The Unreliable Bible
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
Those iconic words have become part of Star Wars lore as much as Darth Vader’s breathing. When you see them come up on the screen, you are instantly transported to another time and place. And that’s the point. Those words immediately give you a sense of where and when. A very VAGUE sense, but a sense nonetheless. It’s a technique storytellers use in every medium, whether that’s radio or film or good ol’ fashioned books. It helps people feel a sense of authenticity when you can root a story in history. That’s especially true if you’re trying to tell a story about something that actually happened. Think of a film you’ve watched based on true events. Gandhi; “New Delhi India, 30th January 1948.” Generally, those movies start off with some kind of indication of where and when they happened. All the President’s Men, “June 1, 1972.” Guess they figured you would guess right away it was happening in Washington, D.C. People want specifics. “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.” That’s how we know that it happened. That’s why Luke was so careful in how he described the events in Jesus’ life. He wanted to root it in history. He wanted to give it authenticity. He wanted us to be able to verify it actually took place.
We don’t have faith because of the Bible.
You might have seen bumper stickers with the phrase, “The Bible said it, I believe it, that settles it.” But the problem with that kind of bumper sticker theology is it’s too simple. One of my Bibles says that Ted Cabal is the general editor. Does that mean Ted was around in the 15th century when they printed the first ones? Because if “the Bible said it,” it must be true. Unless it’s not. If you’ve read the Bible, you know there are contradictions. In fact, there is something contradictory in the very first chapter. The story of creation. The first chapter tells us that God created the Heavens and the Earth. Then he created the seas and the land. Then he created the plants and after that the animals. And only after everything else was created did he make people. The Bible is very clear on the created order of things. But in the very next chapter of Genesis, it says God made man and breathed life into him before any other living thing. When Adam was created, there were no plants or animals. Just him. Only one of these stories can be true. They are contradictory and inconsistent. So what does that mean for our faith? It means there must be something stronger and better supporting it. Our faith does not rest on the Bible. Our faith rests on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:13-14, 19).”
Christianity does not exist because of the Bible. The Bible exists because of Christianity.
Christianity does not exist because of the Bible. The Bible exists because of Christianty. We do not believe in Jesus because it’s in a book. We believe in Jesus because he was born to a virgin, lived amongst us, performed miracles only God could perform, died for our sins, and rose from the dead. And while the Bible chronicles the life and teachings of Jesus, the Bible is not why we are Christian. Andy Stanley used this example in a sermon. He said you don’t exist because of your birth certificate. If something happened to your birth certificate, you wouldn’t cease to exist. Your birth certificate documents something that happened.[1] In the same way, the Bible documents something that happened. And this is exactly why Christianity spread, because the early disciples believed that Jesus rose from the dead and died for their sins. We see this in our reading this morning.
13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. 14 But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. 15 So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16 “What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. 17 But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”
18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! 20 As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
21 After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. 22 For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.
Peter and John weren’t putting their lives on the line because of the Bible.
The Bible didn’t exist and would not exist until hundreds of years after their death. In fact, some of the most important letters and teachings of the Bible were written or said to be written by them. But Peter and John put their lives on the line because they believed Christ was the risen Savior, and they believed because they witnessed him after his death. They said to the Jewish elders who were putting them on trial, “As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” It didn’t matter their lives were being threatened, they could not deny their own experience and so eventually the Sanhedrin had to let them go. They believed because of what they knew. Not because of something they read or some theory they heard. They believed because of what they knew and eventually they wrote it down and it became part of what we know to be the Bible today.
But no one in the first century came to believe in Christ because of the Bible.
They didn’t believe because of the Bible in the second century either. Or the third. It wasn’t until Easter in the year 367 that Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, first issued the 27 book list that we call the New Testament.[2] It didn’t become officially canon until the Council of Hippo in 393.[3] And during that time, Christianity grew BEFORE there was a Bible. Despite persecution, their numbers went from a dozen men to thousands of people to literally millions, until by the year 300 they accounted for 10% of the population of the Roman Empire.[4] In the year 313, Emperor Constantine made Christianity legitimate and by 380, Emperor Theodosius made it the official state religion of the Empire.[5] So for the first 360 years of its existence, Christianity grew from a small group of followers to a Jewish sect to the official state religion of the biggest empire in the known world, and that whole time they didn’t have a Bible. How in the world did they come to believe?
People believed in Jesus Christ because of the transformative power of faith.
People believed in Jesus because of the transformative power of faith. It wasn’t because of a book. It was because they saw for themselves how faith in Christ changed those around them. I’m sure the same is true for you. Although you may have read the Bible as a kid or sung that song we all know and love (“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…”), that’s not why you believed in Jesus. It’s because you trusted whoever it was that took you to Sunday School. It’s because you thought your pastor knew what he was talking about. It’s because your grandmother had such overpowering faith that you felt compelled to learn more about God. No matter how it happened, you came to have faith in Christ because of the people around you who in either overt or subtle ways convinced you this was something worth believing in. But you didn’t come to faith because of a book. You came to faith in Christ because it was made real to you through the love of those around you, just as it did for Peter and John and Matthew and Luke and Mark and Paul who were so overwhelmed by the love of Christ they had to write about it and tell it to everyone they knew. Love became real for them and through that love they had faith.
The Bible is important.
Please don’t misunderstand that point. I do believe the writers of the Bible were inspired by God. I believe that the words within it are useful to teach, rebuke, and correct as Paul wrote to Timothy. But I also believe that human beings are incredibly fallible and we have often read the words contained inside of it wrong. I believe that human beings even with the best of intentions interpret the Bible in ways that do NOT reflect God’s will. And I know the Bible contains contradictions we cannot resolve. And if the Bible has been used in your life to make you afraid; if the Bible has been used against you as a weapon; if the Bible has been the justification for causing you pain and anguish, I am so sorry. Because that was not why the Bible was written. To quote Jesus’ disciple, John, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believethat Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” The Bible was meant to tell the story of God’s great love. A love so great that Jesus gave himself up on the cross for us as a sacrifice for our sins. A love that moved dozens and then thousands and then millions of people to love one another so radically that it convinced others to do the same, and hopefully it has or will do the same for you. The next time you read the Bible, keep that in mind. If you have given up your faith in Christ because of the Bible, please come back. If you have stayed away from believing in Jesus because of the Bible, please give it a chance. And if you have doubts because of the Bible, please feel free to share and ask about it. But know that we believe in Jesus not because of a book, but a book was written because we believe so strongly and wanted to share that love with the world.
[1] Andy Stanley in his sermon, “Who Needs God?: The Bible Told Me So,” August 27, 2016.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_New_Testament_canon#Muratorian_fragment
[3] https://gotquestions.org/canon-Bible.html
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_church_of_the_Roman_Empire
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_the_4th_century
Where Do Babies Come From?
Where do babies come from?
Depending on when you asked that question you probably got a different answer. Parents have been answering that question in different ways since time began. There’s the stork story, the cabbage patch story, the story of the birds and the bees, you get the picture. Different kids at different ages can handle different stories. A lot of it has to do with how ready your child is and how ready YOU are to share. I remember vividly the day I found out – February 16, 1977, the day they aired the ABC Afternoon School Special, “My Mom’s Having A Baby.” We plopped down in the family room and watched it with my mom. The cartoon parts were hilarious and they at nine years old, that was enough for me. When I got into eighth grade we had “sex ed” with Mr. Reller and Mr. Reller took the more direct approach to learning. He let us ask any questions we wanted and there were some doozies. I found out more in that one day of class than in the whole rest of eighth grade! But if nine year old me was in that room, it would have been too much. I wasn’t ready for it. It took time for me to gain the maturity, knowledge, and level of understanding to process the things we were talking about. I think I’m STILL processing some of what we talked about that day.
The same is true for our faith.
We need time to mature in our faith as we ask more and more complex questions. That’s a fundamental truth for anything we want to learn about. We start with the basics, build a good foundation, and then go on from there. Nobody starts with the LEGO Expert set. We don’t talk about God the same way to a 5-year old as we would a teenager or an adult. They have different levels of understanding. But what happens when you grow older and your faith doesn’t grow with you? When we leave our faith in childhood, our God stays there, too. Lots of people leave the church in their teens and don’t come back until something draws them back. Whether that’s getting married, raising children, or noticing a hole in their life they are hoping to fill, they come back to church with only the tools they left with. So whatever God we believed in back when we left the church is often the God we still believe in when we come back. The problem is our adult ideas don’t match up with our Sunday School God. Sometimes people never come back because they can’t reconcile the God they believe in with the life they know. But it’s not God that doesn’t make sense, it’s that our ideas about God haven’t changed as we have. And this isn’t a new problem either. If you have a Bible or a Bible app on your phone, would you please go to Hebrews 5 beginning with verse 11. Hebrews 5:11. You’ll find that most of the problems and issues we come up with today are the same problems and issues we’ve had all along. Even the 1st century church had these problems. You’d think being so close to the time when Jesus actually lived, they might have an advantage, but they struggled with faith just as much as we do today. Maybe even more so because everything was so new.
We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. – Hebrews 5:11-14
Is your faith still in its infancy?
