with God in my corner, my political aspirations would now know no limits. But then I sensed God calling me to become a pastor. Let me tell you something: I resisted that notion big time! But the more I resisted, the more convinced I became that I had to let my self-directed life die and take God up on the life that He had designed for me. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not perfect. But anyone who knows me, I think also knows that God made me to be a preacher. This is the life God designed for me!
God has a design for every life. It’s never too early and it’s never too late in life to let the old self die so that we can be all that God made us to be. We need to divest ourselves of self-driven lives, embracing God's purpose and God's design. That’s what Jesus means in our Bible lesson for this morning when He says:
Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
People who live with God in the lead get a lot more of everlasting significance accomplished than even the most driven, self-made billionaire.
Now, if the discipline of dying to ourselves and letting God call the shots in our lives seems grim and uninviting, consider some information that comes from a think tank called the Alban Institute:
"Weekly church attendance is associated with a reduction in the incidence of hypertension, increased longevity (on the average up to three years longer) and increased...resistance to infection. [In one study] a consistent pattern of lower systolic and diastolic blood pressures was identified among frequent church-attenders, independent of effects of age, obesity, smoking or social class...The National Institutes of Health have now developed five protective factors against coronary artery disease, the leading one being weekly church attendance...A Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Survey of the Values of the American People in the 1980s reflected that the single most important variable in health-promoting life-styles was religious affiliation."
When we die to ourselves, we live better here and we live forever with God!
A young man approached a friend of his who had been telling him all about Jesus Christ. “If I follow Jesus,” he wondered, “will I have to give up the things I love?” “No,” the friend replied, “but if you follow Jesus Christ, God will change the things you love.”
The writer and friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis once said, “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God ‘Thy will be done’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right then, have it your way.’”
You and I have been given an awesome freedom by God. We can live for ourselves in this moment and die forever. Or we can die to this world’s claims on us, live for Jesus Christ alone, and so, live with God forever. You know the choice that God wants us to make. I hope and pray it’s the choice we always make!
[The C.S. Lewis quote is cited in chapter 4 of Rick Warren's book, The Purpose-Driven Life. The story of the young man in the last paragraph comes from material provided by The Changing Church forum. The material from the Alban Institute comes from a sermon by Pastor Michael Foss.]
John 12:20-33
[Shared with the people of Friendship Church, April 6, 2003]
When I was growing up, the school day ended at 3:30. It took about a half-hour for me to walk home and dinner usually happened at our house at about 5:00. My parents had a rule: No after-school snacking. They had a simple reason for this edict. “It’ll spoil your dinner,” they told me. Whether this was true or not, it seems that both my body and mind have bought into the idea. To this day, I crack my wife and kids up because, even though my mom and dad aren’t around to tell me “No,” I try to avoid any snacking before we sit down for dinner. But you know what? This little bit of self-denial seems to work for me. Even though I have a little bit of a spare tire around my middle, I think I’d be a lot bigger and a lot less healthy if I snacked before dinner time.
It’s true that there are times when we may have to give up short-term pleasure in order to realize long-term gains. The student who puts in an extra half-hour to make certain that he understands the geometry law is likely to do well on the test. The athlete who runs another mile or spends a little more time in the weight room will perform better on the field, the court, or the track. The person of faith who takes a few more minutes each day to read the Scripture or pray gains greater peace, more guidance from God, and is sure to bring God’s power to bear on more concerns they pray about.
Self discipline of any kind is rare because it’s so hard and it’s so hard because we’re confused about the meaning of freedom. Ask the average person what freedom is and they’ll tell you something like, “Freedom is being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want.” But let’s think about that for a moment. Let’s imagine a teenage boy whose hormones are popping. He might think that freedom consists of being able to have sex with any girl he wants, any time he wants. But if he exercises that kind of “freedom,” it won’t be long before he becomes a kind of monster, a sexist creep who thinks that members of the opposite sex exist only for his own pleasure. Should he cause a young woman to become pregnant, he’s unlikely to want to take any responsibility for it; after all, he may reason, he was just having fun. Then, of course, there’s the danger he poses to himself. There are the obvious things like STDs (sexually transmitted diseases): AIDS, venereal disease, and so on. There are even psychological dangers that result from two people who treat an intimate sharing of self, which is what God intends for sex to be, as if it were just a momentary joyride; broken hearts often result. Freedom isn’t being able to do what one wants any time one wants to do it.
Real freedom resides in being so free of the shallow values of this dying world that we’re able to reach toward our God-given potential as human beings! Real freedom allows us to live as God designed us to live and to choose that freedom each day. Real freedom means understanding that life in this world is a fleeting thing that can be taken from us without a moment’s notice. Freedom belongs to those who understand that this life is a short prelude to the life for which we were really designed, eternal life. And each of us is presented with a choice. We can live as though this life is all there is, grabbing for every reward this dying planet can offer. Or, we can choose to use this life to prepare for eternity with the God we know through Jesus Christ. The Bible says some interesting things about this choice:
[In Joshua, we find:] choose this day whom you will serve, whether the [false] gods [of] your ancestors...but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. [Joshua 24:15]
[In the New Testament book of First Corinthians, we’re reminded] If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.[First Corinthians 15:19]
[And speaking of the many times he suffered—from stoning to shipwreck, from beatings to imprisonments—that he had endured because of his faith in Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul, who would give his life for Christ, writes in the New Testament book of Romans] I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. [Romans 8:18]
Living with the God we know through Jesus, gaining the freedom to be the people God created us to be, is such an incredible and undeserved blessing that God calls us to be absolutely willing to turn away from this world’s dead-end ways in order to hold onto the life that Jesus offers to us. Jesus knew all about this. On the night before His death on a cross, He prayed in a place called the garden of Gethsemane and He told God the Father:
Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me [in other words, if You will it, make My suffering, cross, and death go away]; [and then Jesus said] yet not My will but Yours be done! [Luke 22:42]
Jesus was willing to die to Himself in order to fulfill His purpose in life: dying for our sins on the cross. Dying to self is what Jesus is talking about in our Bible lesson this morning. You heard and read two other translations of this passage already. Let me read to you the translation of it found in The Message by Eugene Peterson:
[Jesus says] “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds onto life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal...”
Jesus, the Savior Who left behind the perfect pleasures of paradise in order to be the perfect sacrifice for our sin on the cross, is calling us to die to selfishness and self-will so that we can take the offer of free, full, and everlasting life that He gives to all with faith in Him! As one preacher, Michael Foss says, "Living right means dying right." We need to be willing to give up the world’s ideas of success in order to become successes on God’s terms.
From the time I was a little boy until my middle twenties, I ate, slept, drank, thought, and dreamed about politics. The first book I remember reading was about the Presidents. The first trading cards I owned came from the back of a Post Toasties box; they were pictures of the Presidents, every one of them through Dwight Eisenhower. My grandfather used to take me to meet local politicos like the Mayor of Columbus, who lived just down the street from us. In high school, I edited the school newspaper’s editorial page. In college, I was involved with campaigns. My first real job was managing a congressional campaign. In my mid-twenties, I was working for the Ohio House of Representatives in Columbus when something unexpected happened to me: in response to His love, I gave my life to Jesus Christ. I thought that with God in my corner, my political aspirations would now know no limits. But then I sensed God calling me to become a pastor. Let me tell you something: I resisted that notion big time! But the more I resisted, the more convinced I became that I had to let my self-directed life die and take God up on the life that He had designed for me. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not perfect. But anyone who knows me, I think also knows that God made me to be a preacher. This is the life God designed for me!
God has a design for every life. It’s never too early and it’s never too late in life to let the old self die so that we can be all that God made us to be. We need to divest ourselves of self-driven lives, embracing God's purpose and God's design. That’s what Jesus means in our Bible lesson for this morning when He says:
Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
People who live with God in the lead get a lot more of everlasting significance accomplished than even the most driven, self-made billionaire.
Now, if the discipline of dying to ourselves and letting God call the shots in our lives seems grim and uninviting, consider some information that comes from a think tank called the Alban Institute:
"Weekly church attendance is associated with a reduction in the incidence of hypertension, increased longevity (on the average up to three years longer) and increased...resistance to infection. [In one study] a consistent pattern of lower systolic and diastolic blood pressures was identified among frequent church-attenders, independent of effects of age, obesity, smoking or social class...The National Institutes of Health have now developed five protective factors against coronary artery disease, the leading one being weekly church attendance...A Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Survey of the Values of the American People in the 1980s reflected that the single most important variable in health-promoting life-styles was religious affiliation."
When we die to ourselves, we live better here and we live forever with God!
A young man approached a friend of his who had been telling him all about Jesus Christ. “If I follow Jesus,” he wondered, “will I have to give up the things I love?” “No,” the friend replied, “but if you follow Jesus Christ, God will change the things you love.”
The writer and friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis once said, “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God ‘Thy will be done’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right then, have it your way.’”
You and I have been given an awesome freedom by God. We can live for ourselves in this moment and die forever. Or we can die to this world’s claims on us, live for Jesus Christ alone, and so, live with God forever. You know the choice that God wants us to make. I hope and pray it’s the choice we always make!
[The C.S. Lewis quote is cited in chapter 4 of Rick Warren's book, The Purpose-Driven Life. The story of the young man in the last paragraph comes from material provided by The Changing Church forum. The material from the Alban Institute comes from a sermon by Pastor Michael Foss.]
Saturday, April 05, 2003
Yesterday, our son, a college junior, forwarded a copy of a paper he'd written for a History class. His topic was, "Germany as a Pawn in the Cold War." It was a good paper, if I can be parental.
One thing that especially moved me was his description of the Church's role in the collapse of Soviet tyranny in Germany. He'd interviewed a German emigre to this country who had described some of the long-standing weekly prayer gatherings that took place in East Germany during the repressive post-World War Two era. Those prayer gatherings gave hope to people, connecting them to God and acting as conduits by which God's forgiveness, healing, and hope came to a nation which in preceding decades had been the epicenter of so much evil.
My son said that as he contemplated these silent prayer gatherings and the ensuing events--the disappearance of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, the joyful end of Soviet-led communism--he thought of Joseph in the Old Testament. Joseph's brothers had caused him untold pain. Joseph, sold into slavery, later endured imprisonment for a crime he never committed before miraculously, being elevated to the position of prime minister in Egypt. There was a family reunion and Joseph treated his father, brothers, and family with acceptance and love. But after Jacob, the father of Joseph and his brothers, died, the brothers became concerned that the moment had come when Joseph would feel free to exact vengeance on them. They seem to have concocted a story about how their old man had told them that if he died before Joseph, they should let Joseph know it was his will that he not be vengeful toward them. When Joseph heard his brothers, he wept and told them, in the Daniels paraphrase of this passage, "Don't you guys get it, what you meant as an evil, God has turned into a good thing. Through my work in Egypt, I've been able to save all sorts of lives, including the lives of the family God has designated to be the breeding ground for the Savior of the world. You tried to do something rotten. But God turned rottenness into blessings. I'm not God. So, relax. I love you. All is forgiven and all is forgotten."
God wasn't interested in exacting vengeance on Germany, my son concluded. And a small band of praying people unleashed blessings on Germany and the entire former "Eastern bloc."
Prayer in Jesus' Name is a powerful thing! For more on the role of prayer in the break-up of the former Soviet Union, you might want to check out the following web sites: http://www3.sympatico.ca/ian.ritchie/Berlin.Wall.htm or http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/letters/callisong_0209.htm.
I'll share a more personal experience in this regard in a later post.
One thing that especially moved me was his description of the Church's role in the collapse of Soviet tyranny in Germany. He'd interviewed a German emigre to this country who had described some of the long-standing weekly prayer gatherings that took place in East Germany during the repressive post-World War Two era. Those prayer gatherings gave hope to people, connecting them to God and acting as conduits by which God's forgiveness, healing, and hope came to a nation which in preceding decades had been the epicenter of so much evil.
My son said that as he contemplated these silent prayer gatherings and the ensuing events--the disappearance of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, the joyful end of Soviet-led communism--he thought of Joseph in the Old Testament. Joseph's brothers had caused him untold pain. Joseph, sold into slavery, later endured imprisonment for a crime he never committed before miraculously, being elevated to the position of prime minister in Egypt. There was a family reunion and Joseph treated his father, brothers, and family with acceptance and love. But after Jacob, the father of Joseph and his brothers, died, the brothers became concerned that the moment had come when Joseph would feel free to exact vengeance on them. They seem to have concocted a story about how their old man had told them that if he died before Joseph, they should let Joseph know it was his will that he not be vengeful toward them. When Joseph heard his brothers, he wept and told them, in the Daniels paraphrase of this passage, "Don't you guys get it, what you meant as an evil, God has turned into a good thing. Through my work in Egypt, I've been able to save all sorts of lives, including the lives of the family God has designated to be the breeding ground for the Savior of the world. You tried to do something rotten. But God turned rottenness into blessings. I'm not God. So, relax. I love you. All is forgiven and all is forgotten."
God wasn't interested in exacting vengeance on Germany, my son concluded. And a small band of praying people unleashed blessings on Germany and the entire former "Eastern bloc."
