Not One Stone on a Stone
“What are we talking about?”
In the film Moneyball, General Manager Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s is about to trade two of his better players to force manager Art Howe to finally play Scott Hatteberg at first base. It’s a move that would be hard to explain because to most people it doesn’t make any sense. Hatteberg is an unknown while they have a proven All-Star caliber player there already. Beane believes in the process he and his right-hand man Peter Brand have put together and wants to see it in action. But a move this drastic? Peter says to him, “What are you doing? This is the kind of move that gets you fired.” Billy looks at his friend and responds, “I don’t think we’re asking the right question. The question we should be asking is ‘Do you believe in this thing or not?’” Peter says, “Yes, I do.” So Billy asks, “Will we win more with Pena or Hatteberg at first base.” Peter pauses and says, “Theoretically? Hatteberg.” Beane looks at him, “Then what are we talking about?”
Change is risky.
Sometimes it doesn’t work. But when things already aren’t working the way we hope, change is often necessary. That doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. But if we hope to succeed, whether in baseball or in life, we need the courage, determination, and persistence to see it through. I love a good underdog film and especially an underdog sports film, and any movie about the Oakland A’s is automatically going to fall into both categories. Still, the reason I love this film so much is because it’s a reflection of exactly what we are going through in the church. Not just our church, but the state of the church across the country. And like Billy Beane, I believe we have to shake it up and do things differently.
Jesus tells us that one day the temple will fall.
He points to the temple buildings, and he says to Peter, John, James and the rest, “Do you see all these things? …Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” And the disciples immediately leap to the conclusion that he is talking about the end of the world. But I wonder if Jesus was talking about something completely different. Like most people today, the disciples equated the buildings with their faith. If the buildings fell, then it was a sign the people had lost their faith. But maybe… MAYBE it’s because faith has moved out of the building. And I think this is what Jesus always intended. If the goal of Christianity is to create a world where the love of Christ was evident in each and every person, we wouldn’t need a church building because everywhere we would experience the community of believers. In that kind of world, we wouldn’t need a place to gather on Sunday mornings because everywhere the presence of God would be felt and seen in one another. And you certainly wouldn’t need a pastor because the evidence of God would be part of your everyday life and so clear that you would feel immersed in your faith. I’ve told anyone who would listen that I would love it if I didn’t have a job any longer because it wasn’t needed. Then, I could devote myself to my other passions – travel, food, and Disney.
In some ways, I think we are already seeing this phenomenon.
But not in the way Jesus would have hoped. People are leaving the building. But not because they have found Jesus and want to spread the Gospel. They’ve left because they don’t feel Jesus is in organized religion. Church attendance continues to be on the decline, and it doesn’t seem to be getting better. Yet, amazingly, people still consider themselves spiritual. About 7 in 10 fits in this category and 22% say they are “spiritual but not religious.”[1] 83% of all U.S. adults believe they have a soul; 81% believe there is something spiritual beyond the natural world; 74% believe there are some things science cannot possibly explain; and 38% report a connection with a loved one who passed away.[2] And still more and more people are distancing themselves from religion. Over a 16-year period from 2007 to 2023, the number of religiously unaffiliated rose from 16% to 28%.[3] In our own community we see these trends, too. 63.8% of people in our area do not believe you need to be in church to believe in Jesus up from 42.7% just four years before, and to go along with that 62.6% believe that the people in the church do not behave as Jesus would an increase by a whopping 34.4%. At the same time, the number of people who say that faith is very significant in their life has gone up by nearly 15%. And most people in the study believe that God is love and they have a personal relationship with one living God. So, while more people feel that church is increasingly unnecessary, they also feel closer to God.[4]
As most of you know, I’m studying to get my doctorate in ministry.
I wanted to get my doctorate specifically from Emory University because their program focuses on the local church. I’m not just studying theory. The goal of the program is to put theory into practice with the idea that we would come out with a doctorate AND a way to make an impact on our church and community. My focus is on growing the church…but maybe not in the way you might think. In the nearly 20 years I’ve been in ministry, one thought has become crystal clear. The church of today is NOT the church of tomorrow. People are connecting to themselves and to God in different ways. They are not interested in sitting in a building for an hour and listening to someone tell them about God. They want to experience God. Maybe that’s in serving the community. Maybe it’s in a small group. Maybe it’s volunteering at a hospital. But they want to belong to a movement, not a lecture series. Circles not rows.
It’s a cliché thing to say, but it’s true.
I first heard this phrase from Andy Stanley at North Point Community Church in Atlanta, GA. It’s funny because the average worship attendance at North Point is upwards of 30,000 weekly and they most certainly sit in rows.[5] But Andy stresses the idea that “circles are better than rows.” He said, “We are famous for our rows. But the strength of our churches is what happens in circles.”[6] And it’s true. At least it is for me. My most transformative moments in faith took place in small groups. From the time I went to a Men’s Group meeting at Alpharetta First and talked to Steve, to the time we met in small groups during our Walk to Emmaus retreat, to the times I spent with our Sunday School group when Emma was born; those were the moments where it felt I encountered Jesus so clearly. The church made that happen, but it was in small groups and quiet moments where I felt the impact of Jesus’ love the most.
There’s something powerful about a table.
It’s a connection point. It’s a gathering place. It’s where we find sustenance. Tables bring people together in a variety of ways. In church, we come to the table once a month to encounter Jesus. But we develop relationships over a table in so many different places and in so many different ways. After a year of study, consulting with my colleagues, friends, and professors, we’re going to try something different and beginning next year, we are going to launch Faith Dinners. These dinners are aimed at people outside the church. They are completely free to anyone who participates. There will be a very short message but most of the time it will involve people sitting at a table, enjoying a meal and talking about faith. We will have a topic of the day printed on placemats we create each month, and our table leaders will engage these groups in conversation in the hopes we build deeper relationships with those who join us each month. My family and I will donate the money to cover the food each month so it will be a minimal cost to the church. Mostly just space and utilities. At the end of the year, we will evaluate how effective our faith dinners have been, and I’ll write that up as the final project for my doctorate, and of course, I’ll share the results with all of you. We had our first Faith Dinner with just our table leaders last Sunday and every month we will take turns leading the discussion, getting feedback and preparing for our launch next year. We will invite all of you for a dress rehearsal so you can see what it’s all about and I hope it will encourage you to want to take part, either by inviting people to a Faith Dinner, donating toward our effort, or becoming a table leader yourself. But most of all, I hope you keep this effort in your prayers that we might make a difference in our community and lead people to Christ in a new way.
Church hasn’t been working the way we want it to for some time.
Instead of being the heart of society, we have become part of the fringes of it. Our faith has become synonymous with politics and that would have been the last thing Jesus would have wanted. It’s time for us to re-evaluate what it means to be the church in the world today and do something different to reach people with the love of Christ. My District Superintendent, Debra Brady, encouraged me to find a new way to reach people. She encouraged me to find something I was passionate about and to do THAT and not worry about what anyone else said. That was over seven years ago. I’ve never forgotten that conversation and it was about time to do something about it. Faith Dinners are that something. It may be risky. Maybe no one will come. Maybe no one will be changed. Maybe people will come and eat the food and leave and never feel the love of Christ. Maybe. But I believe they will. And I believe that the only way to reach people for Christ in the coming age is to approach faith from a different angle. What are we talking about? Doing everything we can, the best we can, to reach people for Jesus.
[1] Pew Research Center, “Spirituality Among Americans,” December 7, 2023.
[2] Jason DeRose, “7 in 10 U.S. adults consider themselves spiritual,” All Things Considered, NPR, December 7, 2003.
[3] Pew Research Center, “Religious ‘Nones’ in America: Who They Are and What They Believe,” January 24, 2024.
[4] Mission Insite, The ReligionInsite Report: 2.5 mi Around 3520 San Felipe Road, San Jose, California 95135, United States, (Florence, SC: ACS Technologies, October 10, 2024), 4-5, 7-8, 29.
