Glass Houses
Lefties are people, too.
But you may not know it from how the world has treated us. Centuries of prejudice and discrimination have dogged those of us who use our left hand. Art, literature, cultural traditions – these have all been biased toward right-handed people. Try playing a guitar or almost any musical instrument and you’ll find that it’s always harder for us lefties. Scissors, desks, notebooks – almost all geared toward the right-handed people of the world. For most of history, being left-handed meant there was something wrong with you. It’s even reflected in our language and in our culture. Did you know the word for “right” in Latin is “dexter?” As in “dexterity” or “ambidextrous.” Usually, it means someone who is versatile, limber, or skilled. All good things. You know what the Latin word for “left” is? “Sinister.” I don’t think I even have to explain that one. Do you know why people wear wedding rings on their left hands? To fend off evil.[1] You know why we throw salt over our left shoulder? To fend off evil. It took until the 20th century in America let alone the rest of the world, to understand that being left-handed did not mean that you were wrong, evil, or sinister.
It was even common to try and “convert” left-handed people.
As if you could train the left-handedness out of them. Why you would want to is beyond my understanding, but it happened to me. When I was little, we’d go and visit my grandparents, and anytime I picked up a fork, a pencil, or a pen; anytime I picked up anything with my left hand, my grandmother would take it from my left and put it in to my right. She grew up believing being left-handed was a bad thing. Now, I don’t know if she thought it was bad simply because it made life harder and she was trying to save me from the suffering, or if she thought it was bad because evil spirits would inhabit my body and take control of me, but she would try to train the left-handedness out of me. My mom had to keep telling her that it was alright, that it was natural for me to be left-handed, but sometimes I wonder if I’m ambidextrous because my grandmother was always trying to get me to use my right hand. Now, of course, we know those of us who are left-handed are more creative and intelligent than you poor right-handed people. We are, after all, the only ones in our “right minds.” But seriously, centuries went by and most of society believed left-handed people were evil or under the influence of evil spirits just because we were different.
As a society, we are quick to pass judgment on those who are “different.”
Those who look different, think different, or act differently than we do often get treated as pariahs. And whether we realize it or not, we treat them much like we used to treat lefties – as if there was something wrong with them instead of simply people who were different. If you look at the long stretch of history, society has done this to pretty much every group of people on some level. We have a horrible track record with people of color, with women, with gender and sexual identity; we’ve been nasty to children, the elderly, and to those who don’t ascribe to “our” religion. If there’s a group of people out there that we can name as the “other,” you can bet history hasn’t been kind to them. And that’s what we are about to see in our reading today.
1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.” – John 8:1-11
We have all been this woman.
Maybe we haven’t committed adultery, but we’ve all done something wrong and been called on the carpet for it, and we pray that someone will have mercy on us for our mistakes. And here, Jesus shows that mercy. He shows his love and compassion for her and forgives her. We are all in need of forgiveness. But here’s what’s really interesting. When you read the story, you’re tempted to think it’s the woman caught in adultery that is on trial, but actually it’s not. It’s Jesus. HE’S the one they are trying to condemn. If you read verse six it says, “They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.” They were hoping Jesus would say something so over the top that they could justify arresting him and accusing him of heresy, and if you notice, in the Bible, they do this over and over again. In fact, they were so overzealous, they didn’t even follow their own laws, the laws they were mad at Jesus for breaking. Deuteronomy 19:15 says you need at least two or three witnesses to convict a person, but they didn’t bring forth any witnesses against this woman. Deuteronomy 22:22 says that any man caught in adultery must die alongside the adulteress, but again, they never brought him forth either. They were so blinded by their own prejudices against Jesus they violated the very thing that made them mad at Jesus to begin with and they broke the law.
And that’s the danger.
You can become so blinded by your fear, by your anxiety, by your unwillingness to accept things that are different, that you miss out on opportunities in life. You miss out on the important things like love, forgiveness, and peace, and instead get wrapped up in the petty small things that in the scope of it all are really unimportant. The Pharisees and the church leaders missed out on the coming of the Messiah. They were so consumed by their fear of Jesus and their anxiety about what he did, they couldn’t see that the Christ they had been praying for was standing in their midst. The church of today still does this. And unfortunately, more often than not. One of my pastor friends told me about this woman who was coming to visit the church. She was dressed in clothes that were a bit ragged and worn but you could tell she was dressing in the best clothes she had, and her children were wearing regular kid clothes. Nothing fancy, just shirts and pants. As she walked up to the church doors, the usher turned to the woman and said, “At THIS church, we dress up for God.” Red-faced, she turned away and left and as far as I know, she never came back. That was a person looking for the love of God and realizing it wasn’t in THAT church. I hope she found it in another, but would you be surprised if she never came back? Sometimes we stand in judgment of others without recognizing the circumstances. If that usher had simply taken the time to notice that this woman might not have any other “nicer” clothes or had thought about the fact that God doesn’t care what you wear to church, maybe he wouldn’t have been so harsh. Because more than anything, God cares about our presence and not how we present. God wants us to be a part of a loving, worshiping community of people so we can grow in our faith together. We need to accept people as they are. Not how we want them to be.
There’s an old saying, “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”
That comes from this passage we read today. And it’s a reminder that we are just as vulnerable and just as flawed as the people we want to criticize. We need to keep that in mind before condemning others. It’s a reminder we need to be careful not to reject others based on our preconceptions. When we do that, it is easier to let go of the anger, the spite, the fear, and the anxiety that comes with labeling someone as the “other.” And we make the world a better, healthier place. Remember, God wants us to be inclusive, not exclusive. When we fail to do that, we miss out on opportunities – not only to show God’s love, but to embrace people who might enrich our lives. Think of all of the great left-handed people in the world – Paul McCartney, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Scarlett Johansson, Clayton Kershaw, and President Obama just to name a few. Think about a world without them if people still thought being left-handed meant you were evil or possessed. How many people in our own past did we miss out on because people couldn’t see past something arbitrary like that? How many people misjudged us for something inconsequential or even plain wrong? Give people a chance. Give them a chance to show you that God is working in them, too. And hug a lefty today. They are the only ones in their right minds.
What If God Were Black?
That’s a question posed by Robert F. Kennedy back in 1966.
What if God were black? We tend to see the world from our point of view and as you can imagine, there are as many points of view as there are people who have them. And since our point of view is formed and shaped by our lives, it’s hard for us to imagine how other people look at the world. But what if our assumptions of the world were turned upside down? What if the things we thought made us superior or better or right were…wrong? What if God were black?
Saddleback Church ordained its first three female pastors a couple of years ago.
This was an historic occasion. Not because they were female. The United Methodist Church has been ordaining women as pastors since 1956. But because Saddleback Church is part of the Southern Baptist Convention which expressly forbids women from preaching. By the way, in case you think this was an outdated policy that simply hadn’t been overturned, the SBC wrote this into their Baptist Faith and Message statement in the year 2000.[1] Prior to that there had been rare exceptions where a woman was ordained in the Baptist tradition. But that changed at the turn of the century. Owen Strachan, a faculty member at the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote this: “There is no exception to 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Not Mother’s Day, not when a woman has real gifting, not when the elders endorse women preaching. Based on his creation order, God only calls men to lead, preach, teach, & shepherd the flock…”[2] If you’re confused by this, Strachan is basically saying that because God created men first, they get all the prime jobs while women are left to pick up the scraps. They don’t make an argument based on talent or gifts or experience. It’s based on the “created order.” And that’s the official stance of the Southern Baptist Convention. So, what if God was a woman? If it’s all about the “created order” what if God were a woman? Would the men of the SBC willingly give up all their positions of power and take up housekeeping as a profession? Because God could be a woman. Or asexual. Or gender-fluid. While it’s true the Bible often refers to God using male pronouns, no one has ever seen God to know what God looks like. God could BE anything.
But the SBC isn’t the only group of people with a distorted view on reality.
Before we pile too deeply on them, and believe me there’s a lot we could say about their beliefs, we need to realize this inability to live in reality isn’t limited to far right evangelical groups. It’s something that is a danger to us all – left, right, and center. It doesn’t take much to find people with a distorted view of reality. Each of them believe whole-heartedly in their view, not because it’s the truth, but because of the lens through which they see the world. The question we need to ask ourselves is: How is our world view shaped by our beliefs and, more importantly, are we open to thoughts and ideas different from our own? The challenge for us constantly is to make sure we are not seeing life with blinders on, but are receptive to the movement of the Holy Spirit and consider the ways we are limiting our own worldview. Jesus challenges us to be receptive, to open our hearts to where God is leading in this passage we’re about to share.
