Did You Get a C? How about 4 C's?

I knew some students in college who signed up in those contract classes to get a C because of the level of work they were willing to do. I couldn't understand that. A C was barely average. I also know for a fact that in a couple of classes I was glad to get a C. It could have been a lot worse.

There are four C's, however, that I have come to see as critical that we need to seek in such a way as to incorporate them into our lives. They will make all the difference in the world for our personal lives and the lives of our churches. With them we have a chance of glorifying our Lord. Without them at best we are average humanists seeking to get by on our strength alone. That won't get us far in terms of eternity.

These four C's are found in a series of scripture texts, easily read, easily memorized, but not so easily lived out. I would even dare to call them the Four Great C's due to their importance in showing the priorities of a Christian's life. They are familiar to all of us, but they remain a difficult standard by which to live.

The first I term the Great Calling of Matthew 6:33, "Seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness..." We are called as followers of Christ to have the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, his nature, as our ultimate goals. We cannot be torn between earth and heaven, or materialism and God. We are servants given the freedom to choose whom we will serve, but we will serve someone. Christ calls us to serve God and seek all that he represents.

The second Great C is the Great Commitment of Luke 9:23, "If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross each day, and follow me." I appreciate the emphasis that Luke adds for daily cross-bearing not mentioned in the other synoptic Gospels. Christ does not accept followers who see a commitment to him like a magazine subscription, to be cancelled or renewed based upon a matter of convenience. It is a life-long commitment. It is a self-sacrificing commitment. It is a commitment that involves personal identification with Jesus.

Matthew 22:34-40 gives us a statement of the third Great C, the Great Commandments. Love is the heart and soul of our relationships first with God and then secondarily with others. We love God with all our being and that must involve a complete surrender of our beings to him. Only then can we know how to love ourselves and others. In surrendering to God he teaches us what love is, how it reveals our value to him, and how it is to be revealed to others through our lives.

The final C is the familiar passage that concludes the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 28:18-20, the Great Commission. Christ tells his disciples and us that he is commanding us to take the news of the Kingdom of God to all peoples and language groups. He can do this because the Creator has given all authority to him. We are to lead others to be followers of Christ. We are to lead them to identify in overt manner with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. We are to teach these new disciples to obey everything we ourselves have learned of Christ and seek to obey.

When we focus our lives on the priorities that Jesus laid before us, there is little room for confusion. Our churches must likewise not become distracted by secondary matters and ideas and issues that matter little to God and his Kingdom. As we allow the nature of the Kingdom and the righteousness of God to shape our church family relations, we will find that all are welcome in our fellowship to confront the Living Lord and be transformed by his love into what the Father wants us to be.

Churches as well as individuals must see that it is the Kingdom that is important, not themselves, and so must live out the crucified lifestyle in following their Master. Churches must examine budgets and calendars and see if the Great Commission really does dominate their resources. Only then can we say we have prioritized living out the C's.

A Recommitment to Life

This week I turned 62. The AARP has been sending me greetings for about twelve years. Golden Corral has been giving me senior discounts based upon hair color and lack of hair for about five years. Uncle Sam says that I am now old enough to collect social security checks. My financial advisor says I need to keep my retirement portfolio in more conservative investments. My doctor reminds me, needlessly, that I cannot do what I once could do.

It is not time to die, however. I figure that in the will of the Lord I could have at least 30 years of living to fill with meaning and purpose. My "bucket list" is long enough to keep me busy for at least another fifty years. I'll probably add more to the list as time goes by. Rather than ever retiring in the traditional sense of the word and sitting back all lazy like, I intend to retread and begin another part of the journey. I intend to recommit myself to life.

Life offers opportunities. We may have to look for them, create them, or sacrifice to participate in them. They are there waiting nonetheless. I want to see every outdoor drama that North Carolina has to offer. I want to read the complete Shakespearean plays. I want to learn how to play the recorder (that's about as complex as I can get with a musical instrument) and how to speak Spanish. I want to raise and sell 35 varieties of violets. I want to work in adult literacy classes and teach English as a Second Language. I want to write four fantasy novels, a trilogy of historical novels, and a pair of semi-autobiographical books. I want to write a collection of poetry and compile a selection of my favorite quotes. I want to be active in my church as long as mind and body will allow me, and when they won't, I'll commit my time to being a prayer warrior to support those who can still get about. I may have to retread several times.

