As You Wish
As you wish.
Three simple words that mean so much more. In the film, The Princess Bride, Westley starts out as a farm boy working for Buttercup’s family and those three words were all he ever said to Buttercup. “As you wish.” She would ask him to do the most menial tasks like cleaning the stable or polishing her saddle or fetching her some odd thing and he would simply say to her, “As you wish.” But what he was actually saying was, “I love you.” Saying, “As you wish” was Westley’s way of showing his submission to Buttercup. His trust in her allowed their love to bloom.
We tend to look at “submission” as if it were a dirty word.
At least by our standards today. And it’s understandable. Most of us have been taken advantage of by people we have submitted to. Whether it’s our spouse, our boss, or the government, it feels like over time we have been betrayed by those we put our trust in. And that’s what submission is based on – trust. When that trust is broken, our willingness to submit erodes over time until we no longer are willing to open ourselves to that kind of pain. But when done right, submission is not only loving but freeing as well.
The church has done a poor job of understanding submission for centuries.
I wish it were otherwise, but passages in the Bible talking about submission have been twisted and revised to suit the needs of those in power. How we could get something so simple so wrong is unforgivable and astounding. It takes a blatant disregard of what God is trying to tell us to interpret it this way. It ignores the very premise of the Bible to love one another. In Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus, he writes (Ephesians 5:22), “Wives, submit to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.” And that’s all well and good, but for thousands of years we’ve ignored the rest of that passage which starts with “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. A good and healthy relationship according to Paul is one of mutual submission. Mutual. Not one-sided. Not uneven. Mutual. “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
As if that weren’t enough, we also ignore everything AFTER those words.
If you read the whole passage, Paul spends eight full verses on how husbands are supposed to honor their wives and treat them with more honor and respect than anyone else in the world. Do you know how many verses he takes talking about wives submitting to their husbands? Three. He has to use nearly three times as much space to tell guys the same thing he says to the women in just a few verses. Maybe that says something about men’s capacity to understand? For whatever reason, Paul outlines for the guys what God expects and tells them they are supposed to treat their wives with the same kind of love and sacrifice as Christ did for all of humanity. That’s a pretty high standard to live up to but one which Paul felt women deserved. It’s what we all deserve in a committed, loving relationship – a partner who puts our needs, wants, hopes, and dreams above their own.
Sacrifice is at the heart of love.
All we have to do is look to Jesus to see this to be true. Having the heart of a servant, being willing to submit to those you love, those are attributes Jesus exhibited time and time again. There was that moment when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples. The rest of them were probably confused, but Peter was near horrified. “You shall never wash my feet,” he told Jesus, but Jesus looked up at him and said, “Unless I wash you, you have no part of me.” Finally, Peter relented and after Jesus washed their feet, he told them, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16 Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” Then there was the time when James and John asked Jesus if they could sit by his side when he claimed his kingdom. Essentially, they were asking to be in positions of power and when the other disciples heard about this, they got mad. But Jesus shared this with them.
41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man – did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” – Mark 10:41-45
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
If we want to look for inspiration for how we should love one another, we only have to look to the cross and witness for ourselves the sacrifice that Christ made for us. He warns us how easily authority can be abused and when we submit ourselves before others, that’s exactly what we are doing – giving them authority over us and trusting that they will do what’s right. But as Jesus points out, so many don’t do what’s right. He talks about the rulers of the Gentiles and the high officials and how they love to boss people around and make them do what they want. But Jesus said that to truly become great is not about who can dominate the most people. That’s just abusing the trust people place in you. Being great is about service and having a spirit of service to others. And that’s what it’s all about – serving others.
To serve others means to be in tune to others’ needs.
In The Princess Bride, Westley does whatever it is Buttercup wants him to do. Not what he FEELS like doing. He doesn’t say to her, “As you wish, except that. I don’t want to do that. What about something else?” He listens to her needs and follows through. But that’s not always easy for us to do. We have a hard time stepping out of our own perspective and trying to see the world through someone else’s eyes. Take for example the first and last time I bought Cassie flowers for Valentine’s Day. It was about 10 months after we had first started dating and I was SO in love with her. I was excited for our first Valentine’s Day together and I did what I thought I was supposed to do. I bought her a dozen red roses. I had them delivered to her work so that the WHOLE WORLD would know how much I loved her. That night she told me how beautiful they were, but said I didn’t need to buy her flowers to show how much I loved her, and I thought, “How sweet of her to say that.” I assumed she was just being humble because what woman doesn’t like getting a dozen red roses on Valentine’s Day? So, a couple of weeks later, I brought her another dozen roses, just to show her I loved her not only on Valentine’s Day but EVERYDAY. She smiled, thanked me again, and told me again I didn’t have to do that. I thought, “What a woman! So humble and considerate!” After the THIRD time I brought her flowers… she dropped the whole humble act and just spit it out. She looked at me and said, “Look, I wish you wouldn’t waste your money like that. I’d rather you saved that money for our honeymoon or our wedding instead of buying me something that’s going to wilt and die in a couple of days.” I didn’t know what to say! This is what you’re supposed to do, right? You buy a girl gifts. She melts in your arms. Happily ever after. That’s what’s supposed to happen. It’s in a book somewhere. But what I didn’t realize was that wasn’t the way to Cassie’s heart.
It turns out she and I didn’t speak the same “love language.”
Gary Chapman wrote this great book called The 5 Love Languages. Cassie and I read it in our Bible study group when we first started going to church together. In it, Gary describes how each of us react differently to love. We have different “languages” and he categorized them as Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Receiving Gifts, and Quality Time. Most of us have more than one, but there’s usually one or two that are on the top of our list and for me, “Receiving Gifts” was right near the top followed by “Physical Touch.” For Cassie, there was one language above all she connected with – “Acts of Service.” That was what filled her love tank and still does today. When I cooked dinner for her, helped her by mowing the lawn, take out the trash; when I DID things for her like that, she felt the most loved. Because for her, it was the self-sacrifice of my actions that expressed love to her and made her feel complete. Learning that she spoke a different love language helped me to understand how best to communicate my love for her. I have to admit, there are times I forget and fall back on what feels good for me and I have to resist those temptations. But I try to speak her love language as much as possible.
As we think about this season of love, maybe we can challenge ourselves to think of it in a new way.
Or at least to remember that love means sacrifice. That submission doesn’t have to be a bad thing. And that when we love each other the way God intended it can be amazing. But it takes trust. I know that’s something that seems to be in short supply today, but trust like everything else is a choice. You can choose to live your life without trust and for sure you will be taken advantage of much less frequently. But don’t kid yourself. It will still happen. And the worst part is you’ll never feel quite at ease. Or you can choose to trust, knowing that at times your trust could be broken. But most of the time it won’t be and the life you lead will have a profound difference in your life. It may never happen, but the more we work to creating a world based on trust and love, the better off all of humanity will be. If we become cynical and distrustful of the world, in the long run we will only poison the relationships we have. If I’ve learned anything from The Princess Bride it’s that true love wins out, and there is no truer love than the love God has for us, his children. Trust at least in that and see where it leads you.
Seen and Unseen – Internment Through Three Lenses
A new book of the Japanese incarceration during World War II.
Seen and Unseen is a beautiful book that captures the essence of Japanese internment during World War II from three lenses – literally. The photographs of Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams are used throughout to illustrate life in the camps and to tell the story of what happened to those interned. There is actually a fourth and fifth lens through which we view the incarceration – author Elizabeth Partridge, who is the goddaughter of Dorothea Lange and Lauren Tamaki, a yonsei (fourth generation) Japanese Canadian whose grandparents were incarcerated in British Columbia.
