A Lenten Farewell

“No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others.

So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you 

sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually,

 if you do no good to others, you do nothing great.”

Those are words spoken by the great fourth century preacher John Chrysostom. They seem as relevant an admonition to me thousands of years later as they must have to those who first heard them spoken. Could it be that it is in the act of providing advantage for another than my own sacrifice can have real meaning? 

The challenge to follow Jesus is just that – a challenge. Despite our cultural bias toward that which is easy and requires little of me, the gospel seems rooted in the idea that following Jesus is a call to give of our very best, to give of our all, and to come on bended knee as we seek His help along the way.

In Luke’s account of the Jesus story, he has Jesus talking about the cost of following Him in Luke 14:26ff. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (NRSV) Most of us are pretty quick to run to Matthew for rescue, where he has Jesus saying, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me . . .” (Matthew 10:37=39) Matthew seems to be a little more pastoral than Luke.

Currently I am reading through Luke as a part of my devotional reading of Scripture. What I noticed a few days ago that I don’t recall noticing before – perhaps why William Willimon describes the Bible as “a thick book” – is that this text ends in Luke about as strongly as it begins. Here what Jesus says, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” (ESV)  Apparently Jesus missed the day in rabbi school when they talked about a politically correct way of talking about discipleship!

The word Luke uses only shows up in the New Testament sseven times. Six of them are simply formal ways of saying “farewell.” A would-be disciple wants to say “farewell” to his family in Luke 6:61. Jesus says “farewell” to the crowds after the feeding of the 5000 in Mark 6:46 and goes off to pray. The other four are similar, routine ways of saying “good bye.”

Then there is this one. The ESV says “renounce” while the NRSV says “give up all.” Either preference puts me in a challenging place. What in the world can Jesus be thinking? I need to “hate” my family context and “renounce” all my stuff. Following Jesus doesn’t seem to be the stroll in the park some might have me believe. 

In the same way I’m sure that Jesus isn’t literally asking me to hate my family, I’d like to think that He doesn’t mean by “renounce” that I give away everything I have and hope for the best. But at the same time – I’m pretty sure I should pay more attention to this text. The truth is, when you read Acts 2-4, it seems fair to say that early Christians took words like this more to heart than we do.

Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent – that centuries old Christian practice of re-thinking our relationship to Jesus in the context of repentance, sacrifice, and commitment. I’m beyond caring whether or not a simple little non-Catholic Christian like me ought to practice Lent – so no need to remind me it isn’t “in the Bible.” Neither is the church building you worshipped in on Sunday, but my guess is church buildings have value.

So for me – I’m going to do my best to think seriously about this question: “What word from Jesus is troubling my heart right now?” If I don’t have an answer to that question, then I have probably fallen victim to what Pope Francis recently called “the globalization of indifference.” 

In all honesty – I probably don’t need to think beyond “renounce all that he has” as a “troubling word from Jesus.” During Lent, I’m going to think about that, pray about that, and talk about that. How can I become more like Jesus and less like the “stuff” I need to renounce. Of course I will have to remember the quote at the beginning from Chrysostom – and not just “renounce” but do something!

Whether you like the whole idea of Lent or not – I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t help you, just as I am doing, to wonder about some “troubling of the heart” words from Jesus for the next 40 days. 

Blessing to you as we journey toward Easter.

Fairness Counts

Despite both growing up hearing it and saying it to my own children as a parent, the old adage “Life isn’t fair” doesn’t speak to how life ought to be, but how life sometimes turns out. Followers of Jesus should never be satisfied with that idea as a description of how things ought to be. 

As a child growing up, I spent lots of time with my paternal grandparents – who lived all of less than a mile down the country road from my parent’s house. I suspect it had something to do with the favored status I perceived I occupied with my grandparents, the fascination with the farm, and the reality that grandparents are generally easier on kids than parents.

I remember lots of lessons from those days. In addition to being a dairy farmer, my grandfather grew crops that required lots of manual labor and back in those days, that meant people’s livelihood was typically earned in doing this kind of work. Nearly always people were paid at the end of the day, every day. My grandmother would often remind my grandfather of the warning in James 5:4 – “Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.” (NRSV) I don’t think she did that because my grandfather was dishonest – but because she wanted to make sure everyone was treated fairly – justly.

