A Time to Reflect . . .

Brennan Manning poses a very interesting challenge. Let's listen in:

"To ascertain where you really are with the Lord, recall what saddened you the past month. Was is it the realization that you do not love Jesus enough? That you did not seek his face in prayer often enough? That you did not care for his people enough? Or did you get depressed over a lack of respect, criticism from an authority figure, your finances, a lack of friends, fears about the future, or your bulging waistline? Conversely, what gladdened you the past month? Reflection on your election to the Christian community? The joy of saying slowly, 'Abba, Father?' The afternoon you stole away for two hours with on the gospel as you companion? A small victory over selfishness? Or were the sources of your joy a new car, a Brooks Brothers suit, a great date, great sex, a raise, or a loss of four inches from your waistline." (The Importance of Being Foolish, 2005)

Convicting, isn't it? Advent is a time for reflection. We're called to think about our lives in light of Christ's love and truth. Brennan Manning suggests, with this quote, that we need to audit our lives and ponder upon the question, what makes us happy? Learning to love more faithfully? Spending time with the hurting? Helping those in need? Or, getting our way? Another pair of shoes? Another app for the iphone? What do we celebrate?

As I've often said before, conversion is a transformation of our desires. With God's faithful guidance and empowerment, our desires are redirected toward a noble end--the glorification of God and the enjoyment of His goodness through creation and community. Something to think about.

Peace.

Love and Knowledge

When thinking about the day of the Lord, Paul has one simple desire: He wants his churches to be holy in love (1 Thessalonians 3, Philippians 1). In last Sunday's text (Phil. 1), Paul prays for the church's love to increase in knowledge and insight, making them discerning and equipped to be holy and blameless on the day of Christ's return.

Paul continues this thought throughout his letter. In chapter 2.1-3, he calls them to be of the same mind, having experienced the goodness of God. Then he holds up Christ's sacrifice as an example and calls the church to have the same mind (2.5). He also calls those who are mature to be of the same mind (3.15). And when addressing two women leaders who can't get along, Paul urges them to have the same mind in the Lord (4.2).

All of this suggests that our love needs to be sharpened by a renewed understanding of what it means to love and live together in fellowship. I believe this poses a challenge for us because our understanding of love is rather anemic. We love just about everything in our culture, mostly that which makes us feel good. I love ice-cream, we scream. I love to run. I love chocolate. I love American idol. Don't you just love that leather coach. I love my new house. On and on the list could go.

Unfortunately, this feeling-based love has little to do with Christian love. Christian love is sacrificial. It is a love that seeks the well-being of others, a love that considers others first. Christian love is not sympathy or pity, both of which tend toward mere sentiment, but it is compassionate, which moves toward action. Christian love is deep, tough, substantive, and gracious.

This compare and contrast example is only one idea. There are other ways in which our understanding of what it means to be loving needs to be audited and challenged. So the call remains--we must let our love increase in knowledge and insight so that we can love as God has called us to love.

Peace,

David S.

A House of Prayer for All Nations

I trust the significance of last Sunday's service was not lost on anyone. It was a real pleasure to gather with the Indonesian congregation in worship and to sing songs in another language. The experience made me reflect upon a couple of themes that are dear to my heart.

To begin, I believe that when people of all nations come together in worship, we are witnessing to the power of the gospel. In Ephesians, Paul states the church reveals the wisdom of God to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places (Eph. 3.9-10). No doubt, part of what Paul is describing here is a church of Jews and Gentiles who have come together in peace--"For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us" (Eph. 2.14). Here we see the church showing the world what God wants the world to be like, for at the end of the time, the nations walk in the light of the glory of God (Rev. 21.24).

All of this reminds me of a challenge the early Christians faced. Many of their opponents knew the prophecies of the Old Testament. They argued that many of these prophecies are unfufilled so Jesus must not be the Messiah. The opponents argued from a passage like Isaiah 2.1-5 that when the Messiah comes, there must be peace among the nations. But look around, these opponents continued, there is no peace among the nations, therefore, Jesus is not the messiah.