Interestingly, this book will appeal to all ages. Older readers will appreciate the detail, the accuracy, and the way life is accurately depicted in the camps. It’s in the little things that accentuate the impact of this book – the typography, the notes in the margin, and the combination of photographs and hand drawn images. Younger readers will appreciate Partridge’s easy-to-read style. An author known for her work for younger readers, the main narrative shows this clearly and it is well done. Tamaki’s illustrations are excellent and her choices in both line work and color capture life in the camps in a different way than the photographs without taking anything away from them. The essays which conclude the book delve deeper into the narrative and enrich the rest of the book.
As a Japanese American myself with parents and grandparents (and aunts and uncles, etc.) who were incarcerated in these concentration camps, I felt I knew a lot about the internment, but even with as much as I know, this book opened my eyes to details I hadn’t considered before. Farmers being told to work until the end so the nation would have the literal fruit of their labor as the Japanese were losing everything, families having to give away their pets, the cloth sacks that served as mattresses – it was in the details again that were even more eye-opening for me.
As we come upon the Day of Remembrance (February 19 – the date FDR signed Executive Order 9066), this book is a meaningful way to share about what happened in our country and to make sure it never happens again. Highly recommended reading, not just for people who aren’t aware of the details of that fateful order, but also for those who know the stories well. The rich illustrations, the quotes from people who lived through it, and the straight-forward way it was framed as an injustice against American citizens make this book a rich resource. It was also incredibly interesting to read about how different Lange and Adams approached their assignment to photograph the camps and the limitations and barriers they came across while doing so. Make sure to pass this resource on to others so that we all remember and insure a better future for our country and our children.
Title: Seen and Unseen
Author: Elizabeth Partridge / Lauren Tamaki
Cost: $21.99 (list) / $19.79 (Amazon)
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Ages: 10 and up
Genre: American History / Children’s Illustrated Book
First Date
I still remember our first date.
It was on April 25, 2001. Cassie and I met at a Tex-Mex restaurant called On the Border which was kind of in-between where we both lived at the time. We shared a queso fundido de pollo for an appetizer – this yummy cheesy concoction with grilled chicken and onions and nice warm tortillas where you’d scoop the cheese into the tortilla and form a gooey, cheesy taco. My mouth still waters thinking about it. The chimichanga I ordered for my main course was good, but dessert was to die for. We had this amazing apple crisp! It was warm and buttery with this sweet crumb topping that was delicious. Just the right amount of cinnamon and the apples were nice and tender so they melted as you ate it. Again, mouth-watering anticipation. Since it was our first date, I wanted to impress so I wore my best “date” outfit at the time – a blue button-down oxford from Banana Republic, khaki Dockers, and brown Sperry Topsiders. I even put on cologne – Safari by Ralph Lauren. I know that completely dates me, but it’s true. Cassie looked great! She was dressed in a very alluring black chiffon blouse that I to this day call her pirate shirt because it had this frilly collar like in Seinfeld, except that it looked very nice on her. The whole night, I remember being on my very best behavior – making sure I paid attention without seeming too eager, being polite without being obsequious, making sure I didn’t eat with my mouth open or spit food while we were talking. That kind of thing. The hardest part was not spilling food on my shirt. You might think that would be easy, but I swear I buy shirts with food magnets in them. No matter what I do, it seems like the food just jumps off the fork and right onto my shirt. I wanted to make a good first impression on Cassie because deep down, I was hoping this would last. Twenty years later and we’re still together, so things worked out pretty well.
It’s important to make a good first impression.
It sets the tone for our relationship right from the start. And even though we CAN overcome a BAD first impression, it’s so much easier to get it right the first time. That’s true whenever you’re trying to develop a relationship. Not just in dating, but when you apply for a job, when you’re competing for an award, when you go to a new school, you want to present your best self. Why should it be any different for our church? If you have a Bible or a Bible app on your phone, this morning we’re going to read from 1 Cornithians 9 beginning with verse 19. 1 Cornithians 9:19. Churches are always trying to attract new people, but we often don’t put ourselves in this frame of mind. But the truth is we are dating our community. We’re trying to develop a relationship with the people around us. We want them to come and get to know us. So we should act like every Sunday is a first date. Think of it this way: If you were inviting someone over to your house, someone you wanted to attract, would you pick up your dirty clothes on the floor? Would you wash the dishes in the sink? Would you make your bed? Or would you say to yourself, “Hey, if they can’t accept me for who I am, I don’t want to be with them anyway.” I bet your attitude wouldn’t be the last one. It doesn’t even have to be a date. It could be your boss or your in-laws or friend you haven’t seen in a long time. But we all know how important it is to make a lasting first impression.
To do that we have to adapt to our community.
We’ve got to find a way to adapt to make our church into a place other people would like to stay awhile. If the person you’re dating loves chocolate chip cookies (like I do), then you might bake some chocolate chip cookies. If your boss loves sushi, maybe you bring some to work. If you’re going to a new school, you could wear your new school colors. I mean you wouldn’t go to a Giants game wearing a Dodgers jersey if you wanted to make friends with Giant fans would you? Paul talks about that in our reading this morning (I’m sure Paul was secretly a Dodgers fan). Once Paul was convinced Jesus was exactly who he said he was, Paul was on fire for Christ! He went from being a zealot against Christ to being a zealot FOR Christ and nothing would stop him. Not even his old self. He would do ANYTHING short of selling out the Gospel to help others come to faith in Christ.
19 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. – 1 Corinthians 9:19-23
Paul is speaking directly to each one of us.
His message is clear. It is OUR responsibility to bring the Gospel to others. It is not THEIR responsibility to come and get it. We sometimes act as if it is. We act as if it is the responsibility of other people to come and seek the Gospel. But a person who doesn’t know he’s lost isn’t going to ask for directions. Think about it! Have you asked for directions when you weren’t lost? Nobody does! And even when it becomes evident to everyone else that we ARE in fact lost, we still drive on for 10 miles more before admitting it. Before a person looks for help, they have to be convinced that help is needed. That’s where we come in. There is a whole world out there chock full of people who don’t know Jesus and don’t know why having Christ in your life is important. They don’t know that life could be better on so many levels when you open it up to the movement of the Holy Spirit, and unless we can SHOW them that better life, unless we make it a reality, they’ll go on driving without ever knowing they might be lost.
Paul felt so passionate about Jesus he did whatever he could to bring Jesus to the people.
To his Jewish friends, he practiced all the Jewish customs. He celebrated Jewish festivals. He worshipped with them in synagogues and built trust with them so when the opportunity came to share about Jesus, they would believe him. He obeyed the laws even though he wasn’t restricted by them any more. Jesus had set him free, but in order to reach those who still held to those laws, he followed them so they wouldn’t blame him of being a radical, so that he could speak to them and they would hear. He showed empathy to the weak even though he was emboldened by Christ so that in his weakness, in his vulnerability, he could make a connection with others. As Paul said, he became all things to all people so that he might save some. And that’s important because despite our best efforts, we won’t reach everyone, but it’s important to try. I know in my own life, if it weren’t for people reaching out to me, I wouldn’t be here today.
Let’s date our community.
Let’s find a way to do as Paul invites us to do and become what we need to become. Let’s figure out together what it is our community needs and wants and DO that. We just have to be aware not to mistake what WE want for what the COMMUNITY needs. But with care, prayer, discernment, and patience, we can find a way to reach the heart of our neighborhood and help them to see the loving Christ-centered people we are. It didn’t take me long to realize that our church is filled with loving people. We only need to show that to our community. But for them to know that about us, they need to get to know us. They need to spend time with us to see we are not the stereotypical church they see on TV. That instead we are a people who want to make a difference in the world. To do that, they need to hang around a while and they will see what I see – a place where you can connect to God through the love of Jesus Christ. Let’s ask our community on a date and see what happens!