[5] This number is hard to pin down. Generally, all agree that the number is huge with some as “small” as 28,000 and one as big as 50,000. But most records agree it’s higher than 30,000 per week.
[6] Mark Howell, “Andy Stanley: Circles Are Better Than Rows,” November, 27, 2020.
Stay In Love With God: The Third Rule
3.05 seconds.
That’s the world record. Xuanyi Geng from China solved it in 3.05 seconds.[1] At my very best, I could do it in 30 seconds and that’s when I was in junior high. Today, I’m lucky to solve a Rubik’s Cube in 3 minutes let alone 30 seconds. But the world record holder was nearly TEN times faster than me at my best with 3.057 seconds. And he’s only 8 years old. They hold puzzle solving competitions worldwide in every size of cube including solving it one-handed and blindfolded! Can you imagine solving it blindfolded? But the classic is the 3×3. It’s the gold standard in cubing. What got me thinking about the Rubik’s Cube was this great film on Netflix called The Speed Cubers. It was about two guys – Feliks Zemdigs and Max Park – who at one time were each the very best at the 3×3. Felix broke the record ten times and was the first to get sub seven and sub six. When they asked him how he did it, he had one word, “Practice.”
Practice makes perfect.
That philosophy holds true no matter what you’re trying to do. In speedcubing, it also takes talent, skill, and a little bit of luck to break a world record, but overall talent and skill can only take you so far. Whether it’s the Rubik’s Cube or chemistry or basketball or playing music, you need to practice over and over to keep improving. Practice is what takes you over the top. And the same is true for our faith. In our passage this morning, Paul was writing to the church because he was worried they might drift away from their faith. It had happened before. You only have to read the story of Moses to see how Moses’ brother Aaron built an idol to false God while Moses was up on the mountain waiting to bring down the Ten Commandments. People drift away all the time and often it doesn’t take much. And Paul was understandably worried. After all, Christianity was in its infancy and they were still trying to figure everything out. False prophets were likely everywhere and it would have been especially hard for Paul to guide them from far away. They didn’t have ZOOM to gather together from afar, so Paul wrote this letter to encourage them and to offer them a way to stay grounded in their faith. This is what he shares with the church in our passage this morning.
6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. – Colossians 2: 6-8.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe how little we’ve changed.
Human beings that is. Paul had to battle the same concerns we do today and this topic is no different. He was worried people would drift away from Jesus and his teachings. That they would be “wowed” by something more appealing, something that fit their lifestyle better and would abandon everything they were taught. Again, not hard to believe considering we still do this today. We gravitate toward whatever new trend or philosophy lets us do what we want regardless of whether we should do it. We love to find ways to beat the system. We pride ourselves on it. Kind of like me and Weight Watchers. I had done really well on their traditional plan for a long time and lost about 30 or 40 pounds, but then they switched to this new Fat and Fiber Plan that said you could eat whatever you want as long as you stayed below a certain amount of fat per day and above a certain amount of fiber. They touted it as giving you more flexibility. And it did. In the waistline. Suddenly, I stopped losing weight. The old method was more restrictive, but that really worked for me. I limited myself better. I had one “cheat day” a week. But on this new plan, it was so easy to game the system. I would eat one bowl of refried beans which covered pretty much all my fiber and then ate an entire box of Snackwell cookies which had only 1g of fat – but a TON of sugar and calories. I found a way to game the system. Should I have known better? Of course. What nutrition plan ever would let you eat an entire box of cookies?
Paul had to deal with this basic human frailty.
Finding ways to beat the system. Looking for loopholes instead of long-term benefits. Paul wasn’t there to help them in person, to guide them and remind them on a regular basis, so instead he did the only thing he could do. He encouraged them to remember the teachings, to be “rooted” in Christ, to build each other up and strengthen each other’s faith, to remind one another of the truths they had been taught and believed. In essence Paul was trying to teach them to “stay in love with God,” Wesley’s Third Rule. Do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God. For John Wesley, who taught these three rules as the foundation of Methodism, staying in love with God was vital to our faith. If “do no harm” is preventative and “do good” is proactive, then “staying in love with God” requires practice. Like Paul, John Wesley taught this same basic principle. To draw closer to Christ and to maintain your faith, John told those who became part of the Methodist societies they needed to regularly attend to all the ordinances of God. By that he meant they needed to do those everyday things, those regular things, over and over again to infuse God into their lives. That when God became an integral part of who we are, our faith would have a firm foundation. Wesley told them they needed to pray. They needed to read their Bibles. They needed to be in small groups together. They needed to take communion. They needed to go to worship. It’s those everyday routines Wesley felt were most important to keep us connected to God and to one another, and Paul in this passage stresses the same thing. Paul encourages the church to “continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”
Science backs them up.
Their assumption that maintaining these patterns of behavior would help to make God a part of our everyday lives is true. In different studies, it has been shown that through consistency and repetition we can form new ways of doing things. But it takes time. You may have heard that it takes 21 days to form a new habit, but the truth is it takes much longer. Studies show it takes an average of 66 days.[2] 66 days and that’s just an average. It can take as long as 8 or 9 months. But it can be done. If you want to get in the habit of relying on God, if you want to learn to put your faith and trust in him, you have to make God a part of your everyday life. Things like praying and reading the Bible and going to worship need to be more than a chore but a way of life that you embrace and then it will take hold in you in a deep and meaningful way. And once you have this foundation at your core, you will be open to an even deeper relationship with God. One that opens you up to that “peace that passes all understanding” Paul promises we can have. Staying in love with God, or as Wesley put it, “attending to all the ordinances of God,” takes time but the investment is well worth it.
When I first started praying with others, I hated it.
Not because I didn’t think it was important and not because I didn’t think it was helpful. But because I felt so inadequate about it. It seemed everyone I knew could pray better than I could. But after my Walk to Emmaus, I joined a Day Four group and we’d meet once a week and took turns praying for each other. They were SO eloquent with their prayers. Thoughtful. Not the kind where they just repeat the word “Lord” 40 times in one sentence, but from the heart, sincere, deep prayer. By comparison, I felt my prayers were more along the lines of “God is great, God is good, thank you God for this food.” But they encouraged me regularly and gave me confidence as I kept working on it. And as I kept it up, I felt more comfortable. I was less self-conscious. I worried less about doing a “good” prayer and came to realize it’s not about how fancy my words were or how articulate I was or whether or not I repeated myself a dozen times. It was all about my heart for the Lord. That’s all God really cares about. And at least in that, I am confident. To do anything well takes practice. Like with the Rubik’s Cube, the more we work at it, the better we will be. In our marriages, in our work, as parents – even in our faith. Practice makes perfect.
[1] https://www.worldcubeassociation.org/results/records
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-clear/forming-new-habits_b_5104807.html
Do Good: The Second Rule
What goes around comes around.
We LOVE justice. At least when it happens to other people. The idea, “What goes around comes around,” allows us to believe there is justice in the world. In Japanese they have a word for that: “Bachigatata” or “Bachi” for short. Even Christians echo these thoughts: “A man reaps what he sows” which comes from our passage this morning. If you have a Bible or a Bible app on you, please go to Galatians 6:7-10. Galatians 6:7-10. What Paul is talking about when he writes this phrase isn’t about retribution, it’s about making the most out of life. Whatever effort we put into something, the effort we make, is what we can expect to get out of it. If we pour ourselves into something it’s more likely we’ll get good returns. But if we put little effort, or bad effort or no effort at all, we can only expect what we put into it. So, here’s the passage from the Bible.
7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. – Galatians 6: 7-10
“Doing good” is part of what it means to be a Methodist.
