Friday, March 21, 2014

TRUTH AND TICKLED, INCHING EARS

The first quarter of the 21st century might appropriately be called the age of the tickling of ears.  The apostle Paul spoke of how “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths” (2 Tim. 4:3-4, NASB).  The New International Version translates these verses, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” 

This might just be that “time” of which Paul Spoke.

It is certainly a time of multiplicity, peppered with a pluralism that numbs the mind and undercuts any word that might be held to be an authoritative word.  This all raises a question for me, “On what authority does a word that seeks to speak with authority, in dismantling all other sources of authority, have that authority to do so?” 

Sadly, to live in a one-up-man-ship world where “itching ears” determine what the current truth shall be is just a new version of the old Junior High adage, “My dad can beat up your dad.”  Only now it is, “My authority can beat up your authority and that means your authority is inferior; so there.  Put that in your peace pipe and smoke it.” 

I John 1: 5 says, “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” Ephesians 5:8 says, “walk as children of Light.”  Jesus said, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life"  (John 8:12).  These verses assume some kind of authority-- truth, if you will.  The buck stops somewhere, and in Scripture that stop is Truth in the person and life of Jesus.   

What seems to be so cut-and-dry in Scripture, in these days of political correctness, pluralism, and intolerant-tolerance, has become unclear, uncertain, and a mystery embraced by lack of clarity. Even the church of Jesus has a thousand viewpoints on just about every issue to which it addresses itself and the message it is sending to the world is “We don’t know for sure what we believe about anything anymore but we sure believe it.” 

It is a crazy world, isn’t it?  My attempt to convince you that my authority to put down your authority is confronted with your attempt to convince me that my authority is only assumed on my part and is not backed up by the reality of life, which has, of course, fully endorsed your authority.  It’s just my opinion.  So, we go round and round and round claiming an authority the other does not embrace as authority; and on and on it goes.  (I got tired just trying to write this paragraph). 

Consequently, pluralism is the new standard of authority.  I don’t know who had the authority to make this the new standard, but it is among us, and it is alive and well.  The word out there now is that there is no absolute truth.  Everything is either situational truth or truth for some sub-set of beliefs somewhere, but truth is not and cannot be absolute.  Truth is relative.  Believe and embrace what you perceive to be authoritative, and I’ll do the same, just don’t try to make your authority be my authority.  Then, like ships passing in the night we miss each other, call it good, and move on merrily unaware that there is an iceberg ahead about ready to do us in.

As a follower of Jesus Christ I am compelled to deal with a Savior who insists that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6).  That just upsets the whole apple cart, doesn’t it?  Not much wiggle room here -- the Way, the Truth, the Life.  That just about covers everything doesn’t it?  What to do? What to do?  Is this just His opinion, or is it the truth?  And, in an age when all authority is called into question and is not total or absolute, but personal and situational and tribal, what do we do with someone who comes to us and says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life?” 

Personally, I believe Him.  He has proven Himself to be who He says He is?  He lived in and among us, and He never deviated from His message.  He suffered, died, was raised from the dead, gave His Holy Spirit to those who would received Him, and created a Church that has moved through two thousand years of history, with every opportunity in the world to die away, but didn’t.  People who have embraced Him have come to know that He really meant it when He said He came that we might have life and have it to the full (John 10:10).  Not only did He mean it; He did it. 

I know this doesn’t set well with folks who have set their itching ears on their “own desires,” and are busily accumulating for themselves teachers who will reinforce those desires and who make it easy for them to “turn away their ears from the truth and …turn aside to myths.”  And, truthfully, I don’t expect those folks to believe a word I am saying; and, I’m okay with it.

One of the things I like about absolute truth is that you can throw it out there, and let me be or not be whatever it is or isn’t.  If it is really absolute truth, it can take the heat; and if it can’t take the heat it isn’t really the truth.  So, I give you Jesus.  Break Him if you can.  If He can be broken He’s not much of a Savior, anyway.  If He can’t take the heat He is not the Messiah He says He is.  Break Him.  Crucify Him if you want, and He will rise up on the third day, in the most outrageous act of authority in human history. 

The story of E. Stanley Jones continually touches a cord in my life.  As a missionary to India in the early and mid twentieth century he wrestled with the idea of sharing Jesus in a world that was rooted and grounded in pluralism and saturated with a myriad of religions.  Of that struggle he wrote,

There came the time when I inwardly let go.  I became willing to turn Jesus over to the facts of the universe.  I began to see that there was only one refuge in life and that was in reality, in the facts.  If Jesus couldn’t stand the shock of the criticism of the facts discovered anywhere, if He wasn’t reality, the sooner I found it out the better. 
My willingness to surrender Christ to the facts was almost as great an epoch in my life as my willingness to surrender to him.  In the moment of letting go I could almost feel myself inwardly turning pale.  What would happen?  Would the beautiful dream fade?  To my happy amazement I found that He not only stood, but that He shone as never before.  I saw that He was not a hothouse plant that would wither under the touch of criticism, but He was rooted in reality, was the very living expression of our moral and spiritual universe – He was reality itself.
I have, therefore, taken my faith and have put it out before the non-Christian world for these seventeen years and have said, “There it is, my brothers, break it if you can.”  And the more they have smitten upon it the more it has shone.  Christ came out of the storms and will weather them. 
The only way to kill Christianity is to take it out of life and protect it.  The way to make it shine and show its genius is to put it down in life and let it speak directly to life itself.  Jesus is his own witness.  The Hindus have formed societies call Dharm Raksha Sabhas – Societies for the Protection of Religion.  Jesus does not need to be protected.  He needs to be presented.  He protects himself. (E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Indian Road:  Abingdon Press: New York, 1925, 1927; p. 140-141).