The early Christians responded by saying, You're wrong, look at the church, there you'll find people coming together from different tribes and languages to worship the one true God in glory. In responding to an opponent who utilizes the Isaiah 2 passage against the Christians, Origen states:

"This house is exalted 'above the hills' which are those men who seem to profess some exceptional ability in wisdom and truth. 'All nations' are coming to it, and 'many nations' go, and we exhort one another to the worship of God through Jesus Christ which has shone out in the last days, saying: 'Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will proclaim to us his way and we will walk in it.'"

Similarly Justin wrote in the second century the following:

'That this prophecy [Isaiah 2.1-5], too, was verified you can readily believe, for twelve illiterate men, unskilled in the art of speaking, went out from Jerusalem into the world, and by the power of God they announced to the men of every nation that they were sent by Christ to teach everyone the word of God; and we, who once killed one another, [now] not only do not wage war against our enemies, but, in order to avoid lying or deceiving our examiners, we even meet death cheerfully, confessing Christ."

The early Christians pointed to the church as proof that the Messiah had come. In the church, there should be peace among the nation; and when there is, we show the world what God intends for the world. We become an appetizer to the great heavenly banquet.

So I hope that you share this vision, and that you want to build up the church, by learning to love all people from all nations. This is our call, this is our task.

Peace.

More Thoughts on "The Missy Question"

I'm still thinking about evil in creation as it relates to the Missy question--"God, if you can't take care of Missy, how can I trust you to take care of me?" I think it might be helpful to include some very lengthy quotes from David Bentley Hart. These are taken from a collection of essays in his book, In the Aftermath.

In the first quote he's challenging the belief that Christians must believe God is behind everything--the good as well as the evil, or that God needs evil and pain to prove how good he is. He's writing about the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 2004 that destroyed towns and villages. Let's listen to his closing remarks.

"I do not to believe Christians are obliged--or even allowed--to look upon the devastation visited upon the coasts of the Indian Ocean and to console themselves with vacuous cant about the mysterious course taken by God's goodness in this world, or to assure others that some ultimate meaning or purpose resides in so much misery. Theirs is, after all, a religion of salvation; their faith is in a God who has come to rescue his creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so they are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred. For while Christ takes the suffering of his creatures up into his own, it is not because he or they had need of suffering, but because he would not abandon his creatures to the grave. And while we know that the victory over evil and death has been won, we know also that it is a victory yet to come, and the creation therefore, as Paul says, groans in expectation of the glory that will one day be revealed. Until then, the world remains a place of struggle between light and darkness, truth, and falsehood, life and death; and, in such a world, our portion is charity." (116)

I want you to listen carefully to what he's saying here. This is a very Wesleyan perspective, one that liberates us from having to believe that God sends pain to teach us lessons or even that God needs evil for some greater good. The struggle this side of heaven is real. And truth be told, we will lose some skirmishes, but we won't lose the war. The not yet victory has already been won in the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the meantime, while we wait for the final victory, our job is charity--to witness to God's grace and love.

But there's more that needs to be said. Let's listen again to David Hart:

"As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child I do not see the face of God, but the face of his enemy. It is not a faith that would necessarily satisfy Ivan Karamazov, but neither is it one that his arguments can defeat: for it has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. We can rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history's many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that he will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, he will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes--and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and he that sits upon the throne will say, "Behold, I make all things new."

Amen to that. Let us rejoice in the hope that we have.

Peace.

The Missy Question

As we continue our series entitled "Reflections on the Shack," we have to deal with the Missy question. Mack asks God, "If you can't take care of Missy, how can I trust you to take care of me?" This question embodies much of Mack's pain. At the core of his being, Mack no longer believes that God is good. Mack can't bring together these two words--pain and providence. They don't fit together when he first enters the shack.

You see, Mack believes, at the start of the book, that God must be behind everything--the good and the bad, justice and injustice. So Mack assumes that God must have played a part in Missy's death. Mack even asks, God, did you take Missy away from me for the way I treated my father? Mack believes God sends evil and he authors wickedness . . . to make a point.