We don’t believe people go to Heaven because they do good stuff. But we do believe doing good is evidence of God in your life, and we believe doing good draws us closer to Christ. There’s a famous quote often attributed to John Wesley that says, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” While no one can find this to be a literal quote from John, it certainly reflects his beliefs. In his sermon “The Use of Money” he said, “employ whatever God has entrusted you with, in doing good, all possible good, in every possible kind and degree to the household of faith, to all men!”[1] And when he wrote up the three General Rules that formed the Methodist classes and later all of us, he included it there, too. Do no harm, do good, stay in love with God. “Do no harm” (the first rule) is preventative. It encourages us to be thoughtful, to take time out to ponder our words, to think through a situation. But it’s a rule that is meant to prevent us from doing something hurtful. If “do no harm” is preventative, “do good” is proactive. More than just making sure we aren’t hurting people, we’re supposed to make the world a better place. As Paul wrote, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
But how do we “do good?”
It seems like an obvious question. You just DO GOOD. But how can we do the MOST good? If you’re like Dan in the TV show SportsNight, you want to try to figure this out. Dan gets flooded with a stack of solicitation letters from various charities and causes and he doesn’t know what to do. He tells his friend and co-anchor, Casey, “I’m on a mailing list to end all mailing lists…I’d love to give money to all these people, but then I’d have no money and I’d need somebody’s mailing list just to pay rent.” You’ve probably felt like this before. Too many worthwhile causes and not enough money or time to go around. We feel that personally and as a church. It can be overwhelming when you think of how many worthy causes are out there. Dan and Casey go back and forth until Casey finally says, “You know, while we’ve been having this conversation, a couple people have probably died from something you could have cured.”
Dan starts to ask around.
He goes up to his friend Natalie and asks what she would do and she says she gives what she can to an AIDS group. Dan thinks that’s great, but asks her what about breast cancer and diabetes and leukemia? Don’t they deserve funding also? Dan is struggling to figure out who is the MOST deserving. Where should he invest his money? So, he asks his boss, Isaac. Isaac will know. Isaac is smart, respected, and Dan looks up to him like a father. Isaac tells him, “Danny, every morning I leave an acre and a half of the most beautiful property in New Canaan, get on a train and come to work in a 54-story glass hi-rise. In between, I step over bodies to get here – 20, 30, 50 of them a day. So, as I’m stepping over them, I reach into my pocket and give them whatever I’ve got.” Dan asks, “You’re not afraid they’re going to spend it on booze?” And that’s the heart of Dan’s problem, and ours a lot of the time. We worry so much about what might happen with what we give, whether it’s money or time or talent, that we end up holding back giving at all, or we give cautiously when we could be giving more. But that’s not how Jesus envisioned us helping one another. Remember the story of the rich young man who asked Jesus how he could have eternal life? Jesus told him to give his wealth to the poor. He didn’t put conditions on it. He didn’t warn him what the poor would do with his money. Because it’s really about our heart for giving. It’s about being abundantly generous and not worrying where it goes once we give it. That doesn’t mean God wants us to be foolish with our time or money or talent, but he wants us to be more actively engaged in the world. If we spend more time worrying about what other people are going to do with “our” money, we’re missing the point. God wants us to have a heart for giving – giving money, giving time, giving talents, giving a kind word, giving our sympathy, giving our love. He wants us to have a giving attitude. Let God worry about where it goes.
At the end of the show, Dan and Casey wrap things up.
Casey asks him if he’s solved the problem of who to give to, and Dan says, “It’s easier being a miser.” And Casey responds, “Can I say something? You’re not going to solve everybody’s problems. In fact, you’re not going to solve anybody’s problems, so you know what you should do? Anything. As much of it and as often as you can.” Anything. As much of it and as often as you can. Casey was echoing exactly what John Wesley and Paul have been trying to tell us. Give anything, as much of it and as often as you can. God wants us to be proactive. He wants us to get into the habit of being giving people, trying to make a difference in the world. Sure, we want to try to do the most good for the most people, but if we worry so much about where it’s going or if it will be put to good use we might end up like the guy in Jesus’ story about the bags of gold where the one guy ends up burying it in the ground instead of doing something with it. We don’t want to be THAT guy. We want to be responsible. We want to be good stewards. But we don’t want to get to the point where we are paralyzed from doing ANYTHING! Along the way, we might make some missteps, but the important thing is the state of our heart. Are we operating out of fear or out of love? Which one will rule our heart?
Our faith is empty without good deeds.
James, the brother of Jesus wrote about this extensively in his letter. He said, “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead (James 2:26).” That’s because a person who says he believes in Jesus but does nothing to help his fellow human being does not really have faith. They have faith in themselves or faith in their money, but not faith in Christ to do what is needed. James also wrote (James 2:15-17), “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” And while I think James intended for that to be a statement against Christians who call themselves believers and do nothing to help others, it’s also a prescription for ourselves. Our faith is brought to life, both in other people AND in ourselves, when we live it out.
Have you heard of the term GIGO?
It’s a computing term, but you might be familiar with it anyway. GIGO.[2] GIGO. It stands for Garbage In, Garbage Out and refers to the idea that bad programming will lead to bad results. Basically, you get out what you put in. And that’s true for every aspect of our lives. Our friendships, our family, our marriages, our jobs, our hobbies, our passions and our relationship with God. You get out what you put in. If you spend your life trying to put good into the world, there might be some garbage from time-to-time, but overall, you’ll get even more out of life. Better relationships with others. Better relationship with God. A better world to live in. And after all, isn’t that what we all want? If it’s true that “A man reaps what he sows” and “What goes around comes around” then we need to put as much good out there in the world as we can. Let go of our fears. Trust in God. Devote yourself to doing good and not worry about what they do with our gifts, but instead be dedicated to a heart for generosity.
[1] http://www.umcmission.org/Find-Resources/John-Wesley-Sermons/Sermon-50-The-Use-of-Money
Do No Harm: The First Rule
Primum non nocere.
That’s a Latin phrase meaning, “First, do no harm.” Every medical professional in the world is familiar with that tenet, so it’s kind of weird it is also the first rule of Methodism. Or is it? Maybe it’s the most important rule of all. Our sermon series this month is going to explore the three General Rules of Methodism and why they are so important to us. If you ask most people they likely don’t know these rules, but it is an important part of our history and the foundation of our beliefs as a church. Once in a while, it’s a good idea to remind ourselves what we believe in, why we are gathering, and what it’s all about. With that in mind, let’s open our Bibles or Bible apps to Matthew 26:47-54. Now this passage takes place right after Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and after the Last Supper. We’re nearing the time of Jesus’ death on the cross. He’s about to be betrayed by one of those closest to him, a man who sold him out for money. Judas has arranged for Jesus’ capture by an angry mob and as these events play out, pay close attention to what Jesus does. Hear now the Word of God.
47 While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. 48 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” 49 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.
50 Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.”
Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. 51 With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
52 “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. 53 Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”
The Word of God for the people of God and the people said, “Thanks be to God.” Please be seated.
When we think of great leaders who preached about non-violent social change, some amazing people come to mind like Dr. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi.
Although one was a Baptist minister and one was a Hindu lawyer, both found inspiration in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught and lived the principles of non-violence as we read about in this passage. Even though he knows, HE KNOWS, he is about to be taken to his death, he stops Peter from defending him and says, “…for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.” In this one moment, Jesus makes crystal clear that the people of God must live by higher ideals. As he taught the disciples elsewhere, it isn’t enough to offer an eye for an eye, you have to go beyond that. You have to turn the other cheek. When you offer forgiveness, it isn’t just once or twice, but seventy times seven times! Because if we are really going to be the people of God, if we are going to show the love of Christ to a hurting world, we have to be the first ones to offer forgiveness. We have to be the first ones to come to the table. We have to be the first ones to show there is a better way. We must resist the temptation to return tit for tat, violence for violence because that is the trap that leads us away from God.
The foundation of the United Methodist Church is found in three simple rules.
