Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Faithful Unto Death



The Book of Acts records the martyr deaths of Stephen (Acts 7) and James (Acts 12). Stories are told of other apostles and disciples who were imprisoned and threatened with death. The account of Saul, later Paul, is recorded in his initial fight against the church and then after his conversion his own sufferings at the hands of Jews and non Jews. In later decades the churches of Smyrna and Pergamum both felt the fires of persecution and martyrdom of members as recorded in Revelation 2.

Others report the persecutions experienced by Christians during the first centuries of church history. At first it was pagan against Christian, then it became in too many instances Christian against Christian. It wasn’t enough others rejected and refused to tolerate the doctrines of the Christian faith. Belief had to be the same and subject to the same authority or persecution, even death, was the result.

Religion has carried with its best of traits through the millennia the terrible shadow of violent intolerance. The ability to disagree agreeably has often been sacrificed in the effort to prove truth through force of arms. The innocent have died. The seekers of truth have been rejected. Might never proved right, only who had the sharper sword or bigger gun or lowest value for human life.

We have called them crusades, removal of infidels and barbarians, and elimination of the defiled. Whatever the title the result was blood being shed in the name of divine truth as if the divine needed human hands to remove the stain of disbelief.

The Judeo-Christian tradition contains the idea the Divine will take care of disbelief in his own way without human assistance. In the first book of the Bible, God confronts a world that has lost all sense of divine morality and justice. His answer is the great flood and the saving of mankind through the life of the one righteous man that could be found, Noah.

In the last book of the Bible, the Revelation of John, we find the image of the Great Judgment. The followers of Jesus Christ the Son of God are given the gift of eternal life in glory and those who reject his Lordship are cast away from God into eternal separation and the accompanying suffering.

Humanity has not changed over the centuries nor has its sins. In recent centuries we have seen Catholics battle Protestants, Muslims battle Christians, Hindus battle Christians and Muslims, and dozens of other smaller groups found themselves brutalized by groups who disagreed with their religious beliefs.

Without doubt the guilt of religious brutality lies at the feet of those extremists who feel they alone are right and carry the authority to eliminate any who disagree. Guilt also lies with others, however. That guilt lies with those who claim to believe in a way of peace and co-existence but remain silent. We cannot fight against the weapons of Satan with the weapons of Satan, but that must not keep us from raising our voices in protest and going into the conflict with hands of compassion and healing.

We as Christians follow the Prince of Peace. We are called to pray for those who persecute us and return good for evil. We are to share the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the only One who is able to offer eternal salvation. We don’t need to apologize for believing He spoke the Truth and is the only Truth, but our efforts to share the Truth with others must be done in his nature.

Sunday, November 1 is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. These Christians who are going to prison, being tortured, or killed for their faith are not strangers in some foreign land. They are our brothers and sisters in the Family of God. We cannot defend them with the weapons of Satan: anger, hatred, and brutality. We must meet such actions with compassion, love, forgiveness, and restoration in ways that honor the Prince of Peace we serve. No one said it would be the easy way, but it is the way of Jesus.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Those Attitudes!




When Jesus spoke to his disciples in what we now have recorded as the Sermon on the Mount, he addressed the role of material objects. Most important was our attitude toward those material objects. In one brief but critical passage, he said:

Mat 6:19  "Do not store up riches for yourselves here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and robbers break in and steal.
Mat 6:20  Instead, store up riches for yourselves in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and robbers cannot break in and steal.
Mat 6:21  For your heart will always be where your riches are.

We brought nothing into the world. We will take nothing with us – except our attitude toward God in Christ. Our attitude toward the world around us will determine the priority of Christ in our lives. It all boils down to how we define the riches in our lives.

If objects and material goods represent the riches in our lives, then we will develop the attitude these material objects have the priority in our decisions. It will affect how hard we work to make money and how we will spend that money. Our attitudes will dictate what role these material objects will play in our lives and how they will affect other aspects of our lives.

When relationships dominate our priorities, here as well our attitudes will shape our responses. What are we willing to sacrifice? What will we demand? How much will we reach out and to what extent we will retreat into a shell of our own making? All of this is dictated by our attitudes.

The Apostle Paul told the church at Philippi they had one standard by which to evaluate and judge their attitudes toward life in general and people in particular. That standard was the example of Jesus Christ both in his coming into our world and how he was willing to leave.

Php 2:5  The attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had:
Php 2:6  He always had the nature of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God.
Php 2:7  Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness.
Php 2:8  He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death--- his death on the cross.

Life on this planet is transient. We are not promised tomorrow in our mortal existence, much less the expectation to live on forever in the flesh. This knowledge of our limited number of years should have a transformational effect on our priorities and our attitudes.

What is important to us will determine how we live today and the legacy we will leave for those who follow us. We will be remembered for how our attitudes shaped our decisions and the outcomes of those decisions. Do we care how we are remembered after we are dead? That itself is a decision-shaping attitude.

Two funerals for close family members in the last six months have heightened for me the importance of our attitudes and their impact on our lives. This includes not only how we remember those who have died, but also our own response to their deaths. How we viewed these individuals while they lived and the relationships we had with them greatly influences our present attitude towards them and our own futures.

These attitudes also impact the relationships we have with the people who remain with us. How will we allow time and circumstances to affect those relationships? Our attitudes will affect dynamics, decisions, and intensity of these relationships. How we allow our attitudes to develop is critical to the health of any relationship.