4 While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: 5 “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. 6 Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”
When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” – Luke 8:4-8
What kind of soil are you?
Usually, we picture ourselves in this story as being the farmer. When read that way, this is a story to encourage us to keep sharing God’s love regardless of where our efforts land. Some will be receptive to it and some won’t but for us to be diligent in continuing forward. But I read a reflection by Rick Warren of all people who looked at this parable in a new light. What if WE are the SOIL? What if God is constantly trying to share his love for us and WE are the rocky ground or the thorny ground or the hard ground where the birds ate it all up? Perhaps this story is trying to share with us our need to be like the good soil, fertile and ripe for planting. We need to constantly keep the soil of our hearts tilled and rich and overturned so we are receptive to where God is leading us. We can’t afford to have our hearts become hardened or rocky or riddled with thorns. When that happens we become unyielding to the work of God.
Which takes us back to our question, “What if God were Black?”
Robert Kennedy wrote about his experience in South Africa when that country was still practicing apartheid – a system of racial segregation which classified white citizens higher than anyone else in society. In part, the white population justified their treatment of Coloured and Black people based on the Bible, saying this was part of God’s plan.[5] When Robert Kennedy went to visit, the government didn’t want to approve his visa, but most people thought he could be the next President of the United States and the South African government didn’t want to have bad relations with the next leader of America so they reluctantly let him in.[6] This is a part of what he wrote about his experience: “During five days this summer, my wife Ethel and I visited South Africa, talking to all kinds of people representing all viewpoints. Wherever we went-Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Stellenbosch, Johannesburg – apartheid was at the heart of the discussion and debate. Our aim was not simply to criticize but to engage in a dialogue to see if, together, we could elevate reason above prejudice and myth. At the University of Natal in Durban, I was told the church to which most of the white population belongs teaches apartheid as a moral necessity. A questioner declared that few churches allow black Africans to pray with the white because the Bible says that is the way it should be, because God created Negroes to serve. ‘But suppose God is black,’ I replied. ‘What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?’ There was no answer. Only silence.”[7]
What preconceptions and maybe misconceptions are you holding onto?
What are some ways you might be limiting the work of the Holy Spirit in your soul because you are not open to new or different ways of thinking? Our own denomination is struggling with this right now. We are not immune from this struggle to be the good soil. Right now, we are asking the question, “Do people who identify as LGBTQ+ qualify to serve in pastoral leadership?” It’s an argument that has been raging on for decades and one that will inevitably split us apart. But why? Why is our interpretation on who is fit to serve so narrowly defined? Why is it we predetermine if someone is qualified based on such shallow guidelines instead of by the fruit of their labor? The same argument used to hold women back from serving as pastors is the same argument used against people of color and is the same argument used against the LGBTQ+ community. When will we learn?
We are our own worst enemy.
We hold ourselves back from all God has to offer because we don’t spend enough time being open to the work of the Holy Spirit. I want to challenge you this week to test your soil, to be open to different perspectives. Many of us have a tendency to immediately push back on new ideas, to dismiss them out of hand before even considering it. Instead, be intentional. Hold back from your gut instinct. Promise yourself you’ll give every idea at least ten seconds of time to ponder the possibilities no matter how outlandish they appear to be on the surface. That doesn’t mean they AREN’T outlandish, but I think you’ll be surprised at how often you are resistant to new things and how just taking a deep breath can give you the chance to be inspired by something different. Just like a farmer working the land, we need to till the soil once in a while to keep it fertile and prosperous. So, too, do we need to till the soil of our minds and challenge our preconceptions of the world.
[1] https://scotmcknight.substack.com/p/the-heart-of-the-sbc-opposing-culture
[2] https://scotmcknight.substack.com/p/the-heart-of-the-sbc-opposing-culture
[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/52847648
[4] https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/13/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-aoc/index.html
[5] http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2413-94672015000200011
[6] http://www.npr.org/2011/08/12/139449268/remembering-rfks-visit-to-the-land-of-apartheid
The Fierce Urgency of NOW
Pets are precious.
If you’ve got pets, you probably feel the same way. So when we go somewhere as a family, it is really important to us who watches our pets, because we want to know they are left in good hands. Most of the time we’ve been fortunate and had amazing pet sitters. But this one time, we had one that was… less than amazing. They weren’t abusive. They didn’t hurt the dogs in any way. But you could tell, almost from the get-go, their heart wasn’t in it. When they came over to meet the dogs, they just didn’t give off that dog-loving vibe. All the best ones would get down to the dogs’ level and really interact with them. This person kind of just patted them on the head and turned immediately to the business of dog sitting. The logistics. It didn’t feel great, but we needed someone and our usuals weren’t available. While we were gone, I received an email thanking me for my purchase on our PlayStation. Granted, it was a free purchase, but why were they using my account in the first place? And then when we got home, we found things out of place, not put away, not cleaned up, a few things that were broken, and even some missing Tupperware. None of it was a big deal, but it let us know what kind of person was in charge of our pets. And I did love that Tupperware.
A good pet sitter and a bad pet sitter comes down to perspective.
Not our perspective, but theirs. A good dog sitter looks at the job as a responsibility. They take seriously that the pets entrusted to their care are precious and treat them as if they were their own. Maybe even better. A bad dog sitter doesn’t have to be evil or have evil intent. But instead they look at the job more about what they get out of it rather than what they put into it. People look at it as a responsibility or they look at it as an opportunity. Which one do you want caring for your pets? And while it can be both of those things, most of us want the person looking after our pets to be the kind of person who looks at it as a responsibility first and an opportunity second instead of the other way around. When it comes to the planet Earth, which kind of person are you? Responsibility or opportunity?
At the end of the day, we’re all just planet sitters.
The earth doesn’t belong to us. God put it in our care. As David wrote in the Book of Psalms, “The earth is the LORD’S and everything in it, the world and all who live in it… (Psalm 24:1)” We’re here to look after it, but it belongs to God. How do you think we’re doing? If God were going to give the human race a Yelp review, how many stars do you think we would get? We tend to be pretty oblivious to the damage we’re doing to the earth, either consciously or unconsciously. The big disasters get all the headlines. The Exxon-Valdez oil spill. The disaster on Deepwater Horizon. Those are the ones that make us wake up to the harm human beings are causing the planet. But the real harm doesn’t come from these one-off disasters as awful as they are. The real harm comes in the little things we do constantly, every day. Sometimes, it’s things we do without even knowing it. Like CFC emissions.[1] Do you remember when CFCs were a big deal? Hairspray would get the bad rap, but that was nothing compared to the CFCs coming out of refrigerators and air conditioners all over the world. That’s what was causing the real damage. It took us a long time to figure out that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer, the tiny, thin sheet of protection the earth had against the sun’s killer radiation. Once we did figure it out, it still took us more than a decade to do something about it. Big manufacturing companies blocked our way, claiming the results were inconclusive or the study wasn’t done properly. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? It’s part of the Playbook of Greed. These big companies didn’t want to let go of their profit margins or put in the hard work of doing what’s right. And while it would be easy to blame it on nameless, faceless companies, we have to remember it was people like me and you behind those companies. It was people like me and you who chose to drag our feet instead of doing what was right. It was people like me and you making the decisions to put profits over people.
We’re supposed to be caretakers of the planet.
Our mindset should be one of responsibility, not opportunity. But too often we give in to our own weaknesses, own selfishness, our own greed instead of doing what’s right. If you have a Bible or Bible app on your phone and want to follow along, find the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament beginning with chapter 25, verse 1; Leviticus 25:1. Now I’m as guilty of this as any of you and we’re all guilty to some extent. Our crimes don’t have to be on a massive scale like DuPont dumping toxic sludge into the rivers of the Ohio[2] or Hyperion pushing out syringes and tampons onto California state beaches.[3] Again, it’s in the little things we do as much as the big ones that add up to the ongoing damage to our planet. We have to treat our planet with respect. And that’s the point of this passage from Leviticus. Hear now the Word of God.
