All Things Together

In August, 1999 I spent about ten days in Durres, Albania. Durres is an ancient city, located on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Albania was among the more oppressed countries of the infamous Eastern Block of nations, and has yet to recover from the decades of abuse brought about by the alternating allegiance of its rulers to either the USSR or China.

But the beaches in Durres – they were filled with potential for reflecting what God must have been thinking when, looking at His creation, declare that it was “very good.” But potential is the key word – for those potentially beautiful expressions of God’s creative power were littered with the fallen remnants of the former oppressors’ military might and garbage. Every kind of garbage you could imagine dotted the sea shore. And, perhaps even worse, every kind of waste was casually pumped into the sea as though doing that would make it disappear.

I can still remember walking down the sea shore with a believer in Albania. We were both drinking water from a plastic bottle – the only safe water to drink – and when he finished his bottle, he just dropped it on the ground. He was casually adding to the litter and the ugliness of what could have been a beautiful place on planet earth. The entire time I was thinking how much those beautiful beaches – if cleaned up and taken care of – could help the people of Albania tap in to the tourist industry and have adequate resources to live more comfortably, eat better meals, and provide an education for their children. I kept thinking “If I could become Secretary of State, in charge of a huge budget for foreign aid, I could . . .”

Earlier this week I started reading Genesis in my personal Bible reading. You can’t help but notice that God considered His creative acts to be “good,” in fact at the end of the first creation narrative He declares it to be “very good.” When the flood has accomplished its purpose, God gives a promise to Noah and his family that never again would He destroy the world with a cataclysmic event like the flood.

Apparently, despite our own abuse of creation, God appears to think it to be “very good.” In Romans 8, Paul reminds his first readers and ultimately us that creation itself groans for the day when God fully renews and restores the universe to its intended purpose.

It makes you wonder why it is that sometimes the loudest voices in our culture about care for planet earth are coming from those who have little or no sense of God as Creator. Where is the voice of those who insist that indeed He is the Creator of heaven and earth? How can we be silent when we are called to be God’s agents in the world to accomplish God’s ultimate plan?

In Colossians 1:15-20, one of the great Christological texts in all of Scripture, Paul declares that Christ is not only “the head of the body, the church,” but He is also “the firstborn of all creation” and “is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” If the phrase “body of Christ” is more than some clever metaphor Paul created and we truly are “Jesus to the world,” then surely a part of our mission from God includes care for what Christ, as firstborn of all creation, sustains – holds together.

It is more than unfortunate that we who hold the truth of the gospel to be absolute and utterly true are so prone to leave out part of the story. Through Jesus Christ God intends to renew and restore the good world He created to its intended purpose. While that obviously has great impact on the lives of individuals who, through faith, choose to become a part of the body of Christ, that isn’t all! We are called to be His agents in bearing witness not only to what we often mean when we say “salvation,” but into all that He came to do – and that includes the work of caring for the world our gracious and loving God created and called good!

When I think about the fact that this coming Sunday is the first day of a new year and most of us will think about how we want to live in the year that is before us, perhaps we could all spend a little effort thinking about how God can use us to renew and restore creation! Who knows, perhaps some believers in Albania will start picking up the litter on those beautiful beaches!

Adversaries

Early this morning while convincing myself to get up and head to a meeting, I grabbed the always nearby iPhone and checked email. There was an email from the chairman of the board at Mount Carmel Christian Church, asking me if I had seen a story on the news and if so, was it the church he thought it was. We had WSB morning news on, and almost as soon as I read his email, I saw the story. It was the church he was thinking it might be.

Kingdom City Church in Stone Mountain, not too far from Mount Carmel, had been vandalized – even beyond the norm for that sort of disgusting behavior. They didn’t just take copper tubing from air conditioning units. They took refrigerators, food, cooking equipment, and apparently whatever else they could get their hands on. Part of the vandalism included something that caused flooding in the building that ruined books, clothes collected for needy people, and whatever else was in the path of about six inches of water on the floor.

Kingdom City Church is not a huge congregation, but it is a church with a huge heart. Led by James and Mona Harper, they are always seeking ways to minister to others. James and Mona, by the way, are parents of Point University graduate Morgan Harper Nichols, and Point University student Jamie-Grace Harper. They are great friends to Point and great leaders of this church.

I responded to the email and sent a text message to Mona. Soon there was a flurry of emails between the elders at Mount Carmel and others with me, the board chair, and the Mount Carmel staff. Mona called me and we had a long conversation where she told me more details of the vandalism and what all had been ruined. I asked her how we could help and we prayed together on the phone.

I couldn’t be prouder (in a healthy, Christian sense of what being proud is all about) of the leadership at Mount Carmel. They are fully engaged in finding out what our congregation can do to help Kingdom City Church. It makes me think of Paul’s comment in 1 Corinthians 12 when he says “when one part of the body hurts, the whole body hurts.” Seeing the comments made by various elders and members of Mount Carmel in response to Rick Moore’s first email is nothing short of gratifying to me.

All day long I’ve been thinking and praying for James, Mona, their congregation, and Mount Carmel. I can’t quit thinking about how depraved a person must be to not only rob a church, but to viciously vandalize it. I go from wishing I could catch them to thinking about how sad their lives must be.

The Scripture that has made its way into my thinking today is one that I memorized as a freshman in college in Denver Sizemore’s class. It is from 1 Peter 5:8 and says, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” We really shouldn’t be surprised when the presence of evil seeks to prevent good from being done. But Peter goes on and reminds us that we must “resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world.” (5:9)

Ours is a difficult world. Just today I read of real challenges a couple who are Point alumni and serving in a very difficult country are facing. His message to his friends was something like “don’t pray for our safety, pray that the gospel is shared.” Another Point alumus frequently emails me about some of the challenges his mission faces in another part of the world. A team from Mount Carmel has had an unbelievably difficult time just getting Christmas gifts for children into another country.

The adversary is prowling. It’s time for us to “resist him and stand firm.”
Please join me in praying for James and Mona and Kingdom City Church. Pray for servants of the child of Bethlehem named “Mighty God” all over the world who face danger in this very moment.

Just When

“Just when . . .” If the story of the coming of Christ is looked at with the sense of wonderment it deserves, one has to admit that among the lessons learned is that God apparently is free to interrupt our lives. We like it when the interruption suits our own sense of timing, and when it doesn’t, then that’s another story all together.

Right in the middle of Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus the Messiah, we find that intriguing reminder – “just when.” In this particular case, it has to do with Joseph, already described by Matthew as about to have Mary quietly put away, is dealing with a difficult moment in his life. Obviously unhappy with the things have worked out and no doubt not all that sure Mary’s story is true, he never-the-less wants to be a gentleman about it all. “Just when . . .”

In his case, an angel of the Lord appeared and told him, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20,21, NRSV)

Joseph has it all figured out. He has evaluated life and all of the circumstances that have come crashing down upon him and has a plan. He will be able to sleep at night knowing that he at least treated Mary decently – even though she had not treated him quite so well. Life will be a little different than he had planned, but at least he had a plan and he can now see how things would work out. “Just when . . .”

It would be pretty difficult to think of a more challenging “just when . . .” than the one Joseph is facing. The interruption brought to his life by the birth of the Son of God certainly qualifies as major change in life. Neither Mary nor Joseph could possibly realize just how big the interruption will eventually become.

But the real story in Matthew 1:18-25 is not simply “just when . . .” Joseph, you see, still has a choice. Among the more courageous words of the Matthew story are those words that tell us that Joseph “did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.” He models a kind of responsive faith that God desires always follows the huge “just when . . .” moments we all face.

Our interruptions in life aren’t likely to be quite as dramatic as were Joseph’s, but we all know that there have been times when, “just when we had life planned out perfectly” God somehow interrupted life with opportunities we never dreamed about, much less included in our plans.

The issue really isn’t the “just whens” of life – but the response to those moments when we determine, as did Joseph, “to do as the Lord commands us.”

Getting Ready

One can hardly think about the season of Advent, which of course began this past Sunday, without thinking about John, the one who came baptizing in the Jordon River as people responded to his message of repentance.

It seems John’s primary mission from God was to stir things up among the religious people of the day as a way of preparing for the coming of Messiah. That idea alone is enough to occupy a considerable spot in our minds. Why was it that “religious people” needed to be stirred up?

We all know that rather impressive birth narrative associated with John’s coming into the world – another of those Hebrew stories of old, childless couples suddenly confronted with the reality of parenthood. That story, as impressive as it is, doesn’t quite match up to the even more impressive birth narrative of the One for whom John’s mission was “prepare the way of the Lord.”

In similar, but not identical, ways to what we know about Jesus, we know about John’s birth and the next thing we know he is this wild man preaching in the wilderness of Judea with a message that can be summarized with one word: repent. He was, to say the least, a bit of an odd character, but then so was Elijah who seems to be his model.

John simply isn’t very impressed with religious people. He calls the most religious of the religious people a “brood of vipers” and is utterly unimpressed with any sense of entitlement based on one’s gene pool. “I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children of Abraham” was how he indelicately put it to a group of Pharisees and Sadducees.

