God's word at 'The End'

I am re-posting a blog I wrote two years ago at the beginning of Advent.  

God’s Word at the End

Jesus said, “³¹ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.  ³² But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. ³³ Beware, keep alert; ^[f] for you do not know when the time will come” (Mark 13:31-33).  No one knows!  When it comes to the end of everything, Jesus asserts when cannot be known.

Scientists don’t necessarily agree.  National Geographic author Andrew Fazekas reports on a study that is based on science that projects the sun will grow hotter before burning out.[i]  The increasing temperature will burn out life on earth about 2.8 billion years from now.  And, the expanding sun may get so big it eventually engulfs our planet.

Can you imagine heat that obliterates an entire planet?  It is too big for me to be able to grasp the whole idea.  The author of 2 Peter did not have such conceptualizing difficulty.  Consider 2 Peter 3:10: ^“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed.”

I have previously read the projections from scientists that Fazekas cited and I have no reason to doubt them.  Based on the readings, perhaps the astrophycists are thoroughly correct.  What surprised me was how similar their description of the earth melting after the sun matures to “red giant” stage is to the way the Biblical author depicted the day of the Lord.  It is as if 20^th physics caught up to what Christians in the later first century knew. 

Of course I am being a bit playful here, but the point is God is in control.  Second Peter 3:8 says “with the Lord is like a thousand years.”  Some readers try to a make a code out of that and predict things.  So if we read in the Bible that something is going to happen in 3 days, that really means it will happen in 3000 years.  I think this may not be the best way to read 2 Peter 3:8.  I believe that verse is an indicator that God is not subject to time.  God’s purposes happen at God’s initiative and time has no bearing. 

We are subject to time.  We cannot transcend time or space.  God can and does.  God is unaffected by the possibility that the sun will heat up and expand and burn off our descendants a few million years from now.  Perhaps that is the way scientific observation accounts for what God has been planning all along.

Second Peter 3 is one of the prescribed readings for the second week of Advent (December 7, 2014).  These words about the end are joined to Mark 1.  There we see John the Baptist “preparing a way” for the Lord (1:3).  He was the set-up man.  Jesus is the Savior.  Because Jesus lived under God’s authority and is God in the flesh, the resurrected one, our hope suffers no setbacks by the realities of science.  In fact, when we are in Christ, our hope brings hope the entire world, in fact, to the universe.  God created this universe with all the natural phenomena in it.  God made it “good” and it will continue to exist under God’s watchful eye. 

In Advent, we remember that God is sovereign.  Through Jesus, the all-powerful God invites us into relationship.  We can celebrate the wonders of the universe and at the same time rejoice in our standing before God. 

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[i] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131028-earth-biosignature-doomsday-space-science/

Merry Christmas - to My Church Family

About my Church; we are a congregation that is relationally healthy.   There are many areas where we need to improve and grow.  However, we maintain true love for one another and a welcoming spirit.  It is an absolute blessing to be the pastor of this church.  Here is the short Christmas note I am sharing with my congregation:

Merry Christmas HillSong

            HillSong Church, I am very thankful that I get to be your pastor.  That God would call me to this place is a tremendous blessing.  I could cite all the international, state-wide, and local missions you support.  I could point to your consistent, enthusiastic appreciation of children’s and youth ministry.  I could celebrate the fact that our “seniors” (those folks 60-80 years of age) are ministry leaders in every area of church life.  All of these are things to be celebrated.

            However, beyond these things, what humbles me and makes me truly grateful are the relationships.  When I think about times with individuals in our church family, I thank God that I get to be part of it.  Some are good times – parties, graduations, weddings, or just a group going out to dinner, or to a movie, or to a Bulls game.  Some are trying times – long conversations in the hospital waiting room; lengthy dialogues over difficult theological and spiritual issues; leaning on each other in life’s disappointments.  Whether it is in the good times or in times of trial, when I walk through these times alongside you, the people of my church family, I know am with brothers and sisters in Christ.  I couldn’t ask for more than that.

            Thank you.  Thank God for you.  In 2017, continue growing as a church as your church staff, Enam, Heather and me, grow with you in love and in the work of bearing witness to the Gospel of Lord. 

-          Pastor Rob

Gospel Imagination (Jonah 4:1-11)

Sunday, November 20, 2016

            Jonah chapter 3 ends with God changing his mind.  God was going to wipe out the city of Nineveh.  However, when the people turned from their evils ways, God changed the plan.  Then chapter four begins, “this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry” (4:1). 

            Eugene Peterson writes “Jonah is quarreling because he has been surprised by grace.  He is so taken aback that he is disagreeable about it.  His idea of what God is supposed to be doing and what God in fact does differs radically.  Jonah sulks.  Jonah is angry.”[i]  Peterson goes on to say that Jonah is stuck in literalism.  Because God put the message of destruction in his mouth, then in his mind, it must play out only that way; no other outcomes occur to him.  Nineveh, one of the largest cities in the world, has to be obliterated.  Peterson observes that Jonah fails to see Nineveh.  He’s so caught up in a narrative in which he is one of the “good guys” because God is on his side and the Ninevites are “bad guys” that he never considers their humanity or their need for God.  He has no grief for their destruction because he does not think about them at all.

            Peterson is the scholar who translated the entire Bible into a colloquial vernacular that is very popular today – The Message.  He originally translated Paul’s short letter to the Galatians into everyday language in order to help the members of his own church better understand the scripture.  He did not intend to translate the entire Bible.  He was a pastor trying to liven up a Sunday school class and help the people feel the full emotion and effect of scripture. 

            Editors who had worked with him on other books persuaded Eugene Peterson to give up his pastoral ministry and dedicate his time to writing The Message.  His work conveys an understanding that the power of the Bible comes in the story.  In story, we can relate to God and see how past interactions between God and humans speak into our lives.  In Jonah’s case, it is the story of someone who thinks of himself as one of God’s insiders even as he disregards those he deems outsiders.  Peterson says Jonah is guilty of a failure of imagination.