The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the Lord. 3 For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. 4 But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. 5 Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest.
23 “‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. 24 Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.
The Word of God for the people of God and the people said, “Thanks be to God.”
Even the land was granted Sabbath rest.
You work the land for six years and on the seventh, you let it lay fallow. Again, God built this natural cycle of work and rest not just into our bodies but into the very planet itself. Farmers do this all the time. They rotate crops and allow fields to lay fallow for a season so it has time to replenish itself and doesn’t get overworked. But even in this passage, God reminds the people of Israel that the land belongs to God. And then that last line resonates with our call to care for the earth. God tells them, “Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.” Even the earth itself is important to God, not just the people living on it. The very earth is deserving of redemption. And you can see how this plays out in this time of crisis that we are in with weird but wonderful ways. Over Beijing, there is this permanent cloud of haze caused by the poorly regulated pollution in China and the billions of people living there. It wavers and wanes, but pretty much there is a constant cloud of pollution just hovering over the land. Until the pandemic. After just one month of quarantine, after one month without factories churning out American cell phones and workers driving to and from work, the skies over most of China were clear and clean of nitrogen dioxide.[4] After just a month! The same is true for every major metropolitan area in the United States, from New York to the Bay. Even the notorious LA smog reduced dramatically since shelter-in-place orders were given.[5] It’s simply remarkable to watch the earth’s ability to heal itself if we simply give it the chance. With so much less human noise in the world, animals started to come out of hiding and roam into places once dominated by people. Bears came all the way into Yosemite Village, mountain goats walked down hills and strolled into towns, and coyotes were found wandering about San Francisco. This crisis opened up our eyes in many different ways, and this is one of them. God is showing us we need to do a better job of working in harmony with his creation instead of abusing it for our own purposes. We need to slow down once in a while and appreciate what God has created and give the earth time to breathe and to heal. And we need to take seriously the responsibility that God handed to us to care for this planet before it is too late.
A few years ago was the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.
And Creation Justice Ministries,[6] an interfaith group dedicated to preserving the environment with the belief that God is calling on us to be better stewards of the planet, adopted the theme of “The Fierce Urgency of Now” for this special occasion. Borrowing from the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., they challenged us not to wait, but to do something about the crisis of planetary abuse human beings are inflicting on the earth. In the words of the great Dr. King himself:
We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood—it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect.[7]
Let God know you were vigilant for the earth. Let God know you took the path of responsibility over opportunity. For we are all planet sitters and it’s up to us to be worthy of the trust that God placed into our hands.
[1] https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/cfcs-ozone.html
[2] https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/02/08/ohio-files-lawsuit-against-dupont-allegedly-dumping-toxic-chemical-into-ohio-river/320113002/
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_sewage_treatment_plant
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/03/03/coronavirus-nasa-reveals-how-cinas-lockdown-drastically-reduced-pollution/#6f4c151b2a75
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/22/climate/coronavirus-usa-traffic.html
[6] http://www.creationjustice.org/mission.html
[7] https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam
Faith and Family Trip to Disneyland 2024 – Hospitality
What is hospitality?
9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor… 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. – Romans 12:9-10, 13
Jesus modeled it. Paul wrote about it. But are we doing a good job of it in our churches and personal life? What lessons can we learn from the absolute master of hospitality – Disneyland! Join us as we find out what it means from Disney to offer hospitality and how we can apply those lessons into our own context. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
Next February, we are headed to Disneyland for our seventh Faith and Family Trip! I am excited to share this adventure with all of you and hope this is a great chance for us all to get to know each other better and inspire us to do more as people of faith. Here are the details:
- Date and Time: Sunday 2/18/24 (optional dinner on Saturday)
- Cost: $50 NOT including admission
- Will include lunch on Sunday, hefty snack, and souvenir!
- Everyone gets a t-shirt!
- What to Expect: Attractions in the morning, lunch and a tour in the afternoon, and a fun group activity for prizes! Everyone gets a little souvenir as well.
Our plans are to meet up early on Sunday to take advantage of being there at opening, have some devotional time together, and head into the park. We’ll go on some rides in the morning, have a mid-morning snack and lunch together, and take a tour emphasizing our theme of hospitality by a former cast member – me! And then we’ll have a cool scavenger hunt for prizes as well as other fun stuff! And more rides. After that it’s free time! We will have an optional dinner the night before for those arriving early and you can join me for dinner at the park if you’d like as well or just go off and have fun.
And it will be FUN! Hopefully you’ll also walk away with a different perspective on church. Our goal is to integrate best practices from the outside world and apply them to how we can be more effective for Christ. This trip will be focused on hospitality and how we can use our own radical hospitality to reshape how others see us and grow our church together. Can’t wait to see you !!!
Chocolate Chip Cookies… And God!
Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite!
For anyone that knows me, that’s probably not a big surprise. Homemade are the best! There’s something about the love and care that goes into a cookie from home that you just can’t get from a machine. Probably my favorite chocolate chip cookie is the Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Pan Cookie. It’s sort of like a blondie and a chocolate chip cookie combined into one. Yum. These were the chocolate chip cookies of my youth. My mom would make them on very rare occasions, and they tasted so good out of the oven, they would melt in your mouth! I love the taste of brown sugar and butter with the hot melting chocolate chips as it just oozes across your taste buds. The best. But have you ever thought about what goes INTO a chocolate chip cookie? I never really did. Sugar, brown sugar, flour, salt, baking powder, vanilla extract, eggs, and of course chocolate chips. Pretty much what you’d expect, right? A lot of the same basic ingredients you find in most baking recipes. But did you know crystallized sugar originally came from India? It was discovered about the 5th century. Today Brazil is the biggest exporter of sugar. The story is similar for the vanilla bean which is used for the vanilla extract. Originally found only in Mexico, the Totonac people of the Mazatlan valley were the first to cultivate it. But after a 12-year-old slave by the name of Edmond Albius discovered how to hand-pollinate the plant, the vanilla industry thrived and today most vanilla is produced in Madagascar. The chocolate chip cookie itself is a 20th century invention of Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. She was the one who blended in chunks of chocolate into a cookie back in 1937 to make one of my (and the world’s) favorite desserts today. The chocolate chip itself wasn’t created until 1941 when chocolate companies decided to package chocolate into baking morsels. Before that people would have to break apart the chocolate into chunks on their own. And the famous Nestle Toll House Cookies were named after the place of their birth in Massachusetts. So each time I bite into one of my favorite homemade chocolate chip cookies, I have to thank the people of India, Brazil, Mexico, Madagascar, and Ruth Graves Wakefield of the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts.[1]
All of that to say that life is far more complex than the narrow window we view it through.
To describe a chocolate chip cookie I only expanded upon three of the ingredients and already had to credit five completely different civilizations across history. Who knows who else we would include if we traced the history of flour or baking powder or brown sugar? I can generally give credit to God and the chicken for eggs, but who first thought to combine it with flour to make dough? In our attempt to simplify the world into manageable nuggets of information that we can remember, we often forget the complexity that makes up God’s brilliant design. We forget about the diverse nature of the world and how each part was created by God and contributes in its own way to a far more complex world than we can understand.
Our reading today comes from the Book of Genesis, Chapter 1.
As you probably know, this chapter is about the beginning of all creation and the writer gives us a glimpse into the work God has done. Prior to our reading, God has already been creating tons of different stuff. He’s created the heavens and the earth, light and darkness, and the water and the sky. The basics. Then God gets into even more complex stuff – land, vegetation, and time. Think about that. God CREATED time. Next, he created the stars and the sun and the moon, but so far, no other life on the Earth other than plants. And then this is where we come in.
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. – Genesis 1:20-25
We sort of take creation for granted don’t we?
I mean we have birds and fish and whales and if you believe in evolution dinosaurs which are very cool and lions and cows and all of these other kinds of animals. Just tons of different animals populating the Earth, and this is BEFORE human beings even come into the picture. But have you ever asked yourself why? Not why did God create these things before humans although that’s a great question, but why did God create them at all? Why did God create waters teeming with living creatures? For me, I would have been happy with just the fish. And maybe whales. But why bother creating the rest? What purpose do they serve? But “God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.’ …God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.” Just because the answer isn’t obvious to us doesn’t mean there isn’t a purpose there.