A congregation must make the same re-commitment to life. The Church in its pilgrimage to be the people of God face a new set of hurdles every day. If the congregation doesn't recognize that, then they need to get out of bed occasionally and see that the world around them is changing on a regular basis. A new setting demands a renewed commitment to service in the name of the King of Kings. The reason the Church exists has never changed. We exist to glorify God. We have a multitude of methods to do that, but all methods should still result in glorifying God.

The renewed commitment demands a reevaluation of priorities and the actions related to those priorities. The commitment should always be to keep God on the throne and his Church in faithful service. Generations move into new roles and their previous roles are assumed by the next generation. The design of tasks change, the resources needed for those tasks change, and sometimes the cost of those tasks change, but they all lead to one great goal: God is glorified.

The Church must make a renewed commitment to the life purchased for it through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ every day. The temptation to compromise, grow complacent, or change priorities is always waiting. Our society demands that we allow it to set our agenda, determine our methods, and define our goals. The God of Jesus Christ usually gets modified, transformed, or left out completely when this happens.

Without a new commitment to life on a regular basis, an individual will lose purpose for life as changes within and without take place. Helplessness, despair, and a withering of the soul can be the result. Much that could be offered is wasted because change could not be accepted. The goal was so tied to the methods that the goal died with the old vision. Life need not be like that.

Likewise for the Church. As we face the changes in our world, we must make a renewed commitment to the purpose undergirding our existence. We must stay focused upon our Lord and his commission to us. We must bring glory to God. We must seek to make him proud of our efforts. We must stay faithful to our high calling.

A Minor Suggestion

In less than a week North Carolina voters will have determined if they want a state constitutional amendment saying the only legal union recognized by the state and defined as marriage will be between one man and one woman. Often called an anti-gay amendment, this amendment is far broader than that. Such unions as polygamy and communal marriages would also be declared unconstitutional, not to mention unions involving one partner with two legs and the other partner having four.

If the amendment does not pass, legal action is already pending in North Carolina that if found in favor of the plaintiffs would declare unconstitutional current state statutes defining marriage as between one man and one woman. This would open the door to court cases seeking state approval for a diversity of relationships such as polygamy. This scenario, combined with a broadening definition of hate crimes, would leave individuals in numerous difficult situations while trying to fulfill what they deem as their Christian responsibilities.

Will a minister be able to say that he will perform only a wedding ceremony in which the participants are one man and one woman? Will a congregation be able to say its facilities can be used only for services or ceremonies that are in line with its religious convictions? Will a minister be able to expound upon biblical texts in a way that says sexual behavior that deviates from the one man-one woman traditional relationship are antithetical to the will of God? This of course does not begin to address the issues of age restrictions and the definitions of adulthood which may also be seen by some as arbitrary and discriminatory.

I suggest for consideration a proposal that the twenty-first century Church return to an understanding of its role similar to that of the first and second century Church. Proclaim the gospel as the written word of God. Forget all those twenty-seven adjectives that some feel they have to attach to the phrase. It is the written word of God. Proclaim it as God-breathed (II Tim. 3). Take the lumps that come with preaching the truth. If you get fined or sent to jail, count yourself blessed (Matthew 5).

Agree to presiding in wedding ceremonies that God will recognize and bless according to the standards he has set (Matthew 19). To do this with integrity involves insisting on the participants themselves understand God’s expectations for a marriage he will bless. This will be made easier if ministers refuse to perform a wedding as a representative with state granted authority (“By the power invested in me by God and the state of…). If a couple wants secular recognition, let them go to a magistrate, get the marriage license signed, and say the proper “I do’s”. With the announcement by the magistrate, they will be recognized as married by the state. Then they can come to the church facilities and receive the blessings of God upon a marriage that should last until death ends it.

Is this an unforgiveable separation of church and state? I don't think so. Rather is this not the Church standing up and saying we are not the state? Is this not the Church standing up and saying we are different from the state, we operate under a different set of standards from the state, and we answer to no one but our God (Acts 4)? We fight compromise, yet demanding that the secular state recognize our divine commission may be the worst compromise of all.