            I know in my own life as a Christian, I have been guilty of this too.  From high school to college to seminary to full time ministry, I have always been inside the church.  That’s not the same as being close to God, but I often tell myself it is.  I worked a summer in the Ingersoll Rand factory Roanoke, pulling parts for the guys on the line who made heavy digging equipment.  I played football in highs school and a little bit in college.  I went through army basic training and spent six years in the National Guard.  I am familiar with the crass language of the barracks and the locker room.  But when I spent time in those earthy places, in my mind, I was a person from the church and of the church.   I was separate from those places even when I was there.

            Restricting my identity and my sense of God to so-called holy spaces, I failed to appreciate the transcendence of God and the love of God.  Inside the church, we worship God.   He is here.  But God is not bound by the church.  When we walk out the church doors and go other places, God is in those places too.  God was with me in barracks and in those factories where I worked between semesters.  If you had asked back then, “Was God present when with you all night as you pulled parts and took them to workers on the line,” I would have responded, “Yes.”  Mentally, I knew God was in all places.  But I wasn’t conscious to the possibility that God might actually be at work while I labored in uncomfortable steel-toed shoes at the Ingersoll-Rand factory.  It didn’t occur to me that great works of transformation could happen there because God loved those factory workers who weren’t, like me, going back to college in the fall. 

It didn’t occur to Jonah that God’s love was bigger than God’s judgment.  Yes, the Ninevites were wicked.  But so was Jonah.  So am I.  We all sin.  Our sins might be different than the sins committed by the ancient Ninevites or by attendees at a frat party or by poor Syrians recruited into ISIS.  In each case the specific acts of wickedness is different, but people in every walk of life in every nation sin, and God loves us in spite of our sins.  This is the Gospel.  Jesus died on the cross out of love for human beings.  In becoming human, he embraced the end of all humans – death – even though he never did what brings death; sin.  In his willingness to die and in rising from death, he defeated death and invited us to join him in resurrection, if we would receive forgiveness from him and follow Him as our Lord and Savior. 

We see this failure to imagine that God would turn around the lives of sinners in Mark chapter 2.  There Jesus calls Levi to leave his work as a tax collector and to follow Jesus as his disciple.  Levi is so overjoyed, he has a party and invites all his friends.  All his friends are tax collectors who became rich by overcharging people who were already quite poor, and prostitutes who – well, we know what they do – and, other miscreants.  Pharisees, the legal experts, aware that Jesus was partying with this motley crew, rejoiced. “Yes Jesus,” they cried, “you’re leading these lost people back to God!”

Actually, no, that’s not what the Pharisees said.  Actually they complained bitterly because, like Jonah, they perceived themselves to be part of the in-crowd, insiders with God.  They weren’t interested in helping society’s deviants to grow closer to God.  They were happy to let the lost stay lost and magnify their own reputations as holy men. 

How do we recover imagination?  How do orient our hearts so that when great acts of God’s grace are seen, we are ready to rejoice instead of complain?  I can’t go back to the factory or the locker room or the barracks and have a “do over” from those times I failed to keep my eyes on God’s glory and failed to help other see him.   Too often, I missed opportunities to be a witness in those places.  But today God gives me new chances see Him at work among people who don’t know him.  God is calling you and me to be part of his work of inviting hurting people to the healing and love he gives.  How can I be ready to join God in this work?  How can we change our outlook so that we show up at Levi’s party full of rule breakers able to relax among them and love them?  We don’t join the tax collectors and prostitutes in immoral behavior, but do we reach out to them in friendship because we believe God will work miracles in their lives.  How do get to the point where we can do that?  How can you and I learn to rejoice when we see Nineveh saved?

First, of course, we recognize that it is a work of God, thus we must draw close to God.  We pray, we worship, we stay in the scripture, we meet in small groups to discuss life and faith with other believers in our church family, participate in works of the church, and we eliminate from our lives activities that prevent us from living more faithfully.  All this is basic to knowing God better.

Second, we live with uncomfortable honesty about our own sins and this drives us to confession.  Deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re “not that bad,” whatever not that bad means, is a total waste.  We begin to be shaped by God when are unabashedly honest with him and with ourselves. 

Third, we live on the look-out.  This is where Gospel imagination can kick into overdrive.  Suppose you’re running errands.  Might God there, at Harris Teeter?  When you go in to buy eggs, bananas, tuna, and bread, do you expect to encounter God in the aisles?  No?  Why not?  He’s there.  He’s at the post office and at the auto mechanic’s garage.  When we leave the house in the morning, headed out to the most mundane of places, do we expect to encounter God in our daily comings and goings and are we prepared to join God when we see God on the loose in the world?  When we pass people at the grocery store, at the bank, at the mall – do we see potential for great works of grace?  No, not every trip to McDonald’s is going to be akin to going to the Mount of Transfiguration.  But, we go through our days thinking “this trip has the possibility for me to meet Jesus as I see his face in the faces of the people I meet. 

Stay connected to God through life in the church in order to know God more deeply.  Be brutally honest with God and with yourself about everything that’s in your heart and mind and comes out in your actions.  Live on the look-out, expecting to see God at any time, in any place.  There’s one more thing.

This one more thing is tough because it go against the way our society has conditioned.  As we watched all the election coverage, we were told how African Americans voted, how women voted, how the LGBT community voted, how white professional males voted, how working class people voted, how Hispanics voted; and on and on.  Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were each trying to become the first Hispanic president.  Bernie Sanders would have been the first Jewish president.  Hillary Clinton would have been the first woman president. 

Taking it away from presidential politics, in our daily interactions with people, do we notice?  Was that exchange in the parking lot at the library with a man, or with a Chinese man?  Would I say the General I saw on the news was a courageous, bold soldier, or would I say she was a courageous and bold for a woman?  Would I say the guy at the party was tremendous dancer, or I would I say, he could really dance, for a white guy? 