Take for example the jellyfish.[2]
You might wonder why God would create jellyfish? They seem more troublesome than they are worth. They have a sting that at its most severe can cause death. They can be problematic in other ways, too. Did you know back in 1999, they were responsible for a cascading blackout in the Philippines? And back in 2008 they caused the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in San Luis Obispo to shut down for two days! But jellyfish have their upside as well. They are considered a culinary delicacy in many Asian countries. And they are also harvested for their collagen, which is used to help treat rheumatoid arthritis. On the surface, we might dismiss the jellyfish as pretty useless or even deadly, but they serve serve other purposes as well. Some of which we know and probably some of which we don’t. Which is to say God creates this huge diversity for a reason and just because we can’t always see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
But diversity is useful in many ways. Even in church.
A recent study on church congregations revealed how important diversity is to God’s purpose. Baylor University released its findings after doing research on churches over a twenty-year period and came to the conclusion that racially diverse churches had higher attendance on average than their largely all-white counterparts. These findings contradict some long-held beliefs in what has been referred to as “the homogenous unit principle” – “the idea that churches flourish if they stick to people of the same race and class.”[3] Believe it or not, this isn’t just a theory held onto by scholars and scientists but by many folks sitting in the pews. The number of times I’ve heard people saying the same exact thing – that our best outreach strategy is to reach out to “people like us” – would probably surprise you. Most of these people would never think of this as being racist, but being practical. But as this study showed, diversity leads to better results. Consider this: claiming to “hire the best person regardless of gender” was often an excuse for not including women in leadership, but as studies have shown, companies with more women on their board of directors tend to be more successful and profitable than their counterparts.[4] We have to overcome our fears and our prejudices to embrace the rich diversity of God’s creation. It’s not only the right thing to do (which should be enough) but is also the route that will lead us to helping others come to faith in Christ.
Diversity is something God is great at.
Look at our earlier reading today. I love the image Paul uses in this passage from 1 Corinthians that we are all parts of one body and no matter how we behave or what we think about one another, it doesn’t take away from the fact we really are connected in God’s great creation. He writes in verse 15, “Now if the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ it would not for that reason stop being part of the body….But in fact (verse 18) God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.” We are all different. We all come from different backgrounds with different life experiences, and those allow us to bring our unique gifts to the table. It’s in diversity that we come up with new and different ideas, things any one of us may never have thought up on our own. And it’s those new ideas and new ways of doing things that continue to help us grow in our faith, in our soul, and in our understanding of one another. Let us learn from the chocolate chip cookie and embrace our differences so that together we might be greater than the sum of our parts.
[1] Research for this section was done by referencing Wikipedia for “sugar,” “vanilla,” and “chocolate chip.”
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellyfish
[3] https://www.umnews.org/en/news/racial-diversity-linked-to-church-growth?mkt_tok=MDc4LUpYUS02NDMAAAF8V8jHdEHFMt6nzBMNx5VfAmLVmNqiPxhxTkkKUI9G8TpZvVNLaMqnlYen_2D1W2GbxxYd9wn5XD3Jr4dKNHzZ-UAtoSPeV5ktRBKmiUeprpz23g
[4] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ecpe/why-diversity-matters-women-on-boards-of-directors/#:~:text=The%20business%20benefits%20of%20having%20women%20on%20a,runs%2C%20makes%20decisions%2C%20and%20ultimately%2C%20on%20its%20success.
The Flaw In Our Gospel
Jyn Erso died so the Rebellion might live.
Jyn’s tale of sacrifice and redemption is powerful. The plans she gave her life for were transferred to the ship, Tantive IV moments before she was killed. The envoy on board used her diplomatic ties to travel into a restricted system and take those plans to the gathering Rebel forces where an attack was being put into action. The leader of that diplomatic envoy? Princess Leia Organa. And as Paul Harvey used to say on his famous radio show, “Now you know…the rest of the story.”[1] If you like Star Wars, you know Luke, Leia and Han would find a way to deliver the plans to the Death Star in time so Luke could blow up the Empire’s massive battle station. And although Jyn’s story ends on the planet Scarif it is not the end of the story. Her tale is just one in a much larger tapestry, and even though it is great all by itself, it’s made more meaningful because of the larger story of which it is a part. Where does your story end?
Faith in Christ is essential to Christianity, but it is not the end of the story.
I was reading an article from Outreach magazine, and Ken Wytsma wrote something that stuck with me. He said, “If all we have is Good Friday, then we are missing Easter.”[2] He argues the flaw in our Gospel story today is focused so much on getting people to believe we fail to see the larger picture. That we are only telling half the story. He wrote in part, “Personal salvation for the individual took the spotlight (in how we convey the Gospel) rather than Christ’s redeeming work for the many. There was an overemphasis on salvation for me…” Jesus didn’t turn to his followers and say, “Oh, good. Now that you believe in me, my work is done.” He told them “…you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth (Acts 1:8).”
The cross is the beginning of our journey. Not the end.
If you have a Bible or a Bible app on your phone, would you please go to Matthew 5:14. One of the things I love about Methodism is our emphasis on striving toward “Christian perfection.” John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed this was something each of us could actually achieve. But whether we attained this lofty goal or not, it was an ideal we should constantly strive for. And it wasn’t an ideal for the super-pious or for the winner of Bible Trivial Pursuit. It was an ideal Wesley honestly believed was within reach of anyone. And again, you didn’t need to go to seminary or become a priest to be equipped to do this work. He felt ordinary people doing ordinary things could do it. Things like prayer, worship, communion, reading your Bible, and attending a small group were ways you could achieve this goal. Will most of us get there? Probably not. But it’s the journey that makes it worthwhile. It’s the journey that honors God. Getting to the cross IS important, but where you go from there is equally important. There is a reason Jesus emphasizes discipleship and not conversion. Conversion is a moment in time, but discipleship is a lifelong process. It becomes part of our character. It defines who we are.
True discipleship takes place in community.
Faith is not a solo journey. We are meant to travel this road together. Jesus sent his disciples out into the world two-by-two. He told us that where two or more are gathered, there he would be. Even in the Old Testament, we read in the book of Ecclesiastes, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: 10 If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.” Our faith is meant to be developed in relationship with one another. Not only do we gather strength in numbers, we also are able to test our belief, help each other, and be a stronger witness for Jesus in the world. And at the same time we are growing in our faith, we are supposed to share it with the world as it says in this brief passage from Matthew.
14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. – Matthew 5:14-16
Our love of Christ was meant to be shared with the world!
It isn’t supposed to be hidden away, yet so many of us have a hard time sharing our faith or inviting people to church. We say we’re worried about what people will think of us. We say we’re worried we don’t know enough. But are those just excuses for not wanting to put ourselves out there? Because we are more than willing to talk about our favorite places to eat or our favorite movies or our favorite sports teams. We have no problem sharing those things that are important to us so why should our faith be any different? When I was serving at Roswell UMC in Atlanta, GA, there was a monthly street fair during the summer near our church, and if you’ve ever been to Georgia in the summer you know how hot it gets. So we would take part in the fair by handing out free cold bottled water to people passing by and we’d give out little cards inviting people to come to our church. One of our members quit the church because of it. I remember calling her on the phone when she transferred her membership to find out what happened. Maybe we had done something wrong without realizing it. Maybe someone said or did something to make her feel unwelcome or unappreciated. But when we talked, she told me it wasn’t anything we did to her. She just didn’t want to belong to a church that evangelized in public. Keep in mind this wasn’t a requirement for the church and about 99% of our members did not participate. It was just a handful of people who wanted to do something tangible to show the love of Christ to our neighborhood. The woman who left our church said she didn’t think it was right. I was really confused what wasn’t “right” about it so I asked her and she responded, “I just think faith is a personal thing.” And she’s right. I agree 100%. Faith is personal, not private. It is meant to be shared. It is a personal choice like raising your children, but how many self-help books on raising kids were you given when you had your first child? How many people felt free to share their own personal parenting philosophy? Just because something is personal doesn’t mean we can’t share our thoughts, opinions, and preferences with those we love. We trust they will understand it’s out of love we share those things and in turn listen to them when they share with us. Our faith, like a fine wine, a good meal, or wonderful music, is made all the better when others experience it with us, so why not tell people about it? How will people know the difference Christ can make in their life if we aren’t willing to share it with others?