Prayer in Jesus' Name is a powerful thing! For more on the role of prayer in the break-up of the former Soviet Union, you might want to check out the following web sites: http://www3.sympatico.ca/ian.ritchie/Berlin.Wall.htm or http://www.pcusa.org/missionconnections/letters/callisong_0209.htm.
I'll share a more personal experience in this regard in a later post.
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
Pastor Heather and I have exchanged additional e-mailed thoughts on my column of March 25, Preachers Aren't Politicians, which was posted here along with our earlier e-mailed dialog.
Heather:
This is the first opportunity I've had to respond to your last e-mail.
The Martin Niemoller quote is one of my favorites. I have cited it myself when dealing with issues of injustice and prejudice. I deem it entirely irrelevant to discussions about the war, though.
Buy the argument or not, the Bush Administration says that its reasons for pressing the war are twofold: (1) To rid Iraq of the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein committed to destroying at the end of the Gulf War; (2) To rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein's regime. France, Germany, Susan Sarandon, everybody seem to agree that these two goals are appropriate. The disagreement comes as to what is the best way to pursue them.
This raises primarily political and not moral questions, as far as I can see. The progression of events Niemoller cites from his experiences in Nazi Germany has nothing to do with the military action being undertaken in Iraq right now. Each side in the argument over the war can and does advance compelling moral arguments for their positions. But ultimately, whether this war is right or not is a political judgment that we must make in a morally ambiguous situation. We each must look at the facts, pray about them, and then, "sin boldly." [The term "sin boldly" was coined by church reformer Martin Luther in the sixteenth century. Luther observed that sometimes when confronted with decisions, our search of Scripture, consultation with trusted counselors, and prayer may still not yield a clear understanding of God's will. It's then, Luther said, that we "sin boldly," trying our best to do what we think is right and trusting God to be forgiving if with right motives, we prove to do the wrong thing.]
As I say, I have opinions about the war and I have expressed them to public officials. Of course, I hope that my political opinions are informed by my Christian moral convictions.
But I believe that it would be totally wrong for me to say that I have the word from on high that this particular war is contrary to God's will or that it's in line with God's will.
It would make it easy for everyone if we could simply say that all war is contrary to God's will. In an ultimate sense, that's true. All war reflects the inability of peoples to share this planet in peace. But we also know, as Luther highlights in his essay on the two kingdoms, that God institutes civil authority as an emergency measure in a fallen world for the purpose of coercing peaceful, civilized behavior from those who don't voluntarily live that way. Luther said that if there weren't governments to enforce civilized behavior on the disorderly, followers of Christ would live as lambs among ravenous wolves. I don't like it that we need armies, navies, and police forces in this world. But I believe that at present, it is God's will that they exist and as citizens, we are then left with the awful freedom to decide if and when they are to be used.
Publicly, I feel that my call as a Pastor is to speak only that Word that God has given me to speak. There are times when it may compel me to speak against the policies of a government, something I have done repeatedly throughout eighteen years as a pastor. But above all, speaking only the Word that God gives me to speak means lifting up Christ so that the Holy Spirit can work in the hearts of believing and unbelieving people and as a result, a reluctant world can voluntarily live under the Lordship of the Prince of Peace.
I hope that this clarifies what I was trying to say, Heather, even if you find it unconvincing.
God bless you, Heather.
Sincerely in Jesus,
Mark
Hello Mark,
If I have learned anything in my first three years as a pastor, it is how little I know. I never intended to imply that I have the answer from "from on high" or to misuse the Niemoller quote.
My point in using the Niemoller quote was in response to the larger idea/struggle of when the church and it's pastors, bishops, and other leaders enter the public discourse on a given issue. I was not using the quote to defend Saddam Hussein's regime. (Which, I realize you know but I make that point for the sake of those who may read this on your blog.)
When I speak on this issue, my one point is to call for peace. In the article I wrote, I called for Christians to always speak a word of peace to each other and the world. It is interesting to see how people interpret this message for themselves. I chaired a small planning committee, for the local ministerial assiocation, that put together an Interfaith Candlelight Vigil for Peace on Sunday night, March 23. We shared readings, prayers, and songs all calling for peace. We were careful to create a space were all people of faith, regardless of how they felt about the military action that began days before, would feel comfortable. It was quite a mix of people and view points. But it was an amazing site to see people with pictures of loved ones in the armed forces and serving in Iraq standing next to ardent anti-war protesters. Both with candles in their hands and both praying for peace. The "mixed message" of this peace vigil is highlighted in an article the local newspaper did on the event. I do think it is the right message and best of what religious leaders can do to bridge the gap between those on boths sides of the issue.
It's not that I find your position unconvincing. (I am not convincied of much these days except that "nothing... can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus".) The issue for me is, is this a time and a place for the church (and it's pastors, bishop, leaders) to speak? For you the answer is no but there has been and might again be a time and a place that will compel you (and the church) to speak. For me this is the time and the place for the church to speak as it has in the past and will in the future.
Thank you for your words and willingness to dialogue on this issue. I am listening (and learning) to you and all the other voices in the church. And I know that we are all praying for peace.
Peace,
Heather
Heather:
This is the first opportunity I've had to respond to your last e-mail.
The Martin Niemoller quote is one of my favorites. I have cited it myself when dealing with issues of injustice and prejudice. I deem it entirely irrelevant to discussions about the war, though.
Buy the argument or not, the Bush Administration says that its reasons for pressing the war are twofold: (1) To rid Iraq of the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein committed to destroying at the end of the Gulf War; (2) To rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein's regime. France, Germany, Susan Sarandon, everybody seem to agree that these two goals are appropriate. The disagreement comes as to what is the best way to pursue them.
This raises primarily political and not moral questions, as far as I can see. The progression of events Niemoller cites from his experiences in Nazi Germany has nothing to do with the military action being undertaken in Iraq right now. Each side in the argument over the war can and does advance compelling moral arguments for their positions. But ultimately, whether this war is right or not is a political judgment that we must make in a morally ambiguous situation. We each must look at the facts, pray about them, and then, "sin boldly." [The term "sin boldly" was coined by church reformer Martin Luther in the sixteenth century. Luther observed that sometimes when confronted with decisions, our search of Scripture, consultation with trusted counselors, and prayer may still not yield a clear understanding of God's will. It's then, Luther said, that we "sin boldly," trying our best to do what we think is right and trusting God to be forgiving if with right motives, we prove to do the wrong thing.]
As I say, I have opinions about the war and I have expressed them to public officials. Of course, I hope that my political opinions are informed by my Christian moral convictions.
But I believe that it would be totally wrong for me to say that I have the word from on high that this particular war is contrary to God's will or that it's in line with God's will.
It would make it easy for everyone if we could simply say that all war is contrary to God's will. In an ultimate sense, that's true. All war reflects the inability of peoples to share this planet in peace. But we also know, as Luther highlights in his essay on the two kingdoms, that God institutes civil authority as an emergency measure in a fallen world for the purpose of coercing peaceful, civilized behavior from those who don't voluntarily live that way. Luther said that if there weren't governments to enforce civilized behavior on the disorderly, followers of Christ would live as lambs among ravenous wolves. I don't like it that we need armies, navies, and police forces in this world. But I believe that at present, it is God's will that they exist and as citizens, we are then left with the awful freedom to decide if and when they are to be used.
Publicly, I feel that my call as a Pastor is to speak only that Word that God has given me to speak. There are times when it may compel me to speak against the policies of a government, something I have done repeatedly throughout eighteen years as a pastor. But above all, speaking only the Word that God gives me to speak means lifting up Christ so that the Holy Spirit can work in the hearts of believing and unbelieving people and as a result, a reluctant world can voluntarily live under the Lordship of the Prince of Peace.
I hope that this clarifies what I was trying to say, Heather, even if you find it unconvincing.
God bless you, Heather.
Sincerely in Jesus,
Mark
Hello Mark,
If I have learned anything in my first three years as a pastor, it is how little I know. I never intended to imply that I have the answer from "from on high" or to misuse the Niemoller quote.
My point in using the Niemoller quote was in response to the larger idea/struggle of when the church and it's pastors, bishops, and other leaders enter the public discourse on a given issue. I was not using the quote to defend Saddam Hussein's regime. (Which, I realize you know but I make that point for the sake of those who may read this on your blog.)
When I speak on this issue, my one point is to call for peace. In the article I wrote, I called for Christians to always speak a word of peace to each other and the world. It is interesting to see how people interpret this message for themselves. I chaired a small planning committee, for the local ministerial assiocation, that put together an Interfaith Candlelight Vigil for Peace on Sunday night, March 23. We shared readings, prayers, and songs all calling for peace. We were careful to create a space were all people of faith, regardless of how they felt about the military action that began days before, would feel comfortable. It was quite a mix of people and view points. But it was an amazing site to see people with pictures of loved ones in the armed forces and serving in Iraq standing next to ardent anti-war protesters. Both with candles in their hands and both praying for peace. The "mixed message" of this peace vigil is highlighted in an article the local newspaper did on the event. I do think it is the right message and best of what religious leaders can do to bridge the gap between those on boths sides of the issue.
It's not that I find your position unconvincing. (I am not convincied of much these days except that "nothing... can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus".) The issue for me is, is this a time and a place for the church (and it's pastors, bishop, leaders) to speak? For you the answer is no but there has been and might again be a time and a place that will compel you (and the church) to speak. For me this is the time and the place for the church to speak as it has in the past and will in the future.
Thank you for your words and willingness to dialogue on this issue. I am listening (and learning) to you and all the other voices in the church. And I know that we are all praying for peace.
Peace,
Heather
Monday, March 31, 2003
In the spirit of my Sunday message (and blog posting) of March 30, 2003, I have a confession to make. I learned late last night that the "news" story regarding Andrew Carlssin with which I begin was actually a hoax. I hope that fact doesn't detract from the overall effect of the message. Everything else is true. I needed to come to the light on this one!
Sunday, March 30, 2003
Disciplines That Free: Confessing Our Wrongs
John 3:14-21
[Shared with the people of Friendship Church, Amelia, Ohio, March 30, 2003]
This past week, authorities from the Securities and Exchange Commission arrested a forty-four year old man named Andrew Carlssin for insider stock trading. While much of the stock market was in the tank, Carlssin managed to turn an $800.00 initial investment into a portfolio worth more than $350-million. And he did it in two weeks’ time in a series of 126 high risk trades, every one of which turned out to be a winner. “The only way he could [have pulled] it off is with illegal inside information,” one SEC investigator said.
Carlssin refuses to confess to illegally tapping into inside information. But in a four-hour confession he did own up to being a time traveler from the year 2256. In an attempt to gain leniency, he’s offered to share such “historical facts” as where Osama bin Laden is hiding and the cure for AIDS.
Confession is a difficult thing for any of us. It’s so difficult for Andrew Carlssin that he’s apparently more willing to look silly than to come clean. For the follower of Jesus Christ, confession is no less difficult than it is for anyone else. It can be embarrassing and humiliating to confess our wrongs, whether we confess them to God, to others, or to ourselves. But followers of Jesus also know that confession is an essential component for healthy living. In confession—owning up to our faults and sins, coming clean—we clear away anything and everything that obstructs our relationship with God or keeps us from living life fully.
In our Bible lesson for this morning, a man named Nicodemus visits Jesus. Nicodemus was a respected religious authority. But in Jesus, Nicodemus was beginning to understand that all his religious training, all the authority he enjoyed in the society of his time was meaningless. Still, Nicodemus was too concerned for his “place” in society, too worried about what the neighbors might think, and so, instead of owning up to the suspicion he had that Jesus was the Savior of the world, he sneaked to a meeting with Jesus under cover of darkness. He wanted to warn Jesus that powerful men—Jewish religious figures and Roman government functionaries—saw Jesus as an enemy to be killed. But in our Bible lesson, which picks things up in the middle of their conversation, we find Jesus deflecting Nicodemus’ concern; Jesus tells Nicodemus that He has come into the world for the express purpose of dying. It’s by His death on a cross, Jesus says, that He will absorb all the horrors of human sin into His body, killing off its power over us forever. Jesus then turns the focus back on Nicodemus and his spineless nighttime visit when He says:
"..those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
When we are truthful with God, we can come into His blazingly true light, see our faults up close, seek God’s forgiveness, and know that God will light our way to better living.
Martin Luther was fond of saying that the follower of Jesus Christ is called to live “in daily repentance and renewal.” We need to constantly re-focus our lives on Jesus, never being afraid to “come clean” about our faults and our need of God’s forgiveness and help. Confession needs to be a daily discipline for Jesus-followers. But what exactly do we mean when we talk about confession?
There are three elements that go into genuine confession. First: There is a genuine examination of one’s conscience. In shorthand, that means honesty. Richard Foster is a Quaker theologian and writer whose most famous work is a book called Celebration of Discipline. There, he tells a story from early in his ministry as a young pastor. His work was going well. But he felt the need for more of God’s power in his life in order to meet the almost crushing demand of human need that he confronted each day in his work. He prayed to God, “Lord, is there more You want to bring into my life? I want to be conquered and ruled by You. If there is anything blocking the flow of Your power, reveal it to me.” Over a period of several days during his prayer time, Foster sat in silence, asking God to reveal things to him. At the end of three days’ time, he had filled three sheets of paper with sins and unresolved conflicts from three different phases of his life. He took those with him one day as he met with a trusted Christian friend. He went through each one and was putting the stack into a briefcase when his friend reached across the table, took the sheets in hand, and tore them into hundreds of little pieces. Echoing words that appear in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, Foster says that he knew then that his sins “were as far away as the east is from the west.” It was shortly after engaging in that exercise in confession that Foster began to develop a closer relationship with God.