The Bottom Line
9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.
How much do we believe this?
Whether it’s in our personal lives, our careers, or the life of the church, how much do we believe this? Do we really believe God is with us wherever we go? When we are first starting out in life, in our church, in our careers, we ARE bold. We ARE courageous! Because we feel we have all the time in the world. Because we don’t have much to lose. But the more comfortable we become, the more invested we are, the less likely we are to be so bold or to be as courageous. We play it safe. The thought of losing what we have starts to weigh on us. And we start to balance that with the risk of obtaining more. Is it worth it? Even though we might not be living the life we want, or have the job we hoped, even if our church is slowly growing smaller, still….is it worth risking what we DO have for only the promise of what MIGHT be? And slowly but surely, our resolve, our BOLDNESS fades away.
Jesus knew this would be a problem for us.
And so he told a story to help us see the need to be bold for Christ in every aspect of our lives. Among Biblical scholars it’s called the Parable of the Talents and basically, it’s about these three servants who are each given a bag of gold to take care of for their master while he was gone. When the master returns, the first guy says, “You gave me five bags of gold and now I come back to you with five bags more.” And the master says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.” Then the next guy comes up and says, “You gave me three bags of gold and I come back with three more.” And the master says again, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.” And then the last guy comes up and doesn’t have anything to give except the one bag he started with. He confesses he was afraid of what might happen if he lost the one bag and the master is disappointed with him – not because of the money, because he didn’t need the money, but because the last servant wasted what was given to him out of fear and doubt. He would rather keep things the way they were instead of taking a chance on a better outcome. Which servant are you more like? Which servant does God want you to be?
I have heard those three little words more often than I can count.
If I was attracted to a girl and thought there MIGHT be something there, I’d ask her out – only to hear those three words every guy (and every woman, too I imagine) dreads hearing. “Let’s be friends.” In high school, a buddy of mine, Pete, asked me about that one day. He said, “Why do you do it? Why do you ask out these girls when you don’t even know if they like you or not?” And I told him, “I don’t want to live my life with regret. I don’t want to wonder, ‘What if?’ because what if one of them said ‘yes?’” And you know, one did. Our life isn’t perfect (whose is?), but I can tell you, I have no regrets. And I feel blessed for the life I have. But back then, Pete shook his head and responded, “I have to give you a lot of credit. I don’t think I could do that. I’d never ask a girl out unless I knew she would say ‘yes.’” That really surprised me, because by all accounts Pete was a good-looking guy (or so my female friends told me). He was also nice, smart, and pretty well off. In high school, he drove red Porsche 944. Here was this guy with every reason to be confident but wouldn’t ask a girl out unless he knew she’d say yes. But a lot of us are like that, maybe not about dating, but about something. Why put ourselves through the possibility of rejection or failure? And the more we are comfortable with our lives the way they are, the less likely we are to do it; to be bold, to risk giving up what we have for the hope of something more. But think of the possibilities if we succeed! We could do things we’ve never done before. We could achieve goals we never thought possible. We could see our lives change, our careers change, our church change in ways only God could have seen.
My dad had a saying, “You’ve got to spend money to make money.”
As a kid, that didn’t make a lot of sense to me. If I wanted money, shouldn’t I save as much as possible? But my dad explained it like this, “If you want to do something right, you can’t afford to do it half-way. You’ve got to do it right the first time.” And he was right. I didn’t know it at the time because I was only like 10 years old, but what my dad was trying to tell me was also Biblical. Matthew 6:21 says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Whatever we invest in with whatever we have – our time, our money, or our talents – is an indicator of what is truly important to us. And if we are going to invest in something, if we want something to succeed then we need to use whatever resources we have toward that goal, whether that’s our career, our family, or our relationship with God. To see a return, you’ve got to invest, and you’ve got to do it whole-heartedly. “You’ve got to spend money to make money.”
Do you sometimes hold back?
Do you have doubts? Is that because you are not quite sure if things will work out? Sometimes we hedge our bets because we’re not sure of the outcome. We hold stuff in reserve just in case. But God wants us to live lives of boldness! He wants us to go out into the world and love unconditionally. He wants us to be the kind of people who give abundantly. And he wants us to trust in him freely and without reservation. Those things are not easy for us to do. Children do those things easily, but as we grow up, we get hurt by people who take advantage of our unconditional love, of our abundant giving, and our willingness to trust and we start to build walls between us and the person God wants us to be. I’ll never forget this. One time when Emma and I were in LA, we stopped by this place called Milk. They served the best cookies. And as we were walking from our car to the place, we saw a homeless woman who was asking for money. Something about this woman’s plight touched Emma and as we kept walking she reached into her pocket and found 35 cents. She said, “Daddy, I want to give this to her when we go back.” I couldn’t be more proud so as we returned with our cookies in hand, Emma gave this woman all she had. And do you know what that woman did? She turned to my little girl and said, “That’s all you have? Come on! I can’t even buy a cup of coffee with that!” I was livid! Not just for the disrespect she showed my nine-year old daughter, but because she took a little piece away of that unconditional love and trust Emma had in humanity. For what? A cup of coffee? So believe me, I understand how the world chips away at us, but God challenges us to give abundantly as he made clear in this passage.
6 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9 As it is written: “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.”
10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14 And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. 15 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! – 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
Don’t hold back!
Live boldly the life God wants for you to live! In your marriage, in your relationship with your children, in your career, and in your faith. In all of these things, invest of yourself fully. Do not be afraid of what might happen. But love unconditionally, give generously, and trust in God fully and you will know a life filled with abundance in a way you cannot experience otherwise. Living this kind of life not only opens you up to God’s work in your life, but is also an example to those around you of the power of faith. I understand that by living this kind of life, you also open yourself up to failed expectations. I get you might be taken advantage of by someone who isn’t as scrupulous. I know that living the way God asks us to live makes us vulnerable. But it’s the only way to truly open yourself up to the life God has in store for you. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. This is the promise of God. Spend some time in prayer this week asking God to show you where you are being challenged. What areas in your life are you retreating to the safety and comfort of the familiar? And where could you live a life of boldness that would change your life? We all have those seeds of doubt inside of us, but push past them and live boldly! The promise of God is greater than the fear that comes from failure.
Seven Last Words
The climate crisis started decades ago.
It’s on the top of many people’s minds now, but scientists have been warning us about this for a very long time. Back in 1998 while earning my MA in Poli Sci at Long Beach State, we were watching a video about what we once called “global warming.” Even then humanity was being warned we were on a countdown to disaster. At the time, the guy in the video said we had about 30 years before it was too late and irreparable damage would be done to the earth. That was in 1998. And that video was an old video. The clock has almost run out and when it does we likely won’t even know it because the devastating effects of climate change won’t happen overnight. It happens slowly over decades. So why are scientists all over the world saying we’re running out of time? Because the damage to the environment can’t be stopped on a dime. All the horrible things we’ve done to the planet have taken their toll and after a certain point, there’s no way to reasonably recover. The guy in the video from 1998 explained it like a tanker in the ocean. When you try to turn a tanker it doesn’t immediately start to move in a new direction. It takes a very long time, and in the meantime, the tanker continues to drift in the direction it was already going. To turn the tanker around, you have to anticipate for the drift and start the turn early. By the time you see the shoreline, it’s already too late. The same goes for climate change. We keep thinking we have time to change course and so we put off doing what we know needs to be done. Worse yet, people deny the evidence piling up in front of their eyes because that would mean they would have to change and human beings are notorious for their resistance to change. What we fail to face is that whether we want it to or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, it’s happening anyway.