Do no harm, do good, and attend upon all the ordinances of God. Bishop Reuben Job summarized it in his book this way, “Do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God.”[1] When John Wesley formed the first Methodist small groups (or “classes” as he called them), this was how they agreed to live; do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God. It sounds simplistic because it is, but it’s still hard to do. That’s why these small groups would meet every week, to help keep each other accountable; to remind each other of their promise to live this kind of life. Because even though in our heads we know what we SHOULD do, it’s not always what we DO. We are not immune to the impulses of human nature. We can call this one of the first 12 step programs because these classes were meant to help us against the temptations we all struggle with.[2] As we explore what Wesley meant by “do no harm,” we come to understand that he meant more than we shouldn’t kick puppies (who would do that?!). Wesley wants us to consider the broader implications of what that means.
“Do no harm” is a broader idea than most of us really consider.
Wesley wanted to make it clear, so he explained in some detail exactly what he meant. When he wrote the General Rules for those small group classes, he included things you would expect. No fighting, no quarreling, no brawling. I’m not sure why John felt the need to call out brawling separate from fighting, but he did. And then he put in other stuff. No getting drunk. No suing your brother. No cheating the system. No working on the Sabbath. Mostly stuff you and I would agree with. My favorite, of course, is not saying anything bad about your pastor. Seriously. He put that in there. Then he added stuff to the list we might not immediately think of as “doing harm” – wearing gold or fancy clothes, needless self-indulgence (I guess as opposed to self-indulgence we need), and singing songs which do not tend to the knowledge and love of God.[3] Does that mean no more Sabrina Carpenter songs? We could argue about some of these all day, but that would be missing the point. Wesley was trying to challenge us to go beyond thinking of harm as something physical and force us to take a step back and think, “Am I doing something to hurt someone else?” Sometimes that hurt can be completely unintentional.
At one of the churches I used to serve, they had a very strong youth group.
These kids would come to church every week because they looked forward to spending time with one another and felt really connected by how long they’d been growing up in church. But as you can imagine, when a group gets that tight, it’s hard for a newcomer to feel like they belong unless the group is intentional about being inclusive and reaching out to them. And while all of these kids had good intentions, they unintentionally left some kids behind, and those kids quietly left the church. When I became pastor, one of the moms came up to me and told me about her daughter who was one of those kids. She told me how alone and isolated it made her daughter feel to never really be included. Her daughter wasn’t asked to help or invited to be part of the group. She wasn’t often invited to be involved in their activities. She told me how her daughter tried to fit in, but just couldn’t crack that shell. And how eventually she told her mom she needed to find another church. As a fellow parent, that made me so sad. Of all places, you would think a church would be the one place where everyone was welcome, but that isn’t always true. These kids weren’t intentionally mean, just thoughtless as we all can be from time to time. We can become so focused on ourselves that we neglect to see what should have been obvious and unintentionally cause other people harm. Everyone does this. Kids and adults alike. The trick is to be mindful in what you do and what you say. Train yourself to consider others and not just yourself. We can avoid a great deal of the world’s problems if we learn to have an eye beyond what we want and what we like.
Be thoughtful.
I think that’s it in a nutshell. Be thoughtful. Consider others before yourself. Think about how your actions AND your words will hurt others. Take time to pause before uttering something painful. Maybe the person you’re talking to said something hurtful or painful or plain stupid and you are so tempted to lash out, but consider before speaking, because the other person probably didn’t. I’ve found in my own life and in the experiences of others, that when people say hurtful things, it’s rarely with careful planning that they do it. Usually, they react because they are angry, mad, or hurt. And we can probably all agree you’re not likely to say something wise or sage in that moment. Sometimes, stepping back from a situation and taking two seconds before reacting is the best possible medicine. I’ve never forgotten the advice Emma gave me one day. I was upset about something and Emma looked at me and said, “Daddy, my teacher told me that when we’re upset we should take three deep breaths and count to ten.” Of course I followed her advice, and by golly it worked. Will that solve every problem? No. I’m sure it won’t. But it probably will avoid a good many more. Of course, there will be times when harm seems inevitable. But in those instances, wouldn’t it be best to be thoughtful – to be intentional about how to do the least amount of harm? I was thinking about the Hippocratic Oath and how part of it is to always remember “warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.” Sometimes we need those things more than anything else: warmth, sympathy, and understanding. Consider others before yourself and we can turn the world into the kind of place God would be proud of. Primum non nocere. First, do no harm. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] As he summarized in his book Three Simple Rules.
[2] https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/articles/twelve-steps-of-alcoholics-anonymous The 12-step program for AA started in 1935 and was based on religious principles even though today those principles have been broadened to appeal to more people.
[3] https://www.umc.org/en/content/the-general-rules-of-the-methodist-church
I’m An American
5 You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. 6 So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. 9 For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 10 He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
– 1 Thessalonians 5:5-11
Racism can be subtle.
It doesn’t have to be men with pointed hoods and robes burning crosses on the lawn. It’s not always found in name-calling and ethnic slurs. Sometimes racism can be found in the little assumptions we make about other people because of what they look like or what we see on TV. Sometimes racism can be found in the way we choose not to include others who don’t seem to “fit in” to our group.
And sometimes racism can be found in the seemingly innocent comments of little children.
Emma and I were on a school field trip back in third or fourth grade. She and one of her friends were sitting across from me on the bus when out of nowhere this Caucasian boy in her class came up and asked her “What are you?” At first, my daughter gave him a quizzical look as she tried to figure out what he was asking. Finally, she just responded by saying, “Huh?” And he repeated again, “What are you?” And then added, “I mean are you Chinese or something?” Now, just for full disclosure, my ethnic background is Japanese and Cassie is Caucasian, so Emma is a beautiful mix of the two of us and she answered, “Oh, I’m Japanese, but I have some American Indian and some English and some other stuff, too. What about you?” And this is where it gets me.
“I’m an American.”
I have to admit to being offended, even by this little kid. He said it like it’s his ethnicity. But unless he’s 100% Native American, which from his light-colored hair, green eyes, and fair color skin I’m guessing he isn’t, he has some immigrant blood in his veins, too. So, I spoke up, “Emma’s an American, too. So am I. We were all born here.” And then he said with some conviction,
“Yeah, but I’m an American American.”
What do you say to that? Do you feel bad for him that he has no sense of ethnic identity? Do you try to make him understand that being American isn’t about race but citizenship? Or do you just wonder what kind of parents don’t teach their kids the difference? I don’t blame the kid. Honestly, I don’t. He only knows what he’s been taught – or not taught – by his parents, his environment, sometimes by the media and pop culture that fails to include the rich diversity of life we find every day whether we acknowledge it or not.
Cognitively, I’m sure he’ll learn (one day) that being “American” is not an ethnicity, but I wonder if he’ll ever totally understand he’s not “more American” than other people who look different than he does. He might acknowledge it, but this attitude that somehow some of us are less worthy of being American is one that seeps into our national landscape.
And that landscape is changing. It’s estimated by 2043 White, non-Hispanic people will no longer be in the majority.[1] In New Mexico and California, Hispanic people now make up the largest single ethnic group in those states.[2] Our idea of what it means to be “American” is shifting rapidly, and some people are having a very difficult time adjusting to that, but I think this shift is a great thing! As more and more people are added to the Great American Melting Pot, the stew inside becomes even more flavorful.
Already the vast number of different cultures in our country have influenced how we eat.
We think of California Rolls as sushi, but they’re called “California” for a reason. Nobody living in Japan thought of stuffing avocado into rice and seaweed. Sweet and sour anything SEEMS Chinese but really was invented in America to make traditional Chinese food more palatable to people in the States. And don’t get me going about fortune cookies! Whatever California native thought of that was a marketing genius![3]
Racism doesn’t have to be openly vicious or harmful.
