Is Ignorance the Enemy at the Gates?

As we have watched scenes in Afghanistan, it feels very literally like “the enemy is at the gates.” Many of us already feel besieged by COVID. The Coronavirus has caused all of our feelings to be superglued to our sleeves, and we sometimes take ungodly pleasure in taking swipes at the sleeves of others. We have become so easily offended, and offensive. Road rage is rampant. Feelings of “my way or the highway” have turned us against one another. Everybody has an opinion about vaccinations, and devil may care attitudes about what science says. We’re living in a tough time: Hurricane Ida, wildfires out West, earthquakes in Haiti, and the debacle in Afghanistan is a crime against every Afghan interpreter, woman, girl, and the thousands of coalition forces that have suffered to make that country a better place, and ours safer.

It is convincing to me that many of our problems, especially in Afghanistan, are rooted in faulty intelligence. With COVID we could add pride and selfishness, but the primary cause of the decline of our values and morality is plain old ignorance. Every one of us could talk about multiple contemporary subjects where we have displayed wholesale ignorance, and depended on personal opinion or the opinion of others (e.g., the media) more than we should, but here’s just one. Yesterday, esteemed ex-President Jimmy Carter was extolled for his opinion that the practice of homosexuality is okay because Jesus never talked about it. I wish he would do his theological homework before “armchair quarterbacking,” an opinion that he seems to have reached only toward the end of his long life now that it’s become popular and politically expedient.

He, and the rest of us, could benefit from reading the solid exegesis of someone like Dr. John Stott, in his book Same Sex Relationships, or brilliant author and podcaster N.T. Wright, who dives deep on the subject. But, even Tom Wright gives academic deference to what he calls the best short treatment of the human sexuality debate that is found in one of the chapters in former Duke Divinity Dean, Dr. Richard B. Hays’ book, The Moral Vision of the New Testament. These are three well-respected and intelligent scholars who can be very helpful in shaping anyone’s thinking. They have almost nothing in common with either conservative fundamentalists or milquetoast progressives, but provide a fair and balanced perspective. They can provide anchors for your understanding in the face of superficial false teaching.

After all, Jesus may not have technically used the word, “homosexual,” but He certainly defined marriage. In Matthew 19:5-6, Jesus said, “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.” What Jesus said was as clear as a bell!

So, how does Jimmy Carter and many others miss the plain teaching of Scripture? Is it ignorance, or the thinking that if you say something often enough it becomes true? Really, what causes us to be amenable and accepting of behaviors that have been firmly rejected by thousands of years of Christian teaching? Is it our pride, or the influence of the cultural moment? Is it superficial reasoning or Biblical ignorance? Perhaps most of all, is it the inner conflict of observing family and close friends who struggle with same-sex attraction? Which one of these experiential factors is worthy of being elevated to a status equal or better than the Scripture of God? I know it’s difficult and can be complex. I’ve been there, got the t-shirt.

We’ve all been close to people that were or are doing things that we’re convinced isn’t in their ultimate best interest, and isn’t a part of God’s desire for them. In any such case, how do we differentiate between our dear love of someone and our well-founded concern that they’re involved in an unholy pattern of behavior? Well, the ultimate example is always Jesus.

If you’ve had a chance to watch “The Chosen” at all, it’s a great snapshot that this is all exactly what Jesus does so deftly with his disciples, even in their most ignorant moments: he lives a perfect balance of accountability and grace (watch here: http://www.thechosen.tv/app or search “The Chosen” in your app store). I love it! It’s a great reminder that cherry-picking and proof-texting Jesus’ words are never a substitute for who he was, and who he is, as a whole person and as the living God. Trying to confine him to our current cultural standards, mincing the things we claim he did or didn’t say, quoting his famous lines on “love” while neglecting his equal teaching on obedience and righteousness – it all falls short of letting Jesus be his whole self.

My hope is that we can all embody his wholeness, his balance, before our values go down the drain of human history. God forbid that the only people on the planet who promote moral absolutes are the Taliban. Couldn’t there be a movement among Christians who are as fervent about our God and our Gospel, including a holy measure of grace and forgiveness? Can’t we do the hard work of thinking through the tough questions while holding fast to both our love of God and our love of others? I think we can do both, and I believe we must.