The challenge is not whether we should share our faith but finding our unique voice to do so.
How Jesus has touched your life is almost surely different from how Jesus has touched mine. We may have many similarities, but our stories are unique to us. And so is how we will share it. For those who are bold, let them proclaim it boldly! But for the rest of us, we need to find our voice either literally or figuratively. So this week, I’m asking you to think about one person or persons who you wish would come to church with you. Think of one person or persons whose life would be made better, who would feel more at peace, who would feel less alone in the world if Christ was a part of it. And pray about how you might share the love of Christ with them. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the most phenomenal event the world has ever seen. But it is so far removed from our everyday life experience, that it takes a personal connection to often make it real. Among those who don’t come to church, a personal invitation from a friend was still almost twice as likely to be effective as anything else.[3] And among those seeking to explore faith, more than half of them were looking for casual one-on-one conversations with friends and family.[4] Even as our experience with traditional church is changing, people still crave personal connection.
Jyn’s story is only a part of the Star Wars saga.
It isn’t the whole story by itself. It’s a vital part that helps us understand all that comes after it, but it isn’t complete without the hope and redemption that follows as a result. The Gospel story isn’t meant to be a shelter from the storm. It isn’t a safe haven from the world we live in. And it isn’t a safety net in case there is an afterlife. The Gospel story is the armor and shield God gives us to have the strength to go out into the world and share his message of hope and redemption to a world that needs it now more than ever. As Ken wrote in his article, “The gospel isn’t simply good news we hear – it’s good news we become. We aren’t simply recipients of grace, but agents of grace as well.”[5] If all there was to the story of Jesus is the cross, there would be no Christianity. It’s what happened after that changed the world. Be a part of the story. Help to change the world.
[1] Paul Harvey was a radio host for a show he created called “The Rest of the Story” which ran for decades. He was known for offering an unknown glimpse into the past of someone famous that revealed something or just enlightened the audience about someone. Many of his stories are archived on Archive.org a non-profit organization seeking to preserve internet knowledge – a library for the Internet. https://archive.org/details/PaulHarveyTROTS/
[2] “Why Race Belongs In Our Gospel Conversations,” Ken Wytsma, Outlook Magazine, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Outreach, Inc. Colorado), p. 60
[3] The Barna Group, Churchless, 2014 p.28 (Kindle edition)
[4] https://www.barna.com/research/opportunities-for-faith-sharing/
[5] Ibid, p.64
Five People You Won’t Meet in Heaven
What in the world is a gigachurch?
Churches are growing so big today they had to add a new type of church – the gigachurch. A gigachurch is a church that has more than 10,000 in worship during a given week. 10,000! Can you imagine that? At one time churches were just churches, but eventually some grew so big we called them megachurches and those worshipped over 2,000 a week. But now we have gigachurches. Could you imagine our building holding 10,000 people? We would definitely need that new sanctuary. And probably more parking. How would you feel if EVUMC became a gigachurch? Some of you would be in awe! Some of you…would feel uneasy. There are people who love coming to a church where it feels like family, where you know almost everyone’s name. They worry about losing the intimacy of a small church. They worry a church that’s too big will mean we can’t truly build community or grow deeper in our faith. But are those real concerns or are they masking something else? Maybe a fear of change?
The truth is, people who go to big churches feel as connected as all of us.
To God and to each other. It would be a mistake to think otherwise. Some people prefer small churches. Some prefer big churches. But we can find connections to God and our faith in every setting. Size does not determine the depth of our faith. There isn’t some inverse correlation between numbers of people and how much you’re able to grow in your relationship with God. For every church, no matter how big or small, you get out of it what you put into it. No matter the size, you can always find a community of people to belong to, to help you grow deeper in faith. No matter the size you can find ways to serve the community and the world. Big doesn’t necessarily mean better, but it also doesn’t mean it’s worse either. Just because it’s different doesn’t make it less meaningful.
Talking about church growth makes some people feel uncomfortable.
Like that’s not what church is supposed to be about. That somehow if we try and grow the church we’re losing sight of helping people grow deeper in their faith. Or that we’re forgetting what it means to be a church. But church growth is helping us to not only grow deeper in our own faith but to help others develop theirs. Numbers are simply one way to measure how effective we are in accomplishing the mission that Christ himself gave to us. And that mission is the same now as it was 2000 years ago when Jesus walked the Earth, to make disciples in his name and baptize the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It’s what is known as the Great Commission, and until that mission is accomplished, we should be devoting our time, energy, and effort into making it a reality. Imagine a world filled with people who were actually followers of Jesus Christ. People who acted like he did, loved like he did, and gave of themselves like he did for one another. What an amazing world that would be!
God cares about the numbers.
God cares about the numbers because behind every number is a real person. When I was doing research for our sermon today, I read that line and it stuck with me.[1] Behind every number is a real person. If the Bible is any indicator, God cares very much about the numbers. In fact, there’s a whole book in the Bible called Numbers, and in chapter 26 of that book, it lists how many men were in each clan. By the end of that chapter, we know the total number of men in Israel was 601,730. That’s a very specific number. In Acts 1, the Bible tells us there were about 120 Christ followers, men and women both, and this was right after Christ went back up to Heaven. In Acts 2, we find out 3,000 people came to Christ in that one day. By Acts 4, we find out that the number of men, just men, who believed had grown to about 5,000. That doesn’t include the women and children which would have made that number even bigger. By the end of the book of Acts, there are so many people coming to Christ, they simply say over and over again how their numbers kept increasing. And even though their numbers kept increasing, they didn’t say to themselves, “Well, that’s pretty good.” Instead, they went out into the world, sending disciples to the ends of the known earth to teach about the love of Christ. They felt this way because they took seriously what Jesus told them.
Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?” He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’
“But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
“Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’
“But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’
“There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.” – Luke 13:22-30.
There are so many people out there who do not know the love of Christ.
There are so many who don’t know what it means to have Christ at the center of their life, or how that helps you, or how that can help make this world a better place. What are we doing about that? Because Jesus makes it very clear not everyone gets to Heaven. And that thought disturbs me as I’m sure it disturbs most of you. We don’t like to think about that. We don’t like to think about people NOT making it into Heaven. I mean, we’re fine if Hitler doesn’t make it. But it’s hard for us to imagine Aunt Sue or Uncle Bob not being there. They’re good people after all. But what if that’s not enough? I know that’s a disturbing thought, and some of you probably don’t believe it to be true. But should we take that chance? What if you’re wrong? Should we gamble on the lives of others just because we THINK it may not be true? Jesus’ words are not ambiguous. “…Many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.” What if those who are not able to are people we could have reached out to? Now, I don’t know who is going to make it and who won’t. I leave that to the grace of God. But it is imperative we help others come to faith in Christ. Like I said, not just because we care about their eternal future, but because we care about their lives in the here and now. Living a life with Christ at its center is the greatest gift we can share. Church growth is a byproduct of our passion for sharing the love of Christ.
Thinking about our church growing might scare some of you.
Not because you don’t want people to know the love of Christ, but because it means things will change. And we worry about change. We worry about what the future might have in store for us when we leave it up to God. We worry that it won’t feel like the same church anymore and it causes fear and anxiety to swell within us. I had someone come up to me one time after I gave a sermon about church growth who asked me how big I’d like for us to grow. I told him I didn’t know, but that I would like for it to grow as big as God wants it to be, and he replied, “Well I hope we don’t grow too big.” Which is a strange response, because if you asked this person if he wanted to see the world come to faith in Jesus Christ, he would have said “yes” without a doubt. But I also understand why he replied that way. He was worried he would no longer recognize the church he had grown to love. He worried that if we grew too big, it wouldn’t feel the same anymore. But that is a fear borne out of the unknown. It isn’t based on fact, but out of this idea that the church would change in ways we MIGHT not like. But is that a reason to stop growing? Is our discomfort a reason to stop growing? Or do you think Christ wants us to trust in him that we will always be able to find our space within the church? Too often we allow our fear get in the way of how Christ wants for us to live and it hampers us as we strive to bring his vision for the world into reality. At Roswell UMC, we were definitely a megachurch. Our average worship attendance was around 1,500. Our membership was about 7,000. You might think people would get lost in a church that size, but just the opposite. They had Sunday Schools for adults bigger than our church here. They would have their own speakers, their own music, their own announcements, their own prayer time. It was, for all intents and purposes, church. So they broke bread with one another and shared time together and they found their own intimacy, even in a church that big. They found a place to call their own while still being part of something much bigger. We are afraid of the unknown but God will take care of us.