The Cost of Controversy

One of the most awesome statements of divine wisdom I find in the words of Jesus are "...not to give offense to them,..." (Matthew 17). Reading the gospels does not reveal in Jesus an individual who worried about causing offense, irritation, or hurt feelings when he felt it appropriate. Even those who vehemently disagreed with him recognized that he spoke from the heart and did not mince words. How did Jesus know when it was time to "shoot straight and let the bullets fly" and when to decide "this is not a hill worth dying on"? When was a controversy worth the conflict sure to follow and when was it not worth giving offense? How much simpler life would be for us if we knew the answer 100% of the time!

Jesus' standards though high were simple. Glorify and honor the Father in all that you think, say, and do. That sounds easy enough. Jesus was perfect at the process. Even when he might have preferred a different path as in Gethsemane, he still put obedience and honoring his Father first in his decisions and his actions. The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) stands as a great statement of the ways we can honor the Father in our daily lives. Jesus' response to questions raised by the religious rulers of his day also reveal his perception of how to glorify the Father. (Matthew 12; 15; 19; 22)

The two Great Commandments are described by Jesus as a summary of all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22) We don't have much of a problem in understanding what Jesus meant by the first and greatest commandment: love God with your total being. Of course following through has always been limited by our sinful and self-focused natures. Loving something other than God as the focus of our lives or even in the momentary decision is a constant problem. It is the second commandment about loving our neighbor as we love ourselves that gives us fits.

We make jokes about it. "Love your neighbor, but don't get caught." We try to qualify it under such phrases as "tough love". We even try to compartmentalize our expressions of love by "loving the sinner, but hating the sin." (guilty as charged!) Are any of these wrong? I would avoid the relationship with your neighbor that your safety would demand be kept secret. The other two expressions we often try to live out in our dealings with others.

In both cases the effort is being made to express a love that includes acceptance, the opportunity for forgiveness, and a realization there is a right and a wrong choice being identified. Anytime we identify a right choice and a not so right choice in a situation made by someone else, we are called upon to decide how we will respond in love. We must love our neighbor as we love ourselves. It is the only way we can allow the Father's forgiving love shown to us to flow through us to others who also need it.

Jesus made his decisions about controversy based upon the Great Commandments which have their goal of honoring and glorifying the Father. He recognized that decisions pertaining to the law had right answers and wrong answers. He also knew that not all legal decisions had any bearing on how we might glorify the Father. It was these questions that Jesus disdained to give the importance needed to raise them in a discussion.

There is a cost to controversy. How high a price should we be willing to pay? If God is honored when we take a stand, then the price we are called to pay is worth it, even required of us. If God sees the controversy as of significance to man alone, then the answer is to seek peace, go catch the fish, and pay the tax. The Pharisees saw the tax as important. Jesus did not. Love for God and fellow man were not a part of the equation. Causing a stir just wasn't worth the price.

Taking Care of the Temple

How is the custodian rewarded for taking care of the temple? Maybe you don't see any need for a reward. Maybe you expect some well-intended soul to take care of matters out of a simple love for the Lord. That's all very spiritually minded, but it rarely gets you the best results. Why? That is a very good question.

Especially when you consider what the temple might be. What if the temple is your physical body, sometimes referred to as the temple of the Holy Spirit? What if it is the congregation of believers which is also sometimes referred to as the temple of the Holy Spirit? Looking at the big picture, what if the temple is the created order itself, the realm in which the Creator has chosen to reveal himself to man? Is the custodian taking care of the temple and is he doing a job worth rewarding?

As a minister I am conscious of the image my fellow ministers and I present to the public. We preach that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6), but I see a lot of temples falling into ruin through neglect. We are all familiar with the litany of causes handed to us by our doctors. We eat too much. We sit too much. We don't eat the right kind of foods, and we don't handle stress well. Our faith tells us that God will take care of us even while we ignore him as he says, "I gave you a brain. Use it!"

I do not relish rising before the sun at 5:00 AM to walk two miles on a treadmill and work through other simple exercises. If it had not been for that arterial stint, I might not be so committed. Instead there I am, six days a week, heading for the torture room, and then considering what I can eat the rest of the day that will be tasty, cheap, and good for me. The menu has grown slim. Yet if my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, then he deserves the best maintenance that I can provide.

