February 29 - Confronting the Unusual

From the distant past I remember an episode of the Howdy Doody Show in which the Indian princess Winter Spring Summer Fall had a birthday. It was only her fourth, yet she was a teenager. The entire show was centered on trying to figure how this situation could be. The mystery kept little folks like myself glued to the television while the search went on to find the answer.

The program reinforced the fact in young scholars that leap year and with it the date February 29 only comes once every four years. It is an unusual day caused by the irregular calendar we are forced to maintain. It throws off our sequence of days in the month. It keeps years from looking just alike. The unusual causes us to adjust our schedules, and for some people even their birthdays.

The unusual in our lives gives us both reason to celebrate and reason to feel dread. Routine can become so comfortable. It provides stability and assurance of reasonable expectation. When the unusual comes into our lives, we are forced to adjust, react, or intentionally ignore, all of which disrupts our routine.

Yet it is the possibility of the unusual, the uncommon, that can make tomorrow a thing to be anticipated or feared, rather than not considered at all. Tomorrow will not be like today. It will not be like yesterday. Our world will change. We will be a day older. What could have been accomplished today but wasn't will have disappeared into the past and be beyond our reach forever. We plan most often because we want something different to happen. Maybe we can describe what we want. Maybe we are trying only to create the context for something unexpected to happen. Whatever the case may be, we want the different, the uncommon, the unexpected, the routine disruptor to occur. We find the uncommon, the unusual satisfying our dissatisfaction.

This same motivation should be visible in the lifestyle of the Christian and the local church. Routine does not get the job done. Living the life of the world does not please God. We need the disruption that causes us to reevaluate what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how we are doing it. We need the uncommon, the unusual to shake us out of our complacency and satisfaction with the common and mundane.

A February 29th in the life of a Christian might be an opportunity to provide shelter for a homeless individual or family, to provide food for someone who is hungry, or to sacrifice something of value for someone who will never tell us they are grateful. A February 29th might be deciding to live a simpler lifestyle and give away what we have saved, focusing upon enriching the spirit instead of the bank account, or adopting the role of servant instead of master.

A February 29th for a congregation might be changing from a local church perspective to a Kingdom perspective. The unusual occurrence might involve focusing prayer more upon the unsaved than upon the physically unhealthy. A February 29th could lead to a congregation making a priority of every member being a minister rather than looking to the paid or ordained staff to carry on the work of the Body of Christ.

On our calendar the unusual comes around every four years. In the life of the Christian attuned to the voice and work of the Holy Spirit, the uncommon is there to be discovered every day. One tradition of February 29th is to offer a woman a chance to propose marriage to the man of her choice instead of waiting for him to take the initiative. A woman needs only to be bold enough to take that step. A February 29th can offer us bold, new opportunities.

The Holy Spirit does not wait for four years to offer such an occasion. He calls us to open our eyes and look around us. He calls us to see the hungry being fed with two fish and five loaves of bread. He calls us to see the hurting being made whole. He calls us to see the condemned being offered forgiveness and hope. The unusual is waiting for us to join in the experience and risk a different tomorrow.

Thoughts on Ash Wednesday

A long church tradition is to use the season of Lent as a time of personal evaluation and repentance in preparation for celebrating Holy Week and Resurrection Sunday. Sacrifices for the six weeks of Lent have included types of food, a variety of social or entertainment activities, or ways of spending money. I'd like to suggest a new category for personal sacrifice, actions that we should not be doing now and should not restart after Lent is over.

Being the imperfect beings we are, this list could be quite extensive. The benefits of giving up something that should not be restarted can include improved health, improved relationships, and improved spiritual development all of which will put us in a better position to honor God each day. If you plan to sacrifice something for Lent anyway, why not make it something that will be good for you to avoid the rest of your life?

Such a practice is good not only for the individual but also for a church. The individual looks to Jesus Christ for an example and says that is what I ought to be. What do I need to give up to become more like him? The local church looks at the churches in the Book of Acts in the Bible and God's plan for the Bride of Christ and sees them in action in ways that most honor God. The same question applies. What can the local church stop doing that will allow it to fit into God's plan for his family?

Anyone can make their own list of negatives that need to be dropped for Lent and rejected for a lifetime. Here a few of my suggestions for consideration:

1. Talking before thinking
2. Looking for someone else to blame
3. Looking for someone else to do your work
4. Accusing before seeking to understand
5. Seeing other people as objects to be used for personal gain
6. Acting with personal benefit always as a priority
7. Making decisions based on immediate gratification
8. Refusing the servant role
9. Demanding your rights regardless of consequences
10. Living as if decisions related to personal health and the environment have no impact on a relationship with God, society, or future generations

The list for a church can be just as long.

1. Making excuses for lack of action supporting the Kingdom of God
2. Criticizing other Christian groups/churches without seeking understanding
3. Comparing self to other churches
4. Accepting a maintenance mentality
5. Deciding that the condition of church facilities is not worthy of spiritual concern
6. Deciding that the condition of church facilities is the most important spiritual concern
7. Allowing the most outspoken person to be the most influential person
8. Allowing the oldest or largest or wealthiest family to set the direction for the church
9. Deciding that the condition of the physical world is God's concern, not the church's
10. Deciding that the church has no place in determining the moral condition of society

I have no doubts that we would all be better off as individuals and our churches would be more effective in sharing the gospel if we would enter the time after Easter having left these or  similar attitudes and actions in the pre-Lent past.