Jesus and the Crew

Needing a New Exodus

Do you think things are improving, going sideways, or backwards in our world? N.T. Wright’s book The New Testament in Its World is proof-positive that the world has seen worse days than ours, but it also wonderfully lays out God’s plan in Jesus Christ to redeem the world, and set things right. It has been a timely study with all that we have going on. It addresses our COVID-19 ravaged and racially distraught world with mascots changing, statues toppling, and every other kind of turmoil.  It begs the question, “Where do we turn for an expectation that everything is going to be okay?”

 Decades ago we saw impoverished and victimized people find hope in Liberation Theology. The leaders of this movement were primarily in Central and South America, with people like Gustavo Gutierrez, Jose Bonino, and Oscar Romero. The 60’s and 70’s gave birth to similar movements in the US with the work of James Cone and Carol Christ with Black Liberationist Theology and the Feminist Movement. Though some have said that Liberation Theology is a relic of the past, recent events have given it new life.

If Jesus is King, though some might find the notion of royalty offensive, then how does that shape our current theology of God’s Peaceable Kingdom? How do we keep things both orthodox and sensitive to the plight of the oppressed? One way to do that is to use what the earlier practitioners used. They based their whole premise of God taking the side of the poor on the Exodus events. The Exodus became an outright call to revolt and protest in an earlier generation, but what many find most hope-filled about the Exodus is that God does the action, the saving, and the liberation. We’re actors in the drama, but God is the Director.

The Exodus is, therefore, not as much about anarchy and lawlessness, but non-violent witness. If focused on what God does, then it truly represents the original Exodus. The Jews in Egypt didn’t fight back. God did it for them. This has been the most successful model of real liberation. Although it is not natural for any of us to be passive, even Jesus’ “exodus” from the tomb wasn’t by his own hand. God delivered him, and He can deliver us! It is God’s mighty acts in salvation that give us hope. No protest movement or revolt will long live unless God be the Warrior that defeats pharaoh’s armies and parts the waters!

The Exodus events are echoed throughout the entire Bible and human history. Think about how its themes are repeated. Moses is called from childhood to be special as he was saved as an infant from drowning and raised as an adopted child of pharaoh. Jesus certainly had a unique birth through the Virgin Mary. Moses worked many signs and miracles, and so did Jesus. God provided Moses with bread from heaven in the form of “manna,” while Jesus fed the multitudes and called himself “the Bread of Life.” Moses liberated people, and Jesus frees us from sin, death and so much more. Moses led the people through the wilderness to the brink of the Promised Land, but Jesus takes us all the way in! Jesus is Moses on steroids. Jesus delivers and gives real hope that lasts.

There are more similarities than imaginable. For instance, it is perfectly appropriate for, “The Ten Commandments,” with Charlton Heston to be shown at Easter, an Exodus movie that merges with Jesus’ own exodus/departure from the grave. The Jewish deliverance commemorated via the Passover meal is fulfilled in Jesus, as it says in I Corinthians 5:7, “Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast!” Jesus becomes the unblemished Passover lamb that was sacrificed to protect us. He is called “the Lamb of God” by John the Baptist (John 1:29), and “the lamb that was slain before the creation of the world” in Revelation 13:8. The connection with Jesus and the Passover meal in Exodus are obvious!

There are also plenty of similarities between Moses and Jesus. One is the comparison of Moses on Mt. Sinai and Jesus on the Mountain of Transfiguration. In their respective mountaintop experiences, we see that Jesus is transfigured and his face and clothes are brighter than lightening, while Moses’ face was shining so brightly when he came down from Sinai that people couldn’t dare look at him. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him up his mountain, and Moses takes Joshua. For both Moses and Jesus, a cloud covers the mountain, and God speaks from both clouds. The similarities are beyond coincidence.

Another similarity between Moses and Jesus occurs when they do miracles. Pharaoh’s magicians declared in Exodus 7:16-18 that Moses did his signs, “by the finger of God.” Luke 11:20 says that Jesus also did his, like driving out demons, “by the finger of God.” Over and over again, you can hear the words and phrases of the Exodus repeated and magnified in Jesus’ ministry and in all the writings of the New Testament. Words like “redemption,” “redeem,” “deliver,” “deliverance,” “slavery,” and “freedom,” are rooted in the Exodus experience. Maybe the correlation isn’t an accident.