Psalm 139 in the Old Testament says:
"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
Confession begins with honesty, asking God to help us fearlessly face His inventory of our sin. It’s only when we’re honest with God about our sin that He can purge it from our systems.
The second element in genuine confession is sorrow. Sorrow, as it relates to confession, isn’t necessarily an emotion. I was talking with someone about his teenage years once. He told me, “As much as it may make me sound like a goody-two-shoes, I have to tell you that back then, I never did anything my parents didn’t want me to do. If they wanted me to be home by midnight, I was usually home by ten till. If they told me not to hang out with particular people, I didn’t do it.” I asked him, “Were you that afraid of your parents?” “I was never afraid of my parents,” he told me. “I just knew how much they loved me and I never wanted to hurt their feelings.” Sorrow over sin is animated by the same impulse that guy expressed about his parents. The cross of Jesus shows us how deeply and desperately God loves us. Sorrow over sin is a sense of deep regret and revulsion at the whole notion of having done anything to offend the heart of our Father God.
The third element in genuine confession is a determination to avoid sin. When we confess our sin to God, we ask Him to change our hearts so that we want to avoid future sin. We ask God to change our wills and make us recoil and turn away from the very idea of violating any of God’s ten commandments, the thrust of which Jesus once summed up as being two-fold: to love God completely and to love others as we love ourselves.
Writer John Ortberg tells about a mauve sofa that he and his wife bought. It was the first new piece of furniture they had ever owned. After the sofa was delivered, a new rule was instituted in their household, which included several small children. “Don’t sit on the mauve sofa. Don’t touch it, don’t play around it, don’t eat on it, don’t breathe on it, don’t even look at that mauve sofa.” But one day, a terrible thing happened. A red jelly stain appeared on the mauve sofa. Ortberg’s wife loved the sofa and was devastated. She lined up the three kids and told them the stain would stay in the sofa “forever” and asked the kids if they knew how long “forever” was. She then told the kids that they would remain standing forever until one of them came clean, owning up to eating and spilling jelly on the mauve sofa. But the kids didn’t say a thing.
Ortberg knew the kids wouldn’t say anything for three reasons. First, because they’d never seen their mom that mad. Second, because they didn’t want to spend forever in the time-out chair. And finally, because John Ortberg knew that it was he, not his kids, who had caused the red jelly stain on the mauve sofa. He knew that he had to come clean. He might not be able to remove the jelly stain from the sofa, but he could get his kids off the hook and try to start fresh with his wife.
When we confess our sins, exposing our faults in God’s bright light, we remove the walls between God and us, between other people and us, between us and our best selves. The discipline of confession is hard. But it’s the way to experiencing all that God intends for us as His children.
[I was first alerted to the news item about Andrew Carlssin from the web site, cre8d-journal, http://www.cre8d-design.com/journal/index.php, an excellent blog. The news account of the story can be found at http://tv.yahoo.com/news/wwn/20030319/104808600007.html.
[The three elements of confession identified here come from Saint Alphonsus Liguori and are mentioned in Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline: A Path to Spiritual Growth.
[Obviously, the story of Richard Foster's experience with confession comes from Celebration of Discipline: A Path to Spiritual Growth.
[The message itself was inspired greatly by a sermon by Pastor Dan Anderson, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Burnsville, Minnesota. He also told the story of John Ortberg and the mauve sofa in that sermon.]
John 3:14-21
[Shared with the people of Friendship Church, Amelia, Ohio, March 30, 2003]
This past week, authorities from the Securities and Exchange Commission arrested a forty-four year old man named Andrew Carlssin for insider stock trading. While much of the stock market was in the tank, Carlssin managed to turn an $800.00 initial investment into a portfolio worth more than $350-million. And he did it in two weeks’ time in a series of 126 high risk trades, every one of which turned out to be a winner. “The only way he could [have pulled] it off is with illegal inside information,” one SEC investigator said.
Carlssin refuses to confess to illegally tapping into inside information. But in a four-hour confession he did own up to being a time traveler from the year 2256. In an attempt to gain leniency, he’s offered to share such “historical facts” as where Osama bin Laden is hiding and the cure for AIDS.
Confession is a difficult thing for any of us. It’s so difficult for Andrew Carlssin that he’s apparently more willing to look silly than to come clean. For the follower of Jesus Christ, confession is no less difficult than it is for anyone else. It can be embarrassing and humiliating to confess our wrongs, whether we confess them to God, to others, or to ourselves. But followers of Jesus also know that confession is an essential component for healthy living. In confession—owning up to our faults and sins, coming clean—we clear away anything and everything that obstructs our relationship with God or keeps us from living life fully.
In our Bible lesson for this morning, a man named Nicodemus visits Jesus. Nicodemus was a respected religious authority. But in Jesus, Nicodemus was beginning to understand that all his religious training, all the authority he enjoyed in the society of his time was meaningless. Still, Nicodemus was too concerned for his “place” in society, too worried about what the neighbors might think, and so, instead of owning up to the suspicion he had that Jesus was the Savior of the world, he sneaked to a meeting with Jesus under cover of darkness. He wanted to warn Jesus that powerful men—Jewish religious figures and Roman government functionaries—saw Jesus as an enemy to be killed. But in our Bible lesson, which picks things up in the middle of their conversation, we find Jesus deflecting Nicodemus’ concern; Jesus tells Nicodemus that He has come into the world for the express purpose of dying. It’s by His death on a cross, Jesus says, that He will absorb all the horrors of human sin into His body, killing off its power over us forever. Jesus then turns the focus back on Nicodemus and his spineless nighttime visit when He says:
"..those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
When we are truthful with God, we can come into His blazingly true light, see our faults up close, seek God’s forgiveness, and know that God will light our way to better living.
Martin Luther was fond of saying that the follower of Jesus Christ is called to live “in daily repentance and renewal.” We need to constantly re-focus our lives on Jesus, never being afraid to “come clean” about our faults and our need of God’s forgiveness and help. Confession needs to be a daily discipline for Jesus-followers. But what exactly do we mean when we talk about confession?
There are three elements that go into genuine confession. First: There is a genuine examination of one’s conscience. In shorthand, that means honesty. Richard Foster is a Quaker theologian and writer whose most famous work is a book called Celebration of Discipline. There, he tells a story from early in his ministry as a young pastor. His work was going well. But he felt the need for more of God’s power in his life in order to meet the almost crushing demand of human need that he confronted each day in his work. He prayed to God, “Lord, is there more You want to bring into my life? I want to be conquered and ruled by You. If there is anything blocking the flow of Your power, reveal it to me.” Over a period of several days during his prayer time, Foster sat in silence, asking God to reveal things to him. At the end of three days’ time, he had filled three sheets of paper with sins and unresolved conflicts from three different phases of his life. He took those with him one day as he met with a trusted Christian friend. He went through each one and was putting the stack into a briefcase when his friend reached across the table, took the sheets in hand, and tore them into hundreds of little pieces. Echoing words that appear in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, Foster says that he knew then that his sins “were as far away as the east is from the west.” It was shortly after engaging in that exercise in confession that Foster began to develop a closer relationship with God.
Psalm 139 in the Old Testament says:
"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
Confession begins with honesty, asking God to help us fearlessly face His inventory of our sin. It’s only when we’re honest with God about our sin that He can purge it from our systems.
The second element in genuine confession is sorrow. Sorrow, as it relates to confession, isn’t necessarily an emotion. I was talking with someone about his teenage years once. He told me, “As much as it may make me sound like a goody-two-shoes, I have to tell you that back then, I never did anything my parents didn’t want me to do. If they wanted me to be home by midnight, I was usually home by ten till. If they told me not to hang out with particular people, I didn’t do it.” I asked him, “Were you that afraid of your parents?” “I was never afraid of my parents,” he told me. “I just knew how much they loved me and I never wanted to hurt their feelings.” Sorrow over sin is animated by the same impulse that guy expressed about his parents. The cross of Jesus shows us how deeply and desperately God loves us. Sorrow over sin is a sense of deep regret and revulsion at the whole notion of having done anything to offend the heart of our Father God.
The third element in genuine confession is a determination to avoid sin. When we confess our sin to God, we ask Him to change our hearts so that we want to avoid future sin. We ask God to change our wills and make us recoil and turn away from the very idea of violating any of God’s ten commandments, the thrust of which Jesus once summed up as being two-fold: to love God completely and to love others as we love ourselves.
Writer John Ortberg tells about a mauve sofa that he and his wife bought. It was the first new piece of furniture they had ever owned. After the sofa was delivered, a new rule was instituted in their household, which included several small children. “Don’t sit on the mauve sofa. Don’t touch it, don’t play around it, don’t eat on it, don’t breathe on it, don’t even look at that mauve sofa.” But one day, a terrible thing happened. A red jelly stain appeared on the mauve sofa. Ortberg’s wife loved the sofa and was devastated. She lined up the three kids and told them the stain would stay in the sofa “forever” and asked the kids if they knew how long “forever” was. She then told the kids that they would remain standing forever until one of them came clean, owning up to eating and spilling jelly on the mauve sofa. But the kids didn’t say a thing.
Ortberg knew the kids wouldn’t say anything for three reasons. First, because they’d never seen their mom that mad. Second, because they didn’t want to spend forever in the time-out chair. And finally, because John Ortberg knew that it was he, not his kids, who had caused the red jelly stain on the mauve sofa. He knew that he had to come clean. He might not be able to remove the jelly stain from the sofa, but he could get his kids off the hook and try to start fresh with his wife.
When we confess our sins, exposing our faults in God’s bright light, we remove the walls between God and us, between other people and us, between us and our best selves. The discipline of confession is hard. But it’s the way to experiencing all that God intends for us as His children.
[I was first alerted to the news item about Andrew Carlssin from the web site, cre8d-journal, http://www.cre8d-design.com/journal/index.php, an excellent blog. The news account of the story can be found at http://tv.yahoo.com/news/wwn/20030319/104808600007.html.
[The three elements of confession identified here come from Saint Alphonsus Liguori and are mentioned in Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline: A Path to Spiritual Growth.
[Obviously, the story of Richard Foster's experience with confession comes from Celebration of Discipline: A Path to Spiritual Growth.
[The message itself was inspired greatly by a sermon by Pastor Dan Anderson, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Burnsville, Minnesota. He also told the story of John Ortberg and the mauve sofa in that sermon.]
Thursday, March 27, 2003
My post of March 25, was the latest edition of a column I write for the Community Press newspapers in the Cincinnati area, a column called Better Living. I submit these columns via e-mail and as I do so, copy them to a number of family, friends, and colleagues around the world. The March 25 submission, Preachers Aren't Called to Be Politicians has evoked mostly positive responses thus far. But I thought that I would share this exchange of e-mails initiated by Pastor Heather after she read the column...
Mark,
I felt numb, I guess, when I read your column. And a little sad. Just because there are different opinions on how we, as Christians, view the war doesn't mean that we are required not to speak on the issue. If that was the required litmus test for pastors then we would have little to say. I believe that the Lutheran tradition is full of people who spoke a word that conflicted with the prevailing view of the church and the world, starting with Luther himself. The religious right seems to have no problem being "political" but I refuse to allow to be the only voice of Jesus.
Clearly, we have to speak with great care and always from the position of the gospel of Jesus. I have read your column and now I ask you to read mine. I wrote this at the request of my synod and it was published along with four other pastors articles (of differing view points).
Peace Be With You and Our World,
Heather
> Passing the peace is one of my favorite parts of the worship service. I
> encourage people to leave their seats, move around, and greet as many people
> as possible. It is a visible reminder that as Christians we are called to
> share the peace of Jesus Christ with each other and the rest of the world.
>
> I suppose I was thinking of the passing of the peace when the reporter from
> the local radio station asked me why I was standing on the corner of a busy
> intersection a holding a sign that read ; ³Will work for peace. Will you?²
>
> I, of course, was participating in an anti-war protest on February 15 as
> millions more were across the world. I told the reporter the every Sunday I
> stand up and say peace, therefore, I should willing to stand up for peace on a
> cold and rainy Saturday afternoon. I also told him that, as a Christian, I
> believed that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God
> calls us to proclaim a message of peace.
>
> During his life Jesus responded to violence with calls for peace, prayers for
> the enemy and teachings that tell us to turn the other cheek, go the extra
> mile, and give away our our cloak (vital for protection and comfort). During
> his crucifixion, Jesus called for forgiveness not retribution. After his
> resurrection, he continues to offer all people a word of peace.
>
> As a Christian, as pastor, and as a human being I am called to offer the world
> a word of peace, Christ¹s peace. In this time of impending war with Iraq, I do
> that by voicing my opposition to use of violence against Iraq and by praying
> for peace. Maybe my sign should have said; Will pray for peace? Will you?