That little boy’s comment on the bus didn’t use a racial slur or say something negative directly to me or Emma. But think about what he said. He said, “I’m superior to you because I’m a real American and you’re not.” He wasn’t intellectual sophisticated enough to purposely think that, but it’s what he meant. He was perpetuating a belief he was taught by his parents, society, movies, who knows. But it’s hurtful to be on the receiving end of a comment like that one. That somehow, based on the color of your skin or the shape of your eyes, you’re somehow less American. That somehow you don’t belong as much as other people.
It’s called racial microaggression.
We’ve talked about this before. It’s “the brief and everyday slights, insults, indignities and denigrating messages sent to people of color by well-intentioned…people who are unaware of the hidden messages being communicated.”[4] Phrases like “What are you?” or “Where do you come from?” imply that you don’t belong. What’s worse is when you answer honestly and the person persists, “No, where do you REALLY come from? Where were you born?” It’s just a constant reminder that you aren’t one of us. These microaggressions don’t even have to be verbal. They can be non-verbal like when someone looks at you cross ways or clutches their purse more tightly as they walk by. Microaggressions can be environmental like the flying of a Confederate flag or doing the tomahawk chop at a baseball game. You might think, “well those things are trivial. Stop being so sensitive.” But it’s the cumulative effect of all of those tens, hundreds, thousands, and millions of microaggressions that create environments that sustain racism and stereotypes. In his research on racial microaggression, Dr. Sue, a leading expert on the topic, found that these tiny insults affect our mental health, create a hostile climate, perpetuate stereotypes, devalue people of color, and create inequities in education, employment, and health care.[5] And that’s only partially how they affect us and the world around us. We need to do our part by being more aware of what we do and what we say.
We need to work together to eradicate prejudice and stereotypes of all kinds.
They do nothing to uplift us and instead tear us down and apart. Hopefully, we’ll embrace the concept that America really is the Great American Melting Pot; that we are made better because we embrace and incorporate the cultures and ideas of those who come to this country. What makes America unique is that we are a truly heterogeneous society with no one origin story. What makes us unique is that everyone can be American. And what unites us is that everyone is a child of God.
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/12/census-hispanics-and-black-unseat-whites-as-majority-in-united-states-population_n_2286105.html
[2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/24/in-2014-latinos-will-surpass-whites-as-largest-racialethnic-group-in-california/
[3] http://www.infoplease.com/spot/fortunecookies.html
[4] I did leave out the word “white” because I don’t think you have to be white to level a racial microaggression. But the article is very helpful and well-written. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/microaggressions-in-everyday-life/201010/racial-microaggressions-in-everyday-life
[5] Ibid.
Parenting Myths of the Bible
Spare the rod, spoil the child.
That phrase is often attributed to the Bible but it’s about as Biblical as “God helps those who help themselves,” which is to say not very Biblical at all. “God helps those who help themselves” comes from early Greek works.[1] “Spare the rod, spoil the child” comes from elsewhere, too – first by William Langland in the 14th century and later by Samuel Butler in the 17th century.[2] But as Christians we are quite fond in believing this comes originally from the Bible and some would argue that even if the direct quote didn’t come from there, the sentiment surely did. Usually they cite one of the two sayings in Proverbs we read this morning as proof. This belief that corporeal punishment is generally useful in child-rearing has been triumphed by both Christians and non-Christians alike. I know that’s how I grew up, how my dad grew up, and how my grandfather grew up. I don’t know how far back it goes beyond that, but from the early citations quoted, it’s been common for at least 700 years. And in case you thought this idea of physical violence curbing behavior has gone the way of the dinosaur, you’ll be as shocked as I was to discover that 19 states that still allow corporeal punishment in schools.[3] People stick to what they know and the idea behind “Spare the rod, spoil the child” is one that’s ingrained in many of us.
For me, the concept of “time out” was completely foreign.
It was like giving a pair of chopsticks to someone who’s used a fork their whole life and then trying to convince them it works. When I met Cassie, Eve was already four years old and I remember being totally confused the first time I saw Cassie put her in “time out.” I had to ask what it was. It wasn’t a hard concept to grasp – a child would literally take time out from what they were doing to quietly contemplate their actions. Whether they DID that is up for debate, but I never heard of “time out” before. It seemed to let her off easy. But Cassie is uber-intelligent and as always did her research on parenting techniques and told me this was how it was done nowadays. Would you believe that? But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Spanking might put the fear of God into a kid, but it didn’t make them understand any better why it was wrong. It’s like putting criminals in jail. Originally, jail was meant to be to keep criminals off the street until they could be rehabilitated, but we have a real “punishment” mindset in America. Do the crime, do the time. That’s how we think of it. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. That’s why sayings like “Spare the rod, spoil the child” makes sense to us. It’s a very consequence-oriented way of looking at life. It’s no wonder we read these passages from the Bible and assume that’s what it means.
But what if that’s NOT what it meant?
I’ve always struggled with the punishment mind set. Do we really want to punish people or do we just want them to get it right? Can we forgive people’s mistakes without seeking retribution? Especially when it comes to kids. Is our behavior uplifting or oppressive? Hear then these words from Mark. If you would please rise for the reading of the Gospel, Mark 10:13-16. Hear now the Word of God.
13 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them. – Mark 10:13-16
It’s easy to look at the disciples as the bad guys in this scenario.
And they are. But they’re bad guys with good intentions. They’re trying to keep the riff raff away from Jesus. You can imagine a guy who performs miracles probably is getting a lot of attention. Think the first century equivalent of Beyonce or One Direction. Maybe even bigger than the Beatles. So, the disciples are like his crew, his posse, and in their heads, Jesus doesn’t have time for a bunch of little kids. He’s got more serious people to put his hands on. But then Jesus corrects them. “Let the little children come to me,” he says, “and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” In my head, I always get this image of the disciples being kind of surprised and this rush of children come forward to see Jesus. He said to the disciples, “Do not hinder them.” And it made me think, we’ve all probably had people who hindered us. I can think of a few right away who were the bane of my existence growing up, who made life harder. Were they good for me in the long run? No. Did they help teach me valuable life lessons? No. They just made life worse. That’s not to say I’ve never gained value from bad situations, because I have. I’ve learned something valuable from a lot of bad situations. But these hindrances were just that – hindrances. They didn’t add value to my life at all, and Jesus is warning us not to be these kinds of people; not to be stumbling blocks, especially in the lives of children. And as the people who spend the most time with them, we also have the most opportunity to be exactly that to our kids and grandkids. Sometimes, like with the disciples, with the best of intentions.
And so we come back to that saying, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.”
What the Bible actually says is “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.” Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them. Notice how there is nothing in there about spoiling them? “Spare the rod, spoil the child” definitely refers in our modern language to the idea that holding back physical punishment will create spoiled children, but what the Bible is telling us in Proverbs is actually something completely different. The rod is a symbol of authority but not one of punishment.[4] It was used in discipline, but not for beating or spanking but instead as a tool for correcting. The rod was very much like a club and would be used to protect the flock of sheep from other animals or even from themselves. If the sheep started to wander into something dangerous or head in the wrong direction, the shepherd would throw the rod to startle the sheep and bring them back to the flock.[5] But it wasn’t a tool used to beat the sheep or hurt them. It was used to help correct behavior. If we understand the rod in this way, we can understand this passage in a better light. Perhaps we should read it as “whoever does not guide and protect their children hates them, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.” This is much more in line with the rest of the Bible where we are told that a parents’ obligation is to teach their children about the Lord, to instruct them “when you get up and when you lie down (Deuteronomy 11:19).” This is also in line with Psalm 23 when David writes, “your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” The rod and staff bring comfort not because David likes a good beating once in a while, but because God cares enough about his sheep to correct and guide them. Relying on God will steer us the right way.
We learn new things about the Bible all the time.