For 25 years I served in a local church. The Apostles Paul and Peter refer to the people of God as a temple the Holy Spirit is building, one living stone at a time (Ephesians 2; I Peter 2). You have to wonder sometimes how God ever chose some of the building materials we see walking into a morning worship service (including ourselves). Yet there they are, chipped and cracked, stained and sticky, rough and ragged, from all walks of life. God looks at this ragtag bunch and tells us that this is our family, the brothers and sisters of Christ. These are the ones he welcomes into the Kingdom before all those Pharisees and scribes. Are we doing our part to take care of the temple?

Jesus reminded his listeners that it was the sick who needed the physician, not the healthy (Matthew 9). In the doctor's office the intake nurse finds out all the gruesome details. No treatment is provided. Only when the doctor sees you can the treatment begin. How often we as church members forget that we are not the doctor, nor do we expect those who see no need to meet the doctor to come into our midst. We welcome. We offer comfort and companionship, but the healing that is needed comes only through the hand of the Great Physician. He does not leave unchanged those who seek him. Do we take care of the congregational temple?

Can all creation be described as the temple of God? Jesus used the image of the earth as being the footstool of God (Matthew 5). He who is too great to be contained in any temple still sees himself vitally connected to his creation. It is a part of his royal throne room. And as such it deserves our special care.

The ecological concerns of our day should not be new or novel to the Christian. Such concerns should be a fundamental part of the way we express our recognition that we are stewards, not owners, of creation. Whether you see the present generation inheriting nature from our parents or borrowing it from our children, the Owner remains the Creator (Psalm 24). As stewards we are caretakers and will be held responsible for our stewardship. We honor God in the way we care for his creation.

We are the temple keepers, all the temples. In many ways we are winners and losers through the methods we care for the temples in this mortal existence. In other ways we will stand before the Owner, give an accounting for what has been in our charge, and receive the judgment. I know the reward I want to hear (Matthew 25:21).

Fighting Frustration

We all have those moments. Then those moments turn into hours that turn into days that then turn into our jobs and a general description of our lives. They are moments of frustration that take on the form of some kind of hyper contagious virus that seems to consume us before we have time to react much less find the cure. We end up deciding there are two kinds of people in the world. People who admit to having times of  frustration and liars.

Am I making more of this than it really deserves? Could the Son of God ever become frustrated? When confronted by a desperate father whose son could not be cured by the disciples of Jesus, the Master himself responds with a rhetorical question, "How long?" When he meets cruel legalism in a synagogue, he grows angry over the hard hearts of those who should have understood compassion best. When he faces the blasphemous use of his Father's House of Prayer for a marketplace, his frustration becomes the motivation for a serious housecleaning!

Frustration is real. Like so many of our emotions, however, its cause is completely within our control. Just like no one can make you angry. You become angry as a decisive response to a situation. It is a decision you make on your own based upon your value system of right and wrong, good and evil, or fair and unfair. You become frustrated because of a situation that goes against your expectations at a time when your desires are important enough for you to generate a most uncomfortable emotional response. Since you cannot hold it in, it is revealed as some level of frustration. What you do with that emotion is what is seen as a positive or negative reaction.

The recorded events of Jesus' frustration always became teaching moments for those who had eyes to see and ears to hear. We would do well to make our moments of frustration times of learning as well. This might be as individuals in daily life, as churches seeking to be salt and light and yeast in our communities, or as associations bringing a cluster of churches together to accomplish a task greater than any one church could complete alone. In all these cases there are people involved. That is a recipe for frustration.

Frustration springs from unfulfilled expectations. Good buddy Webster used a simple one-word synonym, "block". That says well what we feel when our efforts do not produce the expected results. We feel blocked. It's bad enough when we can provide a good reason for hitting the wall. It is pure frustration when we cannot justify our failure to attain our goals.

Frustration can be just as real in a local church setting and in the midst of associational work. We set goals. We gather resources. We organize to give ourselves the best chance of success. Then the block appears. Not only can we not justify that hindrance, the hindrance is counter to what we believe is our purpose and prevents us from accomplishing a higher good. That's when we start calling people terrible names and accusing them of opposing the will of God.

Yet if we listen to the frustration of Jesus we can see that the situation need not be all negative. Meeting those blocks can make us aware that a moment of teaching needs to occur. In those moments Jesus taught on faith. He taught concerning the compassion of the heavenly Father. He taught about the nature of the Kingdom of God.