Heather:
I've read what you sent with great interest. The passion with which you adhere to your views is obvious. At one time, I felt as you do. But today, while I think that there are times and circumstances when it is right and appropriate for the Church to declare, "Thus saith the Lord" about political issues, I believe that most political questions are fraught with ambiguity. I prefer to see people's hearts and consciences enlivened by the Gospel and then trust the Spirit to help us all collectively make the right decisions.
As a Christian, I feel that I am duty bound to be an informed citizen. I have an opinion about the war in Iraq and as a private citizen, have registered my views with the President and others. But I can't claim that my opinion has the imprimatur of heaven. This is especially the case when I consider the Christian folks I know who, after prayer and reflection, believe differently than I do about this war. I have no warrant to tell people, "God is for the war" or "God is against the war." And that inevitably is what people will think we are saying simply by virtue of our being pastors. The folks at Luther Northwestern have it right when they describe pastors and other church professionals as "evangelical public leaders." As public leaders then, we must therefore exercise that office with great care, letting our answers be yes and no. To me, this means only saying what we feel certain to be God's Word.
Like you, I am frustrated by the way the right has hijacked the perceptions of the Church among the public at large. But just because, as you write the "religious right seems to have no problem being 'political'" doesn't mean that we have to make the same mistake. I believe that much church-based political activism is nothing more than idolatry. Whether from the left or the right, we can fashion images of a Jesus who buys into our isms, ideologies, and philosophies and then, like a golden calf, bow down and worship it.
Life is fleeting. It's important that we use it to declare the Gospel, good news that can change the way people live today and how they spend eternity.
I could be wrong in what I'm saying on this issue, Heather. But, I have come to this perspective after years of thoughtful prayer and reflection and as one who, in my younger years, was an ardent political activist. I do not disdain politics. And I agree with what Luther said, "If you preach the gospel in all aspects with the exception of the issues which deal specifically with your time, you are not preaching the gospel at all."
But I think it's nothing other than Pharisaism for us to attempt to micromanage people's views as citizens. All I'm saying is, "Let's trust the Spirit of God" to lead us all in the right directions.
Thanks for writing, Heather. God bless!
Yours in Christ,
Mark
Mark,
Thanks for your response. And, yes, you may post our "e-conversation" on
your blog.
I agree with many of your points and I realize "that most political
questions are fraught with ambiguity" as is much of life. My question is
when, how and who decides it is time for the church to speak on a public
matter? You may not think this is the time. I feel, compeled by the gospel,
that now is the time. I also believe that I follow in the footsteps of our
Presiding Bishop in calling for peace and opposing the war with Iraq.
I, too, may be wrong about the role of the church in the war with Iraq and
politics. I have choosen to err on the side of grace and (to paraphrase
Luther) to sin boldy believing more boldy still that Jesus Christ is Lord.
In the end, I fear that the words of Martin Neimoller will be realized (in
ways we never imagined) if we do not risk speaking up.
> First they came for the Communists,
> and I didn¹t speak up,
> because I wasn¹t a Communist.
> Then they came for the Jews,
> and I didn¹t speak up,
> because I wasn¹t a Jew.
> Then they came for the Catholics,
> and I didn¹t speak up,
> because I was a Protestant.
> Then they came for me,
> and by that time there was no one
> left to speak up for me.
>
> by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
>
Thank you, Mark, for this conversation....
Peace,
Heather
Mark,
I felt numb, I guess, when I read your column. And a little sad. Just because there are different opinions on how we, as Christians, view the war doesn't mean that we are required not to speak on the issue. If that was the required litmus test for pastors then we would have little to say. I believe that the Lutheran tradition is full of people who spoke a word that conflicted with the prevailing view of the church and the world, starting with Luther himself. The religious right seems to have no problem being "political" but I refuse to allow to be the only voice of Jesus.
Clearly, we have to speak with great care and always from the position of the gospel of Jesus. I have read your column and now I ask you to read mine. I wrote this at the request of my synod and it was published along with four other pastors articles (of differing view points).
Peace Be With You and Our World,
Heather
> Passing the peace is one of my favorite parts of the worship service. I
> encourage people to leave their seats, move around, and greet as many people
> as possible. It is a visible reminder that as Christians we are called to
> share the peace of Jesus Christ with each other and the rest of the world.
>
> I suppose I was thinking of the passing of the peace when the reporter from
> the local radio station asked me why I was standing on the corner of a busy
> intersection a holding a sign that read ; ³Will work for peace. Will you?²
>
> I, of course, was participating in an anti-war protest on February 15 as
> millions more were across the world. I told the reporter the every Sunday I
> stand up and say peace, therefore, I should willing to stand up for peace on a
> cold and rainy Saturday afternoon. I also told him that, as a Christian, I
> believed that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God
> calls us to proclaim a message of peace.
>
> During his life Jesus responded to violence with calls for peace, prayers for
> the enemy and teachings that tell us to turn the other cheek, go the extra
> mile, and give away our our cloak (vital for protection and comfort). During
> his crucifixion, Jesus called for forgiveness not retribution. After his
> resurrection, he continues to offer all people a word of peace.
>
> As a Christian, as pastor, and as a human being I am called to offer the world
> a word of peace, Christ¹s peace. In this time of impending war with Iraq, I do
> that by voicing my opposition to use of violence against Iraq and by praying
> for peace. Maybe my sign should have said; Will pray for peace? Will you?
Heather:
I've read what you sent with great interest. The passion with which you adhere to your views is obvious. At one time, I felt as you do. But today, while I think that there are times and circumstances when it is right and appropriate for the Church to declare, "Thus saith the Lord" about political issues, I believe that most political questions are fraught with ambiguity. I prefer to see people's hearts and consciences enlivened by the Gospel and then trust the Spirit to help us all collectively make the right decisions.
As a Christian, I feel that I am duty bound to be an informed citizen. I have an opinion about the war in Iraq and as a private citizen, have registered my views with the President and others. But I can't claim that my opinion has the imprimatur of heaven. This is especially the case when I consider the Christian folks I know who, after prayer and reflection, believe differently than I do about this war. I have no warrant to tell people, "God is for the war" or "God is against the war." And that inevitably is what people will think we are saying simply by virtue of our being pastors. The folks at Luther Northwestern have it right when they describe pastors and other church professionals as "evangelical public leaders." As public leaders then, we must therefore exercise that office with great care, letting our answers be yes and no. To me, this means only saying what we feel certain to be God's Word.
Like you, I am frustrated by the way the right has hijacked the perceptions of the Church among the public at large. But just because, as you write the "religious right seems to have no problem being 'political'" doesn't mean that we have to make the same mistake. I believe that much church-based political activism is nothing more than idolatry. Whether from the left or the right, we can fashion images of a Jesus who buys into our isms, ideologies, and philosophies and then, like a golden calf, bow down and worship it.
Life is fleeting. It's important that we use it to declare the Gospel, good news that can change the way people live today and how they spend eternity.
I could be wrong in what I'm saying on this issue, Heather. But, I have come to this perspective after years of thoughtful prayer and reflection and as one who, in my younger years, was an ardent political activist. I do not disdain politics. And I agree with what Luther said, "If you preach the gospel in all aspects with the exception of the issues which deal specifically with your time, you are not preaching the gospel at all."
But I think it's nothing other than Pharisaism for us to attempt to micromanage people's views as citizens. All I'm saying is, "Let's trust the Spirit of God" to lead us all in the right directions.
Thanks for writing, Heather. God bless!
Yours in Christ,
Mark
Mark,
Thanks for your response. And, yes, you may post our "e-conversation" on
your blog.
I agree with many of your points and I realize "that most political
questions are fraught with ambiguity" as is much of life. My question is
when, how and who decides it is time for the church to speak on a public
matter? You may not think this is the time. I feel, compeled by the gospel,
that now is the time. I also believe that I follow in the footsteps of our
Presiding Bishop in calling for peace and opposing the war with Iraq.
I, too, may be wrong about the role of the church in the war with Iraq and
politics. I have choosen to err on the side of grace and (to paraphrase
Luther) to sin boldy believing more boldy still that Jesus Christ is Lord.
In the end, I fear that the words of Martin Neimoller will be realized (in
ways we never imagined) if we do not risk speaking up.
> First they came for the Communists,
> and I didn¹t speak up,
> because I wasn¹t a Communist.
> Then they came for the Jews,
> and I didn¹t speak up,
> because I wasn¹t a Jew.
> Then they came for the Catholics,
> and I didn¹t speak up,
> because I was a Protestant.
> Then they came for me,
> and by that time there was no one
> left to speak up for me.
>
> by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
>
Thank you, Mark, for this conversation....
Peace,
Heather
I'm blessed to have a lot of good people in my life. My wife and kids. An extended family in which I know I'm loved. Great friends.
I'm also blessed to serve as pastor of a wonderful group of people at Friendship Church [http://www.friendshipcincy.org/].
Among the best blessings I can count though, is my kid brother, Marty, who also is my friend.
At the age of thirty-six, Marty dramatically recasts my definition of that adjective, kid. (It's funny how young and old get older as I hurtle toward the big 5-0!) Marty also helps me define other words.
One of the words Marty defines for me is "faithful." Back in 1986, at a rock concert, Marty began to follow Jesus Christ. He didn't suddenly become perfect then. No one who follows Christ is perfect. (That's why I like the bumper sticker that says, "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven.") But anyone who observes Marty can see a guy moving in God's direction, toward a deeper love of God and neighbor. It shows in the way he lives, the things he does, and how much he cares.
That word "faithful" also describes the relationship that he has with his wife of fifteen years, Trina. You could see faithfulness too, in the care that Marty gave to Trina's uncle in the months before he passed away.
Another word that describes my brother is "talented." Okay, make that "multi-talented." Marty has spent years in radio and is now involved in what I would call "brand identity" work. In his new business, he creates web sites, videos, and radio spots, among other things, for everything from colleges to radio stations.
Another word to describe my brother is "funny." He's a fledgling stand-up comic who is truly one of the funniest people I have ever met. Marty is funny whether he's standing on a stage or in private conversation. Some times when he and I are speaking on the telephone, I am astounded at how his mind works and how quickly he can identify the funny side of any situation. The synapses of his brain must have pathways where I only evidence unoccupied grey matter.
Marty is also a "risk-taker." Both of our grandfathers were entrepreneuers. Each started or owned several businesses over time. Neither became wealthy. But both derived enjoyment from their entrepreneurial risk-taking. Marty inherited those entrepreneuer genes big-time. Right now, he and Trina are working hard to get their company off the ground [http://www.foursquare-agency.com/web_design_optimization_2.htm]. It isn't easy. But risk-takers (which is another title to be applied to those who are faithful, by the way) don't take the easy route through life. They're too busy challenging themselves to be their very best, too intent on leaving the world a better place than it was before they showed up.
That leaves me to mention another word I associate with my brother, Marty, and my sister-in-law Trina: "heroes." They're heroes to me...Faithful, talented, funny risk-takers...Good people I love and of whom I am very proud!
I'm also blessed to serve as pastor of a wonderful group of people at Friendship Church [http://www.friendshipcincy.org/].
Among the best blessings I can count though, is my kid brother, Marty, who also is my friend.
At the age of thirty-six, Marty dramatically recasts my definition of that adjective, kid. (It's funny how young and old get older as I hurtle toward the big 5-0!) Marty also helps me define other words.
One of the words Marty defines for me is "faithful." Back in 1986, at a rock concert, Marty began to follow Jesus Christ. He didn't suddenly become perfect then. No one who follows Christ is perfect. (That's why I like the bumper sticker that says, "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven.") But anyone who observes Marty can see a guy moving in God's direction, toward a deeper love of God and neighbor. It shows in the way he lives, the things he does, and how much he cares.
That word "faithful" also describes the relationship that he has with his wife of fifteen years, Trina. You could see faithfulness too, in the care that Marty gave to Trina's uncle in the months before he passed away.
Another word that describes my brother is "talented." Okay, make that "multi-talented." Marty has spent years in radio and is now involved in what I would call "brand identity" work. In his new business, he creates web sites, videos, and radio spots, among other things, for everything from colleges to radio stations.
Another word to describe my brother is "funny." He's a fledgling stand-up comic who is truly one of the funniest people I have ever met. Marty is funny whether he's standing on a stage or in private conversation. Some times when he and I are speaking on the telephone, I am astounded at how his mind works and how quickly he can identify the funny side of any situation. The synapses of his brain must have pathways where I only evidence unoccupied grey matter.
Marty is also a "risk-taker." Both of our grandfathers were entrepreneuers. Each started or owned several businesses over time. Neither became wealthy. But both derived enjoyment from their entrepreneurial risk-taking. Marty inherited those entrepreneuer genes big-time. Right now, he and Trina are working hard to get their company off the ground [http://www.foursquare-agency.com/web_design_optimization_2.htm]. It isn't easy. But risk-takers (which is another title to be applied to those who are faithful, by the way) don't take the easy route through life. They're too busy challenging themselves to be their very best, too intent on leaving the world a better place than it was before they showed up.
That leaves me to mention another word I associate with my brother, Marty, and my sister-in-law Trina: "heroes." They're heroes to me...Faithful, talented, funny risk-takers...Good people I love and of whom I am very proud!
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Politics Doesn't Belong in the Pulpit
[This is another installment of the column I write for Community Press newspapers in the Cincinnati area. It's hopefully a refinement of something I posted on this site a few weeks ago.]