Just because you’re going to church doesn’t mean your faith is growing. It needs to be nurtured and tended to and fed like any other living thing. For a garden to bloom, you can’t just plant seeds in the ground. You have to water it, position it to get the right amount of sun, give it good soil to take root in, and tend to it. If you don’t, you might get lucky but usually, you just have a bunch of seeds buried in the ground. In the same way, faith needs to be nurtured. Without care, it just withers away and that’s what has Paul frustrated. He’s writing to this group of believers who he feels have grown lax in their spiritual growth. He’s so frustrated he insults them, “You need milk, not solid food!” He tells them they should be teaching this stuff, but they still haven’t mastered the basics. And he says, “But solid food is for the mature, who by CONSTANT USE have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” Constant use. If we don’t practice our faith it becomes stagnant. We grow up, our ideas of the world become more complex, but our vision of God remains rooted in our childhood.
As you get older, you don’t believe the stork brought you to your family.
But a lot of us hold on to childhood beliefs about God unless our faith grows with our understanding of the world. In one of his sermons, Andy Stanley mentions some of these versions of God from our childhood.[1] One of them he calls Bodyguard God. Bodyguard God is the God that always protects us from harm. This is the God who never lets bad things happen to good people. We tell children if they listen and obey then God will keep them safe, but to a child this means nothing bad will ever happen to me as long as I believe. But that is just not true and it leads people to abandon their belief in God the moment things go bad because they have based their understanding of God on something that isn’t true. God never promises us a life free from harm. He even says it out loud. Jesus told them flat out, “In this world you will have trouble.” I don’t know how much more plain he could be. “In this world you will have trouble (John 16:33).” Then he goes on, “BUT (my emphasis) take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus doesn’t promise us a life free from trouble. In fact, he guarantees it! It’s just we don’t have to lose hope when trouble comes our way because we know God is with us. But Bodyguard God? That God doesn’t exist.
Then there’s Blanket God.[2]
Blanket God is the God of comfort, the God who is always present. He reminds me of Linus from the Peanuts gang because his blanket is always with him. But there are times in our lives where we are distant from God. There are times in our lives where we not only don’t feel his presence but instead feel his absence. And this poses a big problem for Blanket God believers because they feel abandoned and sometimes it leads them to abandon their faith. What they don’t understand is God is still there. Even in those moments where we can’t feel his presence, God is constantly reaching out to us. There’s just something that is blocking our vision of him. Sometimes that means we have to weather the storm until the fog clears from our eyes. This is when we need a deeper faith to hold on even when we can’t see God for ourselves. A friend of mine from Georgia gave me the best advice one time when I was going through my own period of doubt and it’s stuck with me ever since. He told me when he looks back on his life he can see all the ways where God helped him through the valleys. He couldn’t see it at the time because he was stuck in his own grief or anger or depression or whatever he was feeling at the time. But afterward, he would look back and see how God was present for him and when he was going through another valley, that’s how he could keep his faith in God, knowing that even if he seems absent God is still at work in his life.
There’s also Gap God.
Gap God is the God who fills in the gaps of our faith. This God is the God who explains the unexplainable. Whenever something happens when we don’t understand or can’t explain, we say, “It’s a God thing.” And while that might seem to be giving God his props, it’s really undermining our faith. Because God becomes a crutch for the unexplainable when we start to use God in that way. Remember when the AIDS epidemic first began and there were people like Pat Robertson who said it was caused by God to rid the world of homosexuality? Then they had to backtrack when heterosexual people started getting it too. Or when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 and those same God pundits declared it was God’s wrath upon a sexually promiscuous society? As if that one area of the world was the only den of ill repute. Using God to fill in the gaps of our knowledge is not only small-minded but denies the real power of God. We don’t believe in God because of the mystery of God. We believe in God because of his revelation in Jesus Christ. We don’t believe in God because of the things we can’t explain, but because of the things we have experienced ourselves.
If you have lost faith because of one of these versions of God, I implore you to come back.
These are simplistic views of God that were meant for a time when we didn’t have the life experiences we have now. I want to challenge you to open your heart up to the possibility that it isn’t God that’s the problem, but instead our outdated views of him. Get to know God again. And if you are solid in your faith, I challenge you to keep studying, praying, and looking for God in your life because God doesn’t disappear overnight, but in the slow erosion of our faith. God vanishes because we allow life to chip away at our vision of God until there isn’t enough for God to rest upon and it all collapses beneath us. Question God. Question your faith. Don’t be afraid to put God to the test but be open and willing to listen to the response he returns. Don’t outgrow your faith, but instead nurture it, feed it, protect it and let it grow with you.
[1] From Andy’s sermon to North Point Community Church, “Who Needs God? Gods of the No-Testament.”
[2] Andy called him Boyfriend or Girlfriend God, but I think this description fits God better.
The Truth Is Out There
Chocolate is good for you.
Before we found out that chocolate was good for you, it was just a sin we lived with because we liked it so much. So when studies came out saying it provided real health benefits, it gave us every excuse to indulge in this tasty treat. But consider this. How many of you read the fine print? Most chocolate you buy in the store ISN’T good for you. It’s highly processed, contains way more milk and sugar that you don’t need, and doesn’t contain the nutrients that make it good for you in the first place.[1] If you’re going to have chocolate at all it should be at least 70% cocoa, taken in moderate amounts, and still contain flavonoids which often get stripped away in the process of making your favorite chocolates. It’s the flavonoid epicatechin that is the active ingredient doing all the hard work to help your body.[2] Without it, it’s just a sugar pump your body doesn’t need. Remember when wine was good for you? First it was bad, then it was good, and now it’s bad again. You know why? Because they found out that in all of these studies that said drinking in moderation was good for you, they never studied the people behind the study. Turns out there was a reason moderate drinkers showed positive health results – reasons that had nothing to do with having a glass of wine each day. Scientists unwittingly fell victim to selection bias which tainted the results. The new results are in and it says that the safest amount of alcohol is zero drinks per day.[3] Most of you probably hadn’t heard about this new study until today. It doesn’t grab your attention like the one that says having a glass of wine a day is good for you. Now that’s a headline! The truth is often buried behind a stack of half-truths and untruths. We don’t take the time often to dig out the truth. Because what we are really after is validity rather than verity. We are looking for validity instead of verity. The truth may be out there, but we aren’t all that interested in finding it.
The same is true with our faith.
We are interested in finding out whatever it is that supports our view of faith, but aren’t all that interested in finding out information that may challenge it. If you believe in predestination, you aren’t all that concerned about passages where God tells us we have the freedom to choose (Joshua 24:15). If you believe women don’t belong in the pulpit, you aren’t interested to hear about Paul supporting women who taught Scripture to men (Acts 18:26). If you believe that every word in the Bible is the literal word of God, you don’t want to hear about two different creation stories or two accounts of the flood even though they are right there in the first book of the Bible.[4] Because these things challenge your system of beliefs. That’s even true for people who don’t believe in God. If you’ve made up your mind God doesn’t exist, no amount of evidence is going to convince you otherwise. You might say you have a bunch of reasons why you don’t believe, but I have to challenge you to ask yourself, “Is my objection to God really about God’s existence or my resistance?”[5] Is my objection to God about His existence or my resistance?
How open are you to the truth?
Are you more interested in being right or finding out what’s real? Because if you only care about being right, all you’ll see in front of you are the things that confirm your own beliefs, but you’ll forever live in a world of your own making and we’ve seen what that can do. Denying the reality of the coronavirus, claiming an election was fixed without any evidence, even something as simple as believing you had the biggest crowd on Inauguration Day despite how obvious it was you didn’t. When we give up on the search for truth, we give up on one another. We make assumptions based on lies and so our conclusions miss their mark. The truth is important if for no other reason than it pushes our boundaries of knowledge and expands our world. It’s one of the reasons travel makes us better people.[6] It expands our worldview and challenges our preconceptions. If not for the search for truth, doctors would still be doing lobotomies to free us from evil spirits and bloodletting to balance out our humours.[7] I’m still amazed people believe the Earth is flat. NBA player Kyrie Irving went on a podcast and told the world he believed the Earth was flat. He said, “They lie to us.”[8] There’s always a “they” but no one knows who “they” are or why “they” would benefit from spreading these falsehoods, but that’s the kind of world we create when we stop searching for the truth and instead feed our own view of the world. What’s more shocking and disturbing are the number of people who deny the Holocaust ever happened. After a survey of 53,000 people in 100 countries, the Anti-Defamation League found that over half of the world’s population had never even heard of the Holocaust.[9] And of those who had, nearly a third (or about 1 BILLION people) believe it never happened.[10] One billion people living in denial of reality. That’s how history ends up repeating itself.
What is it in us that leads us to deny the truth?
How is it that we remain willfully ignorant of the facts no matter how obvious they are? And this is a question for all of us. It would be hypocritical to look around and think, “Well, I hope all of them are reading,” because I am sure there is something in your life that you are denying right now. Whether it’s the way you are living, the way you are caring for your body, the way you are practicing your faith, there is probably something you are living in denial about, and if you say, “That’s not true” there’s perfect evidence right there. Now, whether you believe in the Bible or God or any of it, you’ll find that this problem of truth denial can be found all throughout history. Even Jesus had to deal with this particular problem.