What Mark so quickly has Jesus saying (Mark 1:15) Matthew tells us of John’s preaching the same message to prepare for the preaching of Jesus. For John, it was all very simple: one greater than He was about the burst on to the scene of human history and there was but one word to say about that: repent!

If we take the season of Advent seriously in our own lives – a time of longing, a time of preparation, a time of anticipation – for the coming of the glorious Lord, then I wonder what our one word should be? How, for example, should we think about our own spiritual disciplines as sometimes very “religious people” in this season of anticipation?

Would that word perhaps be the same word John used? Repent? Seriously – is that the right word for us? Would we, in our desire to do all that we can to get all of us and all of those around us ready for His coming, would we find a way to focus on repentance?

I don’t know if we would, but I’m pretty convinced we should. I keep thinking about how odd it is that on the one hand we are told that Christ came to the world “in the fullness of time,” (Galatians 4:4) yet the very people who should have been most welcoming of God’s Messiah seem to be the most resistant. The biblical scholars who should have been most perceptive about who Messiah would be and what Messiah would be like, pretty much missed the boat on both counts.

Could that possibly be me? Or you? Or the churches with which we worship and serve? Is it possible in all of our efforts to be “religious people” that the one thing we easily miss is the one thing John was so focused on: repent!

I don’t know the answers to those questions – but I think I ought to be thinking about them.

Playing the Spiritual Card

Often in the world of politics we hear various candidates accusing the other of “playing the race card.” Both sides of the political divide in our country are quick to bring out that phrase in what appears to be a little self-righteous indignation about something the other side has done.

You can keep reading – this isn’t about politics or the race card!

It does seem, however, that sometimes Christians are quick to pull out the “spiritual card.” When some part of our lives gets a little sticky – we are at least tempted to retreat to “look how spiritual I am” as the do-all clean-up operation for whatever mess we’re in.

When students end up in my office to deal with “sticky situations,” more than once I’ve heard, “I can’t believe you think I did that, I read the Bible and pray every day!” Somehow some sort of arbitrary standard about spirituality becomes the defense of behavior that can’t be defended.

I’ve noticed over the years that some of the public failures of church leadership – the ones whose names we all know because they were in the news – are rebuffed by “but I’ve preached against that all my life.” I remember reading, several years ago, about a church financial secretary who embezzled large sums of money from her employer church, only to donate it to a new church start she was a part of. Somehow “putting it to good use” (her “spiritual card”) was justification for stealing from another church.

Sometimes church staff members find themselves caught in the cultural temptation to not “put in their 40 hours.” When challenged about better work habits, our spiritual cards can be anything from “I don’t make that much money anyway” to “I had to take care of the kids who were out of school.” In the name of some warped sense of spirituality, we find ways to be dishonest with the very people we seek to lead to a deeper relationship with Christ.

We can use the “spiritual card” to explain our poor giving habits, our poor work habits, our failure to prepare our own material, and just about any other moral failure imaginable. In the same way that anyone, regardless of ethnicity, can play the race card; anyone who is a believer can play the spiritual card. In neither case does such behavior ever lead to correcting wrongs.)

Jesus must have anticipated our tendencies in this area. Near the end of Matthew’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21, NRSV) In Luke’s shorter version of similar material, Jesus says, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46, NRSV)

Paul echoes much the same message in Ephesians 4:1, “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, be you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” (NRSV) Apparently if you and I are going to call ourselves “Children of the Lord” there is high expectation that we live in a way that is genuine – thus making “playing the spiritual card” unnecessary!

Maybe There Are Sexual Ethics After All

Any of us who follow college football at even the most casual level know about the long and storied career of Joe Paterno. In so many ways he has been the model of what a college football coach should be. Anyone who can do that job at the same school for 60+ years must be a pretty amazing person.

But the most recent news releases suggest that he will definitely no longer be the Penn State coach after this season, and some are still suggesting he may not make it to the end of the season.

This very tragic ending to an amazing career revolves around sexual misconduct – not Coach Paterno’s conduct, but someone in the program.

Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.

If you’re watching the presidential campaign at all, you also know that one of the Republican candidates – Herman Cain – is embroiled in a scandal revolving around “sexual harassment.” Cain demands that we think that he is innocent – and he may very well be. His accusers demand that their claims of harassment be taken seriously. One of them described Cain as a “serial denier.”

Whatever the ultimate outcome of this blip in the race for president will be – the very fact that it is an issue revolves around sexual misconduct.

Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.

Over the past ten years or more, if you have kept up with religious journalism, you no doubt remember reading about leaders in the church who fell victim to the problem of sexual misconduct. To make matters even more complicated and ultimately harmful to our witness to the world, these leaders are all too often people who put family values, sexual purity, and anti-homosexual ideas at the center of their ministries.

At some level, among at least more Christian leaders than we would care to admit, there is a lot of reaction formation going on – we preach hard against the very things we are tempted by and often do.

Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.

Reading through Dave Kinnamon’s UnChristian, you quickly discover that one of the black eyes the word Christian has in our culture is that we are perceived to be “anti-homosexual.” I’m convinced that a part of the reason for that perception is that we tend to be more tolerant of heterosexual misconduct than we are homosexual misconduct. We give selective attention to texts that condemn homosexual behavior, while ignoring or at least not giving the same attention to those that condemn heterosexual misbehavior.

Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.

I don’t want to be guilty of a kind of simplicity that misses the point, but it seems to me that the New Testament is rather clear about sexual morality. We often focus on talking about sexual immorality – but would do much better to talk more about sexual morality.

Simply put that means that if we are single, we live a celibate lifestyle. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul seems to suggest that is difficult to do and likely requires a spiritual gift. If we are married, sexual morality demands that we have a healthy, fulfilling relationship with our spouse – one man and one woman. That’s God’s ideal. Like living a celibate lifestyle, the ideal marriage probably isn’t going to happen without the aid of the Spirit as well.

That’s it. Any other sexual behavior must fall into the category of immoral – and be viewed as undesirable by believers. Every example noted above would simply not exist if those involved were committed to a view of human sexuality described above.

Unfortunately young people and young adults are living in a culture where it is entirely possible they have never heard sexuality talked about so plainly. They live in a culture where almost every aspect of media – from movies to television, literature to advertisement, Facebook, Twitter, and everything else – bombards them with the idea that sexual conduct is simply a personal choice. If it seems or feels good to you and your partner at the moment, then it must be okay.

If that’s the modus operandi of our culture when it comes to sexual behavior, don’t be amazed at how many stories we see in the news, hear about at work and church, and maybe even experience in our own family settings where it suddenly dawns on someone that “maybe there are sexual ethics after all.”

Thanksgiving

I recently saw an article declaring that “November is the month of thanksgiving.” I wish there had been a capital letter beginning the word thanksgiving. That way, the statement would have been less bothering to me. November is the month our culture celebrates Thanksgiving Day, but surely those who belong to God don’t wait until Thanksgiving to be thankful!

Psalm 92:1-4 is one of hundreds of biblical texts that remind us of our need to be thankful.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to you name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy. (NRSV)

We live our lives surrounded by testimony in the world God created of His goodness to us. Exactly how God created this world is unknown, and as Hebrews 11:3 declares, By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. However God chose to make the world, what is not a matter of dispute is that we live in a world that is wonderful beyond belief.

Morning and night we have reason to recognize that “it is good to give thanks to the Lord.” The same physics that allow the space shuttle to dock with the massive space station in outer space allow air rushing through the pipes of a pipe organ to make music. That there are predictable laws in sciences like physics, chemistry, biology, botany, astronomy, and all the others says something very significant about how God made the world. “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God . . .”

How could we not be thankful morning and evening? God has placed us in a universe that is marvelous beyond description and we haven’t even made it to “the new heaven and new earth” yet!

If I have to wait to Thanksgiving Day to be reminded to be thankful, then perhaps I need to be more observant of the world around me, to be more observant of all that has been done for me in God’s grace through Jesus Christ, to be more observant of all that the people of God have done for me, and to be more observant of the testimony of Scripture itself.

The psalmist was right! It is good to give thanks to the Lord.

Until Christ Is Formed in You

Few of us would suggest Galatians as particularly pastoral in nature. Paul seems to be frustrated at levels that border on anger and most of the language of the epistle is undergirded with tension. But here and there as you read Galatians, you discover the heart of Paul as he expresses his desire for a bit of reformation to occur in these churches.



One of those places is Galatians 4:19, where he says "My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you" (NASB). "My children," is found often in John, but not Paul. And if you read Galatians from the beginning to this point, it is a bit of relief to know that Paul still has this affection for these wayward believers.



Then he describes the impact of his concern as being akin to labor pains. While Paul obviously has no personal experience when it comes to labor pains, like males in every culture, he surely is aware of the intensity of such pain. It may even be possible that he is alluding to the Genesis narrative and the conversation God had with Eve as she and Adam were expelled from the garden.



The focus of his love and concern, his willingness to suffer as though in labor, is "until Christ is formed in you." The labor pains analogy makes me think that Paul is thinking something like "You've met Christ, but you haven't done much with that meeting yet." Or perhaps Christ is in some sort of embryonic stage in your lives, but you need to give Him birth.



All of that convinces me that the rigid legalism that characterized the faith of these believers is preventing the true spirit of Christ to be evident -to be formed in them. What an odd thing for Paul to say to people who are seemingly convinced that Paul's approach to the Christian gospel is inadequate and that only by adding some rules and regulations can one truly be Christian.