It says a lot about us that we refuse to change in the face of something as serious as climate change.
But it seems to be part of human nature. We don’t like change no matter what. Even when it’s better for us. We have a tendency toward the status quo. You may have heard that your body has a “set point,” meaning your body gets used to the size and shape it’s in and any attempt to alter it is met with a LOT of resistance. That’s true physically AND mentally. I took a psych class at UCLA where we learned that your brain gets used to certain patterns of behavior. It creates neural pathways to make it easier to process information. But once those pathways are created, we have a hard time drifting away from them, even when we should. There was a study done about how people drive to work, and when presented with a better, quicker alternative, most people didn’t go that route. They were used to the way things were. That’s called being stubborn. Just so we’re clear, Google defines stubborn as “having or showing dogged determination not to change one’s attitude or position on something, especially in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so.”[1] At times, we almost take pride in being stubborn. We call it “grit” or “perseverance.” But those are different. Grit and perseverance are qualities of being steadfast in the face of adversity. Stubborn is being unwilling to change even when all the evidence points to the need to do so. This is something we all struggle with and have apparently for at least 2000 years.
We are a stubborn people.
And that shows up not only in our politics but in our personal lives, in our jobs, in pretty much anything human beings are involved in. About 25 years ago, I was working for a credit union down in Southern California that was considering switching over to debit cards (that’s how long ago 25 years is). Up until then it was still a relatively new technology. Most of the big banks had it, but it was just starting to become affordable for smaller institutions. At the time, I was in the marketing department, and we were given the task of figuring out if it was worth it. My friend Albert did the research and in every analysis, the credit union ended up making a ton of extra money. Our investment was minimal. The risk was almost non-existent. It seemed like the perfect fit. But the CEO and the board turned it down. Turned it down flat. The reason? The CEO said he couldn’t see how anyone would want to use it. He figured he didn’t want to use it so no one would. It didn’t matter that the evidence was overwhelming people were in fact using debit cards. It didn’t matter it presented virtually no risk. It didn’t matter we could make a ton of money. His vision was short-sighted because it would mean changing the way HE did something. Despite the facts, he was too stubborn to see the opportunity before him.
I wish that were an isolated incident, but you and I both know it’s not.
We’ve ALL been victims of other people’s stubbornness, and I’m sure we’ve also been the ones too stubborn to see the obvious. Two-thousand years ago, Jesus encountered the same problem when a young man with all the prospects in the world in front of him asked Jesus what he must do for eternal life. And this is what Jesus told him.
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” 18 “Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” – Matthew 19:16-24
What is holding you back?
For the young man, it was the thought of giving up his wealth; giving up the lifestyle he had grown accustomed to. That was holding him back. He had accomplished pretty much everything else he wanted to in life, like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg; wildly successful at a young age. But he still felt this hole inside and wanted to know what he needed to do to fill it. He found Jesus who people said was this incredibly wise man and asked him, “What must I do?” and ended up walking away sad. Because even though he had received the answer he was looking for, it wasn’t something he wanted to do. Now, it would be easy to judge him. After all Jesus promised him eternal life if he would just give up his possessions and give them to the poor. You might think that’s a small price to pay for eternal life, but think about the mistakes we’ve made in our own lives. The things you were told to do differently that you just didn’t do. Don’t drink. Don’t smoke. Eat healthier. Your friends all told you, don’t go out with THAT guy, but you did anyway. Or your buddy told you that girl was only using you, but you didn’t believe them. The list goes on and on.
We all have some resistance to change.
But that can be dangerous. We have to recognize this flaw within ourselves and work to do something about it. We have to be the agent of change in our own lives. Don’t wait until it’s too late to do something, because we never know how much time we have left. Like the tanker trying to turn around, even when we decide to change it will take time to see results. The same is true for our church. The reason most churches fail to grow is because we have ceased to be relevant to the next generation. It’s because we have become unwilling to change with the times. It doesn’t SEEM that way to us because for us, it works. But does it? If it worked, wouldn’t we keep reaching new people for Christ? That’s why Thom Rainer said most unhealthy churches have little chance of turning things around. Not because it’s impossible, but because people are unwilling to do what is necessary to make a difference. We become like the young man in our reading and are unwilling to let go of the lifestyle we’ve created, even though it would lead to a better and brighter future. Even though it would lead others to Christ. We become stubborn.
We have to make a choice.
Are we too rooted or too stubborn to change? Or are we willing to do what’s needed to make a difference? And in our church, are we willing to shift our culture in a way that we can reach the next generation? When I was in seminary, we read this book and the pastor who wrote it shared something I will never forget. He said, “the seven last words of any church are, ‘We’ve never done it that way before.’” We have to constantly challenge ourselves as individuals and as a community of believers to never be so comfortable with what WE like and what WE want that we forget the rich tapestry of life that awaits us when we are open to where God is leading. We live in a world of change and sometimes we forget that God is part of that change. Open yourself up and embrace it. And see where God is leading us next.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=definition+of+stubborn&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Ugly Chairs
This is an ugly chair.
It’s okay. You can say it. This is an ugly chair. But I keep it for that very reason, to remind myself that we don’t always see the ugly chairs in our lives. This chair wasn’t always ugly. Back in the 70’s when my parents bought it, this was a very cool chair. It was considered “contemporary” and “stylish.” It used to have armrest covers and a little cover for the top where your head leaned against it. The colors were much brighter of course. I remember it having bright, thin streaks of red mixed in with the orange. It stayed in our family living room for decades, even long after it had gone out of style, long after the colors started to fade, and long after the armrests disappeared. Eventually, my mom convinced my dad to move it into their bedroom, out of sight of the rest of the world. But get rid of it? Never. My dad loved this chair and would fall asleep in it nearly every night. After a very long while, it even got too ugly for their bedroom and made its way to the garage where it still had a place of honor. My dad would sometimes just sit in it and watch the world go by. He’d be fiddling with something in the garage and just sit in that old chair. Even though the rest of us saw it as a beat up, ugly old chair that had served its purpose, my dad looked on it as a treasured possession. It wasn’t until 45 years later that they let me take it with me. For this very purpose. To show you an ugly chair.
I’m betting most of us have an ugly chair in our homes.
Maybe not like this, but something that’s hard to get rid of. Something we don’t want to part with even though it’s long outlived its purpose. Something that’s important to us because of its meaning or the memories it stirs up inside of us. But to the rest of the world, they see it for what it is – an ugly chair. Churches do this, too. It may not be a chair or even a physical object, but there are things we have a hard time letting go of even if they don’t work anymore. It could be the way we do worship, the way we do fellowship, the way we do Sunday School. It’s part of “what we do,” and to us it makes church seem like church – but to those on the outside looking in, it’s just an ugly chair. For us it makes church seem like “church,” but to those on the outside looking in, it’s just an ugly chair. Let me give you an example. Dressing up for church used to be a thing. In some places it still is. And if you didn’t come in your Sunday finest, people would look at you with either scorn or pity. Scorn for your disrespect for God or pity that you didn’t have better clothes. But where did that belief come from? How did we equate dressing nicely with respect for God? That idea came from a minister named Horace Bushnell in 1843. He wrote an article called “Taste and Fashion” where he said, “sophistication and refinement were attributes of God and that Christians should emulate them.”[1] Maybe he was a minister that had absolutely no training or ever studied the Bible because that idea runs completely counter to what James wrote in James 2:1-5:
1My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. 2Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. 3If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
5Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?