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”
Pride. That’s what gets in the way of the truth.
Pride. It is the poison that gets in the way of healing, of good relationships, of reconciliation, and the truth. Pride. Did you hear how the other Jews answered Jesus? He said, “If you hold to my teaching, you really are my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” But instead of absorbing those words, instead of thinking about what Jesus had to say, they responded. “We’ve never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Pride made them blind to the fact they were slaves to their own sin. You’ve probably heard kids say, “You’re not the boss of me!” Well, this is the adult version of that very same sentiment. “We’ve never been slaves of anyone! You’re not the boss of me! You can’t tell me that I need to be set free.” Andy Stanley brought this up in one of his podcasts. How many times have you been in the middle of an argument and it dawns on you the other person is right. And even though you know they are right, you keep on fighting anyway. Because it’s no longer about two people or two sides trying to get to the truth, now it’s all about winning. It’s all about being able to say that you’re right. That’s pride. We think pride makes us strong. We think pride is an admirable trait. But we would be wrong. Strength lies in humility.
There’s a reason people use the expression “puffed up with pride.”
Pride inflates our ego to the point where we devalue others. Pride swallows up the room and pushes out space for new ideas and new learning. Pride forces us to continue down a path even when it’s clear it’s the wrong path. Humility on the other hand keeps us grounded. Humility opens us up to new ideas and new ways of thinking. And it takes a great deal more strength of character to be humble than to be filled with pride. Pride is for the weak, not the other way around. C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity that pride was the great sin, the one from which all others stem. He describes pride as “spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”[11] There was a study done on the quality of humility as a competitive advantage in the workplace and the researchers came to the conclusion, “Humility is frequently associated with shyness, lack of ambition, passivity, or lack of confidence. We argue quite the opposite—that humility offers strategic value for firms by furnishing organizational members with a realistic perspective of themselves, the firm, and the environment. In fact, we propose that humility is a critical strength for leaders and organizations possessing it, and a dangerous weakness for those lacking it.”[12] Another study showed that humble people make the best leaders.[13] And even the FBI believes that humility is essential for success. In an article on leadership they wrote, “Humility often can be overlooked or, even, viewed as weakness. It is not. It is vital. Allowing yourself to be humble and to express your humility openly allows for others to grow. There is nothing more powerful than that.”[14]
Commit yourselves to the pursuit of truth instead of your own righteousness.
For it was Jesus himself who told us the truth would set us free. This week, challenge yourself to keep an open mind. Try a new food. Try a different detergent when washing your clothes or a different shampoo for your hair. We often get into routines without ever challenging if there might be better ways of doing things. Don’t blindly pick something, but actually think about it, ask for opinions, look something up. Open up your horizons to a world of possibilities (please keep in mind I am NOT telling you to do something dangerous or illegal – certainly you don’t have to go that far to do something different). If you’re on the fence about faith, I want to dare you to open your mind to the possibility there is a God. That he actually loves you. That he really did send his Son to Earth to die for you. And that he wants a relationship with you even if you don’t want one with him. If you have honest objections to faith, that’s totally reasonable and also healthy for any strong journey towards the truth. But be open to a world where God exists and has been searching for you for your entire life. Open that door a crack and watch the love that will pour in. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/10/health/chocolate-health-benefits/
[2] https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20040601/dark-chocolate-day-keeps-doctor-away#1 The study done by Engler through the UCSF School of Nursing used 1.6 oz. per day of Dove Dark Chocolate.
[3] https://www.popsci.com/moderate-drinking-benefits-risks/
[4] http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/cflood.htm
[5] From Andy Stanley’s sermon “Who Needs God? I do” https://whoneedsgod.com/message-gallery/2016/10/4/who-needs-god-part-6
[6] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bishopjordan/2017/09/05/science-says-travel-makes-you-smarter/?sh=57c8f852719a
[7] https://theconversation.com/five-bloodcurdling-medical-procedures-that-are-no-longer-performed-thankfully-75818
[8] https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/24863899/kyrie-irving-boston-celtics-apologizes-saying-earth-flat
[9] http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/05/the-world-is-full-of-holocaust-deniers/370870/
[10] http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/at-the-edge/2014/05/23/did-the-holocaust-exist-scary-number-of-people-say-no-or-not-even-aware
[11] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 125.
[12] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=PdfExcerptURL&_imagekey=1-s2.0-S0090261604000506-main.pdf&_piikey=S0090261604000506&_cdi=272151&_orig=article&_zone=centerpane&_fmt=abst&_eid=1-s2.0-S0090261604000506&_user=12975512&md5=65d0f6fc48d7e81535608d991b99f331&ie=/excerpt.pdf
[13] https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238328
[14] https://leb.fbi.gov/2014/march/leadership-spotlight-humility-a-leadership-trait-that-gets-results
Atheists Are People, Too
What difference has Christ made in your life?
How do you see God at work in the world? It seems more than ever we are living in an age of disbelief and distrust. With over 250,000 deaths in the United States alone there are still people out there who think the coronavirus is nothing more than the common flu. Worse, there are those who believe that masks and vaccines are a conspiracy by the media and the liberals to circumvent our liberties. To what logical end makes no difference. Their distrust is so complete that if a liberal said the sky is blue, they would think it was a socialist plot to take over the world. I actually have a friend who believes this and it is so hard to be friends when you can’t even agree on what’s real. More than ever, we are living in a world desperately in need of Jesus. But perhaps more than ever, it is harder and harder to believe in that which we cannot see. People need a reason to believe.
When I first moved to Atlanta, I was desperate to find Rosarita refried beans.
No, you didn’t jump into the Twilight Zone. Just bear with me and it will all connect to Jesus. Rosarita refried beans are by far the best canned refried beans ever, but they were nowhere to be found. Believe me, I looked. It wasn’t until I called Cub Foods, 45 minutes away that I found ONE store that carried them. 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. Cassie volunteered to go with me, not realizing how far away it was. After about 30 minutes and having passed about a dozen grocery stores, she asked me what the big deal was. 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 I knew she was hooked. I had successfully opened up her mind to a world where refried beans were not all the same.
Of course, living in California, Cassie knows there are way better refried beans than Rosarita.
But at the time she was limited by what she knew. Even though there existed a whole other world of flavor out there, she didn’t know it existed so it was hard for her to imagine there would be much of a difference. That’s the same with me and Indian food. I never had it before and in my mind I had these preconceptions about what it might taste like, but when I actually had it, it was mind blowing! I’ve loved it ever since. Daal, palak paneer, masala dosa, chiken tikka masala…I love the rich spices and flavors of Indian food that are similar yet so different from what I knew before. Until you experience it for yourself, it’s hard to understand what people are talking about. You do the best you can, but we are all limited by our experience. Simply put, you don’t know what you don’t know.
It’s why so many people in the world don’t believe in Christ.
Even if they do, it’s not always easy to convince people to dive deeper into their faith. Why bother coming to church or joining a faith community? 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 come to church. It’s not that most people object to the idea of God or Jesus, but they just don’t have a reason to believe. They don’t have a reason to think coming to church will deepen their faith. They’re not anti-religion. To be sure, there are definitely some who are, but for the majority of folks out there, they just don’t know what they don’t know. For them the reality of Christ doesn’t exist or if it does they don’t feel a need to go deeper. It’s up to us to make a difference, to show them why Christ matters.
The good news is anyone can do it.
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. Please listen to these words from Colossians 4:2-6. Hear now the Word of God.
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.
Prayerful, watchful, thankful.
That’s what we need to be “full” of to make a difference in someone’s faith journey. Prayerful, watchful, and thankful. It’s these three components that can open us up to opportunities that might otherwise pass us by. Being prayerful, watchful, and thankful puts us in the right frame of mind to be open to the Holy Spirit and notice when an opportunity opens up for us to share our faith in just the right way. 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 centers us in God’s will. When we learn to pray, we learn to trust and rely on God. Being thankful does the same. It creates in us a heart for God. When we approach life with a thankful heart, we are driven 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. At least if you’re me. 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 knew even then our actions are a reflection of our faith. What people see in us is how they perceive the reliability of our beliefs. When Christ told us to love our neighbor, it was at least partially for this reason, to be a reflection of what it means to be Christian. That’s what Paul means when he says to “make the most of every opportunity.” Each encounter we have with people outside of our faith is a chance to show what it means to be Christian. Authenticity is what we need the most. We live in a very 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. So if we have any hope of reaching into the hearts and minds of people who don’t believe in Christ, it has to be with truth and integrity. We have to be our most authentic self and trust in Christ that being “you” is enough. We don’t need to know all the answers. We don’t need to be perfect, and the world honestly isn’t expecting us to be. We just need to point to the one who is. 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 seems to be 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 2014, the number of those people went from 16% of the population to 23%. At the same time, the number of people who identified as Christian went down the same percentage – from 78% to 71%.[1] And while the vast 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. But more and more it is increasingly 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. So 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 focusing on 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 into our community. 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] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/13/a-closer-look-at-americas-rapidly-growing-religious-nones/
Humble Pie
A Thanksgiving unlike any other…
How many times have we said that this year… about EVERYTHING?! Easter, July 4th, Halloween, and now Thanksgiving. It will seem strange to be without family around the table, but it’s for the best. With so many cases of the coronavirus coming from family gatherings and get-togethers with friends, it’s the smartest and safest option this year. At least we will still get to have the next best thing about the holiday – Thanksgiving food! Turkey, dressing, potatoes, warm rolls, soft butter, sweet potato casserole, and cranberry sauce…mmmm! Makes me salivate just thinking about it. But Thanksgiving to me is not complete without pie. It is the pie holiday. I can’t think of another holiday that more easily lends itself to pie. Pecan, cherry, lemon, apple – anything but pumpkin. I know it seems like sacrilege for a guy who loves pie, but I just don’t go that way. Still it’s one of my favorite parts of the holiday. Thanksgiving just doesn’t seem to be complete without a good helping of pie. But while reflecting on the holiday, I was thinking there’s one slice of pie we should all have once in a while. Humble pie. We could all use a good slice of humble pie.