To that sort of thinking, Paul says, "You foolish Galatians." Later, in his epistle to the church in Colossae he says that such an approach to having "Christ formed in us" has "the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but is of no value against fleshly indulgence" (Colossians 2:23, NASB). No wonder he thinks the Galatians are foolish - they are guilty of much the same sort of behavior as the Colossians.



Checking off the list of regulations seldom changes hearts. If hearts aren't changed, then it is hard to see how "Christ is being formed" in our lives. Paul is no doubt right; stepping away from "the traditions of men that we treat as the doctrines of God" is hard work. A bit like giving birth. But we all know the joy that comes after such pain!

Accommodation

Having nearly finished Hannah’s Child, Stanley Hauerwas’ memoir, I’m finding all sorts of things to think about. Whatever one might think about Hauerwas, what you can’t say is that his writing style doesn’t provide lots of opportunities for thinking. While I would never suggest that he gets everything right as I would see right, he never fails to make me think and I’m often thinking something like “I wish I had said that first!”

Near the end of Hannah’s Child, he is writing about the nature of the church, which he deeply believes to be an important witness to the world of God’s love and grace. One of the comments that he makes and that falls into the category of “I wish I had said that first?” has to do with the idea of the church as “answer.”

Here’s what he says: “When Christianity is assumed to be an ‘answer’ that makes the world intelligible, it reflects an accommodated church committed to assuring Christians that the way things are is the way things have to be.” The last thing we should want to be is “an accommodated church.” And right behind that would some sort of idea that “the way things are is the way things have to be.”

It all reminds me of the power and potential impact of biblical texts like 1 Corinthians 1:18-25. Paul is unwilling to accommodate the theological idea of a “miracle a day” or the philosophical idea of an “acceptable worldview” in his preaching of the Christian gospel, which he brilliantly summarizes as “we preach Christ and him crucified.” In a world that was demanding their self-defined ideas of power and wisdom, that had to sound like a lot of weakness and foolishness. He would not accommodate.

At Mount Carmel Christian Church where I have been serving as interim minister for a while, our Wednesday night studies have been focused on “how things ought to be” in the church of the 21st century. I am pretty confident that I don’t fully understand all the implications of thinking about “how things ought to be,” but I am confident that it isn’t “the way things are” and equally confident that the gospel has power that is greater than “the way things are.” So I don’t have to give in to my culture and assume that is the “way things have to be.”

The simple truth is that the gospel isn’t a magical pill that we swallow and all of a sudden the world makes sense. The gospel actually stands in stark contrast to the kingdom of the world. Do you remember the conversation Jesus and Pilate had in Pilate’s courtroom? Listen again to Jesus: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” (John 18:36, NASB) If Jesus is telling the truth here, then in what way could we arrive at some sense in which the gospel is the answer that makes the world intelligible?

Hauerwas goes on to say in this section of Hannah’s Child that “for me, learning to be a Christian has meant learning to live without answers. . . faith is but a name for learning how to go on without knowing the answers.” Oddly, or actually not so oddly, in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, Paul declares “for those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” For Paul, to be called at least suggests that we have responded in faith the message of “Christ and him crucified.” Faith. Learning how to go on without knowing the answers.”

So while I may not know exactly what the church in the 21st Century has to look like, I do know in faith that you and I must “go on without knowing the answers.” That won’t be accommodation to the theological and philosophical demands of the world. But where Christ is truly proclaimed, something very important will happen.

That “something” could very well be “how things ought to be.”

Vision as Vehicle

A number of years ago I was one of the speakers at a retreat for ministers. I don’t remember what the theme of the retreat was but I, along with another person involved in education, spoke several times at this retreat. I do remember that the schedule was very relaxed – there was at least as much time to play as there was time to be in sessions.

One of the preachers there had a bit of a reputation as one who came to the retreat but attended no sessions. I remember hearing his explanation when one of his friends was getting on to him for sacking out during the sessions. He said, “I already know more than I’m doing.” My first thought was “I don’t think I would have said that!”

But I often think about that comment – what in the world would make a leader in the kingdom of God say such a thing? And he said it with a bit of pride – not the slightest hint of embarrassment.

At some level he seemed to be without any vision of advancing the kingdom. The congregation for which he preached wasn’t exactly noted as a dynamic church that was in constant discipleship making mode. So how does one get that sort of comfort level with “knowing more than you’re doing?”

But that rather confessional statement on his part may be true for congregations as well. Is it possible that one of the challenges of the local church is that collectively, the congregation knows much more about the Christian gospel than they are acting upon? If that could be true, then could it be true that there is a lack of vision?

Vision has to be the vehicle through which believers discover a way to put into action what they already know. Vision is not only what can motivate us to think “we ought to be advancing the kingdom” but it can be the vehicle through which we discover those opportunities.

One need only to read Luke’s accounts of Saul’s conversion in Acts 9, 22 or 26. The phrase that leaps off the page to me is found in Acts 9:20, “immediately he began to proclaim Jesus.” Saul’s vision of a risen Lord provided the vehicle through which he inaugurated what would be a life time of “proclaiming Jesus.”

I’m wondering if perhaps the reason leaders are so often frustrated with those they lead and followers are so frustrated with those who lead them isn’t simply a matter of limited vision. “You’ve taught us all this “stuff” about the kingdom of God,” yet sometimes we sit in waiting at opportunities to implement what we know.

What I know for certain about myself is that I never want to be the kind of person who says “I already know more than I do,” and at the same time, I don’t want to be the kind of leader who teaches more than he motivates others to implement.

Vision can be vehicle!

Troy Davis, Mark McPhail and the Government

The Troy Davis case in Georgia’s long and complicated approach to death penalty cases has what seems like the whole world talking. Nothing about the case seems to be all that unusual, there are those who believe Davis actually killed the police officer and ought to be executed, and those who believe that the evidence is too shaky for such a judgment and because of that, the state took the risk of executing the wrong person. Davis claimed his innocence until the very end; while the US Supreme Court, the Georgia Supreme Court, and the State Board of Pardons refused to intervene and stop the execution.

The family of Troy Davis worked tirelessly to get the conviction overturned, or at least a new trial or evidentiary hearing. There actually was an evidentiary hearing in June 2010, but the courts upheld the conviction. The family of Officer Mark McPhail was adamant that Davis killed McPhail and seemed at least relieved, if not celebratory, when the execution finally was carried out.

There are no winners in this story. Officer McPhail left behind a wife and two small children. The execution of Davis brought to an end a life that included multiple encounters with law officials, dropping out of high school, poor work performance, a nick name “Rah” which stood for “Rough as Hell,” and being accused of shooting one other person that night, assaulting a homeless man, and murdering McPhail.

McPhail was murdered in 1991, Davis executed in 2011. Whatever else one might think about the death penalty, it can hardly be argued that the execution of Davis was a deterrent to murder. One might suggest that at least Davis would never murder again, but then his chances of getting out of jail were so negligible that he would have never murdered again anyway. While I don’t know the exact details of the cost of the execution, his twenty years on death row, and the multiple trips before the courts – the state of Georgia would hardly have spent more on a life sentence than it did in executing him. Just from the crass world of “what did it cost?” the whole thing makes little sense.

But for believers, there is a more serious issue at stake – how should a follower of Jesus view such actions of the state? Of course second year seminary students who know everything are quick to suggest that there is an answer. Depending on the social justice views of the seminary, it is either horribly wrong or exactly what God created government to do. Forget the fact that from the early church fathers to the present, pretty bright and capable biblical scholars have viewed the subject differently.

Perhaps one lesson to be learned from all of this is that these issues are complicated and while each of us may have absolute conclusions about such complicated questions, we should be careful in assuming that complicated questions have such easy answers.
Paul’s comments about government in Romans 13 are often brought into the discussion. Government is put here by God to bear the sword – protecting the innocent and punish the guilty. Believers are to respect the position of government, pay taxes, and try to stay under the radar of governing officials. What Paul doesn’t mention is what the role of believers in government should be. Again, we are confronted with an issue about which believers have not always seen eye to eye.

Obviously you won’t get the final word on these kinds of issues by reading what I write. Listening to McPhail’s aged mother you couldn’t help but feel the hurt she has experienced these past 20 years. Listening to Davis’ sister, you couldn’t help but feel the frustration she has borne for these past 20 years. Listening to the state argue that you can’t allow people to get away with killing policemen reminded me of the blessing of the safe culture I live in. Listening to supporters of Davis’ claims that he was innocent, you couldn’t help but think “what if?”

For me – and I know it is all very complicated – what seems to be the bigger issue is that as a follower of Jesus who has declared Jesus Lord, there is no room in my heart for allegiance to anyone or anything other than Jesus. In some ways, the fact that God “ordained government” is not that dissimilar to the fact that He “permitted divorce” in the life of Israel. Like divorce, government isn’t reflective of God’s intentional purpose at creation. That doesn’t mean it isn’t important, but it isn’t what He intended for human life to be like.