Several weeks before the war in Iraq began, I got two pieces of correspondence—one an e-mail and the other a church newsletter—from two different pastors who said completely different things on the same subject.
One of the pastors argued that followers of Jesus couldn’t possibly support the war.
The other pastor argued that it was the moral duty of followers of Jesus to do just that.
Both of these pastors are sincere, loving followers of Christ. But their conflicting opinions show difficulties that come when members of the clergy decide to make political pronouncements.
One difficulty was identified by the late C.S. Lewis, a British intellectual and author who moved from atheism to deep faith in Christ, when he wrote that, “Christianity has not, and does not profess to have, a detailed political programme for [application at every] particular moment.” [from Lewis' book, Mere Christianity]
God’s Word, the Bible, points us to a life-changing relationship with God that we can have through Jesus Christ. It teaches that Christ frees and empowers people to solve problems and live creatively.
So, the world doesn’t need preachers telling it how to vote or what to write to members of Congress. The world needs Jesus Christ.
There are reasons I say this.
I believe that God loves all people. I also believe that all people suffer from a problem which the Bible calls sin, a condition of self-will and separation from God. Sin keeps us from experiencing all the good that God offers in this life and the next. Sin is like a pit we can’t crawl out of on our own. Because of God’s love for all of us, God offers to pull us out of the pit. Jesus Christ came into the world and took the death sentence for sin that you and I deserve. Then He rose from the dead. Today, He extends His hand to us and says, “Take My hand. Trust me. I’ll pull you out and I’ll take you to eternity with Me.”
That’s why the Bible says, “...everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). The person who humbly takes Jesus’ offer has a new life and looks forward to eternity with God.
Jesus once said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself” (John 12:32). I believe that when Jesus said this He wasn’t only talking about His being lifted up on a cross. He also was referring to preachers and all followers of Jesus lifting Jesus up for the whole world to see—in our words and in our lives. And the promise is that if preachers and others will patiently do that, people will come to follow Jesus. Their lives—including their lives as citizens and politicians—will then be changed and they will live differently.
The New Testament book of Second Timothy was written by a man named Paul to a young preacher. One spot in that book says, “I can’t impress this on you too strongly. God is looking over your shoulder. Christ Himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead...so proclaim the Message with intensity...Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don’t ever quit. Just keep it simple. You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food...But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.” (Second Timothy 4:1-5)
Preachers don’t need to offer the world a political program. Preachers who feel the need to “get political” are expressing frustration that the world around them isn’t going the way they want it to go. But we preachers need to learn patience. We’re to keep sharing Jesus Christ whether people seem to be listening or not. We’re to trust that as we lift Jesus up, the world will come to follow Him not because a preacher ranted, but because the world sees Jesus in the loving lives of those who call Him God.
Several weeks before the war in Iraq began, I got two pieces of correspondence—one an e-mail and the other a church newsletter—from two different pastors who said completely different things on the same subject.
One of the pastors argued that followers of Jesus couldn’t possibly support the war.
The other pastor argued that it was the moral duty of followers of Jesus to do just that.
Both of these pastors are sincere, loving followers of Christ. But their conflicting opinions show difficulties that come when members of the clergy decide to make political pronouncements.
One difficulty was identified by the late C.S. Lewis, a British intellectual and author who moved from atheism to deep faith in Christ, when he wrote that, “Christianity has not, and does not profess to have, a detailed political programme for [application at every] particular moment.” [from Lewis' book, Mere Christianity]
God’s Word, the Bible, points us to a life-changing relationship with God that we can have through Jesus Christ. It teaches that Christ frees and empowers people to solve problems and live creatively.
So, the world doesn’t need preachers telling it how to vote or what to write to members of Congress. The world needs Jesus Christ.
There are reasons I say this.
I believe that God loves all people. I also believe that all people suffer from a problem which the Bible calls sin, a condition of self-will and separation from God. Sin keeps us from experiencing all the good that God offers in this life and the next. Sin is like a pit we can’t crawl out of on our own. Because of God’s love for all of us, God offers to pull us out of the pit. Jesus Christ came into the world and took the death sentence for sin that you and I deserve. Then He rose from the dead. Today, He extends His hand to us and says, “Take My hand. Trust me. I’ll pull you out and I’ll take you to eternity with Me.”
That’s why the Bible says, “...everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). The person who humbly takes Jesus’ offer has a new life and looks forward to eternity with God.
Jesus once said, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself” (John 12:32). I believe that when Jesus said this He wasn’t only talking about His being lifted up on a cross. He also was referring to preachers and all followers of Jesus lifting Jesus up for the whole world to see—in our words and in our lives. And the promise is that if preachers and others will patiently do that, people will come to follow Jesus. Their lives—including their lives as citizens and politicians—will then be changed and they will live differently.
The New Testament book of Second Timothy was written by a man named Paul to a young preacher. One spot in that book says, “I can’t impress this on you too strongly. God is looking over your shoulder. Christ Himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead...so proclaim the Message with intensity...Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don’t ever quit. Just keep it simple. You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food...But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.” (Second Timothy 4:1-5)
Preachers don’t need to offer the world a political program. Preachers who feel the need to “get political” are expressing frustration that the world around them isn’t going the way they want it to go. But we preachers need to learn patience. We’re to keep sharing Jesus Christ whether people seem to be listening or not. We’re to trust that as we lift Jesus up, the world will come to follow Him not because a preacher ranted, but because the world sees Jesus in the loving lives of those who call Him God.
Sunday, March 23, 2003
Disciplines That Free: Harnessing Your Anger
John 2:13-22
[Shared with the people of Friendship Church, Amelia, Ohio, March 23, 2003]
I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to our teenage daughter’s magazine purchases. And I guess that I could have passed over the latest issue of YM with its cover picture of recording artist Nelly and the feature article, “Is That Boy Worth Your Time?: Nine Ways to Tell.” But one item on the cover caught my attention: “Chill Out! Take Our Anger Quiz.” I flipped to page 122 and found eight multiple choice questions. I’m going to try a couple of them on you. If you’re not a teenage girl, pretend that you are for just a second and consider how you might answer:
1) Your dad won’t let you go see Dashboard Confessional in concert. When you ask why, the answer is, “Because I said so.” You: a. scowl and request a better explanation. b. hurl the TV remote at his head and stomp upstairs. c. shrug.
8) A really bad cold has your brother laid up in bed for two days. You happen to walk by his room, and he demands in a pompous tone that you get him a glass of orange juice. You: a. tell him that saying please doesn’t hurt, and then head to the kitchen. b. immediately walk to the garage and slash both of the tires on his bike. c. rush to see if there’s any fresh-squeezed in the fridge.
At the end of this quiz, you’re supposed to know whether your anger is too tepid, medium heat, or boiling over. While we can quibble with the accuracy of a magazine quiz, this little exercise is based on a reality written into us as human beings. It’s this: the capacity for anger is something God has built into us and there are times when it’s right and times when it’s wrong to be angry! Our call as followers of Jesus Christ is to harness our anger, putting it at the service of God.
Someone has said that, “Anger is an emotional reaction to your interpretation of a life experience in which your expectations are not met or are violated.” A wife comes home from work expecting a quiet evening alone with her husband and kids only to learn that her husband has invited buddies over to watch the NCAA basketball tournament. An employee gets good reviews for three years in a row and is promised a promotion, but the promotion never comes. Our lives are filled with a hundred potential flash points each day. Anger happens. We need to learn to manage it, harness it, and use it creatively. The Institute for Mental Health Initiatives has developed a method for coping or controlling our anger built on the acronym RETHINK: Recognize when you’re angry and what’s causing it; Empathize, trying to see the other person’s point of view; Think of other ways you might be able to interpret the situation making you angry; Hear what the other person is saying; Integrate love and respect into the way you deal with your anger; Notice your body’s reaction to anger and find ways to calm down; Keep your attention focused on the present and don’t bring up past offenses.
In His Word, the Bible, God doesn’t condemn anger itself. In the New Testament, for example, the apostle Paul advises, “Be angry; but do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” In other words, it’s okay for us to get mad as long as we don’t let our anger turn into spitefulness or hate. And by all means, if we’re angry with someone, we should try to resolve our disputes right away. Unresolved disputes inevitably cause us to sin.
I must confess that anger doesn’t come easily to me. I would probably lean toward the tepid end by the YM quiz’s reckoning. My son and I were talking about this the other night. Getting angry is so foreign to me that when I do get mad, I look silly. That makes people laugh and that makes me angrier. There may be others in this room today who tilt toward the boiling over end of the spectrum. Either place is unhealthy. But if we can find a way to use our anger, putting it under the discipline of God, it can become a force for good.
Our Bible lesson for this morning recounts a famous incident in which Jesus, visiting the temple in Jerusalem, gave full vent to holy anger. You see, in those days, people would go to the temple to offer sacrifices to God. Wealthy folks could afford to sacrifice cattle and sheep. Poorer people sacrificed doves or even grain. In the outer court, the place where non-Jews allowed to be, the temple featured a kind of shopping mall. At the temple, you could only use temple money to buy the animals that were used for sacrificing. But out on the streets of Jerusalem, Roman money was used. If you came to the temple to offer a sacrifice then, the first thing you had to do was exchange your Roman coins for temple coins. You did this with a person called a moneychanger. These moneychangers were notorious gougers. They didn’t care what the exchange rate was. They were the only game in town, so to speak. So they got away with charging the worshipers exorbitant service charges. The same gouging was practiced by those who sold the animals to be sacrificed. Jesus was enraged! We’re told that:
Making a whip of cords, [Jesus] drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling doves, “Take these things out of here!...”
Jesus showed “holy anger.” He let loose with what forest firefighters might call a “controlled burn.”
As followers of Jesus, the only legitimate kind of anger is Jesus’ brand of holy anger. We see what holy anger is in our Bible lesson. First: Holy anger has to do with zeal for God. After Jesus’ followers saw His temple tantrum, they remembered words from the Old Testament’s Psalm 69:9: “Zeal for Your house will consume me.” Jesus was zealous for the things that makes God the Father zealous. Mother Teresa was zealous for loving and cherishing life. That’s why she took care of the dying on the streets of Calcutta. It’s also why she spoke out with firmness and fierceness against abortion as a form of birth control. As Lutheran Pastor Dan Anderson puts it, “Holy anger is righteous indignation that leads to action.”
Holy anger is also about love for others. Jesus didn’t give vent to rage because somebody had cut him off in traffic or because somebody took the last scoop of black walnut crunch ice cream that He’d wanted. Jesus was upset that the merchants at the Temple Mall had put a price tag on God’s love and forgiveness. You and I know that these are gifts that God offers to all through Jesus Christ. When we see others being hurt, our call is clear. Holy love demands that we get angry for our neighbor’s sake.
Holy anger is productive and useful. Much of our anger is unproductive and useless and ultimately, paralyzying. Ann and I have been married nearly twenty-nine years. The angriest she has ever seen me was one spring day back when we lived in northwest Ohio. She’d had a rough week, mostly confined to the house with our two then-little kids. On a Friday, we arranged for me to spend the afternoon with the kids while she ran some errands and got some personal down time. That evening, I was to do a wedding at a neighboring church which was without a pastor at the time, a little country congregation that didn’t even have a phone. Long story short: Ann completely forgot when I needed for her to be home so that I could do the wedding. I had no way of contacting her or the church and no way of getting out of the house to do the wedding. I couldn’t even find a person to watch the kids for me so that I could do the ceremony. The wedding was to take place at 7:00 and Ann sauntered in at 6:55. I was in a frenzy. For a few seconds, I was paralyzed with anger, jumping up and down in place while I yelled. That was unproductive anger!
But holy anger, anger rooted in what upsets God, can be productive. Martin Luther, the founder of the movement of which Friendship is a part, knew this. “When I am angry,” Luther said. “I can write, pray, and preach well, for my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.”# Luther’s holy anger compelled him to do the right thing as he sought to give all people personal access to the God we know through Jesus Christ.
Anger is an inevitable element of our humanity. But God calls us to harness our anger for His purposes. In 1979, on a Maryland street, the car in which five-and-a-half month old Laura Lamb and her mother, Cindi were riding was hit head-on by a drunk driver traveling at 120 miles per hour. Laura became the world’s youngest quadriplegic. In California less than a year later, thirteen year old Cari Lightner was killed by a drunk driver. Just two days earlier, he had been released on bail for a hit-and-run drunk driving crash and already had two drunk driving convictions behind him. Cari’s mother Candace formed an organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and soon linked her efforts with those of Cindi Lamb, who had already undertaken similar efforts in Maryland. Twenty-three years later, MADD is still a controlled burn, translating the anger and rage of parents who have seen the pain inflicted by drunk drivers into positive actions. MADD has heightened our awareness of the dangers of driving while under the influence of alcohol and of the need for designated drivers. They’ve gotten laws passed that get drunks off of our roads and highways and make all of us safer.