It’s so easy to forget all the people God put in our life to make us who we are.
There was an episode of Sports Night where it becomes clear one of the main characters, Casey, has no idea about the people who make Sports Night happen. So when he goes on a talk show and gets complimented for his wardrobe, he doesn’t give credit to the wardrobe designer for the show and instead he makes a joke and everyone laughs. But later on, one of the wardrobe assistants, Monica, comes to his office, carrying his clothes for that night’s show and says to him, “I think you hurt the feelings of the woman I work for. Maureen? She’s been working here since the day you started?” Monica holds up a tie and asks him, “Do you know what color this is?” And Casey responds, “It’s gray.” And Monica says, “It’s called gunmetal. Gray has more ivory, gunmetal has more blue. Do you know what shirt you should wear with it?… Mr. McCall, you get so much attention and so much praise for what you actually do and all of it’s deserved. When you go on a talk show and get complimented on something you didn’t, how hard would it be to say, ‘That’s not me. That’s a woman named Maureen who’s been working for us since the first day. It’s Maureen who dresses me every night. And without Maureen I wouldn’t know gunmetal from a hole in the ground. Do you have any idea what that would have meant to her? Do you have any idea how many times she would have played that tape for her husband and her kids?” Casey just got served a big helping of humble pie and it creates in him a humble heart. It makes him reflect on the people in his life and at the end of the episode he publicly gives thanks to the people behind the scenes who make Sports Night a reality.
When we give thanks, do we do it from a humble heart?
Do we reflect on all the ways in which we are blessed? Do we think of the people in our lives who make it possible and feel gratitude? Or when we say thanks, is it simply reflexive; a societal norm instead of coming from the heart? Most of us don’t think about all the work behind our blessings. How hard would it have been for you to grow the cotton, spin it and weave it together to make your clothes? Would you have wanted to take the time to grow the vegetables or raise the animals for each and every meal you eat? Or dig the pipelines and put in a sewage plant to clean the water coming into your house? Perhaps. But then you could not pursue anything else. As independent and self-sustaining as we like to believe we are, it really does take a community of people to provide for the life we have. None of us can really do it on our own. None of us is truly a self-made person. But it takes a humble heart to realize that. Someone once wrote, “If you want to live in a state of perpetual thanksgiving, you must abide in humility. Humility is the state of mind wherein pride, ego and haughty self-sufficiency have been crucified with Christ.”[1] The culture we live in encourages a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality, but that mentality denies the state of the world we live in. We owe our success and our blessings to those around us, to our community, and ultimately to God. That’s the lesson King David tried to teach the people of Israel in our passage. Prior to this, David had addressed all of Israel about his desire to build a temple to the Lord. He told them of how the Lord had chosen Solomon to succeed him as King and that it would be Solomon who would build the temple, but David wanted to make it as easy as possible for Solomon to accomplish this task so before he died, David wanted to amass everything that would be needed for building it. He not only acquired all the necessary material, but he donated his personal fortune into building the temple and David asked all the leaders of the nation of Israel to do the same. By the time they were done, the people of Israel had donated more than 8 billion dollars worth of gold and more than 243 million dollars in silver not to mention precious stones, bronze and iron that was also given. And that’s on top of what David gave. And so after all the wealth had been collected, David lifted up this prayer of thanksgiving to God.
10 David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying,
“Praise be to you, Lord, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. 11 Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. 12 Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. 13 Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.
14 “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. 15 We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. 16 Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you. 17 I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things I have given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you. 18 Lord, the God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep these desires and thoughts in the hearts of your people forever, and keep their hearts loyal to you. 19 And give my son Solomon the wholehearted devotion to keep your commands, statutes and decrees and to do everything to build the palatial structure for which I have provided.”
20 Then David said to the whole assembly, “Praise the Lord your God.” So they all praised the Lord, the God of their fathers; they bowed down, prostrating themselves before the Lord and the king.
David’s model of thanksgiving is one that comes from humility.
He praises God as Creator and Father of all. He attributes all good things to God. And then he adds this line, “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? EVERYTHING comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. David wants to make sure everyone understands all the wealth and power and blessings they have been given are only because of God’s grace. It would have been easy for them to take pride in what they accomplished. Think about how much they were able to give! When you include David’s personal contribution it was over $12-13 BILLION DOLLARS worth of gold alone. It would have been easy for them to say, “See what we’ve done? Look at we were able to accomplish! All for God of course, but look at what WE did!” And David reminds them in his prayer that this is nothing. This is nothing because they were only returning to God what he allowed them to use. As huge of a sacrifice as this seemed to be, it was really no sacrifice at all because it didn’t belong to them in the first place.
This was an important lesson to Israel and to us.
To remember all we have accomplished comes on the backs of the many people around us. That as talented as we are, it is only because we are utilizing the gifts God has given and the people God has created. And that our worth cannot ever be measured in dollars and cents but in the love we show to others. Because the richer we are, the more we seem to forget these lessons. We don’t even have to go back to ancient Israel to see that it’s true. Patricia Greenfield from UCLA studied the linguistic frequency of key words in our writings over a period from 1800 to 2000 and as the country became more wealthy “the frequency of the word ‘get’ went up, and the frequency of the word ‘give’ went down.”[2] Americans also became more individualistic and less community-oriented. Words like “individual,” “self,” and “unique” were more common while words like “give,” “obliged,” and “belong” were seen less. This might seem to be a small thing, but when you couple that with giving statistics that show that poorer people give about 50% more of their income to charity than the wealthy, it’s not that big of a leap to say that as we become more affluent, we tend to forget our humility and instead become more sure of our own ability to succeed. The wealthier we are the more we cut ourselves off from our communities and from those around us. We cut them off and assume people are only in it to take from us what is “rightfully ours” forgetting again that it doesn’t really belong to us in the first place and won’t go with us when we die. We forget these wise words from Ecclesiastes which says in chapter 9, verse 11, “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.” We forget that our good fortune is as unlikely to happen to us as it is to anyone else, but when we stay grounded in humility, we become rooted in reality and realize how truly grateful we need to be. Because thankfulness without humility is like pie without the filling. Thankfulness without humility is like pie without the filling – it’s empty. It has no real meaning.
When Rev. Akiko and I worked together at UJCC, she used to say these great prayers for blessing the food.
She would always give thanks for the land, for the animals, for the people who cultivated the land…I mean she would do more than ask for a blessing. She would give thanks for the chain of life that made it possible to have this food on our table and it made me think how much more interconnected we are than we often think about. Too often we take things for granted that we shouldn’t. Things like water and the sun and the plants, let alone the people and the resources that it takes to make the world go round. This week as we celebrate thanksgiving let us remember that no matter how great our accomplishments we never do it in a vacuum. Let us find within ourselves the humility to admit that we need others more than we think we do. In that vein, let us challenge ourselves this week to give thanks to at least one person every day for what they do in our lives. Give thanks to them for helping you in ways big and small that maybe you’ve never noticed before or given voice to. And give thanks for the invisible ways in which your life is made better because of the efforts of those who labor around you. Pray daily to God for no other reason than to give thanks. Not just for the food we eat or the clothes we wear, but for being the one who gives life. For being the one who loves us enough to send his son into the world for us. And for being the very model of humility to us that we should strive to emulate. Let’s face it. We can all stand to eat some humble pie once in a while. Make it your thanksgiving treat this year.
[1] http://www.christianblog.com/blog/blessings2you/humility-is-the-foundation-for-thanksgiving/
[2] http://www.npr.org/2013/09/03/218627288/why-being-wealthy-doesnt-lead-to-more-giving
Do Dogs Go to Heaven?
Do dogs go to Heaven when they die?
My oldest daughter, Eve asked me this question on our way to the bus stop one morning. She was about 7 or 8 years old at the time and we were living in Georgia. I was carrying Emma in my arms as we were heading down the hill to the corner where the bus would come and take her to school when the question popped out. “Do dogs go to Heaven when they die?” I wasn’t completely surprised. Just the night before, we found out the cute little dog across the street got hit by a car and didn’t survive so I’m sure it was on her mind. That’s probably how most kids first start to wonder about “what happens next.” The loss of a pet, or in this case a neighbor’s pet, starts us down that path. But the number of questions only grow as we get older. I remember when I was eight years old and my grandmother died, my mom told me she had gone to Heaven and the first question I had in mind was, “How do you get there?” Did she catch a bus? How did she know where to go? Can I go visit? Especially when we are younger, life is pretty literal and I was looking for concrete answers about a topic that had none. I went to quite a few funerals when I was a child and each one left me with more questions than answers.