Dressing up isn’t Biblical and nowhere does the Bible imply that the clothes a man wears brings him any closer to God. In fact, the clothes of the disciples and Jesus himself were likely dirty from the ground and the dust they kicked up while walking. Yet, I’m pretty sure God loved them anyway. But one guy writes an article about dressing up for God and it somehow becomes part of “what we do” and it remains that way for over 100 years. Now, there’s nothing wrong with coming to church looking nice. In fact, it’s probably how some of you ended up with your spouse. But as times change and expectations change and the world around us changes, we have to be willing to change, too. We have to recognize when “what we do” does the opposite of what we want it to do. And then be willing to part with it.
What we need is a fresh perspective.
We have to take a step back and look at ourselves honestly – from top to bottom. Do we have ugly chairs in our lives? In our church? In our businesses? Because if we do, we need to get rid of them. This idea of needing to get rid of something bothers us because we often take it personally. It’s like telling us that everything we’ve done is wrong. But that’s not what it’s about at all. It’s not that we’ve done anything wrong. It’s a matter of doing what works. For example, our mission as a church is to bring people closer to Christ, but if we’re not doing that and we’re not connecting people to God in a meaningful way, then what we’re doing just isn’t working the way we want it to. Paul’s words this morning will remind us of exactly what our mission is supposed to be.
8Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law. 9The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. – Romans 13:8-10
Love is the fulfillment of the law.
Paul writes about it so simply I think sometimes we forget it. Love is the fulfillment of the law. Not anything else. Just love. But over time, we become rigid in our thinking about church and we forget this simple axiom. We get caught up in routines and traditions we don’t realize they are not working like they used to. Like the Pharisees and the church elders back in the early first century, we get so caught up keeping church going the way we are use to, we forget the mission to love our neighbor. But Paul reminds us, it’s about the love of others. When we make the love of others our priority, we are doing exactly what God wants us to do.
Which brings us back to the ugly chair.
Andy Stanley, senior pastor at North Point Community Church in Atlanta, once put it like this. Keeping an old chair or couch in your home is fine. Nothing wrong with holding on to memories of the way things used to be. But holding on to old chairs in church life is deadly. Because to an outsider, they see it for what it is. [2] An ugly piece of furniture. Something that needs to go in the trash bin. And they don’t understand why in the world we would hold onto it. But to us…to us they are filled with memories…because that’s the way we did it and that’s the way my parents did it and by golly that’s the way my children will do it. But your kids are thinking, “Really?” And honestly, weren’t there some things your parents did when you were growing up that you just didn’t understand? But when you’re in it, you don’t see it that way. Our memories cloud our vision and these couches, these things that define church for us, become so draped in memories we don’t see them anymore for what they are; old, ugly chairs that need to be let go. If we want people to know the living God, he can’t be draped in dead things.
The challenge is recognizing what those ugly chairs are.
We have to be willing to really examine everything we do. Odds are there will be stuff we don’t even realize are ugly chairs. Most churches today have some of these lying around. The trick is to recognize them for what they are and then do something about it. And remember, it’s not about casting blame or that we’ve done something wrong. It’s about building a better mousetrap. It’s just about doing things BETTER. The same is true for other aspects in our lives. Is your marriage stale? Are there fewer customers coming to your business? Maybe you have some ugly chairs lying around you just haven’t seen. So we need to open our eyes. We need to be willing to look hard into that mirror and see what might be holding us back. Pray about that this week. Pray for God to help reveal to us what the ugly chairs are in our lives and see them for what they are.
[1] Barna p. 147.
[2] Paraphrase from the talk “Don’t Be That Couch” from Catalyst One Day in Atlanta 2009.
Yes, Virginia, There IS A Santa Claus
Did you know the word “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary?
Yes, I fell for that one. I was in 7th grade at Whitney High when an upper classman told me that with a completely straight face, and then promptly laughed when I said “Really?” A little bit of my trust was peeled away that day. My birthday is on March 31st, same as Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Ewan McGregor, former Vice President Al Gore, and hockey legend Gordie Howe. I wonder if any of them got a fake present for their birthday? I was about six years old and someone thought it would be funny to give me one of those box-in-a-box-in-a-box presents, but after opening the last box there was nothing inside. I can’t remember who gave it to me, but I do remember their words, “Early April Fools!” Except it wasn’t funny. I was so disappointed. More of that built-in trust eroded. In high school, we used to play basketball together every Friday. I wasn’t very good, but I enjoyed hanging out with my friends. That is until the day they told me to go to the wrong park. I suspected what was going on because I rode my bike over to the other park we play at and sure enough they were there. All of them. They saw me. I saw them. Only one of them called out to me. The only one I’m still friends with by the way. Again, and again, and again. Trust broken.
It’s sad, but it’s far from unique.
We have all suffered disappointment in our lives one way or another. It’s what changes us from innocent children to the less innocent and somewhat less trusting individuals we are today. How jaded we become depends on many things, but we all seem to lose that veil of innocence. Maybe that’s why it’s hard sometimes for people to believe in God. He just seems to good to be true and we all know if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. At least, that’s what the world pounds into us. It seems the longer a child goes without knowing God they are less and less likely to be connected to a church later in life. Studies show that 61% of adults who went regularly as kids still attend today compared to only 22% of adults who didn’t go regularly as kids. 61% versus 22%.[1] Children are far more open to the idea of God than adults, because as we get older, we become more cynical and it becomes harder to believe in the things we can’t see or touch. We become rooted in the material instead of the spiritual and our hearts become hardened. Whether that’s from watching television or watching our parents or from school kids who tell us “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary, we gain a more critical eye and a more cynical heart. But that doesn’t mean that God isn’t there. It means we have a harder time recognizing God even when He is the most active in our lives.
Jesus knew this. Most of his adult life was spent dealing with people who didn’t believe.
He even tells us in Matthew 13 that people don’t have eyes to see or ears to hear. And he wasn’t just talking about the people who kept persecuting, harassing, and trying to set him up. There were thousands of his followers who were struggling to get an understanding of who he was and what he was trying to tell them. Even his disciples had trouble believing he was truly the promised Messiah. Now when we come upon this reading, Jesus has just been resurrected. Mary Magdalene and most of the apostles have witnessed him alive, but for some reason Thomas wasn’t there for any of it. I don’t know if he was out buying milk, baking some bread, shepherding a couple of goats or whatever, but he wasn’t there. And that’s where we pick up the narrative. Thomas comes into the room just after Jesus has left and all the apostles are like, “You just missed him!” And this is what happens.
24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” 26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” 28Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 30Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. – John 20:24-31
“Unless I see the nail marks in his hands…I will not believe it.”
Sounds like something any one of us might have said. It’s hard to fault Thomas for being skeptical. We’re often skeptical about things far less out there than a man coming back from the dead. And Thomas KNOWS Jesus is dead. He may not have been there to see it, but he knows the people who were. You can understand how tough it must have been to wrap his mind around Jesus NOT being dead. No one doubted Jesus died on the cross. They were in mourning over it. They were hiding from those who wanted to persecute his followers. So, when they tell Thomas that Jesus is alive, he must have been mad. That’s what I imagine he would have sounded like when he responded. Mad. Mad that the other followers would play such a cruel joke on him and mad they would take Jesus’ death so lightly. He tells them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.” But when Jesus comes back, Jesus shows him exactly what Thomas wants to see and Jesus tells him, “Put your finger here; see my hands…stop doubting and believe.” And then Jesus says the most profound words of all. “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” That is the very definition of faith. The Bible tells us later in Hebrews 11:1 that faith “is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Faith is being sure of what we hope for and CERTAIN of what we do not see.