You’ve probably heard of the novel The Five People You Meet In Heaven.
Or maybe you’ve seen it on TV. In any case, it’s about a man who dies in a tragic accident while saving a little girl, and on his way to Heaven he bumps into five people who have made a difference in his life. It’s a really sweet tale about the impact we have on the lives of others and how our choices are significant whether we realize it or not. But when we think about facing our fears about church growth, about pushing back on change, I wonder if it might have been better to have a book called The Five People You Won’t Meet In Heaven. It would be the tale of five people who will never know the love of Christ in their life because we were afraid to reach out to them. The five people who didn’t make it because we were unwilling to change. The five people who don’t know God or Jesus because we thought we had done enough.
There’s this Kevin Costner movie called The Guardian that I like mostly for this one scene.
Throughout the whole movie, we hear that Kevin Costner is this legendary Coast Guard person who’s saved tons of lives. But he won’t say how many. He keeps evading the question. At one point in the movie, he decides to go into retirement and this young guy he’s been helping to train asks him, “Hey, there’s something I’ve got to know. What’s your real number?” And Costner says, “22.” And to this young guy, that’s far less than he expected from someone everyone considers a legend, so he says, “22? That’s not bad. It’s not 200 but…” and Costner says, “22 is the number of people I lost, Jake. The only number I kept track of.” As much as we celebrate the impact we make on the world around us, I hope we are equally driven by those we have yet to reach.
Change is scary.
But the consequences of not changing are even scarier. When people are critical of growing churches by saying it’s not about the numbers, the truth is it’s all about the numbers. Just maybe not the numbers you’re thinking of. It’s not about dollars and cents. It’s not about filling the pews. It’s about people knowing the love of Jesus Christ. And if we can be a part of the solution to that problem all of our efforts are worth it. Have faith in God that as we grow, you will grow too. Have faith that as our church changes there will always be a place for you and it will continue to be meaningful. Have faith that we don’t have to lose who we are, but instead we can become something even greater when we do it together. And remember this, behind every number is a person waiting to know God.
[1] I wish I could remember where I read it so I could give credit to the author!
Let It Go!: Giving UP Forgiveness
Who would have thought 24 bunny rabbits could cause so much damage?
But that’s exactly what happened in Australia. In 1859, an Englishman brought 24 wild rabbits to Australia to hunt them. Apparently the rabbits outsmarted the Englishman and have bred continuously since that time. Today there are estimated more than 200 million rabbits across the Australian countryside costing the populace more than $500 million in damages annually.[1] Maybe he was just “sharing the wealth” with this once British colony, as rabbits have become the most invasive non-native species to inhabit the United Kingdom.[2] Today, damages caused by these Easter celebrants is over £260 million every year! The United States has many of its own problems with invasive species. The kudzu plant is among the most well known, especially in the South. The object of many jokes, the plant itself is hardly a laughing matter. This fast-growing vine is virtually impervious to pesticides and herbicides, can grow up to a foot per day, and costs an estimated $500 million in lost crops and control costs annually.[3] Native to Japan, the plant grew rapidly in the South where conditions were ideal for it, and without its natural predators, the plant thrived covering more than seven million acres.[4] Richard Benyon, the minister for the natural environment in England, said, “It becomes increasingly difficult and costly to control invasive non-native species as they become more established. Taking early action may seem expensive, but this report shows that it is the most effective approach, saving money in the long run and helping our native wildlife to thrive.”[5]
Human beings have their own invasive species.
Bitterness, anger, hatred, and resentment. These emotions are the kudzu and bunny rabbits of the human soul. They take root, spread and twist it as well as any known biological disease does to our bodies. In fact, recent studies have shown that bitter, angry people have higher blood pressure and are more likely to die of heart disease and other illnesses than people who are not.[6] Being bitter and angry can literally kill you. And like Mr. Benyon said about other invasive species, early action is the most effective approach to rooting it out. Before it digs deep into your soul, before it has a chance to twist you like a pretzel, you have to get rid of it. Because as long as you hold onto it, you’ll never be able to truly follow Christ. You’ll never be able to give yourself to God in the way we need to experience all that God has in store for us. You have to unburden your heart.
Jesus talks about this in our Bible passage this morning.
This occurs right after Jesus is having dinner at a Pharisee’s house. In this section of the Bible, Jesus is spending much of his time teaching and sharing parables about God and the world. At the Pharisee’s house he told the parable of the Great Banquet where the invited guests all came up with excuses why they couldn’t be there, much like we give excuses for why we don’t commit our lives to Christ. One guy says he has to tend to his field, one guy says he has to care for his animals, one used his marriage as an excuse, but they all had an excuse for not coming to the banquet. God’s warning for us is that we can’t afford to let these other things get in the way of our relationship with God or we might just be sacrificing our own salvation. In the passage we’re about to read, Jesus emphasizes this point in another way.
25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
34 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” – Luke 14:25-35
This is a tough passage to hear.
When we first read these words they seem harsh. It’s pretty much against everything Jesus taught. Hate your father and mother? Hate your wife and children? Hate even yourself? This doesn’t sound like the Jesus who commanded us to love God and love our neighbor. It doesn’t sound at all like the Jesus who told us to love one another so that everyone will know we are his disciples. In fact, it sounds like just the opposite. But what Jesus is doing here is a technique he often uses – hyperbole. He’s trying to shock the crowd to get his point across. The fact that it IS so incongruous makes the listener focus on what Jesus is about to say. The meat of his argument comes in the verses following those statements where Jesus starts talking about tower building and going to war and emphasizes that in either instance we wouldn’t even begin the project unless we knew what we were getting into. We wouldn’t commit before being prepared. Unless you knew the costs and benefits. Unless you knew the risks you were about to take. Discipleship is the same way. Because Jesus knew that becoming a disciple wasn’t an easy path. Especially in those days. There would be a lot of pressure from family and friends not to follow Jesus. There were those who thought he was a heretic or crazy or both and to follow Christ meant to go against what society considered acceptable. And that’s something we all struggle with – doing what’s right vs doing what is acceptable. Becoming a disciple of Christ meant risking being an outcast. So Jesus warned them they needed to understand what was necessary to become a disciple.
The same is true for us.
Do we really understand what it means to be a disciple of Christ? Are we willing to leave our old life behind and embrace Jesus’ version of it? You’ve heard some of Christ’s radical teachings on forgiveness. Turn the other cheek. Give a thief the clothes off your back. Forgive not seven times but seven times seventy times. These are not simple commands, but necessary if we are to embrace his teachings. Jesus doesn’t tell us these things arbitrarily. He tells us these things because they are true. The more we lead a life like Christ, the more people will embrace Christ for themselves. When they experience the love of Christ in the world, only then will they really know a loving God. But that can’t happen if his followers are filled with the same prejudices, hatreds, and bitterness that the rest of the world embraces. If we don’t let go of those emotions, there is nothing to distinguish us from everyone else except a fish symbol on our car.
That reminds me of a story I heard in seminary.
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it’s about a guy driving along the highway when suddenly this other car comes out of nowhere and cuts him off. The guy has to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting the car in front, and this makes him mad beyond belief. He starts tailgating the other guy, honking at him, making obscene gestures. Suddenly in his rear view mirror, he sees a police officer with his lights flashing and so he pulls over to the side and surprisingly the officer pulls over with him. The officer gets out and asks to see the man’s driver’s license and identification. The man pulls them out and hands them to the officer. The officer hands them back and tells the man he can go on his way and the man asks why he pulled him over in the first place. The officer says, “I noticed one of those fish on the back of the car, but with the way you were behaving, I thought the car might be stolen.”
Being a Christian has to mean more than simply saying we are.
