Train Wrecks and Websites

What is there about disasters that draw our attention in ways that can only be described as “staring.” When I listen to the traffic reports in Atlanta every morning, it isn’t unusual to hear Capt. Herb, the more famous of the traffic reporters, to complain about “rubberneckers.” Those are the people on the other side of the interstate, unaffected by the accident on the opposing lanes, but who back up traffic as they slowdown “to take a look.” In the name of full disclosure, I’ve caught myself doing that very thing a time or two, or maybe more.

I wonder, as I watch the major networks, along with CNN, MSNBC, and Fox covering the most recent tragedy – the tornado in Oklahoma – if we need to keep staring at the same images. But apparently we do, or surely they would move on to something else. I understand the need to be aware – in hope that awareness produces help – but does that mean around the clock coverage? And do reporters really have to ask an elementary school kid about how he felt when he learned that some of his classmates had been killed by the storm?

But it isn’t just tragedies – at least not of the car wreck or tornado kind – that draw us in in ways that are surely unhealthy. Our culture is drawn to violence and sexual misconduct in movies in record setting ways. We watch mayhem being elevated to the norm and can’t seem to turn our heads. An NFL team has recently been seriously impacted by the fact that they apparently put out “bounties” on opposing players – but empty seats at an NFL game seems to be an oxymoron. 

But even that isn’t all there is to this phenomenon. Websites that portray every kind of human suffering are making millions attracting us to them. Video games, where violence and sexual assault are the norm, are huge attractions for young adults, especially males, in our culture. A study I recently read suggested that the average male college graduate would spend far more time either watching internet pornography or playing violent video games than he would on studying.

But there's more. Somehow I became a member of a closed Facebook group for preachers – I’m sure how a Facebook group is formed or closed, and not completely sure how I became a member. Every time I look at it I wonder, “What is the attraction here?” Most of the posts are either sectarian rants about “everyone but us is without hope:” or “no one preaches – even most of “us” – the Bible anymore;” or some similar sense of tragic hopelessness from “the church I serve is awful” to “the current government in the US is a disaster.”

  

I keep telling myself I will quit looking at this site, but I find myself “rubbernecking” a bit. The so-called “information age” has created serious challenges to any who would read Paul’s words to the believers in Philippi – “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8, NIV) Too much rubbernecking can create snarls far worse than a traffic backup.

Pentecost

This coming Sunday, May 19, is Pentecost Sunday on the Christian Calendar. The fifty days after Easter have quickly passed by and it seems impossible that we are already nearly two months beyond that great day of celebration in the family of God.

Acts 2 is the place in Scripture where many Christians will find themselves next Sunday. And what a great chapter it is! It is hard to determine what is most important in that chapter! From the coming of the Holy Spirit, to Peter’s sermon, the response of 3000 people who were baptized (perhaps just counting men), to the earliest description of what the earliest church looked like in 2:42 through the end of the chapter.

It interests me that prior to chapter two, the apostles – now back to twelve in number with the selection of Mathias – seem to be frightened men who wondered whether or not what happened to Jesus could very well happen to them. But something happened on Pentecost that changed them forever!

Luke’s story in Acts 2 suggests that each of them was out on the streets of Jesus preaching a message that could be summarized with “this Jesus whom you crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ.” In the “video that plays in my head” when I read this text, I would like to think that Peter was standing right under the corner window of the High Priest’s office, preaching his heart out.

But think about what is happening. These men have spent about 40 days interacting with the risen Christ. Yet in Acts 1:6-8, their last question to Jesus is “Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?” Apparently, even 40 days with the risen Christ hasn’t broken through their cultural worldview that the Messiah was all about Israel, the political and geographical nation of which they were a part. 

But on Pentecost, they get it! They understand that the Messiah is all about redemption – the opportunity to make things right with God. They understand that even those who crucified the Son of God can repent and be baptized, having their sins forgiven and receiving the promised gift of the Spirit. 

What happened? If you read the story Luke tells carefully, it seems that the only observable thing that happened was the coming of the Spirit. When the Spirit comes, they finally understand what it means to be a witness to Jesus “in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.” That begins what is best understood to be Luke’s story of the Holy Spirit led movement of the gospel from Jerusalem to Rome – a movement that will happen in a single generation in an age without all the opportunities we have in terms of communication, travel, and a whole host of other “modern conveniences.” Acts, if read as the narrative Luke intends it to be rather than an opportunity to proof-text all kinds of theological conclusions, is really an exciting story.