Each successive generation reinterprets and understands the Scripture with new eyes. As our understanding of how the world works continues to expand, so must our vision of God expand with it. We must ever be vigilant about how we read the Word of God and to make sure that what we read is really in line with our understanding of him. We should never be complacent because so much is at stake. Especially when it comes to our children. This isn’t to condemn people who did things differently in the past. We all strive to be the best parents we can be and we go by what we believe to be the best information out there. That’s all any of us can do. But what we need to be wary of is complacency. Complacency. When we sit back and fail to open our minds to new ways of looking at things is when we do a disservice to God. Challenge yourself constantly to be better than you are in all things. And in that way, we become a help instead of a hindrance to our children, our grandchildren, our nieces and nephews, and even our great-grandchildren. They learn from us the value of keeping an open mind, of being able to admit when we are wrong, and doing something about it. Those are perhaps some of the best lessons we can teach them – to have open hearts and open minds. On this Father’s Day, we should give thanks especially for our Father in Heaven who constantly keeps an open heart and an open mind about us. Regardless of our own mistakes, we can rely on him always for his grace, forgiveness, and mercy.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helps_those_who_help_themselves
[2] http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/328950.html
[3] http://www.businessinsider.com/19-states-still-allow-corporal-punishment-2014-3
[4] http://gracethrufaith.com/topical-studies/tough-questions-answered/spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child/
[5] http://www.antipas.org/commentaries/articles/shepherd_psa23/shepherd_07.html
The Bible
The Bible is not a Holy Book.
(I had to get your attention somehow, right?) It would be more accurate to call it a Holy Anthology, because the Bible isn’t one book by one author. Instead, scholars consider it to be a collection of 66 different books written by various authors. Some of those “books” are incredibly small – only a few pages at most. Today we wouldn’t even call those books. They’d be pamphlets at best. Those are often letters written by Paul or various apostles to the church. Others are huge like Psalms often considered the longest of the books. Interestingly one scholar converted the Bible into ASCII format to calculate the true length of each book and found Jeremiah to be the longest.[1] Who wrote which books is a matter of debate even today. Scholars argue whether or not Paul wrote all the letters he is said to have written. There is also debate around the Gospels. Most assume they were written by the apostles they were named after – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Some believe that Mark wrote the first account and then Matthew and Luke added to it and changed it slightly. Because John is so different, it’s assumed that his was written by him.
Or was it?
Authorship of the Gospels is something scholars continue to argue about, too. Most don’t believe they were written by the actual disciples themselves but might have been written by their followers or from communities formed by them. Some speculate all three of what we call the Synoptic Gospels – Mark, Matthew, and Luke – were based on Mark and a secondary Q source. Sounds like the basis of a Dan Brown novel, right? But many Biblical scholars believe it to be true. They think there was another source that provided the stories that are in common between Matthew and Luke. No one has ever found such a source or evidence of such a source, but because of how similar the stories between them are scholars feel confident some other source must have been used. John, however, was so different from the others that while it is considered one of the Gospels, it is unique among the four. And also, thought not to be written by John. Many believe the purpose behind each Gospel account is different. Mark is often considered the original source and is the shortest of the four. Luke’s Gospel along with the Book of Acts is closest to an historical recounting of events. Luke takes painstaking care to include dates and events in his writing to allow historians to pinpoint his accounts to other attested things that happened during that time. Matthew’s account was written more for the Jewish people of his time. He recounts details that would matter to the Jewish community and focuses on Jesus’ fulfillment of Scripture. And John is largely seen as an appeal to the Gentiles. It is written as a story outlining the phenomenal life of Christ and is accessible to people who have no history of the Old Testament or any of the prophecies. It’s also probably why it ends with the verse, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. (John 21:25)”
Our Old Testament is the same as the Jewish Tanakh.
But with one big difference. The books are ordered differently. Tanakh is actually an acronym for the three major sections of the Hebrew Bible. It stands for Torah (the Law or Instructions); Nevi’im (the Prophets); and the Ketuvim (or Writings sometimes referred to as Poetry and Wisdom literature). T-N-K or Ta-Na-Kh. The Christian Bible, alternatively, orders the books of what we call the Old Testament with the same first five books, but from there they mix it up and instead of ending in the poetry and writings, ours ends with the prophets. For Christians this makes complete sense because the story of the Old Testament ends with prophets pointing to the coming of Christ which then gets fulfilled in the very next pages. And that is what the Bible is really all about. For me, the entirety of these 66 books comes down to one passage which is why it is my favorite in the whole Bible. It comes from John’s Gospel as he relates Jesus’ final commandment. It isn’t long but it has more meaning packed into it than whole books.
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:34-35
We should know more about the Bible.
How it was created; the thought behind each book; how it is similar and different to the Hebrew Bible; but most importantly is to make sure we understand the message God is trying to share with us – love one another. How much better would the world be if we followed this simple rule. Simple to understand, not always simple to follow. But God’s message for us, while summarized here beautifully is found all over the Bible. Maybe most famously is in the Matthew which we call the greatest commandment. “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Matthew 22:36-40).” But there are others, too. From John’s first letter to the church: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God… (1 John 4:7). From Peter’s first letter: Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8). From Paul’s letter to the Roman people: Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:8). And so many others.
If more people read the Bible instead of quoting from it, the world would be a better place.
I want to encourage you to find a Bible that speaks to you. There are so many out there and the translation makes a difference. Take for example this passage from Proverbs:
Each passage is different in its own way, and some will speak to you more than others, but most are faithful translations of the Bible. There are a few like The Message and The Living Bible that are not translations at all but paraphrases of the Bible so that’s even one more step removed from the original source. We use the New International Version in worship. It is easy to understand yet still faithful to the original text. It’s the most widely used version and one of the most balanced. The one we used in seminary was the NRSV or New Revised Standard Version. It is closer to a word-for-word translation while still being fairly easy to read. But the one I like to introduce to people who might find the NIV a little bit tough is the New Living Translation or NLT. It’s a bit more “loosey-goosey” than the NIV but it is even easier to read, and I just find somehow enjoyable. The NiRV is also a wonderful read. Even though we do have the words on the screen in worship, I do encourage you to read your own Bibles, to take notes, to read it for yourself and see how the words impact you personally. Some of the stories may challenge you. Some might uplift you. Some might be frustrating or puzzling. But by reading it for yourself, I think you’ll get a deeper understanding of God.
If you are looking for a style of Bible, a journaling Bible is useful, especially for anyone who likes to take notes. One of my favorites is the Beautiful Word Coloring Bible. It has space for notes and has coloring throughout when you just want to sit with a verse for a while. I love the leathersoft cover. The Inspire Bible is the NLT equivalent. The cover is hardback instead of soft but otherwise very similar to the Beautiful Word Bible. If you’re more of a history buff or want to understand the culture and times the Scripture was written, my favorite over the years has been the Archaeological Study Bible. It has great resources and illustrations to bring that time to life. Another good one that I own on Kindle is the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. Any study Bible is wonderful, especially if you’re starting out exploring the Bible on your own. When Cassie and I first started attending Bible study together we both had the Life Application Study Bible. Even today, that version is a great place to start. No matter what Bible you start with, I would encourage you to read it for yourself. We believe in this so much we bought Bibles for you. If you don’t have a Bible and would like one, you can take one and I will even send you one for free. Every person should have a Bible to get to know God’s vision for their life. Because it’s all about love.
[1] In his article, Justin Taylor cites David J. Reimer’s research on the topic.
The Living Word
What is considered “canon?”
This question is debated all the time in virtually every nook and cranny of fandom. Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel, DC, even Disney! What is official and what is not? There’s always a controversy somewhere. Star Wars reset their entire continuity after Disney took over and fans were so upset! Some of their favorite characters were wiped out of official continuity at the drop of a hat.[1] When Star Trek rebooted the movies and introduced Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, again fans were livid. Less because they introduced new actors and more because they changed Trek history. They even named this block of movies as “The Kelvin Timeline” to differentiate it from the “real” timeline.[2] And don’t get me started on comic books. The number of times a character’s origin story has been told and retold is ridiculous. One website chronicles the number of Superman origin stories at 835 (and counting with the new movie coming out in July).[3] Fans will spend hours arguing about which origin story is real, or which version best represents the heart and soul of their favorite character. Believe it or not, the same thing happened with the Bible.