At some level, that means I should never depend on the government to do what God has called the church to do. That idea has implications far beyond the role of the state in the death penalty. I don’t mean that if my sense of biblical testimony as it reflects the teaching of Jesus is that the death penalty is wrong, I shouldn’t say so – but it does mean that I shouldn’t think “saying so” relieves me of the burden to bring Christ to a world that is “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd,” to use language Matthew uses to describe how Jesus saw the world. If I think the death penalty is consistent with the role of government as described by Romans, I still should not dare think that executing Troy Davis relieves us of the responsibility to find a way to tell people like Troy Davis that there is a better way.

One of the more notable preachers in Atlanta used his sermon Sunday to denounce the injustice of the execution of Troy Davis. If the clips played on the news reflect his content, he didn’t say a word about the fact that there are hundreds of young men in Georgia who, based upon their circumstances in life, could end up being another Troy Davis. The news in our city seems to daily reflect that reality. And of all the people I’ve heard saying Davis deserved to be executed, I’m yet to hear a single one say – we must find a way to stop this cycle of violence that is far too predictable these days.

I’m not happy that Georgia executed Troy Davis. I’m not happy that he very well could have been the one who killed Officer Mark McPhail. Even if I thought the death penalty was reasonable, I wouldn’t be happy that it was carried out. I’m far less happy that it is so easy to put the burden on the state when it is the body of Christ that God has called to change the world.

Wrestling

The conversation started out something like this. “Do you think the Bible is God’s word?” My reply was something like, “Yes, of course I do.” That reply was followed up with another question – “So you think whatever is in the Bible is really the word of God?” By now I’m beginning to think my questioner had an agenda of sorts, but I decided to answer the question any way. Hoping that I could give a one word answer and end the conversation, I simply said, “Yes.”

He wouldn’t give up so easily, and the conversation quickly included a litany of “so you believe . . .” statements that reflect a reading of the Bible as it might be seen through the lens of mid-twentieth century culture rather than an attempt to read the Bible through the lens of its own historical setting. The list of “things” I would need to agree to in order for him to believe that I believed that the Bible is the word of God was overwhelming!

This kind of conversation reminds me of why I detest labels. Had our conversation continued to the point where I would have suggested that we need to read Scripture through the lens of its writers and readers and not our own cultural settings, he would have dismissed me as one of these “liberals” who “water down” the gospel. Unfortunately, it is equally easy for me to dismiss him as one of those hopeless “fundamentalists” who abuse the gospel – maybe, to create a new term, “water up” the gospel!

I remember reading – actually have read it several times since I’ve used it as a classroom assignment – Myron Taylor’s “A Theology of the Word of God,” available in his autobiography, Preacher of the Gospel. The lecture was given at Emmanuel Christian Seminary, back in 1998. His opening sentence is remarkable: “The habit of referring to the Bible as the Word of God has disguised the fact that the expression has a multiplicity of uses in scripture.” (page 37)

Taylor then talks about what he calls “the eternal word,” “the historic word,” “the spoken word,” “the written word,” “the word of proclamation,” and “the indwelling word.” The last sentence of Taylor’s lecture is worth repeating as well, “the richness of the biblical concept of the Word of God deserves our careful and thoughtful attention.” (page 47)

So to my recent questioner, “yes, of course I believe the Bible is the Word of God, but it isn’t quite as simple as you might think!” As I heard William Willimon once say, “the Bible is a thick book.” Indeed it is, and Taylor is right – it deserves a whole lot of thinking on our part. To that I would add, “for the rest of our lives.”

One of the reasons I never think that “I’m going to work” is because I’ve spent my entire adult life employed as one call to “wrestle” with this thing we call “the Word of God.” I haven’t become rich when it comes to retirement accounts, but I have lived a decent life, rich in ways that actually matter. And in that “wrestling,” sometimes I’ve walked away with a limp.

Making Sense Out of Life

I tend to be a “two plus two must equal four” kind of person. I like things to make sense. What I perceive to be acts of stupidity drive me to distraction. I want things to “make sense” in the “best sense” of that phrase.

That may not be a bad approach to life if I’m talking about what the bank ATM does when I deposit a check. Or how the cash register at the grocery store accounts for my purchases. Or how my fellow commuters in Atlanta respond to traffic laws. Or even how I get from text to sermon or lesson.

But taken too far into my heart of faith – I’m not all that confident that God has called me to a life that “makes sense.” There is that troubling idea in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 about “the foolishness of the message preached” that is supposed to be the framework for my life. If you think about it, preaching “Christ crucified” doesn’t “make sense” when you’re living in a culture that demands “signs” and “wisdom.” But is what Paul is committed to doing.

In the introductory section to Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir, Stanley Hauerwas speaks to this challenge by saying, “I have, moreover, tried to live a life I hope is unintelligible if the God we Christians worship does not exist.” In a bit of a paradox, that “makes sense” to me. Faith in God creates an approach to life that is, without doubt, “senseless” unless God is really who He claims to be.

The “unintelligible life if God doesn’t exist” I’m called to live might make me love my enemies rather than getting even with them. It might even cause me to be a generous giver of resources rather than saving them for my own rainy day. It might challenge me to be more reflective about the privilege of where I was born. After all, becoming a Christian where I was born was a lot easier than it would have been had I been born in Tehran. Recognizing that privilege, I might even become more understanding of the non-Christian world. Who knows – I could start praying that the geo-political decisions of my own government would quit making it so easy for Muslims to dismiss Christianity as nothing more than an extension of American foreign policy.

The “unintelligible life if God doesn’t exist” is going to call me to realize that saying “Jesus is Lord” is a call for absolute allegiance to this Nazarene as Lord. It probably isn’t going to make sense all the time – but it will make sense to God.

I’m probably going to always look at the check I get when eating out. I’ll always want it to “add up” and “make sense.” But when it comes to the tip – I want to be viewed as living an “unintelligible life” – even when the service isn’t that good. That’s a starting place for a guy whose brain loves for life to “make sense.”

Almost Bible

For a number of years, my study partner and I were privileged to go up to Cherry Log Christian Church in Ellijay, Georgia, where once in the spring and once in the fall, the great preacher, Dr. Fred Craddock, would hold seminars on preaching. It was always a wonderful experience and we always left there more committed to the ideal of preaching than ever.

One time the topic was something like “the challenge of preaching in our world.” Craddock talked about a lot of issues that day – all of which I could identify with but the thing that he said that has stuck in my mind ever since then is that one of the challenges of preaching today is “that there is an awful lot of ‘almost Bible’ out there.”

A few weeks ago I was reading One Life by Scot McKnight. It is an overview of the life of Christ and its implications for discipleship, born in the classroom where McKnight taught Life of Christ at North Park University in Chicago. There’s a phrase in the book that reminds me of what I learned from Craddock. McKnight describes it as reworking a phrase from Flannery O’Connor. Here’s how McKnight puts it: “That’s right, but it just ain’t right enough.” (page 62)

Put those two ideas together and somehow I’m thinking that “almost Bible just ain’t right enough.” Yet, most of us reading this are living and studying; teaching and preaching – bearing witness of our faith where what I describe as the “civic Jesus” is much better known that the Jesus of Scripture.

And that is, to say the least, quite a challenge. How do we manage to stand against the “commonly held view of Jesus” in our culture and dare suggest that there is a Jesus in Scripture who stands over and beyond this “civic Jesus?”

Scott Peck, the psychiatrist who came to faith later in life, once suggested that the Jesus of Scripture may be among the best kept secrets in all of Christianity. I’ve not taken a scientific survey about that question, but he may have been on to something.

Paul’s way of talking about this was simply to say, “we preach Christ, and Him crucified.” (I Corinthians 1:18-25) Clearly in that text he is refusing to market the Jesus story to the demands of his marketplace – for Jews, it was signs; for Greeks, wisdom. But Paul won’t go down those roads – and sticks to this rather unpopular and often unbelievable story of “Christ, and Him crucified.”

There is an awful lot of “almost Bible” that isn’t quite “right enough.” God has called us to be His witness – and a good witness tells the truth!

Faith

My younger daughter, knowing of my affection for reducing the Christian gospel to a pithy phrase on a church sign, sent me a text this weekend to add to my collection. Here’s what the church sign said, “I seek not for a faith that moves a mountain but faith that moves me.” She apparently has been listening to Dad over the years, and commented, “Wouldn’t we want a bigger faith than one that affects only us?”

There have been times in my life when I’ve searched the Scriptures, seeking some basis for thinking that faith was ultimately about me. Sometimes I’ve dreamed of thinking that it would be great if I could get in my car in the morning, hit the remote control for the garage door, drive to work, go straight to the office and close the door, come out and elucidate my classes from on high, go back to the office, get in the door, drive home and hit the remote control to open and close the garage door. After all, all I want is a “faith that moves me.”

But those searches have proven to be futile, selfish, overly individualistic efforts on my part to think it is somehow all about me! Thankfully, despite the fact that I can be very comfortable locked in an office doing research in uninterrupted fashion, someone along the way taught me well that from the point of view of Jesus, He comes when “two or more are gathered in His name.” (Matthew 18:20) It really isn’t so much about “Jesus and me,” but more about “Jesus and us.”