What holy anger do you feel today? I myself am angry that the devil has so fogged our minds—inside and outside the Church—that the Church holds Jesus captive behind a wall of obscure liturgy, churchy words, and indecipherable rites and clothing. That’s why Friendship features “relaxed reverence,” seeking to welcome all people with the same grace that Jesus has given to us. Jesus’ action in today’s Bible lesson this morning suggests that you not ignore your holy anger, but use it to share His love with the world. Maybe you’re angry over child abuse. Or maybe it’s the inability of individuals and nations to resolve their conflicts peacefully. Or maybe you, like Jesus, are ticked off by the sin that keeps people enslaved and unable to experience the joy, peace, and hope that Jesus gives. Today, commit yourself to harnessing your holy anger and using it in positive, productive, proactive, loving ways. Burn for God and let the world see the glow of Jesus’ love at the core of your being!
[The description of anger and the first two descriptors of holy anger come from a sermon by Pastor Dan Anderson; the anger survey comes from the April, 2003 issue of YM magazine; the quote from Martin Luther appears in The Friendship Factor by Alan Loy McGinnis; the story of MADD appears on that organization's web site.]
John 2:13-22
[Shared with the people of Friendship Church, Amelia, Ohio, March 23, 2003]
I don’t usually pay a lot of attention to our teenage daughter’s magazine purchases. And I guess that I could have passed over the latest issue of YM with its cover picture of recording artist Nelly and the feature article, “Is That Boy Worth Your Time?: Nine Ways to Tell.” But one item on the cover caught my attention: “Chill Out! Take Our Anger Quiz.” I flipped to page 122 and found eight multiple choice questions. I’m going to try a couple of them on you. If you’re not a teenage girl, pretend that you are for just a second and consider how you might answer:
1) Your dad won’t let you go see Dashboard Confessional in concert. When you ask why, the answer is, “Because I said so.” You: a. scowl and request a better explanation. b. hurl the TV remote at his head and stomp upstairs. c. shrug.
8) A really bad cold has your brother laid up in bed for two days. You happen to walk by his room, and he demands in a pompous tone that you get him a glass of orange juice. You: a. tell him that saying please doesn’t hurt, and then head to the kitchen. b. immediately walk to the garage and slash both of the tires on his bike. c. rush to see if there’s any fresh-squeezed in the fridge.
At the end of this quiz, you’re supposed to know whether your anger is too tepid, medium heat, or boiling over. While we can quibble with the accuracy of a magazine quiz, this little exercise is based on a reality written into us as human beings. It’s this: the capacity for anger is something God has built into us and there are times when it’s right and times when it’s wrong to be angry! Our call as followers of Jesus Christ is to harness our anger, putting it at the service of God.
Someone has said that, “Anger is an emotional reaction to your interpretation of a life experience in which your expectations are not met or are violated.” A wife comes home from work expecting a quiet evening alone with her husband and kids only to learn that her husband has invited buddies over to watch the NCAA basketball tournament. An employee gets good reviews for three years in a row and is promised a promotion, but the promotion never comes. Our lives are filled with a hundred potential flash points each day. Anger happens. We need to learn to manage it, harness it, and use it creatively. The Institute for Mental Health Initiatives has developed a method for coping or controlling our anger built on the acronym RETHINK: Recognize when you’re angry and what’s causing it; Empathize, trying to see the other person’s point of view; Think of other ways you might be able to interpret the situation making you angry; Hear what the other person is saying; Integrate love and respect into the way you deal with your anger; Notice your body’s reaction to anger and find ways to calm down; Keep your attention focused on the present and don’t bring up past offenses.
In His Word, the Bible, God doesn’t condemn anger itself. In the New Testament, for example, the apostle Paul advises, “Be angry; but do not sin. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” In other words, it’s okay for us to get mad as long as we don’t let our anger turn into spitefulness or hate. And by all means, if we’re angry with someone, we should try to resolve our disputes right away. Unresolved disputes inevitably cause us to sin.
I must confess that anger doesn’t come easily to me. I would probably lean toward the tepid end by the YM quiz’s reckoning. My son and I were talking about this the other night. Getting angry is so foreign to me that when I do get mad, I look silly. That makes people laugh and that makes me angrier. There may be others in this room today who tilt toward the boiling over end of the spectrum. Either place is unhealthy. But if we can find a way to use our anger, putting it under the discipline of God, it can become a force for good.
Our Bible lesson for this morning recounts a famous incident in which Jesus, visiting the temple in Jerusalem, gave full vent to holy anger. You see, in those days, people would go to the temple to offer sacrifices to God. Wealthy folks could afford to sacrifice cattle and sheep. Poorer people sacrificed doves or even grain. In the outer court, the place where non-Jews allowed to be, the temple featured a kind of shopping mall. At the temple, you could only use temple money to buy the animals that were used for sacrificing. But out on the streets of Jerusalem, Roman money was used. If you came to the temple to offer a sacrifice then, the first thing you had to do was exchange your Roman coins for temple coins. You did this with a person called a moneychanger. These moneychangers were notorious gougers. They didn’t care what the exchange rate was. They were the only game in town, so to speak. So they got away with charging the worshipers exorbitant service charges. The same gouging was practiced by those who sold the animals to be sacrificed. Jesus was enraged! We’re told that:
Making a whip of cords, [Jesus] drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling doves, “Take these things out of here!...”
Jesus showed “holy anger.” He let loose with what forest firefighters might call a “controlled burn.”
As followers of Jesus, the only legitimate kind of anger is Jesus’ brand of holy anger. We see what holy anger is in our Bible lesson. First: Holy anger has to do with zeal for God. After Jesus’ followers saw His temple tantrum, they remembered words from the Old Testament’s Psalm 69:9: “Zeal for Your house will consume me.” Jesus was zealous for the things that makes God the Father zealous. Mother Teresa was zealous for loving and cherishing life. That’s why she took care of the dying on the streets of Calcutta. It’s also why she spoke out with firmness and fierceness against abortion as a form of birth control. As Lutheran Pastor Dan Anderson puts it, “Holy anger is righteous indignation that leads to action.”
Holy anger is also about love for others. Jesus didn’t give vent to rage because somebody had cut him off in traffic or because somebody took the last scoop of black walnut crunch ice cream that He’d wanted. Jesus was upset that the merchants at the Temple Mall had put a price tag on God’s love and forgiveness. You and I know that these are gifts that God offers to all through Jesus Christ. When we see others being hurt, our call is clear. Holy love demands that we get angry for our neighbor’s sake.
Holy anger is productive and useful. Much of our anger is unproductive and useless and ultimately, paralyzying. Ann and I have been married nearly twenty-nine years. The angriest she has ever seen me was one spring day back when we lived in northwest Ohio. She’d had a rough week, mostly confined to the house with our two then-little kids. On a Friday, we arranged for me to spend the afternoon with the kids while she ran some errands and got some personal down time. That evening, I was to do a wedding at a neighboring church which was without a pastor at the time, a little country congregation that didn’t even have a phone. Long story short: Ann completely forgot when I needed for her to be home so that I could do the wedding. I had no way of contacting her or the church and no way of getting out of the house to do the wedding. I couldn’t even find a person to watch the kids for me so that I could do the ceremony. The wedding was to take place at 7:00 and Ann sauntered in at 6:55. I was in a frenzy. For a few seconds, I was paralyzed with anger, jumping up and down in place while I yelled. That was unproductive anger!
But holy anger, anger rooted in what upsets God, can be productive. Martin Luther, the founder of the movement of which Friendship is a part, knew this. “When I am angry,” Luther said. “I can write, pray, and preach well, for my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.”# Luther’s holy anger compelled him to do the right thing as he sought to give all people personal access to the God we know through Jesus Christ.
Anger is an inevitable element of our humanity. But God calls us to harness our anger for His purposes. In 1979, on a Maryland street, the car in which five-and-a-half month old Laura Lamb and her mother, Cindi were riding was hit head-on by a drunk driver traveling at 120 miles per hour. Laura became the world’s youngest quadriplegic. In California less than a year later, thirteen year old Cari Lightner was killed by a drunk driver. Just two days earlier, he had been released on bail for a hit-and-run drunk driving crash and already had two drunk driving convictions behind him. Cari’s mother Candace formed an organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and soon linked her efforts with those of Cindi Lamb, who had already undertaken similar efforts in Maryland. Twenty-three years later, MADD is still a controlled burn, translating the anger and rage of parents who have seen the pain inflicted by drunk drivers into positive actions. MADD has heightened our awareness of the dangers of driving while under the influence of alcohol and of the need for designated drivers. They’ve gotten laws passed that get drunks off of our roads and highways and make all of us safer.
What holy anger do you feel today? I myself am angry that the devil has so fogged our minds—inside and outside the Church—that the Church holds Jesus captive behind a wall of obscure liturgy, churchy words, and indecipherable rites and clothing. That’s why Friendship features “relaxed reverence,” seeking to welcome all people with the same grace that Jesus has given to us. Jesus’ action in today’s Bible lesson this morning suggests that you not ignore your holy anger, but use it to share His love with the world. Maybe you’re angry over child abuse. Or maybe it’s the inability of individuals and nations to resolve their conflicts peacefully. Or maybe you, like Jesus, are ticked off by the sin that keeps people enslaved and unable to experience the joy, peace, and hope that Jesus gives. Today, commit yourself to harnessing your holy anger and using it in positive, productive, proactive, loving ways. Burn for God and let the world see the glow of Jesus’ love at the core of your being!
[The description of anger and the first two descriptors of holy anger come from a sermon by Pastor Dan Anderson; the anger survey comes from the April, 2003 issue of YM magazine; the quote from Martin Luther appears in The Friendship Factor by Alan Loy McGinnis; the story of MADD appears on that organization's web site.]
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
What To Do When We Don't Know What to Do
When I was a teen, I read historian Barbara Tuchman's book, The Guns of August. It tells the story of how the international community drifted, almost against its will, into the First World War. One incident Tuchman recounted took palce shortly after that war's armed hostilities began and involved a conversation between the German foreign minister and a visitor to his office. How, the visitor wondered, had it all happened? How had the Great War begun? The foreign minister, in obvious exasperation replied, "Och! If we only knew."
Last evening, President Bush issued an ultimatum to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and his regime. Bush told Saddam to depart from Iraq within forty-eight hours or face attack.
There is a surreal quality to all of this. My favorite sports journalist, Tony Kornheiser, spoke for most of us, I think, when he noted on his radio show this morning that he never thought things would come to this.
I never imagined that Saddam would be so in control of things within his country that he could dig in his heels this long in ignoring the commitments he made to disarm at the conclusion of the Gulf War.
I never imagined that the US would actually be doing something America has never done and which presidents from John Quincy Adams to Dwight Eisenhower always repudiated--an American pre-emptive attack.
I certainly never imagined that Robin Cook, a former foreign minister in Tony Blair's government, would sacrifice his political future by resigning from the Labour government in protest of that government's alliance with the Bush Administration regarding Iraq.
I never imagined that the world, which was so firmly in America's corner after September 11, would be so opposed to America today.
It isn't my intention to express whether the President is right in the course he has chosen.
But I doubt that any of us could have imagined the events that have unfolded since President Bush's September 12, 2002 speech before the United Nations General Assembly. Nor could we have imagined the trepidation and fear that even the President's most ardent advocates express about the prospect of war in Iraq and its possible consequences.
Now, we are left to do what we must always do: PRAY!
Today, I received an e-mail from my colleague, Glen VanderKloot, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Springfield, Illinois. Glen pointed out that there is a movement calling Americans to pray for America and for American military personnel every evening at 9:00 P.M.
I like that idea. But I would also like to suggest that at the same time, we pray for the following people and concerns:
(1) Pray that the innocent people of Iraq, the primary victims of Saddam Hussein's tyranny, will be protected from danger and harm.
(2) Pray that the developers and owners of weapons of mass destruction the world over will find more productive, creative ways to use money and resources.
(3) Pray that God will create a hunger in the hearts and minds of world leaders for Jesus Christ, His righteousness, and His wisdom. Pray too, that God will give them the courage to act on what God shows them.
(4) Pray that world terrorism will not be encouraged by this war or its aftermath.
(5) Pray that there will be peace in the Middle East.
We don't know everything. But through Jesus Christ, we do know God and we know that God can guide us through the current international crisis. May God bless our world!
Last evening, President Bush issued an ultimatum to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and his regime. Bush told Saddam to depart from Iraq within forty-eight hours or face attack.
There is a surreal quality to all of this. My favorite sports journalist, Tony Kornheiser, spoke for most of us, I think, when he noted on his radio show this morning that he never thought things would come to this.
I never imagined that Saddam would be so in control of things within his country that he could dig in his heels this long in ignoring the commitments he made to disarm at the conclusion of the Gulf War.
I never imagined that the US would actually be doing something America has never done and which presidents from John Quincy Adams to Dwight Eisenhower always repudiated--an American pre-emptive attack.
I certainly never imagined that Robin Cook, a former foreign minister in Tony Blair's government, would sacrifice his political future by resigning from the Labour government in protest of that government's alliance with the Bush Administration regarding Iraq.
I never imagined that the world, which was so firmly in America's corner after September 11, would be so opposed to America today.
It isn't my intention to express whether the President is right in the course he has chosen.
But I doubt that any of us could have imagined the events that have unfolded since President Bush's September 12, 2002 speech before the United Nations General Assembly. Nor could we have imagined the trepidation and fear that even the President's most ardent advocates express about the prospect of war in Iraq and its possible consequences.