This view creates some very troubling questions. Does God take away loved ones? Is disparity part of God's plan?--some children have everything, some won't see their first birthday. Does God send pain to teach us spiritual lessons, as some suggest? In other words, does God need evil to show how good he is?

I can't buy this. Can you?

Thankfully, there is an alternative. Mack soon discovers, as he journeys with God in the shack, that God is not behind everything. God reveals to Mack that in world where freedom is a reality, freedom can be abused. If freedom is real, the consequences have to be real as well. If God takes away the consequences, he must also take away the freedom. He gave us freedom because he wants to be freely loved, and we've abused it. This world is marred by our sin. Humans are at the pinnacle of creation, which means when we abuse our freedom and reject God's love, we unleash evil forces in all of creation.

All of this means, we don't have to believe that God's hands are wrapped around steering wheels or that his fingers are on triggers. We don't have to look into the death of a child and try to discern the face of God. We don't have to look at disparity and try to talk about the inscrutable purposes of God.

Instead, we can hate evil, wickedness and injustice with a perfect hatred. We can state clearly that this is not what God intends. Death is the final enemy to be defeated. There are still forces opposed to God's purposes.

The good news: these forces are being overcome. Our salvation is about redemption and rescue.

Peace.

The God Who Heals

It was a rough Sunday in my estimation. The sermon (10-4) was a little flat.

Let me restate it as briefly as I can. God wants to heal us by setting us free from sin and evil so that we can love and be loved. Read that one more time. It's important that we understand it.

You see, we believe sin separates us from God and from one another. Evil, the evil done to us and the evil we embrace, does the same thing; it weakens the intimacy we can enjoy with God and with others. If this is true, then salvation is being reconciled to God as well as to one another.

Luke's gospel points us in this direction. In Luke's gospel we discover that salvation is holistic. The word saved is often translated as made whole or made well (cf. Luke 8.48). Furthermore, we discover that many people that are healed and made whole again are set free for community life--the leper (Lk. 5), the woman with blood disorder (Lk. 8) and the woman bent over by evil (Lk. 18).

I believe we can relate to this. Our sin makes us like lepers, it keeps us from others. The evil in our lives does the same. Does it shock us then that God wants to set us free so that we can do what we really want to do, love others in joy and freedom? It doesn't shock me at all. God's mission is one of healing--the healing of the world and the healing of our lives.

I believe this is the movement we find in The Shack as well. Mack needs to be set free from his pain, evil, and his idolatry (the ways he's made God in his own image). In meeting God, the real God he is now free for love.

We need to pursue the same movement in our own life. We need to pursue health. You can't be too passionate about your own health. So here's my challenge. I want you to think about the things that keep you from others. What keeps you from loving? Shame? Guilt? Poor self-image? Pride? Arrogance? Fear? Work on these sins as the Spirit leads and transforms. Peace.

Papa's Womb-like Compassion

We finally began our series on The Shack. Last Sunday we delved into what many people find offensive about this book--it's portrayal of God. If you've read the book, you know what I'm talking about. God reveals himself to Mack, the main character, as an African American woman who loves to cook and is fond of everyone she speaks of.

Though many people have been offended by this picture, it never really troubled me. In scripture we discover maternal images of God. Read Isaiah 49.15-16 as well as Isaiah 66.13. Also, the Hebrew word for compassion used frequently in the Old Testament is the same root word for womb. Psalm 103.13 states "As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him." The word compassion used in this verse is derived from the word womb. In other words, Papa has a womb-like compassion for his children. This is a powerful image trying to communicate the fierce and loyal love of the Lord!

Am I advocating that we call God mother? No, I'm not. Scripture never does. However, what we have to recognize is that all of our language about God is metaphorical. Our words and pictures never contain God, they only point to God. So envisioning that God loves us like a mother loves the offspring of her womb is a good way to understand God's embrace.

And that's really the point I was trying to make. God does love us. He is good to us. We must let that love descend to the very core of our being.

Peace.