Staying in touch with God through devotion and through life in the church; being completely transparent with God and with ourselves; living in expectation that today, we’ll meet God; the fourth essential for recovering and then living in a Gospel imagination is the release of categories.  I don’t mean we’re color blind.  We should acknowledge the pains of African Americans, or indigenous Americans, or of different immigrant.  It would be an affront to Jews to ignore the Holocaust.  It would be akin to spitting in the face of black people to pretend slavery didn’t happen. We acknowledge cultural distinctives and we celebrate them.  We rejoice in the unique contributions and accomplishments different cultures make to the human tapestry.  In art, in music, in sports, in business, in technology, in food, in dance, in personality, in style and in a 100 other ways, different cultural expressions are to be championed. 

When I say that release of categories is essential for Gospel imagination, I mean, I cannot assume anything about you.  If you’re unshaven, wearing a Dale Earnhardt hat, a camouflage-styles coat, and muddy boots, I must not assume you are a dumb bumpkin because you might be smarter than me in 100 ways.  Maybe you’re a country person, but country folk contribute a lot to make the world better for everyone.  I dare not assume you’re a racist because wearing your books and camo-shirts, you may have done immeasurably more to fight racism than I have.  I cannot assume anything.  I will celebrate who you are, I will seek the face of God in your eyes, I will not bind you in some category, and upon meeting you, I will eagerly await the in-breaking of the Holy Spirit as you and I talk, however briefly.  The same would be true if you are black or if you are Asian or female or of a different economic background.  However we are different, when I meet you, I need to release categories and come believing God is about to show up. 

I heard Kelly McEvers interview white nationalist Richard Spencer on National Public Radio.  Spencer said he found nothing immoral about swastikas or the KKK.  He intimated that different racial groups in America should stick to their own kind and that the white kind, European Americans, should be the ones in power.  Many in America believe that with Donald Trump coming into the oval office, racists like Richard Spencer will gain power and nonwhites will be in some trouble.  I pray that this is not the case.  I think one response – the church’s response is to live in Gospel imagination.

We repel the ideology of Richard Spencer by living with arms wide open to all people.  She is not that black woman; she is my beautiful African American sister in Christ and when we get together we both believe something amazing can happen because God is in it.  When Spencer advocates for advancing the white race, we announce the Kingdom of God.  Where Spencer promotes segregation, we display our diverse unity – the full colors of God’s church.  Where white nationalist groups process down the street in a parade of hate, filled with the Holy Spirit, we lock arms with one another in a show of love. 

We even pray for Richard Spencer because we know that God took Saul the Christian-killer and turned him into Paul the church-planter.  Release him from the categories to which he clings.  His mouth speaks hatred, but he is a lost soul who needs Jesus.  We are free to see that even as we renounce his hateful words.  We are free to pray for Donald Trump because we know God is God in the white house and in Trump Towers.  God’s sovereignty reigns in those places, so those places, even there, can be a site of miraculous transformation.  We are free to go to Levi’s party of sinners and laugh and eat alongside Jesus as he loves people who need him.  We are free to sit with Jonah overlooking Nineveh, and we are free to rejoice in the mercy God has shown. 

America is in transition.  Acts of harassment and bigotry have been reported.  There’s an uneasy wind in the air and many are scared.  But there is another story to tell, the one in which God is God and is on the loose in the world.  Let’s tell that story.  Let’s believe all the things we say about God in our song and our prayers.  Let’s live that story. 

What’s going to happen this week?  I am not sure.  But I look and I see a lot of people who are going to walk out of here ready to love all people and ready to meet God in the simplest of places.  I see a people ready to cheer for the salvation of Nineveh, the people and the animals. 

What’s going to happen?  I don’t know, but God is about, so we will find out.

AMEN

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[i] E.Peterson (1992), Under the Unpredictable Plant, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids), p.157.

Gospel Imagination (Jonah 4:1-11)

Sunday, November 20, 2016

            Jonah chapter 3 ends with God changing his mind.  God was going to wipe out the city of Nineveh.  However, when the people turned from their evils ways, God changed the plan.  Then chapter four begins, “this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry” (4:1). 

            Eugene Peterson writes “Jonah is quarreling because he has been surprised by grace.  He is so taken aback that he is disagreeable about it.  His idea of what God is supposed to be doing and what God in fact does differs radically.  Jonah sulks.  Jonah is angry.”[i]  Peterson goes on to say that Jonah is stuck in literalism.  Because God put the message of destruction in his mouth, then in his mind, it must play out only that way; no other outcomes occur to him.  Nineveh, one of the largest cities in the world, has to be obliterated.  Peterson observes that Jonah fails to see Nineveh.  He’s so caught up in a narrative in which he is one of the “good guys” because God is on his side and the Ninevites are “bad guys” that he never considers their humanity or their need for God.  He has no grief for their destruction because he does not think about them at all.

            Peterson is the scholar who translated the entire Bible into a colloquial vernacular that is very popular today – The Message.  He originally translated Paul’s short letter to the Galatians into everyday language in order to help the members of his own church better understand the scripture.  He did not intend to translate the entire Bible.  He was a pastor trying to liven up a Sunday school class and help the people feel the full emotion and effect of scripture. 

            Editors who had worked with him on other books persuaded Eugene Peterson to give up his pastoral ministry and dedicate his time to writing The Message.  His work conveys an understanding that the power of the Bible comes in the story.  In story, we can relate to God and see how past interactions between God and humans speak into our lives.  In Jonah’s case, it is the story of someone who thinks of himself as one of God’s insiders even as he disregards those he deems outsiders.  Peterson says Jonah is guilty of a failure of imagination.

            I know in my own life as a Christian, I have been guilty of this too.  From high school to college to seminary to full time ministry, I have always been inside the church.  That’s not the same as being close to God, but I often tell myself it is.  I worked a summer in the Ingersoll Rand factory Roanoke, pulling parts for the guys on the line who made heavy digging equipment.  I played football in highs school and a little bit in college.  I went through army basic training and spent six years in the National Guard.  I am familiar with the crass language of the barracks and the locker room.  But when I spent time in those earthy places, in my mind, I was a person from the church and of the church.   I was separate from those places even when I was there.