And it is the “us-factor” that should make us want faith that “moves mountains.” When Jesus looked around at the “us-factor” of His world, He saw people who could only be described as “sheep without shepherds.” (Matthew 9:35-38) If Jesus is the paradigm for how we live out the gospel, it is hard to imagine how I could ever be too focused on what’s in this for me. There are mountains to move – and they can only be moved by faith!

When I see and hear comments like this, I wonder if a part of our problem is that we wrongly assume that the power of faith is rooted in how much faith we have, rather than the object of our faith. I don’t think it can be said better than Dean Walker said it: “The power of the Christian faith lies in the person of Christ, through whom we are redeemed and endowed with new creation by the action of God in Christ.” (Adventuring for Christian Unity, page 121)That sounds like “mountain-moving faith” if ever there was such faith!

Ours is a faith focused on community, not self. Miroslav Volf says it well when he suggests “because the triune God is not a private deity, one cannot create a private fellowship with this God.” (After Our Likeness, page 33) Faith really isn’t about “moving me,” but rather about entering a relationship with a God who is in the business of moving mountains.

Our very individualistic culture is constantly tempting us to think that the gospel is all about me. Perhaps that is one of the mountains we need to start moving – by faith!

Discipleship

Acts 6:7 is the first of a series of six summary statements that seem to be used by Luke to shift the story line in Acts. Like the entire collection of summaries, this one is remarkable in its description of what the church looked like. Here is what Luke says: The word of God continued to spread; the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. (Acts 6:7, NRSV)

There are some very powerful verb ideas in that sentence – continued to spread, increased greatly, and became obedient. What makes them even more impressive in their testimony to life in the early church is that they summarize the earliest life of the church.

Think about the story line in Acts thus far. It all started with the followers of Jesus, eye witnesses to the resurrection, a bit confused about the whole Jesus thing. “Are you going to restore the Kingdom to Israel at this time?” was their question just before His ascension. Jesus’ response was simply “Go and wait.”

Wait they did – and on Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon them, these otherwise confused and frightened followers boldly proclaim “This Jesus, whom you have crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ.” A mega-church was born that day – 3000 people (likely just counting the men) were baptized. That was a pretty impressive “first Sunday” by anyone’s standards!

They continued to bear witness to the gospel, and the church continued to have an impact on its Jerusalem community. A great Christian community is being formed in which there were no persons who had unmet needs. (Again, pretty impressive by anyone’s standards.) We meet people like Joseph, whose witness was so impressive the apostles gave him a new name – Barnabas, son of encouragement. We read the unfortunate story of Ananias and Sapphira and their horribly negative witness. There is a bit of persecution of the followers of Jesus – perhaps summarized in Acts 5:41 where Luke says, they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.

For the first time since Luke 22:45, the word disciples is used Acts 6:1 to describe the followers of Jesus – perhaps suggesting that in Luke’s mind, the church really is the continuation of “what Jesus began to do and teach.” (Acts 1:1) The last story of this first “act of Acts” ends with those powerful verbal idea – spreading, increasing, obeying. Apparently Luke views such ministry as the work of those who see themselves as disciples of Christ – continuing the ministry He began.

I wonder if perhaps my own life as a disciple would be more productive if I were brave enough to evaluate it with words like spreading, increasing, and obeying. Then what about those I have the privilege to influence – are they spreading, increasing, and obeying?

When I review the story line of Acts – there seems to be this rather consistent idea that the primary focus of these early Christians was simply to follow Jesus as disciples. That idea has all sorts of implications for them in their culture – as it does for us in our own culture. It transcends culture in ways that are both amazing and filled with potential.

All of this leaves me with a simple question: If I were writing a summary of my life, my discipleship for Christ – would words like spreading, increasing, and obeying be the words I would honestly use!

Come and See!

I know I am a bit biased when it comes to students at Point University. So I recognize that it is possible that my loyalty to and admiration of them sometimes reflect that bias. I don’t say that as some sort of confession or apology – why would someone be in the role I am and not feel that way?

Probably, more than any other person on campus, I know our students aren’t perfect. In some ways I’m glad they aren’t, because if they were, I wouldn’t be qualified to work here! And if they were absolutely perfect, then what need would they have for coming to this institution in the first place?

I just spent Sunday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon at Woodland Christian Camp and Retreat Center with our Campus Life Ministers – the student group that works with student development at Point University to help create and nurture the Christian community that we want our campus to be. These students apply for the opportunity to serve as campus life ministers, get references, go through a process of interviews, and are chosen to make this commitment. In obvious ways, they are representatives of the kinds of students that make up this campus.

This retreat was one of the most rewarding few days I’ve spent in a while. I couldn’t be more impressed with the quality of the students with whom my office will be working this year and the commitment they all have to making Point University “the college of choice for students seeking a Christian learning community that is academically challenging, spiritually vibrant and globally engaged.” (Point University Vision Statement)

In preparation for the retreat, our summer reading assignment was "The Next Christians" by Gabe Lyons. Our theme for the year is “Renewing and Restoring: How Things Ought to Be.” We talked a lot about the implications of that book and its message on how we do ministry this year. Interestingly, Lyons calls the kinds of Christians he believes will be crucial in transforming our world “restorers.” Among the qualities of “restorers” as he sees it are that they are:

Provoked, not offended
Creators, not critics
Called, not employed
Grounded, not distracted
In Community, not alone
Countercultural, not “relevant.”

I wish that all the critics of young adult Christians in our culture could have heard our discussions about these six statements. I especially wish all the critics of Point University could have listened in to our discussion. As Paul describes it in Ephesians 3:20, 21 – God can work through young adults like this “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.”

Are Point University students fully mature and absolutely perfect? No. But the simple truth is that they never have been. I recently saw a letter written to students at Atlanta Christian College by President Redmon in 1968. It was in response to the fact that even back then in the good old days, students weren’t perfect. One line from the letter makes that obvious: “Some have broken college rules and have engaged in conduct unbecoming of Christians.”

I have no idea who those particular students were – it was written before my own student days. It could have, however, been written during my student days; and while we tend to talk about our covenant more than we do rules, it could be written today. That’s the story of all humans – and to pretend otherwise, especially to pretend that our own struggles didn’t exist, is to live with blinders that betray the truth.

Our Covenant for a Christian Community introduces life at Point University identifying several issues that are foundational to what we want to see happen on our campus. Words and phrases like young Christian adults, maturity, community, redemptive, spiritual oversight, and openness to growth describe how we hope to advance the Kingdom of God, both on our campus and around the world.

If what I saw the past few days at are treat is indicative of what this final year on the East Point campus for the traditional program will be like, then I have to say Paul was right – it is more than we can “ask for or think about.”

Setting Boundaries

This week, my wife Vicki, daughter Sarah and I are at the beach. I often joke that I know God wants me to live on the beach, but for some reason He hasn’t yet provided the place! I even think about what it would be like to be the lawn maintenance person at the condo complex where we spend a week each summer in return for a rent-free place to live.

Sunday, we attended an open-air worship service just across the street from the beautiful St. Joseph’s Bay. If I knew the bishop for the northern district of Florida for the United Methodist Church, I might get my name on the list for appointment to Port St. Joe. There’s a running joke among my family and co-workers as to whether or not I will return from the week at the beach. Actually, I’m not sure it is ¬all that much of a joke!

I don’t know what it is about the ocean – but it has a kind of “tidal influence” on me. I always want to come back and revisit the scene. The particular beach we visit in the summer is just that – beach. Nothing else. Nestled on the Gulf of Mexico along Florida’s “forgotten coast,” it is like stepping back in time. (I’d tell you where it is, but I don’t want to start a stampede!) Just beach – sand, water, waves, shells, and whatever else comes along with the ocean.

In His conversation with Job, God Himself uses the ocean to point out to Job the distinction in actually being God and in thinking you might be as smart as God. Here is what God says:

“Or who shut in the sea with doors
when it burst out from the womb?—
when I made the clouds its garment,
and thick darkness its swaddling band,
and prescribed bounds for it,
and set bars and doors,
and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,
and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?” (Job 38:8-11,NRSV)

The regular, pounding presence of the waves of the ocean are as fascinating as watching the flames of a fireplace on a cold winter night. I don’t know how much Job understood about the influence of the gravitational pull of the moon on the habits of ocean tides, but you don’t have to know that in order to understand that the ocean is a powerful system. Yet God has set the boundaries – “here shall your proud waves be stopped.”

Walking along the seashore, I eventually will always remind myself, “there is a God!” It isn’t that I spend most days doubting that – but just that the reaffirmation that somewhere there is One capable of saying to the sea, “thus far shall you come, and no farther,” can be a healthy reminder that whatever issues you and I may experience in life, if God can set the boundaries of even the oceans, then He can surely handle the issues of our lives.

When you think about all the “power issues” that infiltrate our lives, often the church and God’s Kingdom, it makes you wish that occasionally God would show up like He did for Job and declare, “here shall your proud waves be stopped.”

Until He does that – which He has promised to do one day in the reappearing of His Son Jesus – perhaps a trip to the beach occasionally would do us all some good!

Becoming!

Today is another one of those days that I walk around wondering “Why do I get to do this?” The “this” I’m thinking about is hanging out on the campus of Point University (formerly Atlanta Christian College) with students – both returning students and new students – and watching them interact, register, serve, and even have a little fun while new freshmen register for classes in the fall.