That’s where my heart is.  “Jesus does not need to be protected.  He needs to be presented.”  I find no necessity for Jesus’ Church to be a defense attorney for Jesus.  The great need is for those of us who call Jesus, “Lord,” to live out the meaning of His Lordship in our communities.  We don’t need to argue absolute truth questions.  We need to live redeemed and transformed lives.  After all, if Jesus is all we say He is doesn’t He redeem and transform; and if He doesn’t why do we tell people He does?

Here’s an idea.  Instead of going through life defending God, why don’t we go through our days living the God-life that has come to us through Jesus?   Make Jesus look good, because He is good.  Be a fragrant aroma of Christ.  Let’s live and move and have our being in the God who “emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam’s helpless race” (From Charles Wesley’s Hymn, “And Can It Be”).     

Be a wonderful problem, by the conduct of your life, for those who want nothing to do with Jesus.  I don’t know how well I do it, but I really do want the quality of my life to put context and meaning to my words. 

Go and be a person produced by the God of grace and love and mercy and forgiveness.  In an argument oriented world, if you don’t win arguments, don’t let it get to you.  Keep on living the life.  Arguments come and go.  In the cultures of our world, today’s truth may be tomorrow’s ferry tale.  Who knows?  Love Jesus.  Be real and authentic.  Be vulnerable and transparent.  If Jesus is who He says He is, even your weakness and humanity won’t do Him in.  Someone who doesn’t agree with you may try to tear Jesus apart in your life; don’t let it get to you.  If they crucify Him again, He’ll rise up again.  If He is who He says He is let the folks do whatever it is they do.  As for you, just keep loving Jesus and living in the life of His Life.    

The old hymn says it for you and me, doesn’t it?

My faith has found a resting place,

Not in device or creed;

I trust the ever living One,

His wounds for me shall plead.
I need no other argument,

I need no other plea,

It is enough that Jesus died,

And that He died for me.
(Eliza E. Hewitt, aka Lidie H.    
Edmunds,1891)

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

LIVING THE FORGIVING LIFE

           In last weekend’s message pastor Dave Roberts took our congregation into the strange and mysterious world of forgiveness.  It’s a world in which we know we should live. Yet, it is a world that is difficult to grasp, a challenge to embrace; easy to talk about, hard to live out.  Nevertheless, to Peter’s question, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?  Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (some translations read “seventy times seven) (Matthew 18:21-22).  In other words, “Quit measuring. Live in a spirit of forgiveness.”   
           
Forgiveness is a huge issue, isn’t it?  It is not to be taken lightly and it is too serious an issue to be reduced to pity quotes.   When I think about people and acts that have hurt me deeply and have forced me to deal with the issue as to whether or not I will respond in and of myself or as a follower of the greatest Forgiver I’ve ever known, I think of the words of C. S. Lewis, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” Desmond tutu said, “Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. Forgiving means abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin.” 
           
Truth is we live in a world that inflicts pain and suffering, a world that can drive one to be bitter, angry, and perpetually frustrated.  We’ve probably all been offended, perhaps many times, and maybe (heaven forbid) we might have even been the cause of others being offended and or hurt.  None of us get out of this world without the fiber of our lives being tested and strained and stretched. 
           
The question comes down to the matter of how we shall live this life that has been graced to us.  How shall we live?  Somebody said that life has the ability to make a person either bitter or better.  What shall it be?  That is a personal question that has nothing to do with how we are dealt with in the world.  The grandfather of a friend of mine said, “Nothing that happens can hurt me whether I lose or win. Life may be changed on the surface, but I do my main living within.”  Now, whatever that quote may mean, it at least means that in the midst of what happens we can choose.  Do surface matters shape and form me or does the Spirit of the Lord God within me, shape and form me? 
           
I am coming to believe that more than anything else forgiveness is an attitude much more than an action.  I would like to think that in this the influence of the Holy Spirit is leading and guiding.  I certainly don’t have a corner on truth but at this late date in my life I do know that I need God if I am going to be conformed to image of Jesus.  In that light I would say the following. For a follower of Jesus

  1. Forgiveness is not forgetting.
  2. Forgiveness is not condoning.
  3. Forgiveness is not absolution. 

  4. Forgiveness is not pretending that everything is fine when it isn’t.
  5. Forgiveness is not a sign of weakness.
  6. Forgiveness is embracing what is and facing it truthfully and authentically.
  7. Forgiveness is letting go of the past and giving it to God so that it won’t determine our future.
  8. Forgiveness is releasing outcomes to God and then refusing to punish those who hurt us.
  9. Forgiveness is moving on because we have given life over to our Lord God.
  10. Forgiveness is a sign of inward health that is being shaped and formed by God who emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam’s helpless race. 