            Restricting my identity and my sense of God to so-called holy spaces, I failed to appreciate the transcendence of God and the love of God.  Inside the church, we worship God.   He is here.  But God is not bound by the church.  When we walk out the church doors and go other places, God is in those places too.  God was with me in barracks and in those factories where I worked between semesters.  If you had asked back then, “Was God present when with you all night as you pulled parts and took them to workers on the line,” I would have responded, “Yes.”  Mentally, I knew God was in all places.  But I wasn’t conscious to the possibility that God might actually be at work while I labored in uncomfortable steel-toed shoes at the Ingersoll-Rand factory.  It didn’t occur to me that great works of transformation could happen there because God loved those factory workers who weren’t, like me, going back to college in the fall. 

It didn’t occur to Jonah that God’s love was bigger than God’s judgment.  Yes, the Ninevites were wicked.  But so was Jonah.  So am I.  We all sin.  Our sins might be different than the sins committed by the ancient Ninevites or by attendees at a frat party or by poor Syrians recruited into ISIS.  In each case the specific acts of wickedness is different, but people in every walk of life in every nation sin, and God loves us in spite of our sins.  This is the Gospel.  Jesus died on the cross out of love for human beings.  In becoming human, he embraced the end of all humans – death – even though he never did what brings death; sin.  In his willingness to die and in rising from death, he defeated death and invited us to join him in resurrection, if we would receive forgiveness from him and follow Him as our Lord and Savior. 

We see this failure to imagine that God would turn around the lives of sinners in Mark chapter 2.  There Jesus calls Levi to leave his work as a tax collector and to follow Jesus as his disciple.  Levi is so overjoyed, he has a party and invites all his friends.  All his friends are tax collectors who became rich by overcharging people who were already quite poor, and prostitutes who – well, we know what they do – and, other miscreants.  Pharisees, the legal experts, aware that Jesus was partying with this motley crew, rejoiced. “Yes Jesus,” they cried, “you’re leading these lost people back to God!”

Actually, no, that’s not what the Pharisees said.  Actually they complained bitterly because, like Jonah, they perceived themselves to be part of the in-crowd, insiders with God.  They weren’t interested in helping society’s deviants to grow closer to God.  They were happy to let the lost stay lost and magnify their own reputations as holy men. 

How do we recover imagination?  How do orient our hearts so that when great acts of God’s grace are seen, we are ready to rejoice instead of complain?  I can’t go back to the factory or the locker room or the barracks and have a “do over” from those times I failed to keep my eyes on God’s glory and failed to help other see him.   Too often, I missed opportunities to be a witness in those places.  But today God gives me new chances see Him at work among people who don’t know him.  God is calling you and me to be part of his work of inviting hurting people to the healing and love he gives.  How can I be ready to join God in this work?  How can we change our outlook so that we show up at Levi’s party full of rule breakers able to relax among them and love them?  We don’t join the tax collectors and prostitutes in immoral behavior, but do we reach out to them in friendship because we believe God will work miracles in their lives.  How do get to the point where we can do that?  How can you and I learn to rejoice when we see Nineveh saved?

First, of course, we recognize that it is a work of God, thus we must draw close to God.  We pray, we worship, we stay in the scripture, we meet in small groups to discuss life and faith with other believers in our church family, participate in works of the church, and we eliminate from our lives activities that prevent us from living more faithfully.  All this is basic to knowing God better.

Second, we live with uncomfortable honesty about our own sins and this drives us to confession.  Deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re “not that bad,” whatever not that bad means, is a total waste.  We begin to be shaped by God when are unabashedly honest with him and with ourselves. 

Third, we live on the look-out.  This is where Gospel imagination can kick into overdrive.  Suppose you’re running errands.  Might God there, at Harris Teeter?  When you go in to buy eggs, bananas, tuna, and bread, do you expect to encounter God in the aisles?  No?  Why not?  He’s there.  He’s at the post office and at the auto mechanic’s garage.  When we leave the house in the morning, headed out to the most mundane of places, do we expect to encounter God in our daily comings and goings and are we prepared to join God when we see God on the loose in the world?  When we pass people at the grocery store, at the bank, at the mall – do we see potential for great works of grace?  No, not every trip to McDonald’s is going to be akin to going to the Mount of Transfiguration.  But, we go through our days thinking “this trip has the possibility for me to meet Jesus as I see his face in the faces of the people I meet. 

Stay connected to God through life in the church in order to know God more deeply.  Be brutally honest with God and with yourself about everything that’s in your heart and mind and comes out in your actions.  Live on the look-out, expecting to see God at any time, in any place.  There’s one more thing.

This one more thing is tough because it go against the way our society has conditioned.  As we watched all the election coverage, we were told how African Americans voted, how women voted, how the LGBT community voted, how white professional males voted, how working class people voted, how Hispanics voted; and on and on.  Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were each trying to become the first Hispanic president.  Bernie Sanders would have been the first Jewish president.  Hillary Clinton would have been the first woman president. 

Taking it away from presidential politics, in our daily interactions with people, do we notice?  Was that exchange in the parking lot at the library with a man, or with a Chinese man?  Would I say the General I saw on the news was a courageous, bold soldier, or would I say she was a courageous and bold for a woman?  Would I say the guy at the party was tremendous dancer, or I would I say, he could really dance, for a white guy? 

Staying in touch with God through devotion and through life in the church; being completely transparent with God and with ourselves; living in expectation that today, we’ll meet God; the fourth essential for recovering and then living in a Gospel imagination is the release of categories.  I don’t mean we’re color blind.  We should acknowledge the pains of African Americans, or indigenous Americans, or of different immigrant.  It would be an affront to Jews to ignore the Holocaust.  It would be akin to spitting in the face of black people to pretend slavery didn’t happen. We acknowledge cultural distinctives and we celebrate them.  We rejoice in the unique contributions and accomplishments different cultures make to the human tapestry.  In art, in music, in sports, in business, in technology, in food, in dance, in personality, in style and in a 100 other ways, different cultural expressions are to be championed. 