Now, we are left to do what we must always do: PRAY!
Today, I received an e-mail from my colleague, Glen VanderKloot, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Springfield, Illinois. Glen pointed out that there is a movement calling Americans to pray for America and for American military personnel every evening at 9:00 P.M.
I like that idea. But I would also like to suggest that at the same time, we pray for the following people and concerns:
(1) Pray that the innocent people of Iraq, the primary victims of Saddam Hussein's tyranny, will be protected from danger and harm.
(2) Pray that the developers and owners of weapons of mass destruction the world over will find more productive, creative ways to use money and resources.
(3) Pray that God will create a hunger in the hearts and minds of world leaders for Jesus Christ, His righteousness, and His wisdom. Pray too, that God will give them the courage to act on what God shows them.
(4) Pray that world terrorism will not be encouraged by this war or its aftermath.
(5) Pray that there will be peace in the Middle East.
We don't know everything. But through Jesus Christ, we do know God and we know that God can guide us through the current international crisis. May God bless our world!
Monday, March 17, 2003
Losing to Win
Mark 8:31-38
[Message shared at Friendship Church, Amelia, Ohio on March 16, 2003]
In 1968, at the Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City, a runner named John Stephen Aquara was in the marathon, representing Tanzania. Shortly after the race began, Aquara fell, causing serious injuries to both a knee and an ankle. He received some medical attention and then, bandaged and still bleeding, he got back on the trail and resumed the race. He limped, hobbled, and skipped. Two hours after the other competitors had finished the race, John Stephen Aquara crossed the finish line. He even took a victory lap around the stadium. When a reporter later asked him why he had continued in the race when it was clear he could win no medal, Aquara replied, "My country didn’t send me seven thousand miles to enter the race. They sent me here to finish the race." [from Zig Ziglar's Over the Top]
As a follower of Jesus Christ, I identify with that true story. Twenty-seven years ago, after a period of childish, willful rebellion against God, I received Jesus Christ as my Lord. Whether we’re among those fortunate people who can say there never has been a time when they didn’t believe and follow Christ or if we’re among the thick-headed, thick-hearted variety I represent, the moment we turn from sin as a way of life and come to trust Jesus as our God and our only hope, our eternal destinies are assured. The believer in Jesus lives in the certainty that the Savior Who died and rose for sinners like us gives eternity with God to all who surrender to Him completely.
But our lives from that point aren’t meant to be spent just waiting for eternity. The Bible says that followers of Jesus live as aliens in a foreign country and that each of us, in our own ways, are to be "ambassadors for Christ." The Bible also says that life is a race and that each of us are to run it like competitors going for the gold. We’re to live each day we have on this earth with purpose and meaning and faithfulness to Christ even if everyone around us thinks we’re crazy. As followers of Jesus living in this world, we’re to be like John Stephen Aquara. We’re runners God has sent into the world not just to enter the race, but to finish the race!
Our Bible lesson for this morning gives us a good indication of what’s involved in the race that you and I are to run. Just before the beginning of the incident that our lesson recounts, Jesus’ key follower Peter has made a stunning confession. He says that Jesus is the very reflection of God in a human being. Jesus, Peter says, is the Messiah and the blessed Son of God the Father. Jesus tells Peter that he’s absolutely right. What a feeling that must have given to Peter and the other disciples. Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, about to begin His rule, and they were in on the ground floor.
But Jesus didn’t let them feel triumphant for long. Jesus chose that very moment to tell the disciples that He would go to Jerusalem, undergo all sorts of suffering, be rejected by the religious leaders, be condemned by the government, be killed, and three days later, rise again. Mark, the writer of our lesson says that Jesus "said this quite openly"; He spoke "with plainness and clarity." Jesus spoke with such plainness and clarity [this phrase was used to describe this passage by the late Lutheran Bible commentator, R.C.H. Lenski], in fact, that he riled Peter up! Peter pulled Jesus aside, grabbed Jesus by the shoulders as though trying to talk sense into a man who had stepped out onto a fiftieth storey building ledge, and shaking Jesus began yelling at Jesus. One of the other four books of the New Testament that we call "Gospels" tells us that Peter said, "God forbid! This will never happen to You, Lord!"
In this little performance, Peter manages to make Jesus fiercely angry! Jesus condemns Peter passionately. He tells Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things!" Can you imagine? Jesus applies one of the names for the devil to Peter. The word Satan basically means obstructor or opponent. Peter thinks that he’s being a nice guy. He thinks that he’s encouraging Jesus to banish any negative thoughts about suffering or crosses from His brain. And Jesus tells Peter, "Get out of My way! The Father didn’t send me just to enter the race. He sent me to finish the race!" For Jesus, that means suffering physically. It means suffering rejection and death on a cross. And finally, it means that Peter didn’t seem to hear: rising from the dead.
After lowering the boom on Peter, Jesus calls together His disciples and the crowd of people who watch His every move and He tells them:
"If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for My sake, and for the sake of the gospel [the good news of God’s gift of life to all who turn from sin and receive Jesus as their Master] will save it... [He finishes by saying] Those who are ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when He comes [back] in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."
Followers of Jesus are called to finish the race just like Jesus did.
Our race as followers of Christ is like a journey. In this journey, three major things need to happen. [This journey motif was identified well in the weekly exegetical e-mail authored by Brian Stoffregen.]
First: We're to say goodbye to our selfishness. This is what Jesus means when He says that we’re to deny ourselves. Jesus calls us to quit worrying so much about ourselves and think about others. I recently read about a woman who manages a North Carolina nursing center. She has personal relationships with all the residents and loves helping meet their physical and emotional needs. An avid gardener, she grows roses behind the nursing center and sees to it that each resident receives a fresh-cut rose on their tray each morning. She gives of herself, treating others as she wants to be treated because some day she knows that she may be a resident of that nursing center. But not yet. After all, she’s only ninety. [from Be All You Can Be by Michael B. Brown] When you know that God will preserve you here and in eternity, you can care about others, no matter your age or condition.
In our journey, Jesus says, we need to carry our baggage. That’s what Jesus means when He tells us to take up our crosses. A lot of people think that means enduring the everyday challenges, frustrations, or tragedies of life. But our experience tells us and the Bible affirms that everybody faces these things in life. They happen whether we want them to happen or not. Jesus though, is talking about something we voluntarily take, something we choose to endure, like He voluntarily took up a cross to save us from sin and death. Taking up our cross then, means embracing experiences we’d rather not go through, knowing that when we do, others may see Jesus in us and want the hope and life Jesus offers.
On our prayer concern list today, you’ll find the names of Tom and Barb Beckstrom. Tom is pastor of Covenant Community Church in Fairfield. A few months ago, Tom, Barb, and their neighbors learned that their new homes were built on a toxic waste dump. You may have read about their situation in the newspapers or seen reports about it on TV. Many of their neighbors have reacted with fierce hatred toward the builder, public officials, and others. But Tom and Barb have made a decision, Tom told me the other day, to be positive witnesses for Christ in the midst of this situation. Even as they seek to get their neighborhood cleaned up, Tom and Barb are resolved to demonstrate and live the love of Jesus Christ. They’ve made this resolution in spite of seeing the value of their home plummet and being concerned about the possible effects of their home’s location on their health. "This presents us with an opportunity to show Jesus to people," Tom told me the other day. "And Barb and I are on our knees a lot, asking God to help us be faithful." Tom and Barb have volunteered to go through this situation looking for ways to help others experience the saving love of Jesus. They’re suffering for the sake of others. That’s what people do when they take up their crosses.
Finally: We’re to actually take the journey Jesus gives us. That’s what Jesus means when He says "follow Me." Lots of people go to worship on Sunday mornings. But they don’t journey through their weeks with Christ! Day in and day out, we’re to put Jesus first and make following Him our highest priority. That isn’t always easy! Loving God and loving neighbor in a dog-eat-dog world can be hard. It may mean rejection and suffering of one kind or another, just as it did for the Savior we follow. But remember—always remember—that Jesus, as He says, in our lesson today, will never be ashamed of those who dare to follow Him. Followers of Jesus are life’s ultimate winners. We belong to God forever. And we want to take as many people with us to heaven as possible! Those who humble themselves by denying themselves, taking up their crosses, and following wherever Jesus leads may look like Clark Kent to the world. But in the eyes of the only One Whose opinion really matters, they look like Superman and Superwoman.
God calls us not just to enter the race. But to finish the race. Let’s be true to that call!
[Message shared at Friendship Church, Amelia, Ohio on March 16, 2003]
In 1968, at the Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City, a runner named John Stephen Aquara was in the marathon, representing Tanzania. Shortly after the race began, Aquara fell, causing serious injuries to both a knee and an ankle. He received some medical attention and then, bandaged and still bleeding, he got back on the trail and resumed the race. He limped, hobbled, and skipped. Two hours after the other competitors had finished the race, John Stephen Aquara crossed the finish line. He even took a victory lap around the stadium. When a reporter later asked him why he had continued in the race when it was clear he could win no medal, Aquara replied, "My country didn’t send me seven thousand miles to enter the race. They sent me here to finish the race." [from Zig Ziglar's Over the Top]
As a follower of Jesus Christ, I identify with that true story. Twenty-seven years ago, after a period of childish, willful rebellion against God, I received Jesus Christ as my Lord. Whether we’re among those fortunate people who can say there never has been a time when they didn’t believe and follow Christ or if we’re among the thick-headed, thick-hearted variety I represent, the moment we turn from sin as a way of life and come to trust Jesus as our God and our only hope, our eternal destinies are assured. The believer in Jesus lives in the certainty that the Savior Who died and rose for sinners like us gives eternity with God to all who surrender to Him completely.
But our lives from that point aren’t meant to be spent just waiting for eternity. The Bible says that followers of Jesus live as aliens in a foreign country and that each of us, in our own ways, are to be "ambassadors for Christ." The Bible also says that life is a race and that each of us are to run it like competitors going for the gold. We’re to live each day we have on this earth with purpose and meaning and faithfulness to Christ even if everyone around us thinks we’re crazy. As followers of Jesus living in this world, we’re to be like John Stephen Aquara. We’re runners God has sent into the world not just to enter the race, but to finish the race!
Our Bible lesson for this morning gives us a good indication of what’s involved in the race that you and I are to run. Just before the beginning of the incident that our lesson recounts, Jesus’ key follower Peter has made a stunning confession. He says that Jesus is the very reflection of God in a human being. Jesus, Peter says, is the Messiah and the blessed Son of God the Father. Jesus tells Peter that he’s absolutely right. What a feeling that must have given to Peter and the other disciples. Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, about to begin His rule, and they were in on the ground floor.
But Jesus didn’t let them feel triumphant for long. Jesus chose that very moment to tell the disciples that He would go to Jerusalem, undergo all sorts of suffering, be rejected by the religious leaders, be condemned by the government, be killed, and three days later, rise again. Mark, the writer of our lesson says that Jesus "said this quite openly"; He spoke "with plainness and clarity." Jesus spoke with such plainness and clarity [this phrase was used to describe this passage by the late Lutheran Bible commentator, R.C.H. Lenski], in fact, that he riled Peter up! Peter pulled Jesus aside, grabbed Jesus by the shoulders as though trying to talk sense into a man who had stepped out onto a fiftieth storey building ledge, and shaking Jesus began yelling at Jesus. One of the other four books of the New Testament that we call "Gospels" tells us that Peter said, "God forbid! This will never happen to You, Lord!"
In this little performance, Peter manages to make Jesus fiercely angry! Jesus condemns Peter passionately. He tells Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things!" Can you imagine? Jesus applies one of the names for the devil to Peter. The word Satan basically means obstructor or opponent. Peter thinks that he’s being a nice guy. He thinks that he’s encouraging Jesus to banish any negative thoughts about suffering or crosses from His brain. And Jesus tells Peter, "Get out of My way! The Father didn’t send me just to enter the race. He sent me to finish the race!" For Jesus, that means suffering physically. It means suffering rejection and death on a cross. And finally, it means that Peter didn’t seem to hear: rising from the dead.
After lowering the boom on Peter, Jesus calls together His disciples and the crowd of people who watch His every move and He tells them:
"If any want to become My followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for My sake, and for the sake of the gospel [the good news of God’s gift of life to all who turn from sin and receive Jesus as their Master] will save it... [He finishes by saying] Those who are ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when He comes [back] in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."
Followers of Jesus are called to finish the race just like Jesus did.
Our race as followers of Christ is like a journey. In this journey, three major things need to happen. [This journey motif was identified well in the weekly exegetical e-mail authored by Brian Stoffregen.]
First: We're to say goodbye to our selfishness. This is what Jesus means when He says that we’re to deny ourselves. Jesus calls us to quit worrying so much about ourselves and think about others. I recently read about a woman who manages a North Carolina nursing center. She has personal relationships with all the residents and loves helping meet their physical and emotional needs. An avid gardener, she grows roses behind the nursing center and sees to it that each resident receives a fresh-cut rose on their tray each morning. She gives of herself, treating others as she wants to be treated because some day she knows that she may be a resident of that nursing center. But not yet. After all, she’s only ninety. [from Be All You Can Be by Michael B. Brown] When you know that God will preserve you here and in eternity, you can care about others, no matter your age or condition.