One of my opportunities in this whole process is that I get to speak at the early Saturday morning devotion that begins the day we call Link. I always use the same text and have the same basic message – though it comes out in different forms, with different stories, and the like each time. My guess is that students who work with student development at Point University could repeat the sermon’s main point pretty well.

The text I use is the story Luke tells about the time Jesus was invited to lunch at the home of Simon the Pharisee – Sanctimonious Simon is what I call him. If you remember the story (Luke 7:36ff) an immoral woman comes into the dining room and has a life-changing encounter with Jesus. The primary message of that text – at least from my study of the story – is that Jesus is not all that interested in who we are (Simon, though is quite proud of who is is) but He is very interested in what we can become (which seems to be the immoral woman’s interest).

The whole Christian college thing can be a bit intimidating! That is especially true for new students who must come to events like our Link wondering if they will fit in, are they spiritual enough, is everyone there perfect, and all the other baggage that Christian colleges have allowed and sometimes perpetuate about themselves. I’m so grateful to be a part of a Christian college that takes Jesus to heart and is more concerned about what these young adults entrusted to us can become, rather than being overly focused on who they are!

Walking around what is a nearly all-day event, I am thrilled at the current students who are here helping out. Not too long ago they were new students, and I suspect wondering whether or not they would fit in. Now they are using their gifts and talents in welcoming new students to this community of believers determined to transform the world.

But I’m also thrilled at being surrounded by new students. You can tell by looking at them that this new experience of being a college student has created some questions, maybe a little stress. My guess is that at least some of them are wondering about whether or not they will fit in.

We have a few “Sanctimonious Simons” at Point University, but thanks be to God that they are the exception not the rule. But we have lots and lots of people – faculty, staff, administrators, and students – who aren’t so much living in the pride of who they are as they are excited about what God is doing on this campus and in their lives. It’s hard to believe that I get to be a part of all of that!

As I told new students and parents this morning – you don’t have to be perfect to enroll in Point University. And that’s a good thing, because if you did, there would be no one to teach you once enrolled! But we are intentional and unapologetic that Point University is all about “pointing the world to Christ.” As one of our billboards in the metro-Atlanta suggests, we want to “transform our culture for Christ.” Some of these students will end up doing that in vocational ministry, and for that I rejoice. Many of them will do that in a wide variety of occupations and with people that those in ministry have little opportunity to influence. For that, I will rejoice.

Having been involved in the life of this kingdom outpost for 35 years, I’ve never been more convinced that God is moving in the life of our school and that more than any of us can imagine or dream is about to happen.

Administrators have been, for some time now, working on a to-do list as we plan our move to West Point in July 2012. That list is massive, but I think, to borrow a little language from Luke in the book of Acts – it’s “multiplying.”

The Power of Words

I’m a self-confessing word nerd. Sometimes, as recently as earlier today, I find myself looking up a word, only to still be “reading the dictionary” 10 minutes later! But, in defense of my love of words, it was God who made humans with this amazing capacity to use words to say things, to be told things – to communicate. It is even possible for God to use words to communicate to us (Isaiah 55:8-11) and for us to communicate with Him (see the Book of Psalms).

Words have what is sometimes called marked and unmarked meanings. The whole process of interpreting everything from the article about the Braves game yesterday in today’s paper to the Bible itself. Our political culture seems to be in constant banter about how the words of the Constitution are to be interpreted.

I think I have at least one friend among the writers of Scripture when it comes to be a word nerd. In Ephesians 4:29, tucked in among a whole slew of descriptive phrases about the behavior of those who follow Jesus, Paul says, “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” (NASB) Unless I’m reading those words incorrectly, if a word doesn’t edify, it isn’t wholesome.

That’s not, however, how this particular collection of words are often used. A friend in ministry told me about a youth minister who overheard an elder in the church say a naughty word, when a wrench he was using to fix a door closer slipped and he banged his knuckles pretty badly. This particular elder was a godly man - known far and wide for his generosity and his willingness to do whatever needed to be done. At the time of this incident, he was actually funding the rent on a gymnasium for the youth program of his church that wasn’t budgeted at the time.

While I’m not suggesting that he should have said the word he said as his knuckles hit a sharp edge and started bleeding profusely, it wasn’t the worst word I’ve ever heard. The youth minister was quick to point out that the church shouldn’t have an elder who used “unwholesome words,” quoting this very verse.

In less than a week, the whole church knew that an elder had said a bad word – despite the fact that the only person who heard it was the youth minister. The only way that could have happened is that the youth minister let others know.
Whose words were “unwholesome?”

In Miroslav Volf’s The End of Memory, he points out that even by remembering things incorrectly, we end up bearing false witness against another person. When we say those over-stated memories out loud, we use “unwholesome words.”

The point isn’t that words don’t matter – even words that in our cultural setting are viewed as “bad words.” I’m not advocating that it is appropriate for Christians to speak crudely and in impolite ways. But I do think it is possible for a person to never use one of the “four letter words” we identify in our culture as crude and impolite, but still have an “unwholesome” vocabulary. We don’t have to use four-letter words to be guilty of not edifying others with our words.

May our words be signs of the grace of God – both “marked and unmarked.”

Are The Liberal Arts Liberal?

That question could also be phrased, “are there conservative arts?” Do left-wingers study in liberal arts schools and right-wingers study in other kinds of schools? What about the “moderate arts” – where do you go to school to get that kind of education? Would there be a school where I could go and get an education in the “fundamentalist arts?”

It is an odd thing that for some followers of Jesus, any idea that has the word liberal attached to it is automatically assumed to be from the pits of Satan worship! That might explain why any survey you see suggests that among conservative Christians, the percentage of income given to the work of the Kingdom is so paltry. After all, Paul uses the word “liberal” in describing the giving practices mentioned in 2 Corinthians 8. Here’s what he says, “We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift.” (2 Corinthians 8:20, NIV) Can’t imagine how the conservative, Bible-believing translators of the NIV allowed that word to slip into the translation!

We live in an age where it is difficult to keep up with the “arts and sciences” well enough to be able to communicate the Christian gospel in an effective manner. It’s one thing to be able to parrot someone else’s interpretation of Scripture, but a whole different thing to be taught to think for yourself and be given the tools to direct that thinking. The broader our education (think liberal arts) the more likely we are to avoid spending life as a parrot and learn to think, study, evaluate, and come to understanding.

Many Christian colleges, born in the reactionary approach to education of another age, have moved more and more in the direction of “liberal arts” with a healthy dose of good, quality, biblical education in the mix. That produces graduates who have more potential than can be adequately measured to change the world in which we live.

It’s one thing to be biblical. I’ve spent most of my adult life helping students discover how to discover for themselves the meaning of Scripture. The compliment I like to hear most is “he teaches me to think.” But one can be biblical to the core, and if you don’t understand the world in which you have been called to serve God, you aren’t likely to communicate that biblical message. An education that is broad enough to include literature, science, history, the social sciences, the humanities, psychology, education, communication, languages, and the like – as well as biblical and theological disciplines – is most likely the kind of education that prepares one for a life-time of service in the Kingdom of God. It produces graduates who can be both biblical and relevant.

The global culture of the 21st century can’t be influenced by those who see “biblical and relevant” as an “either/or” proposition. It must be “both/and.” What better way to create the “both/and” than in a good, solid, and broad approach to education?

Sometimes I hear people suggest that the reason Christian colleges have moved more in the direction of the liberal arts is because we have more and more students coming who want a good Christian education, but don’t plan on a vocational ministry as their goal in life. While I think that is true, and good – it is only part of the story. The move to liberal arts isn’t a move to bad theology, no theology, watered down theology, or any of the other negative terms that often get thrown in that direction. It actually is a move that prepares those who plan on vocational ministry in ways that are good, godly, and essential in terms of preparing young adults for a life of serving Christ – no matter their vocational goals. It also provides the opportunity to give students in a wide variety of vocational choices a solid biblical and theological foundation.

On the spiritual formation pamphlet that we use at Point University – and have been using for the five years I’ve served in my current role – we say this:

Every student at Point University will see the importance of integrating faith and vocation.

This means that we strive:
• to practice the idea of the priesthood of all believers;
• to see vocation, regardless of what it is, as mission;
• to learn how to effectively bear witness to our faith in any setting, without being overbearing;
• to learn in every classroom setting the relationship of the subject at hand to our faith; and
• to ensure that no student graduates without having been exposed to the ideal of integration of faith and vocation.

But we also realize that a part of our core mission is to prepare young men and women for ministry-connected vocations. Here’s what we say to that reality:

Some students at Point University will sense that they are called to ordained ministry.

Thus:
• some will find themselves in church settings as preachers, worship leaders, education leaders, spiritual formation facilitators, student and children’s ministers, administrators, etc.;
• some will find themselves in global settings as missionaries, campus ministers, church planters, relief workers, educators, health workers, etc.; and
• some will find themselves in parachurch settings such as colleges, seminaries, camps, convalescent centers, orphanages, relief agencies, urban ministries, campus ministries, etc.

For the life of me I can’t see how that is somehow to be viewed as deserting the mission! Counting my four years as a student and now 35 years as a faculty/staff member, I’ve been at this school for over half of its existence. I’ve seen more changes than I can count. One of those changes is that I’ve never seen as many students committed to transforming the world as I do right now.