When I say that release of categories is essential for Gospel imagination, I mean, I cannot assume anything about you.  If you’re unshaven, wearing a Dale Earnhardt hat, a camouflage-styles coat, and muddy boots, I must not assume you are a dumb bumpkin because you might be smarter than me in 100 ways.  Maybe you’re a country person, but country folk contribute a lot to make the world better for everyone.  I dare not assume you’re a racist because wearing your books and camo-shirts, you may have done immeasurably more to fight racism than I have.  I cannot assume anything.  I will celebrate who you are, I will seek the face of God in your eyes, I will not bind you in some category, and upon meeting you, I will eagerly await the in-breaking of the Holy Spirit as you and I talk, however briefly.  The same would be true if you are black or if you are Asian or female or of a different economic background.  However we are different, when I meet you, I need to release categories and come believing God is about to show up. 

I heard Kelly McEvers interview white nationalist Richard Spencer on National Public Radio.  Spencer said he found nothing immoral about swastikas or the KKK.  He intimated that different racial groups in America should stick to their own kind and that the white kind, European Americans, should be the ones in power.  Many in America believe that with Donald Trump coming into the oval office, racists like Richard Spencer will gain power and nonwhites will be in some trouble.  I pray that this is not the case.  I think one response – the church’s response is to live in Gospel imagination.

We repel the ideology of Richard Spencer by living with arms wide open to all people.  She is not that black woman; she is my beautiful African American sister in Christ and when we get together we both believe something amazing can happen because God is in it.  When Spencer advocates for advancing the white race, we announce the Kingdom of God.  Where Spencer promotes segregation, we display our diverse unity – the full colors of God’s church.  Where white nationalist groups process down the street in a parade of hate, filled with the Holy Spirit, we lock arms with one another in a show of love. 

We even pray for Richard Spencer because we know that God took Saul the Christian-killer and turned him into Paul the church-planter.  Release him from the categories to which he clings.  His mouth speaks hatred, but he is a lost soul who needs Jesus.  We are free to see that even as we renounce his hateful words.  We are free to pray for Donald Trump because we know God is God in the white house and in Trump Towers.  God’s sovereignty reigns in those places, so those places, even there, can be a site of miraculous transformation.  We are free to go to Levi’s party of sinners and laugh and eat alongside Jesus as he loves people who need him.  We are free to sit with Jonah overlooking Nineveh, and we are free to rejoice in the mercy God has shown. 

America is in transition.  Acts of harassment and bigotry have been reported.  There’s an uneasy wind in the air and many are scared.  But there is another story to tell, the one in which God is God and is on the loose in the world.  Let’s tell that story.  Let’s believe all the things we say about God in our song and our prayers.  Let’s live that story. 

What’s going to happen this week?  I am not sure.  But I look and I see a lot of people who are going to walk out of here ready to love all people and ready to meet God in the simplest of places.  I see a people ready to cheer for the salvation of Nineveh, the people and the animals. 

What’s going to happen?  I don’t know, but God is about, so we will find out.

AMEN

---

[i] E.Peterson (1992), Under the Unpredictable Plant, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids), p.157.

Responses to the Election of Donald Trump

Responses to the Election of Donald Trump

I have been tracking blogs, articles, and Facebook posts that are in response to the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States.  These come from a variety of sources, people of different backgrounds.  Some of the ideas in an article may contradict others ideas in other article that are the same list.  Polarization is happening.  How do we sift through the noise and love our fellow Americans? I hope these articles bring needed perspective.

From an African American minister who works for the New Baptist Covenant

https://baptistnews.com/article/for-the-church-a-call-to-be-bold/#.WCs64_krK01

From a Caucasian pastor (MDiv, Truett Theological Seminary)

https://welcomethekingdom.wordpress.com/2016/11/14/donald-trump-does-not-speak-for-christians/

https://welcomethekingdom.wordpress.com/2016/11/05/the-messiah-complex/

From a pastor’s wife, an African American woman, an author, and a blogger.

http://www.deidrariggs.com/2016/11/11/i-almost-voted-for-trump-and-i-almost-didnt-tell-you-about-it-yep-true-story/

http://www.deidrariggs.com/2016/11/15/living-after-in-and-for-a-repost/

From a Virginia Caucasian Pastor (Rappahannock River), Oxford trained theologian, and sailor.

http://www.matthewtennant.org/2016/11/what-next.html

http://www.matthewtennant.org/2016/11/despite-election-all-is-well.html

From a Caucasian historian (PhD, Columbia)

http://religiondispatches.org/white-evangelicals-win-white-house-for-trump-but-lose-big/?utm_content=buffere62d9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

From a Mexican, a seminary professor (social ethics).

https://baptistnews.com/article/the-great-white-backlash/?utm_content=buffer80ca0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#.WCp1m_krK02

From a Caucasian NYC drummer and a Christian.  He tours with a pretty popular band.

There is a lot to sift through when it comes to what happened last night.

For those that don't know the most basic information about me, I am a white straight male and I am grateful that I was born into a loving family. In the same way that being homosexual, of another race or born into a Muslim home isn't a choice, being in my demographic wasn't a choice. I have felt the weight of my privilege in the past but it took a Trump presidency for me to be more vocal about these feelings.

I am feeling let down and depressed, but what brings the greatest wave of sadness is the knowledge that my brothers and sisters who are part of the LGBT community, my friends and family who are of a different ethnicity or gender then myself, and those who are part of a religion that isn't Christianity are living in a country that is now lead by someone who doesn't see beauty, wisdom and truth in diversity.

We all need to listen more thoroughly and seek out as many opportunities as possible to put others before ourselves. We need to engage in love-centered conversations and through these see that we are all truly the same.

In the end, #LoveWins.