To us, the Bible is the most authoritative book we have.
We are called the People of Five Books because of how important each one is defining who we are. The Book of Worship provides guidance on how to lead worship. The Book of Discipline outlines the basics for running a church. The Book of Resolutions collects our position on many social issues. And our hymnal shares our most important songs and prayers cataloged for easy research. But the Bible is the most important. It is held in higher esteem than any other book in our faith. Even non-churchgoing people often hold it in reverence or at least respect as a holy book. But when it was first created, there was a lot of debate about which books should be included and which should not. Which books would become canon? It would take hundreds of years to decisively determine which books would make the final list. Even today we still differ about which books are considered authoritative. Although Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants have the same New Testament, they have different numbers of books included in the Old Testament. Thirty-nine of the books in the OT are the same, but the Catholic Bible includes a section we refer to as the Apocrypha – additional books not considered to be as authoritative as the others, but still important enough to be included. The Orthodox Church has even more of those “not quite as authoritative” books included – hence the differences in our Bibles.
So what is the Bible to us?
One way of looking at it comes directly from the Bible itself. As Methodists, our official stance on the Bible is that it is the inspired Word of God. We believe the Bible is inspired, but not inerrant. That means the early writers were guided by the Holy Spirit when composing the different books of the Bible, but they wrote them in their own style, their own experience, and their own encounter with God. Everything they wrote was through their own life experience. We also believe the Bible is sufficient for matters of faith. All that means is we believe by knowing God’s character and reading the Bible in context we can figure out for ourselves what God would say to us today. But the Bible is not inerrant in the way we understand inerrancy today.[4] Plain and simple there are errors in the Bible. But those errors are not errors that change the fundamentals of our faith. Like when you read all four Gospels, you’ll find they don’t always put events in the same order or they will have slightly different details. Does that mean they didn’t happen? No. It just means each writer remembers the events a little differently. But they do not take away from the essence or meaning of the Bible. Maybe because we are so far away from the time of Christ we have put more and more weight on the Bible itself, but something Adam Hamilton wrote in his book Making Sense of the Bible stuck with me. He wrote, “One concern I have for those who hold to inerrancy is that they seem to indicate that their entire faith would collapse if the Bible were found to have one real error…this seems a very weak foundation for one’s faith. The early Christians did not see an inerrant Bible as the foundation for their faith. For them, it was Jesus Christ, God’s Word enfleshed, that was the foundation of their faith.”
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. – 2 Timothy 3: 14-17
When we read this passage, we think Paul is talking about the Bible.
But he wasn’t talking about the Bible at all. At least not as we know it today. The Scriptures Paul was talking about were what we call the Old Testament. At most it may have included some of the early church writings, but the Bible as it is constructed today hadn’t yet been determined. Having said that, we still believe this statement is as true today as it was back then. What we consider to be our sacred texts, the Scriptures as we know it, are God-breathed to us – meaning we believe them to have been inspired by God and because they were, they are useful in “teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training us in righteousness.” If this is true, we should constantly refer to them for direction and inspiration. We should know them. We should study them so we too can be “thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
But there are some things the Bible is not.
The Bible is not an Owner’s Manual. It isn’t meant to be the single definitive answer to every problem we encounter. It IS meant to help us understand the nature of God and his will for our lives, but unlike an Owner’s Manual, it doesn’t deconstruct our lives one bolt at a time or tell us in minute detail everything we should do every minute of every day. Some people refer to the Bible using an acronym – Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.[5] Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth and while cute, the Bible is much more than that. The danger we have when we treat it as an owner’s manual is we are left rudderless when something doesn’t turn out as expected. Take for instance the book of James. In James 5:14-15, the Bible states, “14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well…” What happens then when that person dies? Does that mean we were not faithful enough? Hamilton told a story about a woman who had became angry with God because she believed in this promise, but when her son became ill he died anyways. He said, “The Bible now seemed to her a book of broken promises.”[6] We need to look at the Bible as a living document. It isn’t meant to address every problem in every age with exactitude. Instead the Bible is meant to help us understand the God we serve. It’s intended to give us a better perspective on how God intends for us to live and how we are to treat one another. It’s meant to give us a clearer picture of the people God meant for us to be. But it wasn’t meant to be an instruction manual given once for all time. If you were to read an instruction manual for the telephone back in the 1930’s it would read very differently than one today. That’s because an instruction manual is meant to be used only for a very specific time and place. To think the Bible was written like that would be very much the same thing – very limiting. Instead, the Bible is written more like our Constitution with different people interpreting it in different ways. Some take a more literal view of it, some take a more interpretative view of it, and together we struggle to hear the intent of our founding fathers in applying its principals today. For us as Christians we would say we struggle to hear the intent of our Founding Father in Heaven.
The Bible is a gift.
It’s a gift from God to help us grow closer to him and understand him. But like I said before, it’s not an owner’s manual. God gave you a brain and free will for a reason, in the hopes that you will make decisions that honor him. And how can you do that if you don’t know him? Read your Bible. Study it. Become a student of God if you aren’t already. And I hope that by studying the Bible, and discovering new truths about it, it will strengthen your faith and make you more confident in the God who inspired these writings. As it says in the last chapter of John, “30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
[1] More and more of the old characters are being “re-canonized” as fan favorites are leaking into the new rebooted universe. My favorite being Grand Admiral Thrawn, but another favorite, Luke Skywalker’s wife and former Red Guard Mara Jade remains outside of the official story. https://screenrant.com/star-wars-disney-canon-reset-problems-explained/ for more on Star Wars canon.
[2] I did find it interesting that even Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, never had a consistent view on what was “canon.” However, the debate about the Kelvin timeline was solved, even if some fans didn’t accept it.
[3] My personal favorite version of Superman is the one with Krypto the Superdog! I mean who wouldn’t love a super dog? This article from Comic Book Resources shares some of those 835 origins.
[4] http://www.crivoice.org/inerrant.html (This article about inerrancy gives a lot of clarification to the entire debate and how our view of modern inerrancy is different from what it was intended to be).
[5] Adam Hamilton, op.cit., p.8.
[6] Ibid, p.9.
From A Certain Point of View
When my youngest sister, Nicole, would cry, I would get up in the night and take care of her.
My room was right next to hers so I could hear her clear as a bell. The first time it happened, I asked why no one picked her up and my mom told me she needed to cry it out. But I couldn’t sit there and do nothing! How could I let her cry, not knowing if anyone cared, while tears rolled down her face? I couldn’t. Not when all I had to do was pick her up to get her to stop crying. The first time I did it, I got in trouble so I would sneak into her room…quietly lower the crib jail door…and rock her to sleep. A couple of times I even changed her diaper when it felt full. Once she fell asleep, I would lay her down gently and make my way back to my room. It only happened a few times. It’s not like I went in there every single night. But still, if you ask my family about it, they deny it ever happened. But my argument is this– how would they know? They were asleep! That’s the whole point!
It’s funny how people remember things differently.
From something as simple as helping my baby sister to huge historical events, different people remember things in different ways. Living in California, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II is pretty common knowledge. You may not know a ton about it, but I remember even in junior high we learned about it when we studied World War II. But when I was living in Georgia, most people I ran into either knew very little about it or didn’t know it happened at all. Cassie told me it wasn’t something they were taught in class even though it was a part of our curriculum out here. When I was serving at Roswell UMC right outside of Atlanta, I would share stories in Sunday school and worship about how the internment affected the lives of the Japanese American community and my family in particular and it took me by surprise how many people would come up afterward and talk about how shocked they were and how surprised they were to find out what happened. More shocking to me was how easily people would brush it aside and justify it as a reasonable reaction to the war. I wonder if they would think it so reasonable if their parents and grandparents were the ones locked up?