But every question we ask about death revolves around one central question:
What happens after we die? It’s a question that stays with us because there are so few people who can tell us the answer. Jesus is the leading authority about it and even he didn’t share much about what it was like. Lazarus never said a word. Elijah and Moses only came back to powwow with Jesus and didn’t spill the beans. The disciple John had a tremendous vision of God and life in the spiritual world, an experience he wrote down in what would become the book of Revelation. But that book is also the most difficult and confusing book in the Bible. John was trying to put into words something that defies explanation – concepts and images that go beyond human understanding. Now, every once in a while we hear amazing stories like that of Colton Burpo, the young boy whose life was the basis for the movie and the book Heaven is for Real. And reading stories like that give us hope and allow us to point to something and say, “At last there’s something tangible to hold on to.” But for every story like Colton’s you can read stories about people who have come back and experienced nothing but darkness and coldness, emptiness and solitude and that puts us right back where we started.
We’ve tried to prove or disprove the existence of an afterlife using logic and reason.
Which seems weird since logic and reason are based on our knowledge and experience and we simply don’t have enough of either when it comes to the hereafter. But most of these arguments revolve around the existence of God, because if we can prove God exists, it logically follows that all the rest of it is true, including the afterlife. On the other hand, some atheists like to use evolution as an argument against the existence of God which doesn’t make sense because evolution and God are not contradictory beliefs. So it’s ironic that one of the best arguments FOR God comes from an atheist. You probably don’t know the name Fred Hoyle, but you probably do know the theory of creation he coined – The Big Bang Theory (not to be confused with the TV show of the same name). Interestingly, Hoyle didn’t believe in the Big Bang Theory. Nor did he believe in evolution as Darwin had originally posited.[1] Instead he believed in intelligent design, a concept that something greater than ourselves must have guided the development or even creation of humanity. He didn’t believe in God as we understand God, and might be offended to hear his argument being used in God’s defense. But what he said in defending intelligent design was, “The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way (through evolution) is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.”[2] That’s how infinitesimally small the odds are of human beings ever being created simply by chance.
One doctor tried to prove the human body had a soul by weighing patients as they died.
Dr. Duncan MacDougall posited the theory that human beings have souls and that it could be proved at the point of death. He took six dying patients and weighed them right before death and immediately afterward and he claimed that after the body had ceased functioning, the human body suddenly lost weight that could not be accounted for by normal means. He said that through his experiments, he calculated that the human soul weighs ¾ of an ounce or as it is more popularly known today: 21 grams.[3] 21 grams, Dr. MacDougall said, was how much the soul weighed. But the truth is his results over this incredibly small sample varied widely and none of them had a consistency of weight loss. Just one person recorded an actual loss of 21 grams and the rest had completely different results.[4] But MacDougall’s efforts is testimony to our desire to learn about the afterlife.
Scholars have poured over the Bible to find clues to what we can expect when we die.
Jesus tells us that in Heaven God has a house with many rooms and that there is a room reserved there for each of us who believe in Him. John tells us that when God creates the New Jerusalem at the end of the age that it will have streets of gold and walls of jasper and foundations made of gemstones. But for me, my favorite image in the Bible comes from Revelation 7:9-12. The passage we’re reading is from John’s vision of the end of days before the creation of the New Heaven and New Jerusalem. Now this isn’t an image of the New Heaven, but an image of what John sees as we approach the day of final judgment when God will determine what happens to each of us. And even though this isn’t exactly an image of the New Heaven, to me this is a glimpse of what we can expect when we get there.
9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
11 All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!”
This is often how I imagine Heaven to be.
Filled with people of every type from every nation. A multitude of every race, color, gender, age, and size. A crowd so large they cannot be counted. A place where all of God’s children live in unity with one another. And I think the reason we debate so much about what Heaven looks like and how you get there and what we can expect is because we are not sure if we are going to be in that great multitude. Our beliefs about Heaven are often exclusive to our belief in God. Catholics believe that it is a combination of faith and good works that earn you a place in Heaven. Mormons believe that Heaven consists of three levels and that only believers of the Mormon faith get into the best level to be with God. And Jehovah’s Witnesses believe it all doesn’t matter. God has already picked out the 144,000 that will be joining him and too bad for the rest of humanity. Presbyterians and other Calvanist faiths believe that we are predestined. And so the debate about who is right becomes more important than ever because it involves our eternal destiny. That’s why we worry so much about this stuff. But maybe instead of worrying about how to get into Heaven we should focus instead on living a life that honors Christ.
Sometimes we focus on the wrong things.
If we really want to get into Heaven the last thing we should be worrying about is getting into Heaven. Because worrying about it won’t get us there. There isn’t some magic formula where if you do “X” number of good things you get in. There isn’t some cosmic scale of justice that says if our total good guy points outweigh our bad guy points, we’re in. The only thing that truly matters is our heart for God. Just listen to the words of Jesus himself. He told his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?… 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” The solution is simple. Put God first. Trust in God and free yourself from worry. The rest will fall into place on its own.
Harvey West is one of the best pastors I know.
He was my senior pastor when I was attending Alpharetta First UMC back in Georgia and I was fortunate enough to take a Bible study class with him. During that class one of the people asked, “How do you know you are saved?” And Harvey said, “I don’t.” That stunned all of us right there. But then he continued. “But I have faith in God and in his Son Jesus Christ. And I believe that faith will save me. And so I don’t worry about it. Instead I focus on trying to live a life that best honors Christ’s sacrifice for me.” Those words have continued to guide me every day of my life and I hope they guide yours as well. And as for the question, “Do animals go to Heaven?” I think they do. When we read the Scripture we hear from God through the prophet Isaiah that “the wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain.” If God will provide space for the wolf and the lamb, the lion and the ox, and even the serpent, surely my former neighbor’s dog is resting comfortably somewhere up there waiting for his human. But either way, I trust in God enough to believe that God knows best and that no matter what my vision of Heaven or how we get there, God’s vision will always be better.
[1] http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/fred-hoyle-an-atheist-for-id/
[2]http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_MacDougall_%28doctor%29#In_popular_culture
Come to the Table
This story is not new.
There are two sides. Your side. And their side. Your side is right. Their side is wrong. You wonder to yourself why they believe what they believe. It just doesn’t make any sense. And it’s hard not to see them as monsters. What they stand for will make things worse for everyone. Surely, they know that, and yet they so stubbornly refuse to do what’s right! How could any clear-headed person could see the world as they do? Obviously, they are not clear-headed. You feel you have to do whatever is necessary to make it right. No matter the cost. Of course, I’m talking about Kaecilius from the Marvel movie Doctor Strange. Who else did you think I was talking about? By every stretch of the imagination, Kaecilius is a villain except in his own eyes. He murders. He steals. He ignores all the warnings. But Kaecilius doesn’t see it that way. Mads Mikkelsen who portrayed the character in the film said, “I always play all characters as a hero. I mean, I think we have to look at it that way. The key to any good villain… is that they have a point. It’s not completely crazy what they’re saying…” Or doing apparently.
Everyone is the hero in their own story.
As we come to a close to one of the most contentious political elections in our country’s history, we would do well to keep this in mind. The “other” side, regardless of who that is to you, is convinced they are the hero of their own story. So it’s not likely they will come to their senses, realize they’ve been wrong the whole time, and beg for forgiveness. As nice as that would be, one side is going to feel TRIUMPHANT and the other depressed and defeated (and maybe somewhat angry). If they are Christian, the winners will feel like God was on their side and the losers will feel as if Satan was involved. Mostly I’m worried about the possibility of violence. Donald Trump and his campaign calling for his supporters to become an “army” of poll watchers makes me worried we are devolving into the very totalitarian societies we have always abhorred.[1] These are the kinds of tactics we would see in Russia or China, the very “socialist” regimes the President is constantly accusing his opponents to be. Just the very word he uses – “army” – suggests physical violence to any who oppose him. So if he loses and claims a rigged election what will happen next? That we have to even entertain that notion in this country is itself a testimony to how divided we are and how badly we need to bring people back to the table. We need to remind ourselves we are all Children of God.
How we respond in the coming days will say a lot about who we are.
If you have a Bible or a Bible app on your phone, please find John 11:35. John 11:35. This is literally the shortest verse in the Bible. If you know much about the history of the Bible itself, you know that there isn’t a uniform way the chapters and verses are assigned. Some verses are extremely long and some are extremely short, but this one is the shortest of all (although according to Wikipedia it is not the shortest when read in the original Greek).[2] I would love to know why whoever assigned the verses to John’s Gospel chose to include only these two words in this verse. Maybe it was because of the impact of this one moment in the life of Christ. Maybe because no more needed to be said. In just two words we understand so much about Jesus. His humanity, his love, and his empathy for all of us. Jesus wept.
But you have to know the whole story to understand why these two words have such an impact.