That whole paragraph – James 5:1-6 – is one that any of us living in modern culture ought to review occasionally. It is all about treating people justly. While James’ specific illustration seems to speak to the issue of paying just wages, it seems to me that the overriding principle in play is whether or not I treat people in every context of life justly. In a culture where manual labor was predominant, it is no surprise that James uses the idea of paying just wages as the vehicle in which he reminds his readers of just treatment of others. He surely is thinking about Deuteronomy 24:14, 15. Or to use Jesus’ words, the need to treat others in the context of loving God and loving neighbor. 

Do I treat students in my classes justly? If not – will their voices cry out in judgment? What about restaurant owners who pay less than minimum wage, in the name of “tips make up the difference”? Or even more personally for most of us – the customers in restaurants who tip so poorly there is no way we help “make up the difference.” Then there is the bureaucratic reach of government employees who seem to enjoy being difficult. And court systems who treat the accused with the kind of disdain that should never be in a believer’s heart. And banks whose interest rates far exceed reason. Or businesses who resort to price gouging in times of disaster and who sell inferior products at outrageous prices.

Of course it is easy to simply say “that’s how the system works.” “Capitalism isn’t perfect – but it’s better than any other alternative, so too bad about the abuses.” “The courts are supposed to punish the guilty, so tough luck if you’re caught in the system.” “It’s not my fault she can only get a job at some local mom and pop, meat and two vegetables kind of place.” 

All the while, we watch our own treasures increase and fail to hear the cries of those treated unjustly that reach the ears of the Lord of the hosts. 

“But I’m not rich” becomes our immediate mode of defense. Yet, compared to those who first read James, we are all pretty rich – and we dare not dismiss these words so casually.

I didn’t realize it growing up, but looking at life from this end of the journey, I’m grateful for the regular reminder of my grandmother that justice matters – and it always matters. If justice matters, I won’t become rich at the expense of laborers; and I won’t become powerful at the expense of the marginal; I won’t pad my resume at the expense of the accused; and I won’t excuse myself because “that’s the way things are.” 

Life really isn’t fair – but that’s no excuse for a believer to contribute to the unfairness.

Of Springs and Cisterns

My wife and I were both in graduate school, had part-time jobs, and a weekend ministry in a little church in rural Kentucky. As summer approached the issue of Vacation Bible School arose and somehow we convinced the church to do an evening VBS – despite the “we’ve never done it that way” initial response.

I was taking first year Hebrew, a decision that might not have been among my best, and Vicki was taking some class required as a part of her graduate degree in music. We both were in class, worked a few hours in our part-time jobs, Vicki was practicing for her masters organ recital, drove to Kentucky in late afternoon, did VBS, drove back home, and got ready for class the next day.

Friday night, sometime around 9 p.m., VBS was almost over. It was the “best VBS we’ve ever had” said one of the “we’ve never done it that way before” folks. We were both dead tired. One of the men in the church suddenly came up to me and said, “We are out of water.” First of all, I didn’t know you could do that in the US – be out of water – and second of all, why was he telling me.

The church had a mobile home next door to the building and we often spent the weekends there. We were planning on doing that on this particular Friday night. But there was no water.

A family in the church told us we could come over and shower and get some water to bring back with us for coffee the next morning. The man who first told me about the problem said, “We will have the cistern refilled in the morning.”

“Cistern?” I wasn’t sure what one was, much less aware that was the source of our weekend drinking water! Growing up in the low country of South Carolina where water was just a few feet below ground level, I never imagined that the best approach to running water in this part of Kentucky would be a cistern. 

Early that Saturday morning, I heard a truck backing up to the church building and curiosity got the best of me. By the time I got outside, they had pushed back a cover to a huge cement cistern on the back of the church building – something I had never noticed before. As the cistern filled, I noticed all manner of bugs, leaves, and assorted debris floating to the top. Eventually there was what looked like the carcass of a long-since deceased Mocking Bird! The water truck guy took a net and “cleaned it out for me.”

Even though this was long before the common availability of bottled water, I don’t think we ever failed to have some bottled water for drinking and cooking on the weekends after that.