Even the New Has Some Old

Jesus uses a parable in which he tells of a householder who takes the old and the new out of his treasure chest. He shares this brief story in the context of teaching his disciples the importance of being trained for service in the Kingdom of God. Such wisdom as shown by the householder is not for religious leaders only, but for all who would serve the Kingdom in a God-honoring way, individuals, churches, and larger organizations alike.

We all have a past. Describe it in any way you wish, you still have a past. Some or most you may have forgotten or tried to forget, but you still have a past. Parts of your past may be remembered better by others than your self, but you still have a past. Your past may be dominated by your own initiated actions, or it may be the result of your response to the actions of others toward you. Either way you have a past.

The same can be said of a local church. As soon as someone has a dream of starting a local body of believers, a past has been formed. It will only grow with time, being filled with a wide variety of events and experiences. Conventions both large and small pass through the same dynamic. A past is created that cannot be altered or removed. It is locked in the pages of history.

The past or history of an individual or church cannot be ignored. Denying it will not change its truth. The past of an individual or church is always there lingering just at the edge of the present exerting its influence, whispering in a small voice about what has been and what might have been. It contains both jewels and cinders, both gold and pot metal. They all reside in our past influencing how our decisions in the present will determine our future.

Jesus pointed out that a wise servant of the Kingdom will look at everything in the past and decide what is valuable for the present and what is not. The wise servant will see how the old and valuable compliments or merges with the new and valuable to create something more valuable yet. That which is of little or no value will be placed aside for its value may not be in the present but may well reveal itself in the future.

Our Creator-God did not stop his process of creation in the first couple of chapters of Genesis. Through his prophets he spoke often of doing something new, something the people would not expect. In Jesus something occurred that was so new that few people recognized what had happened. In the birth of the Church (Acts 2), a living creation came into existence that could not have been anticipated except through the deepest insights of faith.

In all these there had been earlier signs that something wonderful was to happen. God was working with what was, introducing something new, and bringing forth a radical creation that revealed his glory and power in a way as never before. Something old combined with something new brings forth the awesome moment.

A new vision of the future can never be separated from the past out of which it springs. It is grounded in a response to what has been and an initiation of action toward what could be. God calls the individual to learn the agony and the glory of the cross. God calls the church to testify to the faith of its founders and then speak in a new language that its contemporary world will understand. That church will bring the old out of its past and meld it into the glory of the present and offer a testimony that will speak clearly of the timeless glory and love of God.

Is your church using both the treasures of the past and creations of the present? Can our conventions be said to be bringing the best out of the past, combining it with the best of the present, and through that produce a witness in our world that offers hope to all regardless of whether it is received or rejected?

The Kingdom scribe understands how God has spoken in the past, hears how he is speaking in the present, and is at work to make sure that the word of God is heard and understood now and into the future. God calls all of us to be careful but also to be bold as we search through the treasures of our past to develop the witness that is needed for the future.

Faith in a Future

Recently I attended a special service at a local church. The congregation placed a time capsule in the ground near the corner of the their church property one hundred years after they were founded. Over 60 individual family packets plus items representing the church as a whole were included. The date the capsule is to be opened is January, 2112.

A proverb of our day is recorded this way, "Every seed sown is a prayer of faith for tomorrow." In my own remarks on that day, I noted that as one who was raised on a farm and was now standing among farmers, no one ever planted seed and expected to gather the harvest in one day. Time had to pass and work had to be done to insure there was a chance for reaping a mature crop.

Along with all that work there was also a measure of hope that things would go well with the elements that were out of the farmer's hands, primarily the weather. He could prepare the soil, plant the seeds at the proper time, plow out the weeds, and make sure the harvesters were ready when the time came. Yet the growth itself was out of his hands as surely was the weather.

So it was for the faith of this congregation as they lowered that time capsule into the ground. They performed this symbolic act in faith that a congregation would gather one day a hundred years in the future and raise that box in the midst of a worship celebration. That future congregation would celebrate 200 years of faithful work in the name of the Lord. Part of their celebration would be to give thanks for the people who served the Lord in faithfulness a hundred years earlier and made their own present a possibility.

For that generation to be there to open the capsule, however, like the farmer planting the seed, work must be done between now and the time of the harvest. The current generation must be faithful in its spiritual growth and ministries. It must be faithful to teach its children and the generation that follows the proper path in following their Savior. This generation must teach by word and example. This generation must teach the next generation to do the same.

The work of farming does not stop because the seed is in the ground. The hoe and the plow must be put to use. The crop must be protected from straying animals. Pests and weeds must be controlled. The workers must be ready when the time comes to bring in the harvest.