When we become frustrated with our work or relationships with others, perhaps we should pause for a moment and decide wherein the problem lies. Are our expectations out of line with the will of God? That is not a problem Jesus had, only his listeners. What do we need to change that would lessen the frustration? What are the expectations of others involved in the situation? Are they proving to be a hindrance through ignorance or intent? Ignorance can be cured with patience. Stubbornness needs the help of the Holy Spirit.

When an association does not seem to be accomplishing the work of the Kingdom of God as it should, frustration appears, but what is its cause? Do churches need to learn? Provide the training. Are churches being resistant to the movement of the Kingdom of God? Then perhaps only the Holy Spirit can provide the answer. Neither in our personal lives nor in our work with God's people can we assume that our frustration is always due to another's intentional effort to thwart us. It may well be that we are the ones who need to learn or adjust our expectations.

What Happened That Weekend?

Abraham wondered how a smoking pot could float between a line of sacrificed animals (Genesis 15). Elijah wondered how he could hear and understand a voice when there was no sound (I Kings 19). Peter, James, and John probably tried to figure out just what it was they saw on a mountain top when Jesus was altered in his appearance in a way that couldn't be explained (Matthew 17). And on that Friday, what did Jesus mean about being abandoned by the Father with whom he was One (Matthew 27). Come Sunday morning a resurrected body became visible, even touchable, to those who were closest to the One who had just died and been buried (Matthew 28). What is a resurrection body?

Leaving events unexplained and accepting them on faith is not something that comes easily to mankind. We find it important that we explain all events in some form or fashion. We need to be able to put something in a box, under a scope, or on a scale. Accepting it as something we cannot measure, control, or understand leaves us with an uncomfortable feeling that borders on intolerable. Yet that is exactly what faith calls us to do.

What happened at the end of what we call Holy Week fits into that category of "accept but do not attempt to explain". That appears to be the case any time God intervenes in human history without our request or our permission or our involvement. God acts. We are left to be spectators, wondering why we are here, and what the consequences will be for us both in the current context and in history.

On that Friday afternoon the crowds saw what most deemed to be an impostor, a charlatan, and a threat to their power base in Judaism and Judea. Their solution to the problem Jesus posed was to have him killed in a way that would bring down upon him the curses of God and the masses. They wanted him rejected by the very people who had followed him across the dusty hills and around the Sea.

What they, and we, accomplished through lifestyle decisions was far more evident in the words Jesus cried out from the cross than in the calls for his crucifixion. Jesus was rejected by his people. He was also rejected by his Father. He was rejected by the Godhead of which he himself was a part. He was abandoned and in his cry we hear what?

In that moment we see an event in which no man could play a part. All were spectators. All were ignorant of the divine drama that was taking place on the cross. All were unable to comprehend then and forever how God could abandon a part of Himself. It was a moment in which the divine drama unfolded on a human stage extending into the spiritual realm oblivious to any human audience.

By Hebrew reckoning across the time contained in three days, another event took place that cannot be captured by human understanding. A stone was rolled away from the entrance to a tomb so that sinful humans could see that the dead was dead no longer. This was no creature from some humanly created horror story. This was an event that could only be described as death conquered, overcome, declared irrelevant, no longer to be feared by man. The event hardly can be described as something to be taken into a laboratory.

What happened that weekend? The ancient stories spread by the religious authorities of the day would have us believe that the followers of Jesus came on Saturday evening and stole his body away while assigned guards were sleeping, then went out and spread the word that he had risen from the dead. Faith and the later actions of the disciples of Jesus would lead us to believe that an event had occurred that was divine in its origin, did not involve man in its process, and demanded a response of acceptance or rejection with consequences to be revealed at some future point.

Whatever happened, it was enough to make a group of individuals and those they were able to convince of the truth in this event willing to die rather than deny their belief that all had transpired just as they had said. They were willing to reject power and accept servanthood. They were willing to leave behind homes and families for the need to tell others of what they believed happened. They were willing to declare that the greatest force in history, self-sacrificing love, could even conquer death.

Love happened that weekend. Love offered life in the place of death. Love offered hope in the place of despair. Love offered peace in the place of warfare. Love offered forgiveness in the place of condemnation. To understand this you must understand God. Yet God will not allow himself to be understood. Rather he offers us the assurance that he understands us (Isaiah 55, John 1).