For Jesus the servant attitude was all important. That was the only option. When we adopt the example of Christ and assume the servant attitude he lived out, then we will find ourselves in the position of pleasing God and living lives of greater peace and fulfillment. That is the goal of most people and should be the goal of all.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Those Traditions




I grew up with the first Christmas decoration going up December 5, my older brother’s birthday. Long before I was old enough to take the axe and bring in the cedar Christmas tree, I was allowed to hang the foil icicles on its green limbs, or I spent my own money buying presents for the rest of the family, that small red wreath with its one red bulb went into the window on December 5. No other decoration could be brought out until that wreath was in place.

Traditions provide us a way to hold to the past during times when the present seems chaotic and the future uncertain. Traditions remind us of our roots and mark those important events in our history. They give meaning to the struggles of the moment and value to the sacrifices made in the past and may be expected in our present. Traditions give a sense of continuity while the years and generations disappear into history.

Yet we all know those same traditions that provide a link with the past can be the dam preventing a healthy and innovative move into the future. The traditions that link us can be the chains that bind us into a slavery to the past that locks down all change, improvement, and adjustment to the changing scene around us. Those traditions can also blind us to the intent and meaning of the events in which those traditions began. When that occurs, we lose sight of the truth behind the events both in their original setting and in what they can teach us now.

Jesus met this problem head on without concern for the response he would get from those who valued tradition more than the purposes behind them.
Mat 15:1  Then some Pharisees and teachers of the Law came from Jerusalem to Jesus and asked him,
Mat 15:2  "Why is it that your disciples disobey the teaching handed down by our ancestors? They don't wash their hands in the proper way before they eat!"
Mat 15:3  Jesus answered, "And why do you disobey God's command and follow your own teaching?
Mat 15:4  For God said, 'Respect your father and your mother,' and 'If you curse your father or your mother, you are to be put to death.'
Mat 15:5  But you teach that if people have something they could use to help their father or mother, but say, 'This belongs to God,'
Mat 15:6  they do not need to honor their father. In this way you disregard God's command, in order to follow your own teaching.
Mat 15:7  You hypocrites! How right Isaiah was when he prophesied about you!
Mat 15:8  'These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me.
Mat 15:9  It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach human rules as though they were my laws!' "

Tradition links us to the past and helps us understand what those before us had to face and how they faced it. We can, however, allow their experiences to blind us to the deeper meaning of those experiences and how we are to approach them. Jesus urged his listeners to keep their priorities in line. The spirit behind the traditions is what gives them value that endures beyond the original event.

Our churches can stifle their creative vision when they allow their traditions to blind them to the social and generational changes taking place. As Jesus pointed out, we can get sidetracked protecting our traditions and lose sight of the true spiritual significance behind them. We do it as churches. We do it as individuals. Traditions can enlighten us. They can also entrap us. We must heed the wisdom of God to maintain our freedom to learn from the past as we move creatively into the future.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Stretch ‘Em Out Wide




Mat 11:28  "Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest.
Mat 11:29  Take my yoke and put it on you, and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit; and you will find rest.
Mat 11:30  For the yoke I will give you is easy, and the load I will put on you is light."

With these words Jesus opened the gates of heaven to anyone who was willing to admit who they were, confess their inability to do it all on their own, and accept what he was offering. To be only a three-letter word, “all” makes a lot of things possible for us through the love and sacrifice of Christ we would otherwise miss.

This last weekend concluded a two-week golf tournament known as the US Golf Kids World Championships. Nearly fifty foreign countries were represented along with forty-nine states. Only Alaska went without a representative. This was a tournament in which everyone was welcome. Of course you had to make it through all the preliminary rounds played around the world, but if you made the lowest score, you were welcome regardless of nation, color of skin, or family traditions.

Jesus gives an invitation to join him that is open to all. His invitation can be accepted by anyone. He has not set any kind of pre-existing conditions about who is receiving the invitation. He has not limited it to people of a certain race or nationality or physical condition. He offers rest to anyone who will see him as who he is, the One who can give rest and relief.

Unlike the golf tournament, there are no preliminary rounds in which one must succeed to be welcomed into the presence of Christ. We can all come as we are and be accepted. Acceptance by Jesus depends not upon what we can do, but upon the place we are willing to give him in our lives.

What Jesus asks is that we become like him. We are to take his yoke and put it upon our shoulders, allowing it to dictate what our lives will be. We are to learn from him. We become the students while he remains the Master Teacher. We do not make him fit our desires. In being fitted to his yoke, we become transformed into his nature.

The rest we find comes from allowing him to carry the load. We find rest as we conform to his ways instead of fighting him as we seek to be acceptable in the eyes of the world. We find the rest that no conflict in this world can destroy as we allow the Master of the yoke to give guidance, teach the acceptable pattern of life, and carry the heaviest of our burdens.

In the Gospel of John we find a longer word that means the same thing as “all”.

Joh 3:16  For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. (my emphasis)

“Everyone who believes” is welcome to come and find the rest Jesus has promised. Is there a qualification to receiving this eternal life? Yes, it is a thing called belief. Is there a qualification to receiving the rest Jesus has offered? Yes, it is called taking his yoke upon our shoulders. To be a part of the “all” and “everyone” to whom the invitation is extended, we must come with honest and humble hearts that can receive the offer.

A short story goes in some fashion as this: I asked Jesus how much he loved me. He said, “This much,” and he stretched out his arms and died. He stretched his arms wide enough to take in the world, all the world and everyone who would believe. He bids us to welcome others in the same way.