So it is with each one of our congregations. We must create healthy and fertile climates in our spiritual families that will nurture the seeds we plant. We must know what seed we are planting and then be diligent to plant when the time is right. We must recognize what is not of the spirit of Christ and eliminate it from the family of God. At the same time we must recognize that we cannot reach sinners if we send them all away. As Jesus noted, you must be careful how you pull up the weeds lest you destroy the grain (Matthew 13:24-30).

We must teach our people to bring in the harvest, to be prepared to share the gospel and lead someone to the Good Shepherd, the Prince of Peace. We must teach them to have compassionate hearts, sensitive souls, and minds that are submitted to the Holy Spirit. We must teach them to teach those who will follow after them so those will teach others in generations yet to come.

How sad it would be that the time capsule so carefully covered by faithful hands should one day be uncovered by a bulldozer clearing ground for a new building unrelated to a worshiping congregation because that church no longer existed. How sad it would be if one generation chose not to do the work of cultivation and so the crop died in the field bearing no fruit. How sad that the fruit of a congregation's faith disappeared leaving nothing but a note in a history book.

It doesn't have to be that way. The harvest could be thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold. It takes work, it takes commitment, and it takes faithfulness. We are all leaving a time capsule in the lives we touch. Who will find them, and when opened will they be more than an odd curiosity?

A Matter of Absolutes

The recent court case in Canada involving the death of four women raises the eternal questions concerning what is right and what is wrong and who gets to decide. This is no light matter as it is at the heart of the story recorded in chapters two and three of Genesis that includes the first sin committed in the Garden of Eden by those elders of ours. As the story goes, God says this is right and that is wrong. Those first people made the decision that they had as much right to decide those issues as their Creator. We've been struggling with that question ever since.

Can the appeal to moral absolutes bring order to society? Can we have an orderly society without an appeal to moral absolutes? How do we have an orderly society when different people appeal to different sets of absolutes? That is a major issue in the Canadian murder case. Though the defense said a terrible accident occurred, the moral absolutes to which some appeal in their interpretation of their religious law say that if the surviving family members are guilty of killing the victims, they were in their rights to protect the honor of their family against the sins of those who strayed. Note that leading Islamic leaders in Canada, America, and in Middle Eastern Muslim countries reject any foundation for honor killing in Islamic law.

The conflict of differing moral absolutes will increase in western culture as it is impacted by those whose moral bases come from a different tradition of whatever origin. Each national system of justice will have to determine if it can exist with competing moral traditions. If not, then someone on some basis will have to decide which moral system prevails regardless of the roots of that system.

When there is no such moral authority to which a group can appeal, the result is the image given in the last verse of the Book of Judges in the Bible. "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes." (RSV) In such circumstances the law of survival soon becomes paramount. Call it the survival of the fittest, the Law of the Claw and Fang, or might makes right. The results are the same. The strongest in will and physical resources will almost always determine what is right and what is wrong, what are to be the laws of the land.

Without moral absolutes built into the foundation of a nation that determine what is right and wrong, then an appeal can be made to any system to justify what someone wants to do. Perhaps the appeal can be made to situational ethics. The circumstances determine the response. Decisions could be culturally based, varying across societies and generations. Left to this standard we are forced to redefine our concepts of order and chaos.

The case in Canada called into question the proper response to a situation when two systems of absolutes confronted one another if indeed the deaths were not accidental. In this case what constitutes justifiable homicide. Does saving family honor justify killing the one who is seen as bringing shame on the family? Though the defense claimed accidental death, the court decided the family members' deaths were the result of premeditated murder. In other cultures the premeditation would have been seen as justifiable for the sake of family honor. Under Canadian law such reasoning was rejected.

When moral absolutes are allowed to come into conflict, we walk a dangerous path that has an end in "each man did what was right in his own eyes." For a society to remain orderly and not sink into a survival of the fittest, a moral code of absolutes must be established and followed. If change occurs, it cannot be because someone finds the change makes life more convenient. That leads quickly to might makes right. Even when it is the majority who feels that change is necessary, an appeal to the present circumstances can only lead to long term disorder.

How are we to live as Christians in a secular nation in a secular world? A recent survey revealed that 80% of Americans consider themselves Christian. Do all of these 80% follow the same moral absolutes? If not, then what are the bases for the differences and to what authority are they appealing to support their beliefs - the value of the individual, the value of humanity, of creation, the authority of the Divine? Can being Christian in terms of the moral absolutes to which one appeals have so many variations and still be Christian?

Our own country must also struggle with this question. Was our constitution based upon moral absolutes? To what authority do these absolutes appeal? Has that authority changed since the 1780's? If so, are we ready to admit it. If it has changed, what is the authority under which we now operate and does it prescribe moral absolutes?

For the Christian in day to day life, there must be an appeal to moral absolutes that have their ground in divine revelation. By the very definition of absolute, these cannot change on human whim or by changes in situation and circumstances, nor even by human government action. It is the individual who must change, not the law. As surely as each individual nation must decide what will be the absolutes upon which its laws will be based and its society guided, so must every individual for his or her personal behavior. When moral absolutes are rejected by society, then chaos and disorder will reign and the power to say what is right and what is wrong for the common good will reside only in the hands of those willing to use fang and claw.