Perhaps the storyline of the entire Bible and all of human history is about God’s rescue mission to give us all a way out, an EXODUS from whatever is attacking us. It’s not a new thought either. People have long clung to Exodus hope when caught in a bind or worse.  We need a Deliverer, and an Exodus. This has been repeated throughout history. For instance, it was Esther who, “for such a time as this,” helped inaugurate the Israelite’s return from exile back to the Promised Land, a mini-Exodus, out of Babylonian and Persian bondage. Just take a look at Nehemiah 9 to see the correlation. Look at Psalms 77 and 78 to encourage you when you feel in bondage. Both the Old and New Testaments use the Exodus as a sign that no matter what God’s people are going through, God isn’t going to let us down.

The Exodus inspired African-American slave spirituals like “Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land. Tell old pharaoh, let my people go!” To be set free, of course, is not just an African-American desire. We all need Jesus to get us out of the mess we’re in. Liberation is the desire for anyone who is overwhelmed by bondage as an oppressed people, those overcome by addictions, depression, health constraints, COVID-19, job losses, financial crisis, and death itself as it lurks at everyone’s door.

Would it make things better if we saw Jesus as the New Moses, a Better Moses, and the Only Everlasting One who can set us free? I think so, especially for such a time as this. We all need a mini or a maxi-Exodus. I pray so! Let it happen, God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Everybody Needs a Study

There’s a person in my life that keeps me honest. One of the ways that he does it is to ask, “What have you been reading lately?” It doesn’t necessarily get me on a reading frenzy, but it does make me think about how and with what I have been feeding my soul. Too often I find myself flitting frenetically from one situation to another without the quality intake that I need to face the so-called “tyranny of the urgent.” Pastors are blessed in that it is expected that we read. Our offices are often called a “Study,” as if to drive home the point.

There’s no better book to read than the Bible, of course. Reading it prayerfully through careful listening to God’s heart is sublime. I really appreciate devotional books that offer more transformation than information. I especially like anything by Chris Tiegreen. He’s my go-to devotional guy. This is soul-reading at its best. Another such book for any potters out there is one that resonates with me: The Soulwork of Clay by Marjory Bankson. Good stuff.

I also like to re-read Rev. William C. Martin’s insights from his book The Art of Pastoring. His breath-prayers from his other book, The Way of the Word, give me a day-long focus that sticks with me. Listen and hear with me one of Martin’s observations to pastors from The Art of Pastoring:

“You are a minister of the Word but not of words. The Word was in the beginning before words and beyond words. And whether they weave sophisticated patterns of intellectual magic, or they strike with passion at the heart of the people’s emotions, words are not Word for the Word is inexhaustible. One can only stand in wonder and point.” Wow. Will I stand in wonder and point to Jesus today or limit God either by my poor inadequate words or an overzealous appreciation of my own voice? I want to let Jesus the Logos speak!

So there are books that are read for diversion and those that inspire transformation. For escape, I prefer historical fiction, a mixture of mystery and history. Since I like to be surprised, I don’t checkout best-seller lists. Finding a good book is more of a serendipitous discovery that is often aided by wise and helpful mentors. Rabbi Edwin Friedman’s family systems primer, Generation to Generation was suggested by a good friend and has been seminal in my understanding of society, church, and interpersonal relationships. It has actually brought me healing! The Starfish and The Spider and business books by Malcolm Gladwell come to mind as important, but anything by N.T. Wright is even more appreciated. His How God Became King gave me more insight into Jesus than seminary.

One of my favorite things to do is to take a mixture of books to Mt. Mitchell or the New River and read for a week. My traveling library will include escapism stuff by James Patterson, Baldacci, Cussler, Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child, and anything with a hint of the Knights Templar. Throw in a few “business” genre books, capped off by N.T. Wright’s latest or Migliore for theology, and I’m set. I do love Clark Pinnock and John Sanders on Process Theology, too, and Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermons are exquisite reading. It also does me well to reread Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings every couple of years while listening to the “Best of the Moody Blues.” It is bliss to know that Frodo lives even after the fires of Mordor! I can hear the hoof beats with the Moody Blues playing on my buds. I will often take with me The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor. They are a walk back in time, but they are timeless in their wit and insight.