It means being a Christian even in the tough times. Even in the times when people have done wrong to us. It means forgiving someone when they don’t deserve it. It means letting go of our hurt and opening ourselves up not only to the possibility of more hurt but of greater love as well. It means putting aside the comfortable for the potential of the future. That’s what it means. When Christ tells us we must hate the ones we love, he only means we must be willing to let go of the past in order to embrace the future. To truly be disciples we must be willing to unlearn the lessons we have been taught. We must be willing to operate by a new set of rules, ones that are more encompassing and more loving than any we have embraced before. And even if the world tells us that there is some sense of justice in holding on to our hate, our bitterness, and our anger, we know better. To embrace the lessons of Christ, we have to let go and open ourselves up to the possibilities God can bring our way. Letting go of the past is the only way we can be free. Free to live. Free to love. Free to reach the potential life God has carved out for us. God isn’t punishing us for holding on to these feelings. God is telling us that when we don’t let go, we are anchored to this world and we can’t be free to live as God wants us to live.
Our challenge for this week is to let go of the past.
Forgive those who are clouding our future. Forgive them so YOU can move forward. Whether it’s someone who wronged you or someone who hurt you or someone who made your life hard to endure. Forgive them. It might not even be someone who did something to you recently. It could be someone from your past, someone who isn’t even a part of your life anymore but whose presence haunts you as if they were still there. Forgive them. Let go of the hurt. Because like the kudzu, the pain, bitterness, resentment, and hatred we carry with us are roots that bind us to the world. It can grow and fester within us at extraordinary rates unless we root it out, which isn’t easy and isn’t comfortable, but once we are free, the burdens we carry are lifted from us and we can live the life God had always promised us. Pray this week for God to reveal to you those burdens you haven’t let go of. Pray for God to give you the strength to let them go, to cut them loose from your life, and to offer forgiveness for those past wrongs. And pray that God will not allow the mistakes of the past to haunt you from your promised future. Take a moment to picture someone in your mind who you need to forgive, who stirs up those emotions within you, and then pray these words.
Gracious and forgiving God, mold us into beings who can be as forgiving as you. Do not allow the pettiness, bitterness, anger, and resentment of life to weigh us down. Lift these burdens from us and give us the strength to let them go. Let us give these things up to you so that we can live the life you have created for us and not the life we have created for ourselves. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] http://www.csiro.au/en/Outcomes/Safeguarding-Australia/European-Rabbits.aspx
[2] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/dec/15/rabbits-invasive-species-cost
[3] http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/k/kudzu.htm
[4] http://maxshores.com/the-amazing-story-of-kudzu/
[5] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/dec/15/rabbits-invasive-species-cost
[6] http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/08/17/bitter.resentful.ep/
Don’t Tell! – Giving UP Anonymity
Two people: One you know and one you probably don’t.
Frank Lloyd Wright is a world-famous architect whose works have been touted as being genius. Even non-architects like myself have heard of the famous Frank Lloyd Wright who designed the Guggenheim Museum along with hundreds of other buildings. He was named as the “greatest American architect of all time” by the American Institute of Architects.[1] But Wright, as famous as he was, was equally famous for refusing to share the limelight. Even when other architects made brilliant design contributions and in some cases took the lead on a project, he refused to allow them any credit. He even threatened to bring them to court on charges of forgery unless they put his name first and submitted all documents for his approval.[2] Wright was so consumed with his own fame and recognition that he refused to spread it to others. At one point he decided to go it on his own without the help and collaborative effort of others in his field. He immediately went on a nine-year slump where he only completed two projects. It wasn’t until he invited people back into his creative process that he again flourished, but still didn’t credit anyone with his work. Ed de St. Aubin, a psychologist who studied Wright’s work, said, “It is amazing that few of the hundreds” of Wright’s “apprentices went on to achieve significant, independent careers as practicing architects.”
George Meyer on the other hand is definitely NOT a household name.
But much of what he has done with his life is known by many. He is a writer who has worked on shows like Late Night with David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, and most famously for George, The Simpsons.[3] Many of the most famous lines from that show are credited to him, and even the ones that are not, most writers on the staff say have been influenced by him. George is a giver. He likes to give credit where credit is due. Sometimes even when it’s not. There have been times, George could easily have pushed for more prominence (and deservedly so) on many episodes of The Simpsons but instead would let others have the credit and help develop their careers. He often did the unglamorous work of rewrites because that was where he felt the show needed him the most, although many believe he often had many great ideas. He would put some of his strongest effort into helping out scripts focused not on the prominent guests like Madonna, but on lesser known ones that didn’t get as much attention. He had what they call in the world of mountaineering, expedition behavior.
Expedition behavior is a term for those who are selfless, generous, and put the team ahead of themselves.[4] It’s the kind of quality that defined George. The way George gave of his time and talent helped to cultivate the talent of others. We simply don’t have the time to share all the praise those around him have given toward this man. Unlike Frank Lloyd Wright who took all the credit for himself and didn’t make an effort to cultivate the architects around him, George’s collaborative style has led to the success of many others who have gone on to very successful careers of their own. Some have won Emmy Awards, some have become authors and actors, some have become cartoonists and columnists, one man wrote the famous “Soup Nazi” episode for Seinfeld (who also was an Emmy-nominated writer and producer for the show), and one went on to create the show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that launched Will Smith’s career.[5] Adam Grant in his book Give and Take calls George a genius-maker. But what if we took these same ideas of selflessness and giving and turned them toward being better disciple-makers instead?
We’re going to delve into that.
This is the story of the man with leprosy. It’s very short but we’re going to look at it in a different way. As we read it, I want you to think about the way in which Jesus approaches his mission on Earth. If he’s come to save the least and the lost, he’s doing it in a weird way – at least by our standards today.
12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy.[b] When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.
14 Then Jesus ordered him, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.”
15 Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.– Luke 5:12-16
Jesus says many times to different people, “Don’t tell.”
He told the man he healed of leprosy, “Don’t tell,” but people knew what happened. We don’t know if the man said something or people just saw what happened, but the news spread and crowds gathered to be healed. In Matthew 9, Jesus healed two blind men and told them, “See that no one knows about this,” but they told anyway. Then he raised a girl from the dead and again Jesus told the parents not to say a word. And when the disciples see Jesus with Moses and Elijah, Jesus says not to tell anyone until after he has gone. Haven’t you ever wondered why he did this? Wouldn’t it make more sense to tell EVERYBODY? I mean, if you knew Jesus could heal the sick and raise the dead and had eyewitness testimony about it, wouldn’t YOU believe? But Jesus was not trying to make a name for himself. He was trying to give the glory to God. He wanted us to have a heavenly perspective instead of an earthly one. If people started fixating only on him, they would start to glorify Jesus, the MAN, create an earthly idol, and fail to see what truly mattered – the grace and love of God.
Christ’s entire life was like this.
He lived a life in service to others, not to elevate himself but to bring people closer to God. At any time, he could have proven his divinity, but instead he embraced his humanity. He came not to conquer but to build community. He came to bring glory to God and not to himself. Had he wanted, he could have ruled the world by force. Instead, he chose to sacrifice himself for the world. Had Jesus become the leader the Israelites were looking for, Jesus would have been lord over a temporary kingdom, but the kingdom he built and is continuing to build is one that will last an eternity. And that is the difference between givers and takers. Givers are looking at the long haul. They are looking to make the world a better place. And even if that means sacrificing personal glory, they know the contribution they make will long outlast anything else they could achieve.
One of my favorite stories is about a man named Cliff Gardner.
Like George Meyers, you probably don’t know him unless you watched the television show Sports Night back in the 90’s. There was a scene where Sam, the Sports Night consultant, is explaining exactly who Cliff Gardner is to the studio execs. He starts out by asking, “Do you know who Philo Farnsworth was? He invented the television. I don’t mean he invented television like Uncle Milty, I mean he invented the television in a little house in Provo, Utah. But the one I really admire is his brother-in-law, Cliff Gardner. He said to Philo, ‘I know everyone thinks you’re crazy, but I want to be a part of this. I don’t have your head for science…but it sounds like in order to do your testing, you’re gonna need glass tubes.’ See Philo was inventing the cathode receptor, and even though Cliff didn’t know what that meant or how that worked, he’d seen Philo’s drawings and he knew they were gonna need glass tubes and since television hadn’t been invented yet, it wasn’t like they could get them at the local TV repair shop. ‘I want to be a part of this,’ Cliff said, ‘and I don’t have your head for science. How would it be if I taught myself to be a glassblower? And I could set up a little shop in the backyard. And I could make all the tubes you’ll need for testing.’ There oughta be Congressional medals for people like that.” The world needs more Cliff Gardners. The world needs more George Meyers. We don’t need more Frank Lloyd Wright’s. If we want to get the job done that Christ has given us, we need to be in the business of building people up, not taking people down. Life is not a zero-sum game. We don’t have to sacrifice the well-being of other people to get ahead ourselves. Instead, we need to be focused on being disciple builders. We need to focus on the needs and well-being of others and not worry about the credit we receive. Because there is only one person whose approval we should be seeking, and his home is our ultimate destination.