Years ago, Kent Keith wrote a statement he titled, “The Paradoxical commandments.”  I have thought about these “Commandments” again as I have been reflecting on the message of forgiveness and about what it means to live as a Christian.  Someone just a few moments ago left the office where we had just talked about how being the church is messy because it is comprised of very real human beings.   Keep that in mind as you read the list of Paradoxical Commandments, and remember God really does love you, He really does forgive you, and you really are forgiven.  May God help us to take what we are given, let Him stamp it with the image of Jesus, and then enable us to live lives shaped and formed by God’s amazing grace.

“The Paradoxical Commandments
Kent M. Keith
© Copyright 1968, renewed 2001
(AKA – “ten simple rules for facing life's adversity,” a poem called, “Anyway,” “guidelines for finding personal meaning in the face of adversity”)

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win 
false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today 
will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness 
make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women 
with the biggest ideas
can be shot down by 
the smallest men and women
with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs 
but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building 
may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but 
may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have 
and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.”

Then Dr. Keith says this,

Jesus used paradoxes to help us see the kingdom of God. His paradoxical statements turned the secular world upside down…He said that 'whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.' He said that 'the last shall be first, and the first shall be last.' He said: 'I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.' He said that 'Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

I’m going with Jesus on this one. 





Saturday, March 08, 2014

BRING IT ON

A hundred years ago or so, one Lewis E. Jones wrote a poem that became a song.  One of the lines in his poem says,

“Upon life’s boundless ocean
where mighty billows roll,
I’ve fixed my hope in Jesus,
blest Anchor of my soul.

In the season of Lent where followers of Christ journey with Him to Jerusalem and Golgotha, this poem reminds me that life really is a boundless ocean and that on this ocean mighty billows really do roll.  To be honest, these “billows” have been known to roll over me at times.  They have flat out stopped me in my tracks and knocked me around like a Ping-Pong ball.  Several times they have knocked the wind out of me, submerged me beneath the waters with reckless abandon and left me gasping for a breath of fresh air. 

Many times in my life I have come face to face with the truth of the psalmist who wrote of how the earth might give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, and the waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their surging (Psalm 46: 2-3).  Those moments can be terrifying, shaking the very foundations on which we stand.  They are the kind of moments that make me think of what we call “Good Friday.” 

Our journey through Lent has one inevitable destination, a bloody act of man’s inhumanity to man.  Nobody should have ever had to die on a cross.  It is one thing to believe in capital punishment; it is another thing all together to enjoy the act of ending a human life.  Rome seemed to love it.  They made a show of it, put it on display for all to see. Lots of folks died on a cross; Jesus didn’t hold that distinction alone.

Countless people throughout Rome’s Pax Romana, were put to suffering and death. I guess it was a way for them to keep the peace.  At any rate lots of folks died in the midst of their mountains falling into the heart of the sea, their waters roaring and foaming, their mountains quaking with their surging.  Whether it was on a cross or in the everyday, ordinary, realities of life in a broken world, countless people have come to their own Fridays, Fridays they would never describe as “Good.”

Never forget that on the day we call “Good” Jesus screamed, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).  I suppose when you feel the weight of the world on your back and are experiencing the wages of sin, even though you never sinned, you might just feel all alone and forsaken.  I’m sure there wasn’t a lot of Pax Romana in the air on the hill outside Jerusalem on that given Friday.

You know what intrigues me about that day?  I am intrigued that in the midst of His suffering and dying Jesus knew that at any moment He could have called upon His Father to send 72,000 angels to help Him (Matthew 26:53).  Yet, He didn’t make the call.  He took the hits, the agony, the suffering, the pain, the dying, and turned a very bad day into a very Good day.  In being lifted up from the earth on the cross Jesus drew all people to Himself (John 13:32).  He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53: 5).

Now, we journey with Him through this Lenten season, and we choose to identify with Him in His sacrificial self-giving.  It is a time to remember and to reflect upon the fact that although God’s grace is free to us, it is not cheap.  It came at great cost.  Grace is ours because God “emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam’s helpless race” (Charles Wesley).

Surely we do, indeed, travel “upon life’s boundless ocean where mighty billows roll.”  However, our journey has been connected to another journey.  Better yet, another story has intersected with our story so much so that on this journey we say,

I’ve fixed my hope in Jesus,
blest Anchor of my soul.


And, why shouldn’t we?  After all the Word that speaks of how the earth might change and the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, and how the waters of the sea might roar and foam, and the mountains quake at its swelling pride, prefaced those chilling comments with the word, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear…” (Psalm 46:1-2).