The point of all this isn’t to declare myself as a nerdy bibliophile. To the contrary, I mix it up between the serious, practical, sacred, and mundane. The real deal for me is to take time, Sabbath, and let words enrich me. They transport me to another time, place, context, and give me what I need most: perspective. They provide a creative pause in the rush of life’s crises. Please read more than this blog today! If we don’t take the time to read, we will burn out quicker than a match on a windy day. Let me ask you my friend’s question, “What have you been reading lately?” Everybody needs a study!

Jesus is Better than a Band Aid!

The Power of Love versus the Love of Power is the perennial problem of our world, as stated by British Bishop N.T. Wright of the Anglican Church. He is an excellent author whose book Simply Good News just came out. It is amazing. Its message is similar to his book How God became King. Both books are so accessible and add such clarity in a world that sees more gray than black and white. His premise is that Jesus has been made King through the power of love, not the love of power.

He makes salient points about the contrast between the split-world understanding of creation by neo-Deists who want to promote the relegation of a powerless God to the nether regions of some far-off heaven, and the “Sweet Jesus” theocrats who not only want Jesus on the throne of their hearts, but in every sphere of life as well. The former group is so earthly minded that God is left out of all decision-making, while the latter group is so focused on having Jesus in their hearts and getting to heaven that they’re so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good!

Tom Wright wants us to see Jesus and his Kingdom as a present reality that is truly Good News, not just the pabulum most churches offer through “good advice.” The Gospel of Jesus Christ turns the kingdoms of this world on their heads, defeats evil, death, and oppression, and asks all Christ-followers to join this grand project of deliverance in the here and now. Secularists are more than willing to believe in progress even though anyone with good sense knows that we’re heading in the opposite direction.

“Gress” is the Latin word for “step,” so “progress” means to “step forward,” “digress” means to “side step,” or go in at least two directions, “regress” means to step backwards, and, interestingly enough, “congress” means to “step together.” How’s that working for the US Congress? The US congress hardly ever steps together on any one issue. Our red state vs. blue state world pits people against people, along with religions, ideologies, theologies, and about every other divisive matter.

Tom Wright writes in a most pithy way about the bifurcation that we all experience in this world of opposing opinions. Two perspectives are central in our world conflicts. One either claims God has “left the building,” or one is only interested in the things of earth enough so that we’ll get our ticket punched for heaven. Wright splits the difference between these opposites, and proclaims a Jesus who radically alters our current lives for his Kingdom here. Certainly, he doesn’t give up on the Biblical claim of an after-life, but declares that real “Good News,” the kind of Good news that forever changed the course of human history, did so not because of its otherworldly focus but precisely because it lived the real power of Jesus’ love in the mire and muck of humanity’s existence!

Listen to his statement that says it much better than I can attempt, “Part of the good news in our own culture is that this split-level world doesn’t have the last word. There is an integrated world-view, and it’s available right now. The trouble is that both the secularists and fundamentalists are committed to not noticing it. The secularist lives downstairs and has locked the door at the bottom of the stairs (to keep God out). The fundamentalist live upstairs, though he constantly shouts down the stairs to tell people they should be coming up to join him.” Oh, too accurate!

Jesus, the God who has become King, is not dependent on human progress. So-called human progress gave us two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and more efficient ways to communicate our disdain for each other. Videos of beheadings and fiery deaths remind us that we humans cannot solve our own problems. We can make advances in medical science and educational instruction, but one cannot root out our core problem through progress. If we expect the Lord’s Prayer to come true, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” then we need to confess and believe this extraordinary news: His kingdom has come. At least it has been inaugurated until its ultimate and complete fulfillment. In the mean time we cannot think that being civilized people will save us from self-destruction. Using good advice is helpful, but who believes that “playing nice” will bring justice for all and make the world “a better place?” No, we believe that Jesus alone conquered sin and death and that reality redirects, sets right, transforms, and redeems the people and institutions of this world. Through Jesus the whole creation finds an answer for its groans.