Some of them come here wanting to play sports, and end up in ministry or some other vocation with a solid biblical foundation. Some come wanting a business degree and end up doing campus ministry. Some come because their parents see us as a reform school – and end up being transformed by the community that makes up this campus as it lives out the Jesus story in inviting fashion. Some come thinking that they want to be in vocational ministry, only to discover they really aren’t wired for that and can more effectively serve God is some other vocational choice. Thank God the broader approach to education gives them that option!

It really is about mission – not style of education. If Christian colleges should have embedded in their reason for existence the desire to transform the world – then Point University is on mission!

Skubalon

Our sexual nature is – to say the minimum – complicated. If we want to cast blame for that reality – and I’m not suggesting we should – we have to blame God. He, after all, is the One who made us “male and female.” We’ve been confused about what that reality means for most of human history.

It shouldn’t be too surprising that the history of humankind is littered with story after story, describing our sexual identity, behavior, and morality. We don’t have to look beyond the text of Scripture itself to see these brutal but real phenomena. From Abraham’s dishonesty about the role Sarah plays in his life to Solomon’s innumerable wives and concubines, with David’s indiscretion tucked between, the very heroes of the Hebrew Bible seem to battle their sexual identity, behavior, and morality regularly.

What has always seemed a bit odd to me in all of this is that it is so easy to be unmoving and unforgiving about the sexual discretions of those whose behavior is different (we think worse) than ours, but completely understanding of what is more “normal,” which mostly means is something we either have done or people we know and love have done.

As clear evidence of that, think about the current trend among conservative Christians to promote some sort of legal definition of marriage that is clearly a “one man, one woman” definition. At the heart of those trends is a level of discomfort with homosexual behavior, and the idea that a legal definition of marriage will at least be a way of “taking a stand.”

I’m very comfortable thinking that marriage is, as intended by God, “one man and one woman.” But I’m not sure, if we are serious about taking a stand for God, that such a definition of marriage is adequate. Shouldn’t we add “committed to each other for life?” Jesus Himself said that God “permitted” divorce because of the hardness of our hearts, not because it could be included in the definition of a biblical marriage. That we never hear that from those who would have believers join forces and manipulate the federal or state governments we live under to include the idea that marriage is “one man, one woman, one time” in the definition, seems to suggest that our concerns here are more in the context of anti-homosexual behavior than they are “defense of marriage.”

Oddly, we tend to ignore what Jesus Himself said about divorce and remarriage, while making an issue out of something to which He never directly speaks. In case you’re wondering, I know about the “exception clause” in Matthew and I know about the comments in Romans 1 Paul makes about homosexual behavior. I’ve read and studied Paul’s comments about marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, and his seeming option to remarry because an unbelieving spouse leaves his or her partner later in that chapter. I’m neither attempting to suggest that a divorced and remarried person isn’t fit for the kingdom, nor am I attempting to suggest that homosexual behavior is an acceptable approach to our sexual natures.

It just seems a bit more complicated than getting the church to sign petitions, pass ballot initiatives, and outlaw any kind of marriage that isn’t “one man and one woman.” How is it that we are relatively comfortable with what often is a kind of “serial polygamy” approach to divorce and remarriage, but unbending on homosexual behavior? Again, no attempt here to throw divorced and remarried people out of the church, or to merely wink at homosexual behavior as acceptable.

But, if we are going to decide that some state or federal law can save the world if we can get a “defense of marriage proposal” made into law, then shouldn’t we aim for it to be a reflection of God’s ideal, and not our own cultural, religious version of God’s ideal? And while I’m at it, what in the world makes us think that a law passed by a state legislature or the federal congress can actually accomplish God’s ideal in the first place? For crying out loud, God gave Israel some rather direct laws, and it was still necessary for Jesus to come and redeem us. Can we somehow outdo God here?

Vicki and I have been married to each other for almost 38 years. We have been absolutely faithful to each other for those nearly 38 years and I don’t see that changing. We are “legally married,” and have the Florida marriage certificate to prove it. But that legal document has absolutely nothing to do with my decision to be a faithful husband to her. I promised God, her, my family, and a church full of friends that I would be faithful until death parted us. No piece of paper signed by a probate court judge could ever trump that promise.

Sometime I hear people trying to define “sexual immorality” in all sorts of ways. Of course things like adultery, fornication, homosexual behavior, and the like get on the list. But when it comes to our sexual natures, humans are far too creative for there to be a list which covers it all. It seems to me that a better approach is that we define “sexual morality.” That’s easier, shorter, and less likely to be misunderstood.

It is this simple: sexual morality is either a healthy, fulfilling, loving relationship between one man and one woman committed to each other for life; or a life of celibacy. That really is God’s ideal. I have to wonder what difference it would make if followers of Jesus were better known for proclaiming God’s ideals on the subject than people who pick and choose from the list of immoral behaviors. If I were gay and thinking about the whole following Jesus thing, I’m pretty confident some preacher type would have to answer my question about why my particular sexual misbehavior was worthy of exclusion, but other kinds of sexual misbehavior weren’t.

In 1 Corinthians 5, the chapter in Paul’s epistles that addresses the most egregious kind of sexual misconduct (“of a kind that is not tolerated even among the pagans” 5:1), Paul makes it clear that his concern is not that the Corinthian believers isolate themselves for sexually immoral people in the world, but that sexual misbehavior not be accepted among believers. (5:9-13) Unless I’ve completely misread those words, his point seems to be that the church has no right to demand that non-believers abide by our values. There is a sense in which it seems that to do so gets it backwards. Clearly some of the believers at Corinth had interesting pedigrees – spiritually speaking. (6:9-11)

Paul has a kind of confidence in the Christian gospel that suggests any life can be changed. “Such were some of you” (6:11) leaves no doubt. But unless we find a way to engage sinners – homosexuals and heterosexuals who haven’t lived up to God’s ideals – we will never know whether or not the gospel has that power. We won’t even have a chance to declare it.

As It Was Meant to Be

In his intriguing commentary on the current state of Christianity, Gabe Lyons, in The Next Christians, makes this statement: “I call them restorers because they envision the world as it was meant to be and they work toward that vision.” (Kindle, locations 672-90)

When the Bible is read holistically, as opposed to the very-segmented way it is often read, the idea that God created us to live in community – loving Him and loving one another – rises to the surface as one of the fundamental truths the Bible reveals. After all, it was God Himself who declared, as He observed Adam in the garden all alone, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” (Genesis 2:18) The rest of the Bible’s story might easily be described as God’s pursuit of that ideal for His creatures. No wonder Jesus would declare that if we can work out a way to love God and love our neighbor – we have figured out what God intended for us at creation.

The kinds of Christians Lyons describes as restorers, have learned that truth. They see the brokenness in the world – both in creation and creatures – and believe that God is calling His people to help mend that brokenness at every level and in every way possible.

Such an attitude reminds me of another saying of Jesus. It comes from the Sermon on the Mount – Matthew 5:16. “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Could it be that our most powerful witness, our most effective way of influencing the world for Christ is in our work of “mending that brokenness at every level and in every way possible?”

If I break something of little value, there is no real motivation to mend it. If I break something that really doesn’t belong to anyone, there is no real motivation to mend it. But, when I break something that does have value, or does clearly belong to someone, then I automatically think I should fix whatever it is that I have broken.

Restorers seem to get that. They recognize that the creation and His creatures have great value. They understand that “the earth is the Lord’s . . .” and know that it truly belongs to someone. It might motivate us all to become better “menders” of the brokenness around us if we reminded ourselves occasionally of the great value of this creation and that, when all is said and done, it really does belong to God.

It is in that understanding of Scripture, read holistically and purposefully, that we can begin to see the world as it was meant to be. When we begin to see that – we have all the motivation we need to find ourselves mending broken things and broken people.

Back at You

Never one to shy away from those in-your-face moments, Jesus seems unwilling to let those who come to Him with questions get away with their own silliness. A great example is found in the opening verses of Matthew 15 where Jesus is asked a question about His followers. “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?” (15:2, NRSV)

One might expect that Jesus would launch immediately into a discussion of the difference between tradition and Scripture, but before He ever gets to that idea, He returns a question for a question. He says to them, “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” (15:3)

The fact that their question has to do with “your disciples,” that is, they don’t say, “Why do you break the tradition of the elders?” probably suggests that at the heart of their question is the accusation against Jesus that He is teaching His disciples to break these traditions. The question probably isn’t just a complaint about an occasional lapse of judgment where tradition is ignored, but a more systemic approach to tradition that says it is unimportant.

Rather than defending His disciples, which is perhaps what the Pharisees wanted, Jesus turns the question on them. Using the same verb for “to break,” (which is found only in this text and Acts 1:25 in the entire New Testament) Jesus answers them by asking, “Why do you break the commandment of God in order to keep your ancient traditions?”

This is “back at you” at its best! They are now backed into a corner of sorts – where they will need to explain how they could possibly view human tradition at a higher level of authority than the commandment of God. It is interesting that Jesus says “commandment” in the singular, not plural. Perhaps their idolatry of tradition has trumped the entire message from God.