[1] Details of Frank Lloyd Wright’s career are from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lloyd_Wright
[2] Adam Grant, Give and Take, p. 78. Details about Wright’s self-centered actions and Meyer’s selfless ones are all taken from Adam Grant’s book in the chapter The Ripple Effect.
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Meyer
[4] Grant, p. 74.
[5] Grant, p. 93.
The Wall of STUFF – Giving UP Things
How much STUFF can a person have?
I teased my parents about being “hoarders” when I was in college because they used to have lots of stuff around the house. At one point, my dad had a whole box of Dennison’s chili in his bedroom closet because there wasn’t room for it in the pantry, or the kitchen, or even the dining room. But after watching the show Hoarders and other shows like it, my parents seem to be the model of cleanliness. Hoarding, otherwise known as disposophobia, is real and some have even postulated it is a result of our obsession with STUFF. I don’t generally watch CSI but there was an episode about hoarding and at the end of the episode, two of the characters, Ray and Nick, are talking. Ray tells Nick that the philosopher Erich Fromm forecasted a society obsessed with possessions. “Fromm said people had two basic orientations, ‘having’ and ‘being.’ A ‘having’ orientation seeks to acquire or possess things, property, even people. But a person with a ‘being’ orientation derives meaning from the experiences in life. Unfortunately, Fromm concluded that a culture driven by commercialism like the one we live in today is doomed to the ‘having’ orientation, which leads to dissatisfaction and emptiness.” Ray continued, “When you consider in 1960 there was no such thing as public storage in America. Today there are over 2 billion square feet dedicated to it. Makes you think he had a point.” Can you imagine that? 2 billion square feet for more of our STUFF. Did you know the word “stuff” literally means “to fill up.” The real question is, “What we are filling up our lives with and why?”
I can’t help but think of the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman.
He meets this woman at the well near where she lives and after getting into a discussion with her, Jesus says, “Everyone who drinks this water (meaning the water from the well) will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” So the question is, are you filling up on well water or living water? We like to think we are filling up on living water, but most of us are probably filling up on well water. We get stuck in the grind of daily living and we become convinced that our problems will be solved with STUFF. Whether that STUFF is money or power or likes on Instagram, we crave the accumulation of things, hoping that it will solve all our problems, but in the end, we are always thirsty for more. Because what Jesus said is true. Only when we drink of the living water, only when we live a life in Christ, and realize the impermanence of this place will our thirst be quenched. What we need to do is change what we drink, not drink more of what we have. We need living water.
We have always struggled with the balance between God and STUFF.
Our reading this morning in one of Paul’s letter to Timothy he talks about this exact issue. Although there are many instances where people write similar stories or letters about the challenge of giving, Paul offers a reason beyond simply telling us “because you should.” He offers a concrete difference between people who make giving a priority and those who don’t. And he explains why it’s better to give. I believe that whenever God tells us to do something it’s always for our benefit and not necessarily for God’s. God doesn’t need anything from us, he wants something FOR us. And when we listen to God, our lives become better, even if we can’t see it at the time. That’s why God wants for us to become detached from STUFF and develop a heart for giving. Sometimes it seems counterintuitive that giving up our abundance will somehow make us more wealthy, but we find out how in Paul’s letter to Timothy.
3 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4 they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 5 and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9 Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. – 1 Timothy 6:3-9
Paul basically invented the saying, “You can’t take it with you.”[1]
He writes to Timothy, “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” No matter how much STUFF we have at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. We can’t take it with us. The guy who wrote the saying, “He who dies with the most toys wins” didn’t know what he was talking about. Paul tells us our goal should be “godliness with contentment”; to live a Christ-like life which brings a peace that only God can give. It’s why he writes, “…godliness with contentment is great gain,” because that peace is not something you can buy, but a gift from God for living the kind of life that honors him. But Paul also warns against people with corrupt minds, the kind that uses “godliness (as) a means to financial gain.”[2] He warns that the person who “acts Christian” to get more money, more possessions, more STUFF is disconnected from the life God wants for us all. We get so focused on these unimportant things we don’t even consider whether or not it will really bring us the joy and peace we all crave.
Let me give you a non-monetary example.
When I was in 4th grade, I had a crush on a girl named Karleen Boyle. I don’t know how it started, but everyday after school I would chase her out the door. Kind of a foolish way to tell a girl you like her. Go and chase her down. Pretty soon it became almost a daily competition. Sometimes her friends would join in. She had this Jabberjaw lunch pail that I got to know real well, because she would swing it at me if I got too close. There was some sort of unwritten rule that if she made it to the parking lot she won. And even though I lost every day, I was undeterred. I would chase her and every day she escaped. Until one day, she swung that Jabberjaw lunch pail and missed. I reached out as it passed by me and grabbed her by the arm. She just looked at me as a triumphant grin spread across my face and she asked, “So what are you going to do now?” Honestly, I didn’t know. So I let her go. I had become so focused on getting her, I never really thought what I would do once I did. Sometimes we’re like that about the material things in our life. We become so focused on it, on more money, more things, more recognition – we become so focused on filling our lives with STUFF, that we don’t often think about what happens after we get it. We’re sure that once we get whatever it is we are after, life will be so great! But there’s always more money to grab, more things to own, and more fame to have. When will it be enough? When we realize the STUFF of this world will never give us the peace we crave.
What holds us back from giving more of our time, talent, and gifts is this obsession with STUFF.
Hoarding is just an extreme example of it, but each of us struggles with letting go. When we do give, we often become focused on what we get out of it. But we forget ultimately giving is about living. We give to live. Because giving is an attitude. Giving is a spiritual discipline. When we remember that it isn’t ours to begin with and that it all belongs to God, we become more grateful for what we have and we become less worried about what happens to our gift. When we have an attitude of giving we draw closer to God. And giving has some lifelong benefits, too. Like the fact that 80% of people who tithe have no credit card debt compared to the national average of 61%.[3] 74% have no car payments compared to the $750 billion in loans out there today.[4] 48% have no mortgage.[5] But as one analyst said, the tither looks at these statistics and says his life got better for giving. The doubter looks at the same stats and says to himself the tither is able to tithe because his life started off better. For all of the evidence I can share with you, it still comes down to a personal decision to do it – to give more. God wants us to give, not because he needs anything, but because when we let go of all the STUFF in our lives, our lives become better. One of my favorite pieces of Scripture is from Malachi. I like to think of it as the God Challenge where God tells the people of Israel, “’Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.’” That image of God telling us, his people, to test him and see the abundance of blessing that will come from your giving. “See if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it!” That’s the kind of life God wants for you. A life of abundance. Abundance in peace. Abundance in life. Abundance of love. The things that are most important. But again, as in all things, this is a choice. You have to eventually trust that God’s system works and try it for yourself. Don’t get me wrong. I like STUFF too. I’m not saying having stuff is a sin. I’m not advocating for living like John the Baptist on honey and locusts. But I am advocating that what Ray told Nick in that CSI episode is true. The trick is to not let the STUFF get in the way. I want to challenge you during this time of Lent to give more. More of your time, more of your talents, more of your gifts. Take the God challenge and see if making this a regular part of your life doesn’t make your entire life better. You would be surprised at the difference it can make. Take a drink of the living water and see how refreshing it can be.
[1] http://www.joe-ks.com/phrases/phrasesY.htm
[2] http://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/1Tim/Christian-View-Money
[3] http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-industry-facts-personal-debt-statistics-1276.php
[4] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-consumer-debt-rises-on-student-auto-loans/
[5] http://www.christianpost.com/news/study-christians-who-tithe-have-healthier-finances-than-those-who-dont-95959/
Craig's Corner 