The question raised by N.T. Wright’s Simply Good News is whether we will be a church that offers good advice to people on how to live, behave, and get along or whether we will embrace the sheer glory of Jesus Christ, our only Savior, and not only ours but the Savior of the world. If we do the latter we will experience the birth pains of God’s kingdom, the already and not yet, his mighty will done on earth. The church hands out good advice all the time like a band aid on a gaping mortal wound when it is high time for it to proclaim GOOD NEWS: Jesus wins! Not this side, that side, progressive or traditional, red state or blue. Until this planet reflects Isaiah 11:1-10 and trumpets Psalm 96 we will flounder after this and that “solution” to what ails us when the Good News has already dwelt among us. Let him who has an ear, hear! Good news that depends on us and what we do or think is neither good nor news. It has been tried before and found wanting. I think that it’s time to believe and live the statement, “Jesus Christ is Lord!” Jesus is better than a band aid!

Kingdom Come at Augusta National!

Well, I just read that Augusta National Golf Club admitted its first two female members: Condoleezza Rice and Darla Moore. It’s about time! I don’t know the former Secretary of State, but I do know Darla Moore. I stayed with her parents while I was visiting Lake City United Methodist Church years ago. Darla’s mother, Lorraine, was LCUMC’s church secretary for 26+ years and her late father, Gene, was devoted to public education and a Hall-of-Famer sportsman. Their friendship with my in-laws, Guy and Dixie Godwin, was a joy to behold.

It’s also a joy to behold when the church actually outpaces society on key issues. Recognition of female leadership is one of those issues. In the Old Testament you have female leaders like Moses’ mother, Miriam his sister, Deborah the Judge, Naomi, and Ruth. Abigail and Hannah come to mind like Rahab and the victimized Bathsheba, and I’m sure that there are others, too. In the New Testament you have Mary the mother of Jesus, the other Mary who along with Mary Magdalene and Joanna who were the first witnesses to Christ’s resurrection. Anna in Luke’s Birth Narrative is called a “prophetess.” There were many significant women who led the early church. Phillip had 5 daughters called “prophetesses” (Acts 21:9). Gosh, the list is enormous. Phoebe in Romans 16:1 is called a “deacon.” Lydia, the seller of purple goods in Acts 16:14 is the first European convert to Christianity. Where would the church be without women? When I think about the influence of the Christian women in my life compared to the men, there is no question which gender has been more influential.  For instance, like Timothy of 2 Timothy 1:5, my mother and grandmother were supreme models of the faith. There are so many others!

So it’s about time Augusta National catches up to the church! United Methodists were slow enough, but at least we’ve been ordaining women since 1956! My daughter, Narcie, is one of the finest Elders in the UMC that I know. Sure, I’m prejudiced, but I think she can back it up! I applaud the actions of Augusta National. Now what can we do about other inequities? What about salary differences between men and women. In this matter we even have a long way to go in the church. The “stained glass ceiling” of women disproportionately serving smaller less-salaried places is an affront to the Gospel. Equal pay for equal work is a moral issue that must be enforced if we are to look like the Kingdom of God!

I have been reading Tom Wright’s book, How God Became King, and I think it underscores how Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension inaugurated a whole new world here and now, plus hereafter. We’re not some utopic but impractical post-millennialists who think that the world will keep getting better then Jesus will come back and say, “Way to go!” Nice thought but our hankering after war and meanness tells me that this is a pipe-dream and a sly way of giving humans the credit for the Second Coming. I’m no pre-millennialist, either, thinking Jesus wants the world to keep going to hell in a hand basket then He’s going to swoop in and save us. This line of thinking actually promotes a laissez-faire attitude toward the ills of the world. It promotes a weird hope that things will get bad enough so Jesus comes back.

No, I think amillennialism best reflects the optimistic but realistic theology of the United Methodist Church. N.T. Wright is on board, too. Read How God Became King. We’re in the millennium now! Jesus is how God became King! Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”  Why ask us to pray it if it weren’t possible? This is the kingdom of God now and to more fully come. We need to act like it for God to use us in this grand adventure. So, three cheers to Augusta National, but there’s more work to be done – a lot more.