But that can be hard for us sometimes – believing in things we cannot see.
Sometimes people take it to extremes. Have you heard the term “flat-earther”? It’s used for people who believe in outdated ideas, who can’t let go of their old preconception of things and hold on to the past. But it also comes from a very real group of people called the Flat Earth Society who literally think the earth is flat. They believe the Earth is shaped like a disc similar to a big Frisbee or a chocolate chip cookie and they think the edges are surrounded by a wall of ice that today we call Antarctica.[2] Really. That’s what they believe. That the edges of the world are surrounded by a wall of ice that today we call Antarctica. Never mind the mountain of evidence against them – the pictures, the theories, the scientific data, the observations of others. They believe all of it was either made up or built on faulty premises. Funny as it is, this group has been around officially since 1956. And after over all of these years of evidence, these people still can’t accept the truth because to them it just doesn’t make sense. They haven’t learned that the reality of something doesn’t depend on our perception of it.
Just because we can’t see a thing, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
Frances Church, the editor of the New York Sun back in the early 1900’s, had an answer for this that touches my heart and rings true. He was answering a letter from a little girl named Virginia O’Hanlon who wrote to him explaining, “Dear Editor, I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in the Sun, it’s so. Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?” And Mr. Church responded with elegance as he wrote.
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds… Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist… Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence… The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see… Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
The most real things in the world are those that we cannot see.
How true that is. When we reflect on our lives we find that the most important things in life, the most valuable things are those we cannot see. Love. Life. God. These are the things that are important. These are the things that make the world a very real place. And we can’t see them directly. But it doesn’t make them any less real. Is the love you have for family and friends any less real because you can’t touch or see this thing called love? No, of course not. Because it IS real. Just because we can’t see it with our eyes or touch it with our hands doesn’t take away the reality of its existence. Indeed, the things we CANNOT see are the most real things in the world. In those moments when you are inclined to doubt, allow for the possibility that there is something greater in this crazy universe that loves and cares about you. Open yourself up to that childhood innocence that got buried under the dirt of disappointment and allow it to come to the surface again. Yes, the world can harden us and make us more cynical, but hold on to the hope that Christ gave you now and always.
[1] http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/62-adults-who-attended-church-as-children-show-lifelong-effects
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society#cite_note-8
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society#cite_note-8
A Reason to Believe
What difference has Jesus made in your life?
How do you see God at work in the world? If you’re a Christian, there’s a reason you believe Jesus is your Lord and Savior. You didn’t just come up with it out of nowhere. And it’s more than just because it’s in a book. At some point in your life, for whatever reason, your faith became REAL. You found a reason to believe. For me, it was a slow burn rather than any single event. It was the culmination of God working through many people in my life to help me understand who Jesus is. For you, it could be different. And odds are there are as many reasons to believe as there are people because God works in our lives in different ways. But it seems harder and harder to help people cross that line from disbelief to belief and that’s because more than ever we are living in an age of disbelief and distrust. You only have to turn on the news to see this is true. It’s mind boggling we live in a country where one event will produce completely opposite interpretations of what happened depending on which news channel you follow. How many of you have friends or family members you just can’t talk to because of their outlook on the world?
That level of disbelief and distrust bleeds over to the church as well.
It’s why so many people don’t come to church. Why bother with religion? They’re all a bunch of hypocrites anyway. I felt like that at one time, so I understand it when people tell me that’s why they don’t feel compelled to be here. It’s not that most people object to the idea of God or Jesus, they just don’t have a reason to believe. They don’t have a reason to think coming to church will make a difference in their life. They’re not actually anti-religion. They just don’t know what they don’t know. It’s kind of like Cassie and refried beans.
When I first moved to Atlanta, I was desperate to find Rosarita refried beans.
Rosarita refried beans are, by far, the best canned refried beans ever, but they were nowhere to be found. Believe me, I looked. Finally, I called Cub Foods, and they had ONE store 45 minutes away that carried it. Cassie and I had just started dating and I wanted to cook a Mexican dinner for her so I decided to make the journey for these refried beans to round out our meal. Cassie volunteered to go with me, not realizing how far away it was and after about 30 minutes, and having passed about a dozen grocery stores, she asked me why we couldn’t have stopped at any of those other stores and just pick up a different brand. After all, canned refried beans are all the same. I assured her they were not, but it wasn’t until she tasted them that she believed me. “These are the best refried beans I’ve ever had,” she said and a smile crossed my face. The trip had been worth it. Until you experience something for yourself, it’s hard to understand what the big deal is. Whether that’s refried beans or Jesus Christ, simply put, you don’t know what you don’t know.
But we can help people know why Jesus is so important; why the church is so important.
And the good news is anyone can do it. I know you’ve heard me say it before, but you don’t need a seminary degree or any special training to help people understand why our faith is important. You don’t need a sandwich board or a megaphone or a stack of Bibles to hand out either. In fact, all you need…is YOU! For the most part, this section of Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae is about living a Christian life. But it’s the last bit of advice he gives that is going to be our focus today. The formula for success at showing people the love of Christ resides in you and Paul shares with us exactly what we need.
2 Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. 3 And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. 4 Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. 5 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. – Colossians 4:2-6
Paul gives new meaning to the phrase “being full of it.””
He wants us to be prayerful, watchful, and thankful. When we’re “full” of those things, we can really make a difference in someone’s faith journey. There’s a beautiful passage of Scripture in Matthew where Jesus tells the disciples, “In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. 15 For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’ 16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” Being prayerful, watchful, and thankful give us eyes and ears that are open to the movement of the Holy Spirit and helps us notice opportunities to share our faith that might otherwise go by. Prayerfulness centers us in God’s will. When we learn to pray, we learn to trust and rely on God. Thankfulness creates in us a heart for God. It helps us to be aware of our blessings and encourages us to show our appreciation by sharing our love with others. And both of these help us to be watchful. We develop what Jesus calls eyes that see and ears to hear. It’s like those Magic Eye images that used to be super popular, the ones where there is a hidden 3D image within the picture? Once you find the image, it’s so much easier to see it again and again, but until you do it can be pretty tough. Finding opportunities to share your faith is like that. Once you train your mind to look for those opportunities, it becomes easier and easier for us to do.
Paul cautions us to “be wise in the way you act toward outsiders.”
And by outsiders he meant those who were not Christian. Paul believed our actions are a reflection of our faith. Fair or not, what we do and what we say impacts how others perceive our beliefs. When Jesus told us to love one another, it was not only the right thing to do, but it was evidence of our faith. It showed the world what it meant to be a Christian. And when we don’t love our neighbor, that is also evidence of our faith. We live in a skeptical world, one that struggles with accepting facts let alone something as intangible as God. And the church hasn’t done much to help its own cause. We are in the news far more for what’s not good about us than for what we are doing well. Stories about scandal, abuse, and hypocrisy are in the public eye much more than stories about disaster relief, helping the homeless, or funding college education. It’s no wonder people have doubts about what the church promises. To them it could be just another scam to get their money. I’ve had friends who have said as much. They feel like worship is just a means to separate people from their money. If we have any hope of reaching into the hearts and minds of people who don’t believe in Christ, we have to act with love and grace. We don’t need to know all the answers. We don’t need to be perfect, we just need to point to the one who is.
The world around us is growing increasingly non-Christian.