(Co-written) From an African American Doctoral Candidate/Professor of Homiletics & From a Caucasian Pastor and Board member (Baptist Joint Committee board of Directors)

https://baptistnews.com/article/the-black-male-the-white-house-and-the-white-knight/?utm_content=bufferdd52a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#.WCs9N_krK02 

From a Caucasian guy with a theological education (MDiv, Duke Divinity School, and who currently works in IT).

I have been on a Facebook sabbatical for the last 5 days while going through the stages of grief. I have never felt as devastated by an election, or as sad for my country. I honestly believe that during the modern era we have never had someone so unfit, and with such base character, be the President of this country (I have read that Ulysses Grant was a falling down drunk every night, so who knows the depths of previous “unfitness”). I also believe history will undoubtedly shine a very negative light on Trump’s invigoration of White supremacy hate groups, which is a legacy he has created and will have to own up in the end, and for which he needs to be held accountable. There is no place for hate in the future of our country, and I trust that the rest of the country will keep us from regressing too much, especially around race and LGBTQ. The immediate uptick in hate crimes is very disturbing, but hopefully will subside in a couple months (I dream it would stop right now).

But, I also know that a majority of Trump supporters are decent human beings, regular neighbors, relatives, and colleagues (although I may have none at my nonprofit job in DC), trying to raise their kids to be decent, nonviolent citizens. They may be blind to their white privilege (some are too poor to get any financial benefit out of it, although they still get a few social benefits), but for the most part, they don’t get up in the morning thinking of ways to persecute others. They just want to have a decent chance at life, and to not feel like the country has left them behind to live in poverty.

So, on the positive side, a group of people that have been forgotten by our country's political class (both Republican and Democrat), are now being heard more clearly. For too long they have been ignored. Although I fear they will be greatly disappointed because there are many deeply entrenched factors in global economies and political systems, and Trump’s administration already seems incoherent, if Trump and the Republican congress can help re-invigorate the Rust Belt, Appalachian country, and vast patches of rural USA, it will be a positive development. But, they won’t do it by becoming isolationists and protectionists -- just review history. 100% of the time, it leads to retrogression (e.g., European Dark Ages, Islamic isolationism, Chinese, Japanese, etc. They all went backwards and woke up to a world that had passed them by).

But, any improvement will also require them to look inward at themselves and make some self-improvements, especially around valuing education, creating stable and loving families, disavowal of addiction and violence, rejection of xenophobia and racism, and re-connecting to society at large by abandoning crazy conspiracies and unhealthy fixation on “Washington elites”. For those devastated communities, like the worst of our inner cities, they need self-empowerment, and outside help where necessary, to develop good social capital that builds decent communities.

Anyway, enough for now. And anarchists, stop rioting in my home state of Oregon - you only make things worse - and don’t represent our best values. Rioting will not solve anything.
Peace everyone.

From a Caucasian Research Assistant at Candler Divinity School

https://baptistnews.com/article/the-walking-dead-aka-night-of-the-living-evangelicals/?utm_content=buffer71b7e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#.WCs-WPkrK03

From an African American female author and Southern Baptist Church member

http://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/praying-for-our-president-elect

From a Caucasian Southern Baptist, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission

http://www.russellmoore.com/2016/11/09/president-trump-now-church/

From an African American Woman, Christian, blogger, author (Master of Arts in global studies)

https://ebonyjohanna.com/2016/11/13/lament-song/

Messiah in the Old Testament - some final thoughts (for now)

A Final Post on The Messiah in the Old Testament (Walter Kaiser)

            I am loathe to write this post because if you read my blogs regularly, you know at the beginning of 2016, I intended to write blog posts throughout the year reacting to Kaiser’s book.  He makes the case that anticipation of Jesus coming as Messiah (Anointed one of God, the Christ) is seen in the Old Testament.  According to Kaiser, from Genesis to Malachi, there is unmistakable evidence of the Messiah’s presence in the Old Testament.  I wanted to learn Kaiser’s perspective and share it with you, my readers. 

            I did OK through the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy) and I reviewed his assessment of OT books up through the Psalms.   Alas, time caught up with me.  Some of Kaiser’s meatiest work is done in the prophets.  In 2016, other interests (family life, church, study of racial dynamic in American life) took me away from working on writing my responses to the ideas in this book. 

            So now, I conclude by recommending that you go to Amazon (or whatever site you prefer) and get your own copy of Kaiser’s book. 

            I do offer this.  I have only recently come to appreciate just how important and controversial it is to think that New Testament concepts arose first in the Old Testament and then served as fulfillment of the Old Testament.  For Jewish people who do not believe Jesus is the Messiah, this is a great insult.  For them, the Old Testament is not “Old.”  It is “the Bible,” the Torah.  Some Jews may feel that their book was stolen from them by the same Christians who perpetrated the Pogroms and ignored the Holocaust.  I think the story is more complicated than that, but I want to be gentle with the feelings of others, especially those who have suffered enormous wounding in history.

            I want to respect the Jewish reading of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament).  I want to be in dialogue with Jewish friends and neighbors.  I want to learn about this sacred text from them; they’re the experts.  If I see something about the Messiah (Jesus as Messiah) in Psalm 22 or Genesis 3 or Isaiah 53, something my Jewish friends don’t see or refuse to see, I want to come to that knowledge humbly.  I want to hold that reading reverently and with no intent to marginalize or discard the Jewish viewpoint.

            At the same time, I recognize the absolute nature of this conversation.  Either Jesus is the Messiah or he isn’t.  I believe he is.  I believe His Holy Spirit resides in me and compels me to read the Hebrew Bible through Gospel-tinted lenses.  I believe what Kaiser says is true.  “A straightforward understanding and application of the text leads one straight to the Messiah and to Jesus of Nazareth, who has fulfilled everything these texts said about his first coming” (p.232).

            Thus, I live in this tension.  I want to love and respect my Jewish neighbor who says “Don’t undermine my Bible by insisting that its message is fulfilled in Jesus.”  At the same, I believe scripture (including the Old Testament) can be properly only when read in such a way that we see that the message points to Jesus.  The Bible is about God’s relationship with humanity, and God’s relationship with humanity is made whole through the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ, the Messiah.  I believe that with all my being, all my soul.