As Jeremiah begins his explanation, on behalf of the Lord, for why Israel is in such deep trouble with God, he says:

                “Be appalled, O heavens, at this,

                    be shocked, be utterly desolate,

                                                declares the Lord,

                for my people have committed two evils:

                they have forsaken me,

                    the fountain of living waters,

                and hewed out cisterns for themselves,

                    broken cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12, 13, ESV)

I never read those words without thinking about that Mocking Bird carcass in the cistern on the back of a little Kentucky church building. It reminds me of how foolish it is to walk away from a fountain of living water hoping to drink from a cistern that can hold no water.  I suspect this great prophetic text could have been in the mind of Jesus when He told the woman in Samaria “The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:15)

So the question I am asking myself – and hoping you will ask yourself – at the beginning of a new year is simply this: “Where are you getting your drinking water?”

Springs or cisterns?

A little later Jeremiah, still speaking about Israel’s forsaking of God, will say, “They were not ashamed at all, they did not know how to blush.” (Jeremiah 6:15) That sounds an awful lot like our culture right now – and it probably reflects our seeking after empty cisterns rather that fountains of living water.

So  - the question: springs or cisterns?

At the Risk of Sounding . . .

I don't want to sound "anti-Christian music." I will confess that I don't listen to Christian radio stations very often - the DJs are often more than I can take!I have some Christian music on my iPhone and know a few Christian musicians. Just this morning I was listening to some "Christian music" while working on a project.

But, I will admit to often asking this question: "If you have to put the adjective 'Christian' in front of something, is it really 'Christian'?" Peter's admonition to always be able to give an answer for the hope that is within you seems to suggest that our actions, words,  behaviors, etc., should speak  for themselves - without the essential adjective.

Sunday in church we sang Angels From the Realms of Glory, whose writer managed to combine both the Luke and Matthew accounts of the birth of Jesus when he included "shepherds in the fields abiding . . . God with us is now residing." He did that in the same stanza! That required a level of biblical understanding and theological acumen that isn't always seen in more contemporary Christian music.

It isn't that all modern Christian music is bad, but that sometimes some of it sounds like two thousand years of theological thinking about the Jesus story never happened. Do we really think that nothing happened in the past two  thousand years that could enhance our understanding of the Gospel?

I recently saw an article in Charisma about the horrors of drinking alcohol. I'm not remotely encouraging anyone to drink alcohol. But the  article, written by a pastor and posted by someone who is a "Christian musician" makes a less than astute argument about drinking. Interestingly, the post below this one was for internships where interns could learn "business, finance, communication, music, production and sales" during the summer of 2016!

The post itself contained fifty reasons why one should not drink. For at least half of those "fifty reasons" one could substitute the word "money" for alcohol and come out in exactly the same place. The article assumes that "one drink" is likely to lead to drunkenness. I know that happens  and am not suggesting anyone drink. But the relationship between "money" and "greed" is hardly different. For example, "Alcohol causes me to act in ways I normally wouldn't." I don't doubt that for one minute - but couldn't the same be said  for greed? As in "Greed causes me to act in way I normally wouldn't."

I haven't  done a word count, but  I'm pretty sure the New Testament has as much to say about the evils of money and greed as it does the  evil of  alcohol and drunkenness!

Yet if I go to a "Christian concert" I have to buy pretty pricey tickets and will be enticed to buy pretty pricey merchandise.

That money is going somewhere - and surely a significant portion of it into the hands of the "Christian musicians" like those who promote "internships" where "business, finance, communication, music, production and sales" are the name of the game.

No intention to bash "business" here - but let's be real. If, in the name of "Christian witness" I am going to be really direct about the danger of "one drink" that could lead to drunkenness, shouldn't I be as direct about "one ticket sale" or "one t-shirt sale" that pads the coffers to what could one day be a greedy approach to life?

Here's  the point: "business" separated from historic, orthodox theological thinking is  fraught with the danger of greed. "Music," separated from historic, orthodox theological thinking is fraught with the danger of less than valid calls for godly living.

Both "business" and "music" need someone with a theological  brain occasionally offering a little advice!