Earlier, we find out Jesus knows his friend Lazarus is sick but does nothing about it for TWO days. Seems surprising since he was able to heal a centurion’s son without ever visiting him or even knowing him (John 4), so the question kind of hangs out there, “Why wouldn’t Jesus do the same for this man who is a close friend?” Now, the disciples don’t find it weird at all. They’re glad Jesus doesn’t go. The last time Jesus went to Judea where Lazarus lived, Jesus was nearly stoned to death so they figure he’s playing it safe. But instead Jesus is taking this moment to reveal his human side, the side that journeys with his friends in both their joy and their sorry. By the time they leave, Lazarus has died. When Jesus does arrive in Judea, Lazarus’ sister Martha comes up to him and says, “If you had been here, he would not have died.” Jesus comforts her and Martha returns to get their other sister Mary. When Mary finds Jesus, she falls to her feet crying and says the same thing Martha did, “If you had been here he would not have died.” Jesus finds himself surrounded by those who loved Lazarus, all crying out of grief and he can’t help but be moved. He shares their pain and their sorrow even as he knows what is about to happen. And he weeps. Jesus doesn’t weep for Lazarus as all of his family and friends do. He weeps because he empathizes with them. Because he knows the hurt they feel inside. He takes the time to share their pain, to let them know he feels their loss. And then he does the miraculous and brings Lazarus back from the dead. It’s that empathy, that ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and feel what they feel we seem to be missing in our world today. We don’t have to agree with them. We don’t have to believe what they believe. But empathy is a key ingredient in bridging the divide between people. And more importantly, empathy is a choice.
Sadly, empathy is on the decline.
You probably don’t need any scientific evidence to see that. Just follow the antics of our current administration to see the hatred, name-calling, slander that comes out of their mouths to see empathy is not welcome in 2020. Researchers did a study about 10 years ago where they looked at empathy over a period of 30 years and found the measure of empathy dropped by 75%.[3] That means 75% of people showed less empathy than they did just 30 years ago. 75%! And the problem seems to be getting worse. College students after the year 2000 showed 40% lower levels of empathy than their earlier counterparts. What was most stunning was they couldn’t even fake empathy on the study. The questions were so obvious that anyone who just wanted to SEEM like a nice person could have scored high without even trying.[4] On the survey[5] you’re asked how well a statement describes you, and they give you statements like “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me” or “When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective towards them.” An empathic person would of course highly identify with those statements. They are SO blatantly obvious what you should answer, you might wonder why they even ask it, yet 40% of students could not even muster fake empathy. That’s how bad the situation has become. Not only are we less empathic, we can’t even pretend to be anymore.
There are lots of hypotheses about why this is.
But the most telling to me and the one that seems consistent across these studies is what they call social isolation. Social isolation seems to be the leading cause of the empathy epidemic today. We don’t engage with one another anymore. Researchers found school children were consistently given less free time to play by about 33%.[6] With less time to interact, we don’t build the tools necessary to place ourselves in someone else’s shoes. And that bleeds into our adult lives, too. As adults we tend to live alone more often and are less likely to join groups, whether that’s the PTA or casual sports leagues.[7] And that means we have less understanding of how other people feel. They conducted a study about trust and found that lonely people were more likely to take advantage of other’s trust and cheat than those who were less lonely.[8] And we don’t even bother to read. I thought this one was weird when I first heard it, but researchers found that preschoolers who read more were better able to understand other people’s emotions. They also found that adults who read more fiction were more empathic than those who didn’t. There are so many factors that likely cause this behavior that it’s probably hard to pinpoint just one. But the statistics are revealing. We are less empathic than ever before. And with all of us having to stay at home more, not being able to interact, with kids having to stay home from school, those opportunities are lost.
The good news is that empathy is something that is both innate and learned.
Our capacity for empathy CAN grow, simply by trying.[9] By making an effort to be empathic, we can learn to walk in another person’s shoes, or at least grow closer to it. I read an article in TIME magazine that offered four simple ways to help increase your empathy.[10] 1. Stop and listen – take time to really listen to other people. Learn to reflect back how other people are feeling. It might seem silly, but believe me this works. It was an exercise we practiced when I became a Resident Assistant AND when I got my psych degree. 2. Ask your barista (or Subway sandwich person or Walmart store clerk) how their life is going. Just engaging other people connects you in different ways and helps you to see them not as stereotypes but as people. Take a moment to relate to people one-on-one. 3. Read a book. This one coincides with those studies we talked about earlier and is a great way to just engage with different thoughts and ideas. Books open us up to new perspectives and new ways of looking at things. And 4. Look into people’s eyes. The eyes say a lot about a person and being willing to look in another person’s eyes, creates a connection and can help you to better understand them. It might also feel awkward, but that’s okay.
Everyone is the hero of their own story.
And I’m not saying you need to believe they are right, but simply that if we understand why people think the way they do, we can do something to make the world a better place. Studies have shown that empathic people make better doctors,[11] better leaders,[12] and I’m guessing people you want to be around. Empathy also better equips us to reach out in love to those around us, to show the love of Christ to a hurting world. Without empathy, we are less likely to even want to reach out or lend a helping hand. And the world needs that more than ever right now. We are not as different as we sometimes make each other out to be. If we can’t build bridges between us, the divide will only get wider. That doesn’t mean compromise, it just means don’t demonize those who are different than us. As we approach the election, let it be with a prayerful heart. Let us pray for people to vote safely and securely. Let us pray that whatever the outcome there won’t be violence in the streets. And pray we can restore our nation to be the bastion of democracy we have always hoped to be. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/14/2020-election-trump-army-poll-watchers-stirs-fears-violence/5908264002/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_wept#cite_note-2
[3] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-me-care/
[4] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/born-love/201005/shocker-empathy-dropped-40-in-college-students-2000
[5] You can take the survey for yourself here: https://umichisr.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bCvraMmZBCcov52?SVID=
[6] When comparing schedules from 1981 to 2003. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/born-love/201005/shocker-empathy-dropped-40-in-college-students-2000
[7] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-me-care/
[8] Ibid.
[9] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/opinion/sunday/empathy-is-actually-a-choice.html?_r=0
[10] http://time.com/3562863/5-ways-to-be-more-empathetic/ They actually offered five ways, but one was for the classroom and for young children only.
[11] http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2014/02/25/empathy-the-first-step-to-improving-health-outcomes/
[12] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/douglas-labier/why-humble-empathic-busin_b_6042196.html
More Than Chicken Soup
Being sick is miserable.
But I have to tell you, some of the moments I’ve felt the most loved are when I’ve been laid up in bed with a fever. When you’re sick, people are just nicer to you overall. They help you out in ways they never think of doing when you’re feeling normal. For instance, in our house, I’m the cook. Cooking is fun for me. Cleaning not so much, but cooking? I’m all over it. So generally, when there’s cooking to be done, I’m the one to do it. But when I’m sick, Cassie ALWAYS cooks for me and often brings me a nice big bowl of hot soup. Now granted it’s usually the kind you heat up out of a can, but I don’t care. She takes care of me, and I feel loved. She gets me water. She gets me warm Sprite. She makes sure I get some rest. And a hundred other little things to maximize my recovery. I have to tell you, except for the downside, being sick isn’t so bad…in normal times. In COVID times, I think we would all hope for everyone to be safe and healthy.
Caring for others is an amazing opportunity to show love.
And it doesn’t have to be with people who are physically sick. We can be drained mentally, emotionally, even spiritually. Just having someone there to help you through it is not something you are likely to forget. Can you think of a time when you were feeling awful or anxious or depressed and someone helped you? Maybe you were physically ill or maybe you were going through addiction problems and someone was there to help. Maybe you were diagnosed with depression, and you only found out because someone noticed and took the time to bring you to a counselor. Maybe you were suffering from a broken heart and needed someone to lean on. We are more than just these physical bodies. And when any of that is thrown out of kilter, life becomes that much harder.
As Christians, though, we have a moral imperative to heal the sick.
We’re going to be reading today from Matthew 10:1-8. Now, when this passage takes place, it is still in the early stages of Jesus’ ministry, but already he was doing the miraculous and everywhere he went he did two things – share the Gospel, heal the sick. Share the Gospel and heal the sick. In Matthew 4, soon after he gathers the first of his disciples, the Bible tells us in verse 23, “23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” In Matthew, we see a real focus on Jesus as healer. From that point in his ministry to the part we’re going to be reading about this morning, Jesus goes on a healing spree. He heals a man with leprosy, a centurion’s servant, a paralyzed man, a dead girl and her mother, two blind men, and a man made mute by demon-possession. He even healed Peter’s mother-in-law! Funny thing, I never pictured Peter being married. But there it is. Anyway, that’s where we pick up in our reading for this morning. Jesus is gathering the twelve disciples together for the first time and sending them out into the world. From Matthew 10:1-8, hear now the Word of God.
1 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.
What amazes me about Jesus’ call to heal is that it’s more than just physical healing.