It isn’t too difficult to find a kind of convicting spirit in this text. Convicting not just of the Pharisees who asked the question, but convicting of us as we look at our own lives. Where are we guilty of letting tradition get in the way of obeying God? It is so easy to confuse “tradition” and “doctrine” that we probably don’t even think about it in the ways that we should.

This is close to the point of the story of the Good Samaritan. Remember that in answering the “who is your neighbor?” question, Jesus has two very religious people avoid doing what godly people should have done. This is pretty much in the name of their traditions over the commandment to love your neighbor.

I have to wonder a bit, about my own life – that’s the only one for which I can answer. How often do I miss out on opportunities to love God and love neighbor because I’m keeping tradition that has little or nothing to do with either of the great commandments. Not unlike the Pharisees, we can easily slip into our self-assigned roles as judge and jury and be condemning of those who aren’t quite so impressed with our “tradition” and appear, from our vantage point, to be unworthy of the name, Christian.

Of course, there is a sense in which the idea of tradition has an important place in our lives. But, whatever that place is, and especially when by tradition we tend to mean traditional, it cannot be allowed to get in the way of obeying God!

Somebody Has to Say Something

I tend to listen to way too much talk radio driving to and from work, church, and other places. I actually changed the radio in my car so I could use my iPod to listen to either music of choice – The Cotton Patch Gospel music comes to mind – or Tim Keller podcasts or audio books. My talk radio tastes range from news programming (Scott Slade on WSB in the mornings) to the want-to-be sports guys on 680 the Fan (especially Braves programming) to an occasional Neal Boortz (at least he knows and admits that he is primarily an entertainer).

Because the best traffic information in Atlanta tends to be on “WSB AM 750 and now 95.5 FM,” I sometimes am forced by circumstances to listen to Sean Hannity in the late afternoon drive time routine. A little of that goes a long way! It isn’t so much about politics as it is the hypocrisy that always noses itself in when arrogant and under-educated people have an unchallenged platform. Even when the political opinions he expresses are similar to mine, he does so in such bombastic, rude, and quite frankly, un-Christian fashion, that I think “I’ll vote the other way!”

But even that isn’t the most egregious part of his routine. Have you noticed, if you dare admit you’ve listened, that he tends to refer to the current White House occupant as “the anointed one.” I admit that I’m not the smartest theological mind in the world, but I’m fairly confident that the phrase “the anointed one” is a reasonably good translation of the Hebrew word Messiah and the Greek word Christ. One would be hard pressed to find more sacred names for Jews and Christians than Messiah and Christ. Yet Hannity, who constantly reminds his listeners that he is a Christian and espouses what he would define as Christian values and even occasionally sits as an interpreter of Christian Scripture – routinely and callously uses the sacred name of Jesus of Nazareth as an epithet for a president he doesn’t like. That his audience – at least if the callers are indicative and the political demographics are reliable – is made up of conservative Christian listeners and he gets away almost daily profanely using the name of our Christ just makes no sense at all.

But that’s not all. A frequent line he uses – especially when he assumes the role of "the great answer giver of all time" – comes straight out of the mouth of Jesus. “Let not your heart be troubled.” Those are words, I’m sure you know, that Jesus used on the Thursday night before His crucifixion while in the upper room with His disciples. How many Christian funerals have we attended where those words were quoted as offering comfort to grieving loved ones? At what must have been the most difficult moment yet in His life and ministry, Jesus offered words of comfort to the twelve men gathered with Him that night, a night in which He instituted the Lord’s Supper. Yet Hannity flippantly throws out “Let not your heart be troubled” whenever he seems to think that his answer solves the world’s or our nation’s political conflicts.

How ironic that as he uses “the anointed one” as a pejorative title for the President of the United States, he himself capriciously uses the words of the One who proclaimed that He and He alone was Christ.

The obvious fact that Christians are Hannity’s biggest fans and allow such violation of the third command (You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. Exodus 20:7, NIV) probably speaks more prophetically to those of us who call ourselves Christians than it does to Hannity. It at least means that we have valued political opinion over the Kingdom of God. I know we don’t intend to say that, but I just don’t know how else to see it.

Perhaps I can start a movement – Christians who don’t tolerate violating God’s name – even when it that means disagreeing with our political favorites!

Then there's Glen Beck . . .

The Newness of Our Gospel

Abraham Lincoln, in his annual message to Congress in 1862, said “As our case is new, we must think anew, and act anew.” Those words were said in the midst of a nation struggling with identity. At some level, that is what the nation would eventually look like.

When I think about “church” in our culture, it seems to be that at every turn, churches are “struggling with identity” and trying to determine what it “will eventually look like.” There is no doubt that because our world changes so rapidly, we have to find a new way to make our case to those outsiders we seek to bring inside. We must learn to think differently about how that best happens and our response to that thinking will have to be “new.”

Jesus addressed issues like this when He declared, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.” (Mark 3:21-22, NIV) It makes me wonder if Lincoln might have read a little of Mark before writing his speech! “Our case is new, we must think anew, and act anew.”

The challenge of “new” never goes away. Human culture is never very stationary, though often in the subculture of individual congregations, culture gets very stationary. Leonard Sweet, a professor at Drew University, would argue that, in the case of the church educating ministry leaders, we easily get stationary and don’t think “anew.” An op-ed piece in the 27 April 2011 New York Times, written by a religion professor at Columbia University, says “Most graduate programs in American universities produce a product for which there is no market.” In other words – no one is thinking “anew.”

Gabe Lyons, in The Next Christians, boldly suggests that the future of the witness of the church in our world will demand the kind of thinking that focuses on “how things ought to be” and not “how things are.” In other words, if we keep putting the “fermenting gospel of Jesus” into the old forms and models, it inevitably will “burst the old skins and both will be wasted.”

I wish I were smart enough to be able to know exactly what “thinking anew and acting anew” looks like. If I were, I’d be writing these devotionals from a remote island beach setting, living on my book royalties! But I am smart enough to know this: if we keep failing to realize that we live in a very “anew world” and keep failing to realize that the gospel we believe is “ever anew,” then we will never change and transform the world.

May God help us to realize, as even Lincoln did, “Our case is new, we must think anew, and act anew.”

Management 101

Determining how we work out the reality of our own giftedness and the relationships we have with those with whom we serve God may be among the more difficult realities of “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12) This is especially true if one’s gift set places him or her in a position where the role of managing others is the daily experience.

How quickly the “managers” of our world seem to forget Paul’s rejoinder to the managers in Ephesus when he said, “you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.” (Ephesians 6:9) Of course that was said in a culture where a form of slavery seems to have been pandemic and he is directly speaking to men whose “giftedness” in life made them slave owners. Even in that horrific way of life, managers are warned about treating one another, slaves included, justly.

What would appear to be rather foundational for all who have been “baptized into Christ” is that “all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:27-29) In other words, our value to God has to do with whose we are and not what we do. Even a slave owner, who certainly has a management status superior to a slave, should realize that “master and slave” are both “heirs according to the promise.”

In that rather exaggerated example – though never-the-less real example – it seems utterly plain that whatever “management” looks like, it must be rooted in the brutal reality that manager and the one managed are, in fact, “one in Christ.”

Having been around the block enough times to understand that progress is seldom made without good management, and goals are seldom reached without good leadership, it still amazes me that it is so easy for managers to assume a status that pays little or no attention to the unchanging principle that in Christ, we are one. “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve” (Mark 10:45) is the practical application that seems to reflect how Jesus viewed management.

Maybe you remember that little story, it seems to be almost a postscript to the narrative, found in Mark 12. Jesus has just warned those listening of the danger of “managers” whose self-esteem is out of control and who, in the end, “devour widows’ houses” while “saying long prayers.” Then He sits in the Court of Women in the temple, watching people bring their gifts to the temple treasury. The rich people are putting in large sums of money, and a poor widow dropped in two copper coins – all that she had.

The contribution of the rich was “out of their abundance,” but the poor widow “out of her poverty put in everything she had.” There should be no surprise as to which person is the hero of this little story!

So what does this have to do with Management 101? While I understand that the direct issue in the story is a commentary on how we give to God, we give to God in ways that are beyond how many coins we place in the treasury.

I may be the “manager” because I get to do that “out of my abundance.” And the people I manage, at least in the realm of possibility, are doing what they do with far less “abundance” (aka skill, giftedness, etc.) than I. It can become very easy for the “manager” to focus on what great contribution he or she is making; while denigrating the more meager contribution of the “one managed.”

It probably doesn’t happen so much in terms of walking around in the flowing garments of pride and arrogance, but more in the simple disregard and lack of appreciation managers some time show to those they manage. It can happen in all sorts of ways – from the preacher who treats the youth minister like a gofer to the corporate CEO who views everyone under her like these big-gift-giving Jews would have viewed the poor widow. It can show up in how elders treat staff members; parents treat children; teachers treat students; and just about every other scenario you can imagine.

Management 101 is not a plea for “no managers.” Rather a simple observation that in Christ, we are “all one” and in that “oneness” we are called to value the contributions of all – from simple copper coins to the year end checks that balance our corporate budgets.

Oddly – or maybe not so oddly – from this story Jesus moves to his prophecy about the destruction of the very Temple where such abuse was tolerated.