            I pray that conversations around this topic can be peaceful and friendly, even if they end in disagreement.

Book Review - Trilla Newbell "Enjoy"

The Blessing of Joy

            John Piper tells Christians that the chief end of man is “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”  In his book about how to live out this edict, how to reach our end, our goal, I feel like he’s barking at me.  Others have been greatly blessed by Piper’s writing on this, but in reading his book, I felt commanded by someone I had not authorized to have power over me. 

            In her new book “Enjoy,” Trilla Newbell whimsically invites me to live out this dictate of glorifying God and enjoying God forever.  By the time I reached the book’s end, I wanted to do just that.  Through art, exercise, nature, food, community, church, and sex (yes sex), I wanted to enjoy God by enjoying the gifts God gives and by seeing my true identity – who I am in Christ.  Newbell beautifully writes about disciplines of joy.  Where I was repulsed by Piper’s dictatorial tone, I was attracted to Newbell’s playful way of drawing me as a reader into her thought world.

            Truth be told, she actually is not inviting me to live out the life of enjoying God.  I am a man and Newbell writes for women.  I didn’t read the description of the author’s intent ahead of time.  I just plunged into the book because I had enjoyed the previous work I had read by the same author.  Not until I was well into the sex chapter did it dawn on me that this is a book for women, by a woman.  At that point, I felt mildly voyeuristic. 

            I don’t understand why women from conservative Christian backgrounds feel bound to write exclusively for women.  Everything in this book is needed by men just as much as it is needed by women.  I still found great benefit from the book.  And I encourage the author to write for everybody because she has things to say that we men need to hear.

"I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

The God Jonah Thought he Knew (Jonah 3:1-10)

This morning, we look at God – God’s character. 

Our presidential election ended in a result that shocked a lot of people.  Donald Trump had less total votes than Hillary Clinton, but he got the needed number of electoral votes.  By the standards of our system, he is our next president.  Some voters are very happy, others are quite upset.  Many didn’t like either candidate, would have been unsatisfied either way, and are kind of glad the whole thing is over.

All three types of voters are among us.   If you find yourself elated because your candidate won, please be humble, and sensitive with your brothers and sisters in Christ who feel differently than you.  They are hurting and this is church.  Here, our unity is in our identity in Christ.  We build one another up and bear with one another in love.  If your candidate lost and you feel angry, express it, but with dignity.  Respect those voted against your candidate because they are your brothers and sisters in Christ.  Again, we are the church, the body of Christ.  There is a place for thoughtful criticism and for expressing frustration.  We do all of it in love and work through our feelings in prayer, together.

As a church body and as individual Christ followers, we turn to 1 Timothy 2:1 which says,

“I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, ² for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. ³ This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, ⁴ who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 

            The word of God insists that we pray for “all in high positons.”  We will pray for the well-being and effective governance of President-Elect Donald Trump.  We will, out of our reverence for Christ, respect the office.  I have been voting in presidential elections since 1988.  In my voting life, I have voted Democrat, Republican, third party, and write-in.  At times I have deeply admired the occupant of the oval office.  At other times, I have harbored disdain for the person with the title President of the United States.  As Christians, we will respect the office.  As a people obedient to the dictates of scripture, we will pray for President Trump.  As followers of Jesus who turn the other cheek and pray for those who persecute us – we are called to love all people. 

It is our responsibility as citizens in a democracy to use our voice to advocate for justice, equal opportunity, and compassion for the least of these.  We can, and at time must, oppose the very government we respect and uphold in prayer.  But our opposition is to be peaceful, modeled after the example of our Master, Jesus.  We speak truth to power and we know our purpose is to be witnesses who point the world to the salvation we have in Jesus. 

Note that at the end of the 1 Timothy reading it says, “God desires everyone to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”  See the relevance of this idea – that God wants everyone to know the truth – to Jonah’s experience in Nineveh in Jonah chapter 3.  I pray that we can take this verse, 1 Timothy 2:4 (God’s desire for all to be saved), and we can hold that up to Jonah and God in Nineveh, and in doing this we will see God’s character.   We see who God is. I pray that focusing on God’s character will relieve us of any painful post-election hangover.  Keeping our minds on God’s identity and God’s character, we remember who we are in Christ.  The Kingdom of God is bigger than the United States, and the advance of the Kingdom of God is unthreatened by American presidential elections.

            Jonah chapter 3 begins the same way chapter 1 began.  God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh with a prophecy of doom.  We remember that Jonah at first ran away, was swallowed by a whale, prayed from the whale’s belly, and was then upchucked up onto the shore by the whale.  We previously mentioned that it is not completely clear why Jonah fled God at first.  Jeremiah also prophesied God’s wrath and hated doing so and suffered for it.  No one wants to be the bearer of bad news.

            When the call comes in chapter 3, Jonah goes as God instructs him.  He thinks he is going to see the city destroyed.  He will later claim that he knew all along that God would spare Nineveh, but I don’t buy it.  In chapter 4:5, we find Jonah sitting and waiting to see what will happen.    He said, “40 days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown.’  Jonah sits on the outskirts of the city, watching, waiting for the violent overthrow he’s predicted based on what God told him.

            Jonah believes he is like the prophet Nahum.  Listen to what God had Nahum say when he was called to prophesy against Nineveh.

“An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh. 

² A jealous and avenging God is the Lord, the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and rages against his enemies” (1:1b-2).

“Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away.  ‘Halt!  Halt! But no one turns back’” (2:8).

“I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will let nations look on your nakedness and kingdoms on your shame” (3:5).

            Nahum didn’t just preach wrath.  He preached humiliation.  On another Sunday, we might even call into question’s God’s ethics – at the least the ethics of the God we meet in Nahum.  Today Jonah is our focus.  He thought he was like Nahum, a preacher of a wrath that was inevitable.   He told Nineveh she was going to burn, and then sat on a hill to watch it happen. 