How we view the world and everything in it depends on a lot of things.
How we were raised. Where we lived. Who were our friends. What our parents believed. The biology of our bodies. Our own experiences. All these things and so much more shape our perspective and color our interpretation of everything around us. So, let me ask you this: Do you believe in OT God or NT God? Are you a fire and brimstone God believer or a God of hugs and love? Drastic oversimplification, I know. But how we understand God and view God depends on the lens through which we view life. One of the biggest difficulties we encounter in the Bible is the difference between the God of the Old Testament who at times seems cruel and angry, and the God of the New Testament filled with love and grace. Now there are plenty of times in the Old Testament where God shows grace and mercy. The hundred or so times that the people of Israeli abandon God and then come crying back to him when things get tough. God always welcomed them back. God saved his people and brought them out of slavery in Egypt. God provided manna and water literally out of the clear blue sky while they were wandering in the desert. But God’s wrath is evident in abundance in the Old Testament, and it makes us wonder, “Is God really like this?” Or is the God we follow the one we see in the New Testament that John describes for us in his letter to the church.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. – 1 John 4:7-15
This is the God we believe in.
But do we just ignore the God of the Old Testament because we don’t like what we see? Do we rewrite history because it doesn’t make us feel good? Or do we wrestle with it and try to understand the complex nature of God? These are both the same God. I think what troubles us most is how it sows seeds of doubt about God’s character and God’s existence. It is also the biggest hurdle for people to overcome in their belief in God. If you take the Bible to be the inerrant word of God (meaning that there are absolutely no mistakes), then there are two possibilities people rely on to justify God’s actions. One, that God as the author of life has the right to take it at any time he pleases. And two, the people God kills somehow deserve it.[1] But does that make it okay? A mother who gives birth to her child wouldn’t be justified in taking that child’s life simply because she gave birth to him, so why would we let God get away with it? Plus, it makes God awfully fickle when it comes to giving and taking life. When Hurricane Katrina hit, there were people who said it was God’s will against the sinful city of New Orleans, but can you tell me what the 10 recorded infants who died might have done to sin against God? Or the other 10 children who died along with them? And could we really say the people who died were among the most sinful in the city? All 971 of them? And that’s only according to one study.[2] Some have the death toll at twice that much.[3] Do we think God handpicked those people to die? And if so, why in that way? God, being almighty, could simply strike down the people he didn’t like. Look at what happened to Ananias. Luke tells us in Acts 5 that Peter simply accuses Ananias of lying to God and he fell over dead. If God was really going to strike vengeance, why not do it this way? What disturbs me most about the passage we read from Deuteronomy is that God is making the Israelites into his engine of death. Instead of doing it himself, he commands them to do the killing including every man, woman, and child for something they haven’t even done yet. Is this the God we follow…or could there be another explanation?
Perhaps the early Biblical writers got it wrong.
Not intentionally but maybe the writers of the Old Testament confused what God was saying with what fit into their idea of the world. As Hamilton wrote in his book, Making Sense of the Bible, “In this case, the biblical authors were representing what they believed about God rather than what God actually inspired them to say.”[4] We test this not by our own opinions, but what we know of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. When measured against that rubric it becomes easier to determine the way in which we are supposed to read Scripture and gives us a more reliable way of understanding what God is trying to say to us. But if that’s the case, then you might ask why include them in the Bible at all? What purpose do these passages of violence and destruction serve? Again as Hamilton points out, there are two possible purposes these passages might serve for us today: As a way for us to understand the times and context in which the early writers put these passages to papyrus and as a reminder and a warning to us how easy it is for people to “invoke God’s name in the pursuit of violence, bloodshed, and war.”[5]
Nothing is ever written without context.
Even as we read passages of the Bible, they are read in the context of our own life and experiences. We can’t help that. As human beings, we are limited by what we know and how we came to know it. That’s why the Bible is such an amazing piece of literature. It has stood the test of time because we have been able to view it through many different lenses and it still talks to us today. But we need to keep that in mind as well. The authors of the Bible as much as us who read it today wrote the Bible out of the context of their lives. In the times of the Old Testament, it was common for people to believe God sent them to war because that was very consistent with the beliefs of the time. It was also common for there to be contests between deities to prove their worthiness. This happened a lot in the Old Testament. It happened in the story of Daniel and King Nebuchadnezzar when Daniel interpreted the dream; between Elijah and the prophets of Baal when they had a contest between which God could light the wood on fire. It was a different way of understanding God. So when they spoke about God and then later wrote down these stories, it was from that frame of reference. Our frame of reference changes, too. Just as we used to believe that God sanctioned racism and sexism, we don’t believe that any more. If our understanding of God could change within the frame of our lifetime, isn’t it possible that the violence we read about in the Bible was how the early writers understood God at the time? Isn’t it possible that our understanding of God has changed over the years? And if that is so, then perhaps the Bible should be seen not as a static work, unchanging in both meaning and words, but instead as a living document that offers us insight into the character of God and our own troubled history. Read your Bibles. Even the most difficult parts of it. And challenge yourselves to discover what God is saying to you within its pages. Wrestle with what you find and do not be afraid, because even though we may turn in the wind, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
[1] Adam Hamilton, Making Sense of the Bible, p. 212 – Hamilton states directly that advocates for this view “speak of God’s authority to give and take life at will” and then prefaces the destruction of the Canaanites to their evil.
[2] http://www.dhh.state.la.us/assets/docs/katrina/deceasedreports/KatrinaDeaths_082008.pdf
[3] http://www.history.com/topics/hurricane-katrina
[4] Hamilton, p.213.
[5] Ibid, p.214-216.
Craig’s Library – Making Sense of the Bible Makes a Lot of Sense (book review)
Adam Hamilton is turning out to be one of the clearest voices for compassion and reason within the church today. He often tackles tough subjects with aplomb and sensitivity. In his book, Making Sense of the Bible, Hamilton helps us look at the Bible in light of the 21st century. Too often churches don’t bother to tackle the tough issues of the Bible or explore what it really has to say. But in this book, Adam isn’t afraid to go there.
Some of the topics that he addresses are things like science and creation; the violence of God in the Old Testament; homosexuality; and the reliability of the Bible. He offers well-reasoned arguments for his thoughts on the subject but always with enough grace to make his words easy to read for even the staunchest of opponents. What I love about this book is that it offers Biblically-based answers to questions people ask who are not part of the church. Often these are the things they wrestle with that keep them from joining any faith community.
He also goes into depth about the Bible itself – how it was put together, which books made it in, and two of my favorite chapters, the Old and New Testaments in Fifteen Minutes. He clears up for many some of the complexities about the Bible and helps both long-time church-goers and people exploring their faith for the first time to take a nice, long look at what we consider to be the most Holy book in Christianity. There are many misconceptions about the Bible, about what it says, and about how it is interpreted. Hamilton offers a compelling way to look at it that is grounded in sound theology AND a pastor’s heart.
I also appreciate the humble way he approaches the topic. In the introduction he writes, “Am I right in everything I say in this book? I’m certain I’m not. But the book is an attempt to honestly wrestle with the difficult questions often raised by thoughtful Christians and non-Christians concerning things taught in the Bible (p.5).” His examples come from a wide range of experiences. He talks about everyday people who have challenged his own perceptions of Scripture and admits that he too wrestles with its words. Reading it, I found myself nodding my head so often, hearing my own questions being addressed.
Making Sense of the Bible is a great book to base a sermon series on or for an indepth group study together.
Title: Making Sense of the Bible
Author: Adam Hamilton
Cost: $21.99
Age: Adult
Publisher: Harper One
Genre: Bible / Spiritual Growth
Craig's Corner 