In our journey, Jesus says, we need to carry our baggage. That’s what Jesus means when He tells us to take up our crosses. A lot of people think that means enduring the everyday challenges, frustrations, or tragedies of life. But our experience tells us and the Bible affirms that everybody faces these things in life. They happen whether we want them to happen or not. Jesus though, is talking about something we voluntarily take, something we choose to endure, like He voluntarily took up a cross to save us from sin and death. Taking up our cross then, means embracing experiences we’d rather not go through, knowing that when we do, others may see Jesus in us and want the hope and life Jesus offers.
On our prayer concern list today, you’ll find the names of Tom and Barb Beckstrom. Tom is pastor of Covenant Community Church in Fairfield. A few months ago, Tom, Barb, and their neighbors learned that their new homes were built on a toxic waste dump. You may have read about their situation in the newspapers or seen reports about it on TV. Many of their neighbors have reacted with fierce hatred toward the builder, public officials, and others. But Tom and Barb have made a decision, Tom told me the other day, to be positive witnesses for Christ in the midst of this situation. Even as they seek to get their neighborhood cleaned up, Tom and Barb are resolved to demonstrate and live the love of Jesus Christ. They’ve made this resolution in spite of seeing the value of their home plummet and being concerned about the possible effects of their home’s location on their health. "This presents us with an opportunity to show Jesus to people," Tom told me the other day. "And Barb and I are on our knees a lot, asking God to help us be faithful." Tom and Barb have volunteered to go through this situation looking for ways to help others experience the saving love of Jesus. They’re suffering for the sake of others. That’s what people do when they take up their crosses.
Finally: We’re to actually take the journey Jesus gives us. That’s what Jesus means when He says "follow Me." Lots of people go to worship on Sunday mornings. But they don’t journey through their weeks with Christ! Day in and day out, we’re to put Jesus first and make following Him our highest priority. That isn’t always easy! Loving God and loving neighbor in a dog-eat-dog world can be hard. It may mean rejection and suffering of one kind or another, just as it did for the Savior we follow. But remember—always remember—that Jesus, as He says, in our lesson today, will never be ashamed of those who dare to follow Him. Followers of Jesus are life’s ultimate winners. We belong to God forever. And we want to take as many people with us to heaven as possible! Those who humble themselves by denying themselves, taking up their crosses, and following wherever Jesus leads may look like Clark Kent to the world. But in the eyes of the only One Whose opinion really matters, they look like Superman and Superwoman.
God calls us not just to enter the race. But to finish the race. Let’s be true to that call!
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Learning to Pray from the Man Who Taught the World to Read
I had long been interested in learning more from and about Frank C. Laubach. Laubach was mentioned in Norman Vincent Peale's classic, The Power of Positive Thinking. From an acquaintance who once directed the work of a local literacy agency that bore Laubach's name, I knew that the one-time missionary who died many decades ago, had been inspired during a time of prayer to begin a movement to teach illiterate adults to read.
I figured that such a man could teach a lot about prayer, but his books are out of print.
Then one day a few weeks ago, I sat in a neighboring church's library and saw on the shelf the 1960 paperback edition of Laubach's Prayer: The Mightiest Force in the World. I almost jumped on the book and checked it out immediately! Originally written right after World War Two, Prayer: The Mightiest Force in the World urges people to pray for the United Nations, for world leaders, and for peace. As the crisis over Iraq heated up, Laubach's words were lent special immediacy and power.
One of Laubach's most important suggestions in this terrific little book is that we pray during the "chinks" that happen in all of our schedules: while stuck in traffic, doing mindless chores, standing in lines, and so on. Lengthy concentrated prayer time is good, Laubach asserts, but if we are to follow Saint Paul's admonition to "pray without ceasing," we need to cultivate the habit of offering up prayers all the time. Laubach is especially urgent in commending prayer for the leaders of all nations. (This is a suggestion that the New Testament authors, who even urged prayer for Roman emperors who persecuted the Church, would readily endorse, I'm sure.)
I keep a file of meaningful quotes drawn from the books I read. Prayer: The Mightiest Force in the World is full of great quotes. In the current international crisis though, several stand out:
"Most of us will never enter the White House and offer advice to the President. Probably he will never have time to read our letters [or our e-mails, I thought, as I read this]. But we can give him what is far more important than advice. We can give him a lift into the presence of God, make him hungry for divine wisdom...We can visit the White House with prayer as many times a day as we think of it, and every such visit makes us a channel between God and the President."
He also says that in our praying for the President and other leaders, "[w]e do not 'persuade God to try harder'...; it is our world leaders, our statesmen and church men [sic] whom we persuade to try harder. We help God when we pray. When great numbers of us pray for leaders, a mighty invisible spiritual force lifts our minds and eyes toward God. His Spirit flows through our prayer to them, and He can speak to them directly."
I laughed out loud when I read this assertion by Laubach: "We can do more for the world with prayer than if we were to walk into Whitehall, London, or the Kremlin in Moscow, and tell those men [sic] what to do---far more! If they listened to our suggestions, we would probably be more or less wrong [emphasis mine]. But what God tells them, when they listen to Him, must be right. It is infinitely better for world leaders to listen to God than for them to listen to us." These lines made me laugh because I thought how right Laubach was. I remembered how many times I held doggedly to an opinion about a political matter only to learn how misguided and wrong my view had been. How much better it is to humbly and trustingly place matters in God's hands, confident in His infinitely superior judgment. And how much better it is to put frail human leaders in God's hands than trying to manhandle them with my very fallible opinions and judgments!
These insights from Laubach have proven helpful to me in the weeks that I've been praying about the possible war with Iraq. I've prayed that God would cause a hunger and thirst for God's righteousness to happen in all our international leaders. I've asked God to take control of the situation in Iraq (and in North Korea). And I've tried to offer those prayers during every "chink" in my daily schedule.
Jesus promises that when we approach the Father in His Name, submitting to His will, God hears and answers our prayers. It's clear to me that nobody wants this war---people from George W. Bush to those on the streets interviewed in Baghdad have said so repeatedly. I don't want this war to happen if it can be avoided. So, I'm going to keep praying that in His divine sovereignty and power, God will make a way for war to averted, a way for the people of Iraq to be freed from oppression and fear, a way for weapons of mass destruction the world over to be eliminated, and a way for the lives of Iraqis and American military personnel to be protected. And I'm offering these prayers up, never doubting God's good intentions for the human race, constantly throughout my day.
"...More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of," Tennyson observed. At a critical time, Laubach's Prayer: The Mightiest Force in the World reminded me of this truth and challenged me to recommit myself to "pray without ceasing."
I figured that such a man could teach a lot about prayer, but his books are out of print.
Then one day a few weeks ago, I sat in a neighboring church's library and saw on the shelf the 1960 paperback edition of Laubach's Prayer: The Mightiest Force in the World. I almost jumped on the book and checked it out immediately! Originally written right after World War Two, Prayer: The Mightiest Force in the World urges people to pray for the United Nations, for world leaders, and for peace. As the crisis over Iraq heated up, Laubach's words were lent special immediacy and power.
One of Laubach's most important suggestions in this terrific little book is that we pray during the "chinks" that happen in all of our schedules: while stuck in traffic, doing mindless chores, standing in lines, and so on. Lengthy concentrated prayer time is good, Laubach asserts, but if we are to follow Saint Paul's admonition to "pray without ceasing," we need to cultivate the habit of offering up prayers all the time. Laubach is especially urgent in commending prayer for the leaders of all nations. (This is a suggestion that the New Testament authors, who even urged prayer for Roman emperors who persecuted the Church, would readily endorse, I'm sure.)
I keep a file of meaningful quotes drawn from the books I read. Prayer: The Mightiest Force in the World is full of great quotes. In the current international crisis though, several stand out:
"Most of us will never enter the White House and offer advice to the President. Probably he will never have time to read our letters [or our e-mails, I thought, as I read this]. But we can give him what is far more important than advice. We can give him a lift into the presence of God, make him hungry for divine wisdom...We can visit the White House with prayer as many times a day as we think of it, and every such visit makes us a channel between God and the President."
He also says that in our praying for the President and other leaders, "[w]e do not 'persuade God to try harder'...; it is our world leaders, our statesmen and church men [sic] whom we persuade to try harder. We help God when we pray. When great numbers of us pray for leaders, a mighty invisible spiritual force lifts our minds and eyes toward God. His Spirit flows through our prayer to them, and He can speak to them directly."
I laughed out loud when I read this assertion by Laubach: "We can do more for the world with prayer than if we were to walk into Whitehall, London, or the Kremlin in Moscow, and tell those men [sic] what to do---far more! If they listened to our suggestions, we would probably be more or less wrong [emphasis mine]. But what God tells them, when they listen to Him, must be right. It is infinitely better for world leaders to listen to God than for them to listen to us." These lines made me laugh because I thought how right Laubach was. I remembered how many times I held doggedly to an opinion about a political matter only to learn how misguided and wrong my view had been. How much better it is to humbly and trustingly place matters in God's hands, confident in His infinitely superior judgment. And how much better it is to put frail human leaders in God's hands than trying to manhandle them with my very fallible opinions and judgments!
These insights from Laubach have proven helpful to me in the weeks that I've been praying about the possible war with Iraq. I've prayed that God would cause a hunger and thirst for God's righteousness to happen in all our international leaders. I've asked God to take control of the situation in Iraq (and in North Korea). And I've tried to offer those prayers during every "chink" in my daily schedule.
Jesus promises that when we approach the Father in His Name, submitting to His will, God hears and answers our prayers. It's clear to me that nobody wants this war---people from George W. Bush to those on the streets interviewed in Baghdad have said so repeatedly. I don't want this war to happen if it can be avoided. So, I'm going to keep praying that in His divine sovereignty and power, God will make a way for war to averted, a way for the people of Iraq to be freed from oppression and fear, a way for weapons of mass destruction the world over to be eliminated, and a way for the lives of Iraqis and American military personnel to be protected. And I'm offering these prayers up, never doubting God's good intentions for the human race, constantly throughout my day.
"...More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of," Tennyson observed. At a critical time, Laubach's Prayer: The Mightiest Force in the World reminded me of this truth and challenged me to recommit myself to "pray without ceasing."
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Thank You, Mr. Rogers!
Life in our neighborhood was made poorer today when Fred Rogers, televison's "Mister Rogers," died from stomach cancer. Rogers' passing saddens me and tonight when my eighteen year old daughter and I watched a PBS-replay of a 1990 documentary about the children's television host, there were tears in our family room.
Rogers, an ordained pastor of the Presbyterian Church, was a genuinely gentle soul whose life and work ennobled us all. His soft-spoken manner made him an easy target for comedic parodies. But at the core of the man was a fiery passion and a mission to which he remained faithful from the day when, as a newly graduated college student headed for seminary, he abruptly changed career directions to "work in television," helping kids love themselves and others.
On February 27, 1999, four years before his death, Rogers was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. His acceptance speech that night makes for interesting and inspiring reading. (You can find it at http://thatmusicplace.com/thoughts/rogers.html.)
One passage from the speech really struck me as I read it last night. "I feel that those of us in television are chosen to be servants," Rogers said. "...we are chosen to help meet the deeper needs of those who watch and listen day and night."
Anyone who observed Fred Rogers on television or listened to those who knew him best, could see that there was a real joy in the man. He was happy with who he was and happy about helping children in important ways. Rogers' servanthood confirmed the truth of Albert Schweitzer's words that, ""Every person I have known who has been truly happy, has learned to serve others." Rogers knew Jesus' words about the last being first and the first being last. He was willing to be a servant to kids because he knew that Jesus had secured his place in eternity. He lived with the happy abandonment of a Jesus follower!
Fred Rogers learned to serve. He spent a lifetime serving the weakest and neediest among us, our children. I hope that before my time is done on this planet, I will be half the servant of God and neighbor that he was.
Rogers, an ordained pastor of the Presbyterian Church, was a genuinely gentle soul whose life and work ennobled us all. His soft-spoken manner made him an easy target for comedic parodies. But at the core of the man was a fiery passion and a mission to which he remained faithful from the day when, as a newly graduated college student headed for seminary, he abruptly changed career directions to "work in television," helping kids love themselves and others.
On February 27, 1999, four years before his death, Rogers was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. His acceptance speech that night makes for interesting and inspiring reading. (You can find it at http://thatmusicplace.com/thoughts/rogers.html.)
One passage from the speech really struck me as I read it last night. "I feel that those of us in television are chosen to be servants," Rogers said. "...we are chosen to help meet the deeper needs of those who watch and listen day and night."
Anyone who observed Fred Rogers on television or listened to those who knew him best, could see that there was a real joy in the man. He was happy with who he was and happy about helping children in important ways. Rogers' servanthood confirmed the truth of Albert Schweitzer's words that, ""Every person I have known who has been truly happy, has learned to serve others." Rogers knew Jesus' words about the last being first and the first being last. He was willing to be a servant to kids because he knew that Jesus had secured his place in eternity. He lived with the happy abandonment of a Jesus follower!
Fred Rogers learned to serve. He spent a lifetime serving the weakest and neediest among us, our children. I hope that before my time is done on this planet, I will be half the servant of God and neighbor that he was.
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