Spirituality is as strong as ever, but there is a growing trend away from faith in Christ. The number of people who don’t belong to a church or any religion keeps growing. In a study done in the US from 2007 to 2021, the number of those people went from 16% of the population to 29%. At the same time, the number of people who identified as Christian went down the same percentage – from 78% to 63%.[1] And while the majority of people still identify as Christian, it would be wise to assume many of them do not actively practice their faith. More likely they identify as Christian in name only. At the same time, it is more and more important to BE Christian in the world today. The world needs the radical love of Jesus Christ. The world needs the peace that a life in Christ can bring. And the world desperate needs the grace, mercy, and forgiveness that Christ offers – not only to us, but the love, grace, mercy and forgiveness we can offer one another. This week as we continue our time of waiting, pray for those who don’t know Christ, who have drifted away, or who don’t see the importance of their faith. Think of at least one person who needs that prayer and focus on them. Be watchful for an opportunity to share your faith or invite them to church. And be thankful that Christ is in your life. When we have an attitude of gratitude we become more inviting to those around us. So be prayerful, be watchful, be thankful. Do you believe Jesus has made a difference in your life? Then make sure you let it show.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/12/14/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-are-now-religiously-unaffiliated/
Keeping the Faith
The pain was excruciating.
That’s pretty much the only way I know to describe the feeling in my arm when it broke during judo practice. I must have been about ten at the time and pretty busy doing various sports (none of which I was very good at, but enjoyed nonetheless). I was playing baseball, basketball, and taking judo at the Norwalk Judo Dojo. On this one particular night, I was practicing with a guy about four times my age and almost twice my height. He could literally pick me up onto his back. As he was throwing me to the floor, he was supposed to let go of my right arm so it could absorb the impact from the fall, but he let go of the wrong one. My arm snapped back and POP! CRACK! Everyone in the dojo came up to me immediately as I was clutching my arm. I was trying hard not to let it show how much it hurt, but when they asked me to move it, I shouted through clenched teeth, “I CAN’T!” and my dad helped me up and took me to the hospital. The whole time in the car all I could feel was the searing pain as every bump on the road reminded me how bad it hurt. Sure enough, after doing x-rays they told us it was broken and put a temporary cast on it until I could get a full cast the next day. I think I wore that cast for something like three months. That part is a bit hazy. But I remember when they took it off how completely different it looked from the other arm. It was like having a space alien arm on one side and a normal arm on the other. The skin was a different color and the muscles looked so small. The doctor said that was normal. But it sure didn’t look like it.
Our faith is like that.
Faith is like a muscle. If you don’t use it, it grows weak and becomes harder and harder to move. And if enough time goes by, it eventually becomes useless. Like your appendix, which I no longer have. Since as far back as I can remember, people have wondered what in the world the appendix was good for. It didn’t seem to serve any purpose other than randomly exploding inside your body. It was like carrying around a ticking time bomb. But researchers believe at one time it might have been a storehouse for helpful bacteria the body needed. When you suffered from something that emptied you of all those good bacteria, they think the appendix would release its store back into your body to help you recover more quickly. As we evolved it became less and less useful to the point where, as far as we know, it isn’t an essential part of the body anymore.[1] After so many centuries of not functioning, it just sits there useless. Like any other part of your body, if you don’t use it, it eventually stops working. And that axiom is true for things outside of your body also. Think about anything in your house with a motor – cars, lawnmowers, even your garbage disposal. If you don’t use it at least once in a while, eventually it breaks down. Faith is like that, too. When you don’t use it, it begins to atrophy and eventually becomes useless. So ask yourself, how often do you exercise your faith?
Can you really call yourself a Christian if you don’t practice your faith?
I heard this saying once and it’s stuck with me, “Being in a church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than being in a garage makes you a car.” How we spend our time matters. We can say we believe in Christ all we want, but it has to be more than just lip service. In one of his letters to the church, the apostle John wrote, “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18).” Doing is more important than saying. It’s easy for us to say we are Christian, but is there evidence of it in our lives? God warns us about being idle, of doing nothing when we could be doing something. In the case of our passage this morning, the people at the church of Thessalonica were literally doing nothing. It wasn’t a metaphor for lazy spiritual behavior. They were literally sitting around, waiting for the world to end. It was common during this time to believe that the end times were near, that Jesus would return any day to take believers up to Heaven. So there was a group who sat around, just waiting. And Paul writes this warning to the church.
Now we commend you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labor we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right. – 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
This was taking “waiting” to a whole new level.
These people were not doing anything. I imagine they were sponging off their family and friends, letting their farms go to waste or just not showing up for work. I mean if the end times are near, why waste it working? But Paul’s letter makes it clear that it’s important what you do with the time you’re given. Whether it’s a minute or a lifetime, we must make good use of the time we have. If we truly love the Lord, we need to do more than just wait. We need to use the time to our advantage. We need to live a life worth imitating so that others can see how Christ has changed who we are. That passage we read in the Bible about being a light on a hill (Matthew 5:14-16) was meant to remind us that we have a responsibility not just to ourselves but to God and to those around us to set an example for how we want the world to be, and that’s what Paul is talking about here. He tells the church that the disciples work hard, not because they have to (there are plenty of people who would help them out), but “in order to give you an example to imitate.” Our actions are not only meant to build up our own faith but the faith of those around us as well.
What kind of example are you setting?
For your kids, your grandkids, your nieces and nephews, do they see evidence of Christ working in your life? About 83% of people tell pollsters they are Christian, yet only about 18% ACTUALLY attend church services on any given week.[2] Now attendance isn’t the only measure of what it means to be Christian, but if we take the Bible seriously, it’s clear God wants us to be involved in a community of believers; to learn, to grow in our faith, to encourage others. So if 75% of “Christians” aren’t in church, how are they engaging in the type of community God is calling us to live? The truth is most aren’t. In a study from 2016 they found that among those who used to go to church more often, about half said they are “too busy,” “too lazy,” or just “don’t care” about it as much as other things.[3] And of the about 33% of Americans who call themselves Christians but rarely or never go to church, most never have. How do you know if you are Christian if you don’t take the time to find out what it’s about? Just the fact that you’re here, now, and listening to these words means you care; that for you faith is more than just a check box on a sheet of things to do. But if you don’t come regularly, either in person or online, I want to encourage you to do so. I want to ask you to give faith a chance.
I read something very interesting.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Outliers and in this book he talks about how to become what the world would call successful. And the interesting thing he found was that the most committed people were also the most likely to succeed. Not necessarily the most talented, but the most committed. Now, there are other factors involved too and he goes into all of them. Status, wealth, position, opportunity, etc. But the one thing that differentiated the mediocre from the exceptional in nearly every instance was what he called the 10,000 Hour Rule. It was the 10,000 Hour Rule that separated the average from the exceptional. He found 10,000 hours of honing your craft – whatever it is – seems to be the key to success.He talks about the Beatles and Bill Gates, two completely different success stories in two completely different fields and how the one thing they had in common other than natural talent was that each completed 10,000 hours of honing their skills at a relatively young age. What Gladwell says is that practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do to MAKE you good. Practice isn’t the thing you do ONCE you’re good. It’s the thing you do to MAKE you good. Do you show that kind of dedication to your faith?
Coming out of that cast, my arm was a pitiful sight.
Having not used it for only three months, it looked pale and weak. Just putting my two arms side-by-side, it was easy to tell which one had been used and which had not. Don’t let your faith get pale and weak. Don’t let your faith go by the wayside. In our busy lives it’s all too easy to let God slip by the wayside. It’s ironic, but especially during the Christmas season, when we’re running around trying to clean our houses, wrap our gifts, shop for our relatives, bake cookies for the church potluck, we can so easily forget what is truly important. Make a commitment, not just now but for always to put your faith in the forefront of your life and watch how God will increase the abundance of blessing in your life.
