Saturday, June 25, 2016

ORLANDO, MATEEN, US, AND ME

The first murder ever recorded is in Genesis 4:8. Cain, feeling envy and jealousy toward his brother, killed Abel in an act of violence that pales in comparison to the violence at work in our word today.  When God confronted Cain about this evil He simply asked him, "What have you done?" (Gen. 4:10).
            This is the question I would ask of Omar Mateen, who, on September 12, 2016, gunned down forty-nine fellow human beings, and injured another fifty-three, "What have you done?" I would add, "Who do you think you are?  Who went away and left you in charge of who should live and who should die?  What have you done, Cain?"
            Jeremiah the prophet of God spoke of people "who have eyes but do not see; who have ears but do not hear" (Jer. 5:21).  Then he added, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jer. 17:9).  What have you done Omar-Cain?
            My heart hurts as I look at the world of violence in which we all live now.  Our Wisdom literature reminds us, "There is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 4:9).  Solomon had concluded, "That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done" (Ecc. 4:9).  To a great degree he was right. 
The human race doesn't seem to catch on.  Generation after generation we just keep on killing each other.  Countless numbers of people seem to live to get what they want when they want it, and if they don't get it, they will kill you.  Every race, creed, and color has fallen victim to the ways and means of death.  One would think that at this late date in human history we would catch on; but we don't. 
            However, the tragedy at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, calls me to some personal soul searching.  I am reminded of Paul's counsel to the Corinthian church when, in reminding them of how the ancients had taken their eyes off God and turned to their own devices, said "Let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall" (I Cor. 10:12). It is very easy for me to condemn Mateen's actions, a condemnation that is rightly deserved; however, as a follower of Christ mine is not to condemn or condone.  Mine is to be shaped and formed into the image of Jesus, to lift Him up in the mist of the messiness, and to live out the implications of being in relationship with the God of all grace (I Peter 5:10).
            What might those implications look like?  One pastor spoke of how he wished more people in Orlando had died.  This pastor now has death threats on his own life.  So, the cycle of violence continues, with each side believing their viewpoint is morally superior, and we are getting no where.
            It is a dangerous and toxic age in which we live.  At this late date in history it seems we're still struggling to find our way.  I wonder if that might be one of the reasons Jesus referred to Himself as "the Way" (John 14:6).  It seems the human race is lost, even the best among us.  The planet is in trouble.  No matter what the issue might be opinions about it come down to about 50/50 or 51/49.  As a planet, we've never been as divided as we are now, and that "now" is post WW1, WW2, the Korean police action, the Vietnam War, and countless other acts of nation against nation and tribe against tribe and ethnicities against ethnicities and gangs against gangs.  When is it ever going to end? 
            I don't believe it is going to end until the world finds "the Way."  "The Way," also known as "the Prince of Peace" is the world's best hope for learning to live together in a broken, dangerous, and hostile world.  Until people begin to recognize that what we've been doing for the past six thousand years or so is not working, we will continue to journey down the same roads that lead to destruction, death, and funerals.  This does not seem to me to be the best way to move into what we all hope will be a good future.
            A popular cliché making the circuit these days says that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  Six thousand years of recorded history tell us that we might just all be insane, if that definition is true.  We live in a world that wants what it wants when it wants it and if it doesn't get it, it will steal, kill, and destroy in an effort to get it anyway.  The result?  Destruction, death, and funerals.
            I believe Jesus offers a better suggestion.  In Jesus God "emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race" (Charles Wesley).  I know countless numbers of people don't buy into this but those who have actually embraced Jesus have found that the possibility of peace actually does exist.  So, I guess in the end I am speaking to those folks who have discovered Life that is Jesus.  It is up to those folks, among whom I name myself, to live out the implications of a God who would empty Himself of all but love and bleed for Adam's helpless race. We are a people of the cross and the One we follow embraced people from all walks of life and created a community that many, many, thought would never get out of the first century. 
            It did get out of the first century, however, and when that community is doing it right hate dies away, rage is laid to rest, and people are loved for the persons they are. 
I'm only one voice and my audience is very small, but I believe that if those of us who dare say we believe in and follow Jesus really acted like, the possibilities of God would be lavished on His world.  And, truthfully, the world doesn’t doesn't need the institutional church.  It needs Jesus; and there is a difference.  Jesus said, "They will know you are my disciples by the love you have for one another" (John 13:35). 
So, Church, myself included, may we heed these words:

Rise up, O Church of God!
Have done with lesser things.
Give heart and mind and soul and strength
To serve the King of kings.

Rise up, O Church of God!
The kingdom tarries long.
Bring in the day of brotherhood
And end the night of wrong.
                                   (Based on the words of William Merrill, 1911)


BRING IN THE DAY OF BROTHERHOOD AND 
END THE NIGHT OF WRONG.

Sunday, June 05, 2016

SEEKING, SATISFACTON, AND SERENDIPITY

It is hot, by Pasadena standards at least, and I am looking for ways to stay cool.  Ice water, AC's and shade trees are high on my agenda today.  I love cold and have often wondered how cold it would have to be for me to cry out, "Enough."  Other people want to go to Hawaii and I want to go to the North Pole.  Vonnie says I can go if I don't mind going alone. 

I have been thinking about what makes a person happy.  Is that the right word, happy?  Maybe satisfied is a better word.  Happy is such a chameleon of a word.  But satisfied has about it a sense of peace, and peace always has a wonderful ring to it.  So, satisfied it is. 

What makes a person satisfied? Weather?  Stability?  Money?  Power?  Sex?  Affirmation? Accomplishments?  Family?  Conquest?  Self-giving?  Love?  Forgiveness?  Doing good deeds?  Justice?  Mercy? 

What if being satisfied was not even the right word?  Suppose, the pursuit of anything for its own sake fell short of what it means to really be who we are?  What if being satisfied was a bi-product that came with the pursuit of something greater than being satisfied? 

I love the word serendipity.  It means to discover something accidentally, while in pursuit of something entirely different.  Suppose being satisfied is a gift of serendipity.  In pursuit of living an excellent life one finds a deep-seated inner satisfaction.  It wasn't the reason for the pursuit but it was a gift given in the pursuit. 

Suppose Jesus knew what He was talking about when He told His followers to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33).  Suppose it is in the seeking we find the abundant life He also promised (John 10:10).  Suppose that life really is meant to be lived in response to the grace and mercy of God?  

Once upon a time I thought that one of these days my ship was really going to come in, and when it did, I was going to do great things for God.  Then I recognized the ship was already in.  Waiting for the ship became a hindrance to embracing the ship that was already there.  That was the day life really became alive for me. 


The one-of-these-days insanity died that day and the grace and mercy of God became the awesome arena in which life began to be lived.  Pursuit gave way to a Person.  The Person, Jesus, embraced my life and life itself became the gift because He, Himself, is Life. Life became imbued with His life, and ever since then I have sung with John Newton, "…Amazing grace…I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see."