It’s also a way to provide spiritual healing at the same time. Listen again to verses 6-8, “Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, PROCLAIM THE MESSAGE: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near (meaning Jesus).’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons….” Proclaim the message and heal the sick. We heard that same theme in Matthew 4 earlier when Matthew tells us that Jesus proclaimed the good news and healed every disease and sickness among the people. And again in chapter 9 where it says in verse 35, “35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.” Healing of both body and spirit went hand-in-hand. Healing alone can be a powerful witness to God’s power, but when Jesus healed, he did more than just cure them of their physical ailments. He also shared with them the good news about who he was and why he was sent. He did that because the REASON for healing is more important than the healing itself. It’s like that old proverb. You know the one. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Healing people (giving them a fish) would cure their ills for the moment, but the next time they were sick how would they handle it if Jesus wasn’t around? Sharing with them the message of hope that is in Christ (in essence TEACHING them to fish) is something that will help them now and in the future. It’s a kind of healing that goes beyond the surface and reaches our soul. Because now there’s a place for them to go to in their pain, a hope they can lean on no matter what the circumstance. Healing is more than just taking away our aches and pains, sometimes it’s not even that. Sometimes healing is offering hope when there is little hope left. Sometimes it’s a healing of our souls that is most in need.
We have a duty to help those in need.
Whether that is physical, spiritual, emotional, or mental, if we take seriously the lessons of Christ, it is our calling to help others. We can argue all day whether or not healthcare is a “right,” but in the end it doesn’t matter because we have a duty that’s higher than that. A “right” is something we are owed, but a duty is something we are obliged to give. And as Christians, Jesus makes it very clear it is our duty to help others. Yet, there are many people who claim to be Christian who would deny access to even basic medical needs, who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act without offering a viable plan in its place. If our goal as a nation was to help people who couldn’t afford basic healthcare, this law did exactly that. From the time it went into force in 2014 up until the election of the current administration and its rollbacks, the ACA helped to decrease the percentage of uninsured people by nearly 50%![1] Literally, tens of millions of people who didn’t have healthcare suddenly did. But after the Trump Administration started rolling back the ACA, more and more people are again losing their health insurance. Since he took office, the percentage of uninsured people has continued to rise year after year. The worst part is not those who voluntarily opt out of the ACA, but children who are seeing the effects of these rollbacks also. The US Census Bureau’s most recent report shows that in just one year, there was an increase in 320,000 more uninsured children than the year before.[2] Today more children are uninsured than they were just a few years ago and of course, it affects the poor much more than the wealthy.
That was the case with a little boy named Deamonte Driver who was only 12 years old.[3]
Deamonte died in 2007, but his story is a reminder of how important this issue is for us as Christians and simply as human beings. Deamonte was a seventh-grader in Prince George’s County, Maryland just outside of Washington, D.C. He complained to his mother about a toothache. His mother, Alyce, had a difficult time finding a dentist who would accept Medicaid because of the low pay out to physicians, a problem that still exists today. As Deamonte’s pain got worse, Alyce had no choice but to finally take him to the emergency room where doctors gave him medication for headache, sinusitis, and dental abscess and sent him home. But the bacteria in Deamonte’s abscess spread to his brain and he was rushed back to the hospital. The doctors did everything they could but the infection had turned into meningitis and ultimately Deamonte died…from a toothache. He died never having finished the seventh-grade. The cost of the two operations he needed and the eight weeks of care and therapy totaled about $250,000. All of which could have been avoided for an $80 tooth extraction that Alyce simply couldn’t afford. While we think this kind of thing could never happen to us, it does. And it’s getting worse. In December of 2019 (before COVID), Gallup reported a record 25% of Americans say they or a family member put off treatment for a serious medical condition because of cost. Another 8% put off treatment for less serious conditions which put the total up at 33%, tying the high right as the ACA was enacted.[4]
If we truly believe in the sanctity of life, we have to care for ALL life.
And as we consider this question leading up to the election, and think about who we want to lead us forward, also consider how we might do more. We shouldn’t have any more Deamonte’s, and we can do something about that in making wise choices about who we elect. But maybe we need healing of a different sort at the same time. Former VP Joe Biden called this election a “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” and maybe it is. Maybe we need a healing of the soul as much as anything else. We may not be able to heal the nation with a law or a mandate, but if we work on a personal level to heal the soul of the nation one person at a time, maybe we can make a difference. Maybe we can bring hope through healing – both body and soul. The next time a loved one is sick make them a bowl of chicken soup. Care for them and help them to feel loved. And ask if you can say a prayer for them as well. Sometimes our need for prayer is just as great as our need for repair.
[1] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-271.pdf and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act (The numbers they use to calculate this were by age under 65 since most over 65 qualified for government sponsored healthcare)
[2] https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-271.pdf (These number are for children 0-18 from the year 2019 compared to 2018 – the most current data available)
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/jun/13/healthcare-gap-how-can-a-child-die-of-toothache-in-the-us and https://oneill.law.georgetown.edu/death-from-a-toothache-the-story-of-deamonte-driver-and-where-we-stand-today-in-ensuring-access-to-dental-health-care-for-children-in-the-district/ and https://www.childrensdefense.org/child-watch-columns/health/2011/deamonte-drivers-continuing-legacy/
[4] https://news.gallup.com/poll/269138/americans-delaying-medical-treatment-due-cost.aspx
Cradle to Grave
Who isn’t “pro-life?”
Really. Let’s take a look at that. I don’t know many people who are not pro-life. We like life. Some of us even love it. The closer we get to the end of it, the more we seem to treasure it. Isn’t everybody “pro-life?” I don’t understand why so many Christians consider being “pro-life” a justification for how they choose who represents them in government. They seem willing to forgive any number of other sins like adultery, lying, and cheating if someone promises to select a “pro-life” judge. They are willing to ignore racist and sexist comments, put up with cyber bullying, and endorse crime and corruption on the highest levels, if they get a little something in return. God tells us all sins are equally horrible, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” yet a portion of humanity has decided that isn’t so. Because, after all, life trumps everything else.
If only that were so.
I wish being “pro-life” was exactly what it sounded like – someone who cares about LIFE! In all its glory. Because that sounds pretty Christian to me. Pro-life. What a wonderful way to live. But even in this, certain Christians are showing their hypocrisy. I’m going to quote now from an article I read about four years ago, but it seems even more appropriate now.
“You see, it’s not that you’re really pro-life… I can tell by how often your heavy burden for the sanctity of life evaporates upon delivery. In so many cases this compassion really has a nine-month expiration date, as if life begins at conception but ends upon leaving the birth canal. The completion of that third trimester is actually the shelf life of your passionate regard for much of the living.
Because if that life you say you so treasure, one day converts to Islam, you label it dangerous, you see it as a threat, you applaud suggestions of its expulsion, you deny it open worship.
If that life eventually comes out as LGBTQ, you condemn its soul, harass it in your workplace and church, try to prevent its marriage, tell it where and when it can use a public bathroom. You bully it and drive it to suicide.
If that life has brown skin and wears baggy pants and gets gunned down during a traffic stop, you not only have little grief over its loss, but readily blame it for its own execution.
If that life is strapped to a prison gurney and pumped full of drugs that will cease its lungs from expanding while its terrified mind comprehends it all, you celebrate the occasion as justice being served — after a last meal you resent having to pay for.
If that life has to endure its formative years in overcrowded, grossly underfunded public schools, you tell it to “pull itself up by its own bootstraps,” while nestled in the cloistered, privileged gated community of a Suburbia where bootstraps come with a birth certificate.
If that life has working parents who can’t make a living wage, you label it a lazy, unproductive drain on society always looking for handouts and trying to work the system to its advantage.”[1]
Life needs to have more meaning than that.
We should be doing more to care for one another from the cradle to the grave, not just for the nine months a baby is in the womb, but for its whole life. How is it that our country has one of the highest mortality rates among like nations for pregnant mothers?[2] Out of 10 similar countries, we are ranked 10th and overall ranked 55th. If “life” is so important to us why aren’t we better at it? Why is it that we have by far the highest number of gun deaths than any other economically advanced country? We are second overall in total number of gun deaths at 37,200 behind only Brazil.[3] In the show, The West Wing, Toby Ziegler says, “I do know that if you combine the populations of Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Australia, you’ve got a population roughly the size of the United States. We had 32,000 gun deaths last year and they had 112. Do you think it’s because Americans are more homicidal by nature? Or do you think it’s because those guys have gun control laws?” I find it ironic those who label themselves as pro-life are often the staunchest opponents to universal healthcare and gun control. Why? Wouldn’t it make sense for someone who proclaims to be pro-life to want those things? The list of hypocrisy is much longer than that. What about refusing to wear face masks? How can you claim to be pro-life and refuse to wear a face mask? Certainly, you wouldn’t tell the world not to worry about the coronavirus. And we wonder why people are leaving the church. It’s hard to reconcile this kind of hypocrisy with the moral high-ground so many Christians like to believe they have. Worst of all, it goes against what Jesus taught.
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Whatever you did for the least of these.
Makes you think maybe Jesus cared about EVERYBODY. Not just the ones who could “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” He cared about people who were homeless; people who were impoverished; people who were in prison; Jesus cared about the sick and those who were food insecure. And Jesus was critical of those who looked down on others, who treated others without regard for human dignity. He overturned the tables in the temple because of the money lenders and merchants trying to make a profit off of God in a Holy space. He often criticized the elders and religious leaders for their lack of compassion and rigid ways of thinking. And he warns us, right there in this passage, that if we behave in the same way, we can expect no different. “…[W]hatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” We need to treat people as God created them. As Children of God.