[1] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-10-10/scientists-discover-true-function-of-appendix-organ/693946
[2] Church attendance: https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/139575-7-startling-facts-an-up-close-look-at-church-attendance-in-america.html ; % Christian: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90356&page=1
[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/religious-participation-survey/496940/
Are We There Yet?
Waiting for anything is tough.
But CHRISTMAS waiting has got to be the hardest of all. My mom had a hard and fast rule about NOT getting up before 10am on Christmas morning. When you’re a kid and all of Santa’s presents are just sitting there on the coffee table in the front room, 10am seems like an eternity. My sister, Karen, and I would get up extra early on Christmas morning. We would sneak into the living room and gaze longingly at our presents. We weren’t allowed to touch them (a lesson we learned the hard way one year), but we were allowed to look. So we did. We’d circle around the living room table like vultures stalking their prey, trying to angle our heads to peek into the stockings to see what was in there, too. Then after THOSE 5 minutes were up…we’d sit there and wait. And wait. And wait some more. 5:06am. 4 hours and 54 minutes to go. The agony of WAITING – that was the worst.
And we’re not very good at it.
Human beings hate waiting. In fact, we hate it so much, we’ve invented stuff so we don’t have to wait – or at least not for very long. Processed food, fast-food restaurants, microwave ovens, and bottled water just to name a few. But faster isn’t always better. We often have to sacrifice something to get what we want. When I was in marketing, my graphic designer told me, “Everyone wants it cheaper, faster, and better. I can give you two. I can make it cheaper and faster, but it won’t be better. I can make it faster and better, but it won’t be cheap. Or I can make it cheaper and better, but it won’t be fast. You can have two but not all three.” And for the most part, we’ve chosen faster. But like my graphic designer said there are consequences. For a long time, people thought the obesity epidemic was caused by a lack of access to healthy food. But a study from the National Center for Health Statistics at the CDC showed that the main factor in obesity wasn’t access at all. It was convenience, or perceived convenience. Most people who were obese were actually not poor and had access to healthier food. In fact, it was middle-income people who were the most overweight. Eighty percent of low-income people actually cook at home five times a week. People were choosing convenience over health.[1] Same thing with bottled water. We love our bottled water. Human beings consume a million bottles of the stuff every minute.[2] But not only does it take more water to produce a water bottle than what’s inside it, the plastic it’s made out of has been linked to a number of diseases like prostate and breast cancer.[3] The bottles themselves are bad for the environment. More than 90% of people don’t recycle their plastic bottles and it ends up in landfills and oceans all over the world.[4] None of this information is new, but we either bury it (like the plastic bottles we enjoy so much), ignore it, or justify it in some way because that’s how impatient human beings are. We hate waiting so much we devise ways around it.
But sometimes waiting is precisely what we should be doing.
Sometimes being patient is what’s needed. And sometimes the results are worth the wait. If you’ve ever read the Bible, you know that God teaches about patience ALL the time. Today we’re going to read a passage that talks about it in a way you probably haven’t thought of before. If you have your Bibles, would you please turn to 1 Corinthians 13 beginning with verse 4. 1 Corinthians 13:4. You might think this passage is a little weird to talk about patience since this is the famous “love” passage from the Bible. But even though patience is only one aspect of how love is described, it is at the root of God’s very being. So, if we are called upon by God to live a Christ-like life, we must INCLUDE patience as part of that life. Look at all the people in the Bible who had to be patient. Noah was on that boat for 150 days. Can you imagine what that must have smelled like. In my head, I keep thinking it was just 40 days, mostly due to that Schoolhouse Rock song. But that’s just how long it rained. Noah and his family were trapped on that boat with two of every animal for 150 days. They must have wondered when it would come to an end. Abraham and Sarah were hoping for a child all of their married lives, but it wasn’t until he was 99 years old that he had a son. And of course there was the time when the people of Israel were sent out into the desert for 40 years. 40 YEARS! God brought his people out of Egypt and when their hearts started to become filled with doubt, he made them wander for 40 years to think about it.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. – 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Patience is love. Patience is godly.
Love according to Paul in this letter to the church at Corinth is characterized by only two qualities – patience and kindness. Patience and kindness. Verses 5 and 6 tell us what love is NOT and verse 7 shows us what love does, but only two qualities – patience and kindness – describe the character of love. And since we know God is love from John’s first letter to the church it only makes sense that God is also patient. In math we call that the transitive property of equality. But you don’t have to have a degree in mathematics to figure that out, just open up your Bibles to Peter’s second letter. In chapter 3 he writes, “8But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” God understands patience. He has been patient with us for thousands of years, waiting for us to get this right, to live a life of love. His patience is an expression of his love for us and that’s why we cherish those who are patient with us. Because it is an expression of love.
But sometimes we give in to our impatience in hurtful ways.
We lash out at loved ones. We say or do things we don’t mean. Our impatience clouds our judgment and makes us do things that are harmful. Not just polluting the environment or polluting our bodies, but actually hurting one another. An MIT professor, Dr. Richard Larson has been studying the science of waiting in line and found that people can get so mad they actually turn violent. He calls it “Queue Rage.” Q-U-E-U-E. Queue rage.[5] People can become so impatient they turn into the worst versions of themselves. One woman, Ruth Driscoll-Dunn, tried to run two women over with her jeep because she thought they cut in front of her in line at McDonald’s.[6] Can you imagine that? Over an Egg McMuffin? But we can’t avoid waiting. It’s a part of life. On average two full days out of every year are spent waiting.[7] Considering the amount of time in our life we will spend doing nothing but wait, we need to consider the importance of patience.
Advent is a time of waiting.
The word Advent itself comes from the Latin for adventus which means “coming,” and this season of our Christian year is about waiting for the coming of Christ, both as a remembrance of the past and a promise for the future. We are a people who are waiting. And if we truly are the people of God, we live through this time of waiting with patience. Not with violence, not with anger, not with frustration, but with patience. We’re often looking for the quick and easy way of doing things, but to really maximize the most out of life, we have to learn to be patient. I’m reminded of something that they would say on the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland. As people were waiting in line to get on the ride one of the skippers would say, “Who would like to see the line move faster? If you would like to see the line move faster, please raise your hand.” And or course at least half the crowd would raise their hands. Then he would continue, “Great! All those of you with your hands raised would you step aside and let everyone else pass? That way you can see the line move faster. Thank you.” We are in such a rush, especially during the holidays, that it can be so easy to lose our patience – with one another, with our neighbors, and with God. But take a moment every day to simply WAIT! To be alive in the waiting. To stop from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, especially during the holidays, and simply enjoy life as it is, right here, right now. As Ferris Bueller once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and take a look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bethhoffman/2012/07/17/its-convenience-not-cost-that-makes-us-fat/#419c329403a3
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/07/26/million-plastic-bottles-minute-91-not-recycled/#45635376292c
[3] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/10/06/555900292/which-items-in-our-kitchens-contain-bpa
[4] Op Cit. Forbes, million plastic bottles
[5] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/09/earlyshow/contributors/susankoeppen/main2663189.shtml Brian Dakss, “Companies Heeding Gripes About Long Lines,” CBS, 2/11/2009
[6] http://onlineathens.com/stories/081606/uganews_20060816074.shtml “Student Arrested in Fast Food Attack,” Athens Banner-Herald (online edition), 8/16/2006.
[7] Ibid.
Craig's Corner 