We can’t see what all of Jonah’s thoughts were, but he was unhappy with God’s show of compassion.  He wanted the prophecy he delivered to come true.  He had benefited from God’s compassion and forgiveness when he was rescued from the stomach of the whale.  He did not think that compassion would extend to the Ninevites. 

            As I imagined Jonah and God in Nineveh and things not going as Jonah thought they would, the story of Abraham and Sodom and Gomorra came to mind.  That is found in Genesis 18.

            There God, appearing as three men, promises Abraham and barren, post-menopausal Sarah they would have a son.  Sarah laughs off such a promise but God is committed to it and acknowledges but does not punish her laughter.   After Sarah laughs, God appears to have an interior conversation.  It is clear there is one God, but somehow this one God, appearing as trinity, is able to converse within God’s own self.  Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?  No, for I have chosen him” (18:18-19a).

            That thing that God is about to do is inspect two cities – Sodom and Gomorrah.  God will assess just how wicked those cities are.  Abraham already knows it is not good.  Destruction is inevitable, as Jonah said it would be centuries later for another wicked city, Nineveh.  So Abraham does what the great people of faith have done from time immemorial.  He challenges God.

            He asks God, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked” (Genesis 18:23)?  Abraham suggests that if 50 righteous people were found in the wicked cities, God’s own character would not allow such a thing. It is a stroke of boldness, to tell God almighty that He is bound by his own character.  “Far be that from you!”  Declares Abraham (18:25).  God does not chide his chosen one.  Rather, he agrees to Abraham’s terms.  If 50 righteous people are found, God will not overturn Sodom and Gomorrah. 

            Abraham is just getting started.  He asks, would God spare the city if 45 righteous are found?  Yes, for 45 righteous people, Sodom and Gomorrah will stand.  Abraham continues, whittling away at God’s resolve.  Forty, O Lordy, would you spare it for 40?  It reads like a Dr. Suess book.  For 30?  Yes, for 30, the cities will be spared.  Abraham take the number all the way down to 10.  God meets Abraham right where he is in his anxiety over the annihilation of two cities.  God accepts Abraham’s logic, tenacity, and confrontation. 

            The stories are eerily similar.  A man of God stands outside a city about to be razed to the ground by divine fire.  Abraham begs for the city to be spared if there is any way to spare.  God agrees.  But there is no way, and Sodom and Gomorrah are not spared.  They are eliminated by fire and sulfur that rain from heaven. 

            Jonah, like Abraham, stands outside a city.  Unlike Abraham, Jonah does not ask for mercy for the Ninevites.  Maybe he remembered the Sodom and Gomorrah story and thought he was going to see a repeat performance.  Instead the opposite happens.  God had promised Abraham he would spare Sodom and Gomorrah if even 10 righteous people were found there.  No righteous people are found in Nineveh.  But the wicked hear the message of the prophet and repent.

            First, the people hear Jonah, and they believe that he does represent God and is speaking truth.  God is going to destroy them (Jonah 3:4).  Upon hearing this, the people lead the way by putting on sackcloth.  The businessmen and shop owners going into a time of mourning and grief – grief over their own wickedness.  The farmers and the peasants and the homemakers.  Everyone all over Nineveh.  It is a movement – a movement of shame and sorrow. 

            Next, word of what’s happening makes its way to the palace.  The King gets off his throne and acknowledge that while he may indeed be king of Nineveh, he is not the all-powerful one.  He removes his royal robes and follows the lead of his subjects.  He repents of his sins.  He puts on sack cloth and pours ashes on his head. 

            Finally, that king makes a proclamation.  The nation will add fasting to their mourning in ashes.  He even takes the risky move of imposing the fast upon the livestock and children.  Everyone is to go without eating in a period of fasting.  Everyone is acknowledge and to grieve sin.  Everyone is to pray.  In a time of national crisis when the survival of the kingdom is at stake, the Ninevites believe the reluctant Jewish prophet Jonah and beg for mercy from God.  They accept that they are deserving of death.  They never doubt the authority or truth of Jonah.  They simply say, “Who knows?  God may relent and change his mind” (3:9).

            In that most curious of verses, Jonah 3:10, we see the character of God.  “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.”

            The book of Jonah is in our Bible to show us a different side of the God Jonah thought he knew.  A lot of people felt as Jonah did that a prophecy of doom would be followed by a fulfillment – Sodom and Gomorrah style.  Many ancient readers of Jonah who anticipated wrath forgot something God said to Abraham so many years earlier.  God told Abraham his descendants would “become a great and mighty nation, and all nations of the earth would be blessed by him” (Genesis 18:18).  Here Nineveh, deserving of wrath, is blessed by that God of Abraham.  Instead of wrath, Nineveh gets mercy and a second chance to live faithful, decent lives of justice and compassion. 

            Instead of seeing the God he expected, Jonah found a very different God.  First, he was rescued from a death in the seas; rescued in spite of his disobedience.  Then, Nineveh received mercy instead of punishment.  What will our country see in the God we actually meet in Jonah?

            If we are scared or at least unsteady based on what happened this week, we see that God is the one with the power to destroy nations, but also the one with the heart to forgive repentant sinners.  We can as a body and as individuals repent of sin.  Knowing God through the crucified, resurrected Christ, we know we will be forgiven.  We know we have new life and hope – hope for today.

            If we are confident in our own identity in Christ, then we are the messengers of today who, like Abraham, can appeal to God on behalf of others, and like Jesus can invite people to repentance and to the heart of the God who will welcome them into His Kingdom.   Abraham was the patriarch and Jonah was a prophet.  We are witness who inherit the testimonies of both men and the Gospel from Jesus.  We share that Gospel by creating space in which we welcome, shelter, and encourage scared people. 

            Either scared or confident, you can put your trust in God this morning.  Things may seem chaotic, but he is with us, always.  He is with us, we are his, and we can be agents of positive change.  Giving mercy, speaking real hope, and helping people meet Jesus is a good place to start.

AMEN