The topic of abortion is complex to say the least.
Those who argue that keeping abortion legal leads to more abortions are ignorant of the truth. Today the abortion rate is lower now than it was since BEFORE Roe vs. Wade was argued in the Supreme Court.[4] There isn’t this widespread use of abortion as birth control as people feared. Instead, today we have more education. We have more options. We have more resources available to more people. And that’s really the key to success in any endeavor. Educate not discriminate. Convince not coerce. If we want lasting change, we have to win the hearts and minds of people, not take away their freedom to choose. There’s so much more to this debate than can go into a 20-minute message, so you’ll have to trust me when I say that issues of race and class and healthcare all play major factors in how this plays out.[5] The bottom line is if you want to advocate on behalf of life, the “pro-life” movement is the wrong way to go about it. Instead focus on making life better for everyone. Focus on treating life as sacred – ALL life, not just the ones you pick and choose. Ultimately, the choice is yours as it should be, but I hope as we reflect on what it means to be Christian during this election season, we take time to pause and pray. Give God a chance to guide your vote and to guide your life. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-conservative-christian-friends–i-wish-you-really-were-pro-life_b_12475464
[2] https://www.vox.com/2020/1/30/21113782/pregnancy-deaths-us-maternal-mortality-rate
[3] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-deaths-by-country ; https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/theres-a-new-global-ranking-of-gun-deaths-heres-where-the-u-s-stands
[4] In 1973 when Roe was decided the rate was 13/1000 women aged 15-44 and the ratio was 196/1000 live births. In 2016 the rate was 11.6 and the ratio was 186. Both lower than before Roe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_statistics_in_the_United_States
[5] For a really good Christian doctor’s perspective, you might want to read this article: https://billmoyers.com/story/christian-doctor-fighting-for-reproductive-rights/
Until that Day
Sometimes it takes someone outside of our group to speak truth to us.
If you haven’t heard of E. Stanley Jones, he was a very influential Methodist preacher and missionary, best known for his work in India. Of his many friends was a man you might know by the name of Mahatma Gandhi. Yes, that Gandhi. Together they had many conversations about Christianity, and in one of those conversations, Jones turned to his friend and said, “Mr. Gandhi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is it that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?” To which Gandhi replied, “Oh, I don’t reject Christ. I love Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians are so unlike Christ.”[1] It’s hard to refute Gandhi of all people. Plus, it’s true. There are so many ways we fall short of the Christ-like way we should treat one another. It’s particularly noticeable in how often we disagree. Instead of working things out, we just break off and start a new group who think just like us. Did you know that there are approximately 41,000 different Christian denominations?[2] 41,000! I didn’t know we could disagree so fundamentally on 41,000 different things.
Of course, we all think we’re right.
That fact hit me square in the face one day when I was on the search for some mighty gyros. When I was attending seminary, there was a Greek Orthodox church I would drive by every morning to get to school. And once a year, they had a festival where you could get the best baklava, spanakopita, and gyros this side of the world. Like any church festival, they also had lots of crafts, trinkets to buy, and exhibits and in one of those exhibits was a big poster board showing a timeline of all the major different Christian denominations. There was a line for Roman Catholics, Baptists, even Methodists. But running throughout all of these was a huge, big, fat one labeled “Greek Orthodox Church – the One True Church.” Maybe they thought it was a selling point, but instead it came across as arrogant as if all other Christian beliefs had no validity. But that’s part of the problem. Our pride gets in the way of our efforts to unite. We focus far too much on the things that divide us instead of the things that unite us. If we would only focus on what we hold in common we could accomplish so much together. That was and always has been the hope of Christ, that the Children of God would be united as one. We can hear that hope in Jesus’ prayer to the Father after the Last Supper. The other Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), skip this prayer entirely and instead go right to the Garden of Gethsemane, but this one is specifically for a prayer for the Body of Christ, both then AND now. Jesus is thinking of us, of you and me, when he says this prayer. Hear now the Word of the Lord from John 17.
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
If we could unify as one church, we would be so much stronger.
But our divisiveness keeps us from being as strong as we could be. Imagine what it might be like if we were able to put aside our differences and instead unite in a common cause. Imagine all the different projects we could do if we were together instead of apart. Doing a quick Google search for churches in the area, there were over 20 in about a one-mile radius of our church. And that doesn’t include any of the Methodist churches which never even showed up in the search! What if we did what most businesses would do and consolidate our churches and turned the property left behind into affordable housing? Or homeless shelters? Or feeding centers? If we sold even a fourth of those properties, we could probably feed everyone in Berkeley for a year. Or start our own cooperative business venture and help employ local residents while using the profits to fund a variety of ministries to fight racial injustice, homelessness, and poverty. There is no end to what we could do together. Imagine the energy, vitality, and excitement we could generate by being united. What a powerful statement we would be making on behalf of Christ. “…that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” Isn’t that what it is all about, sharing the love of Christ with the world?
Most people aren’t even aware of other churches in their area.
If I asked you to name three of the other churches in a one-mile radius of ours, most couldn’t do it (unless you were looking at the graphic I just posted). It’s not that we don’t care or we don’t like them, we’re just blissfully ignorant of the church landscape. Once we find a place where we fit in, that’s what we stick with. There might be other churches that are closer, but we like what we like and we stick with what we like. But it also blinds us to the possibilities. When I was serving in Dinuba, I was caring for two churches, both were filled with God-loving, wonderful people, but both were struggling financially. They were literally about half a mile from each other. It didn’t make a lot of sense why these two Methodist churches weren’t together. When they were formed, it did. One was an historically Japanese church like ours, whose original mission field were Japanese immigrants to the area. And there were a lot of them. They had services in different languages and had different cultural needs. But over the years, while there were some differences in culture, they were no longer separated by language and it had been that way for decades. Visitors would often ask me, “Why haven’t these two churches merged?” And there wasn’t really a good answer. Both were struggling. Both could use the energy and vitality that comes from having more people in worship. Both could use the cost savings from insurance and utilities to operate and maintain only one facility. Yet, neither had even considered that option before. Today, they are one church and doing well. They were able to fix up their church building, doing some much needed repairs and making the place look even more appealing to guests. They found a way to incorporate both of their traditions and honor their past while looking to the future. And they are still wonderful people doing God’s work. Now there are more of them to do the work together.
There’s nothing wrong with small churches.
In fact, most churches are small community churches that serve the needs of their local area. And it allows for more intimacy, more nuance, and we hope deeper relationships. But we should do more to work in cooperation with one another. To utilize the strength of being united even while maintaining our individuality. One of the reasons I love the Methodist church is because of our connectional system. It allows us to do more together than any one church could do apart. We give a certain amount of what we receive to the greater United Methodist Church and with that, they are able to fund churches all over the globe, give scholarships to seminary students, provide relief work when natural disasters occur, fight against racial injustice, and encourage people to come and know Christ. For literally pennies on the dollar, we are able to do all of this and more together.
Today is World Communion Sunday.
It is a time for us to reflect on who we are as Christians and what that really means to us. It is a time for us to reflect on all that we have in common with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ around the globe and to pray for them and with them for the furtherance of God’s kingdom. It is a time to lay aside our differences and remember who we are as God’s children. John Wesley once said, “…to all opinions that do not strike at the heart of Christianity, we think and let think.” It is time for us to do that today. We must remember at all times that we are to love one another. As Christ told us, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” We have a long way to go my brothers and sisters. We have a long way to go.
There is so much work to be done in the world.
But if we work on it together, who knows what we can accomplish?
Until every child has a home, a meal, and a loving family, our work as Christians is not yet done.
Until every woman gets paid for her work and not by her gender, our work as Christians is not yet done.
Until we stop polluting our airways, our waterways, and our byways, our work as Christians is not yet done.
Until racism, ageism, and every other “ism” is eradicated, our work as Christians is not yet done.
Until we first take the plank out of our own eyes, our work as Christians is not yet done.
Until there is no Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, our work as Christians is not yet done.
Until we are all one in Christ Jesus, united as one people, our work as Christians is not yet done.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, our work is not yet done.
We leave this morning as we opened, with the words of a non-Christian, Mahatma Gandhi, speaking to us about us. “To live the gospel is the most effective way – most effective in the beginning, in the middle and in the end. Not just preach, but live the life according to the light… If, therefore, you go on serving people and ask them also to serve, they would understand. But you quote instead John 3:16 and ask them to believe it and that has no appeal to me, and I am sure people will not understand it…the gospel will be more powerful when practiced and preached.”[3] God uses messengers of all types to communicate to us, if we only listen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] From an article in Christian Today 2006 – http://in.christiantoday.com/articledir/print.htm?id=2837
[2] Accessed 9/28/2020 – https://www.learnreligions.com/christianity-statistics-700533#:~:text=Number%20of%20Christian%20Denominations.%20According%20to%20the%20Center,Christian%20denominations%20and%20organizations%20in%20the%20world%20today.
[3] http://in.christiantoday.com/articledir/print.htm?id=2837
Craig's Corner 