Apparently Jesus was serious when, in John 16, He promised that when the Spirit came, he would “convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.” And that idea is what makes Paul’s comment in 1 Corinthians 12 sensible when he reminds us that no one can confess that Jesus is Lord apart from the Spirit. 

I don’t want to sound “too charismatic” in the common misuse of that important biblical term, but the simple truth is that the Spirit was sent to bear witness of Jesus – and that witness is a convicting ministry to “the world.” Even though Luke’s description of the Spirit’s gift to the apostles at Pentecost seems to be a unique outpouring of the Spirit, the idea that we can transform the world without the Spirit’s convicting work borders on a kind of arrogance that is heresy. The right response to the abuse of the biblical doctrine of the Spirit and His ministry is not to pretend like He doesn’t exist, or if He does, He does so only in Scripture.

Perhaps on Pentecost Sunday, we might think a moment or two about our own desperate need of the Spirit’s ministry of conviction, regeneration, sanctification, and equipping for ministry. Who knows what would happen to the church if we did – we might write another Acts narrative!

Unintended Consequences

No one intended me to hear the remark, and the usual “oops-expressions” attempted to cover up for what would ultimately be a bit of embarrassment that I did. The remark wasn’t about me but was very disappointing to me. It was about another preacher and the comment was something like, “he doesn’t have anything to say to me.”

That’s an easy temptation by which any of us who have been Christians for a while can be victimized. That person isn’t as smart as I am. Or maybe that person isn’t as “spiritually deep” as I am. It might even be that the person isn’t as perceptive about the implications of the Christian gospel as I am. But whatever the reasoning, that person “doesn’t have anything to say to me.”

When he wrote his magnificent and challenging letter to the Romans, Paul begins with a reminder to the believers there of his deep desire to fellowship and worship with them. “I long to see you” is how the initial comment of Romans 1:11 is most often translated. The verb he uses has the sense of “a yearning desire,” suggesting a high level of emotional need permeating his comments.

We don’t have to wonder about what caused this “yearning desire,” he tells us that by being with them, “I can share with you a truly spiritual gift to strengthen you.” Paul uses the normal word he gives to our theological vocabulary – charisma – for “spiritual gift.” But apparently his desire to be with them suggested he needed to say more, and he modified that word with another word “spiritual” which sounds a bit redundant in English, thus the phrase above, “truly spiritual gift.”

Then in the next verse, he seems to explain what he means by this “truly spiritual gift.” Here’s what the text says, “or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.” (Romans 1:12, NRSV) There is a whole lot of “mutual” in that phrase. Look carefully – “we may be mutually encouraged,” and “by each other’s faith,” and “both yours and mine.” It is hard to miss the reality that Paul thinks that the mutual encouragement that comes when believers are together is a “truly spiritual gift.”

What amazes me about this text is not the idea that the faith of the believers in Rome would be “encouraged” by Paul’s presence with them. But it is startling to think that Paul thinks his faith would be encouraged by being with them! He isn’t victimized by the “those people don’t have anything to say to me” attitude that is so easy to fall for in our day and time.

Perhaps Paul took seriously that word from Jesus that when believers get together in His name, He shows up. (Matthew 18:20) Maybe he already believes what he will later write to the believers in Ephesus when he says that all spiritual gifts are for the building up of the body of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11ff)   Who knows, he might even actually believe what he most likely has already written to the Corinthians when he describes the church as the body of Christ where all the various parts and members must function as “one body” in order for the church to be to the world around us what Jesus was to the world around Him. (1 Corinthians 12) I’m pretty confident that Jesus spent a few Sabbath days listening to synagogue teachers who really “didn’t have anything to say to Him.”

All of this reminds me of my favorite lines form Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, when he said, “If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.” It isn’t an accident that those words, beautifully written and framed, hang on my office wall in place where I can’t help but see them!

I’m amazed at the idea that Paul would think being with me might encourage his faith. If that is even possibly true, then I’m pretty sure that I should avoid the “he doesn’t have anything to say to me” routine that reeks of a spiritual arrogance that foreign to the Christian gospel.