PEACE IN A TIME OF VIOLENCE

Whether it is Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Canada, the Middle East or Middle America, violence dominants the world today, and good people of power in many places throughout the world seem to have no answers as to how to stop the killing and destroying. Caring people speak wonderful words after violent events, tears are shed at funerals around the globe, and innocent men, women, and children are left grieving the loss of loved ones and fellow countrymen, even as they wonder how in the world man's inhumanity to man will ever cease.

Sadly, I turn again to counsel I wish were unnecessary, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it" (Jeremiah 17:9).  Jesus took it a sobering step further when He said,

That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.  For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit,  sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.  All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man (Mark 7:20-23).

It seems that the human being has a heart sickness that desperately needs to be healed.  

I'm not sure our biggest threat in the United States, at least, is Islamic terrorists.  Sure they want to take us down, and we need to be on guard every day, but it seems we really don't need them to help us be taken down.  Give us enough time and we'll take ourselves down.   We're pretty good at that all ready.  Death and destruction are all around us.  It might come from an unprincipled police officer, a violent sniper hiding behind "Black Lives Matter."   It might come from an angry man who in his rage kills a four-year-old girl in Altadena, California.  Pick your poison.  It is everywhere to be found. 

I speak as a middle class white male, which immediately calls my credentials into question.  However, I am close enough to many black males in our culture to get a sense of the stress under which they live.  In fact, I am privy to many people in the black community, male and female. I've heard their stories and tried to process the questions they carry and the uneasiness they feel.  I'm not sure I am capable of feeling their pain, but I have looked into their eyes and have had no doubt whatsoever that they live under a dark shadow in a culture in which all people are said to be created equal. 

I don't know how to stop the violence exploding from within the human heart.  I do know that there are enough issues of brokenness in my own life that I ought not to judge people too harshly.  I also know that in the "land of the free and the home of the brave" there is a lot of dying and death at our own hands. 

This planet has issues that need to be dealt with, and I am seeing no evidence of progress out of violence into peace.  I only know that when someone dies, be it here or abroad, it involves all of us because, as John Donne wrote back in 1624, "Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind."  Truly, none of us escapes the ripple effect of violence, dying, and death.  Like it or not, we are in this thing called life, together. 

My heart ached a few days ago when a former teaching colleague of my wife's wrote a Face Book post.  She is an African American young woman responding to contemporary conditions of our culture.  Hear her words,

I just want to cuddle my baby and not worry about how I will have to explain to him someday that he must be careful when riding through La Canada or walking in the affluent neighborhoods of Pasadena because he's Black, and a police officer may think he's suspicious.  Of course he will know to not commit crimes and to obey authority, but he must also know that people will find him threatening (especially if he has his dad's size).  I hope he does not have my feisty spirit because talking back could get him killed.  I just want to hold my baby and pray for a future that is better than today.  I have dedicated my life to making the world a better place. I wish the same could be said for more of us. May God have mercy on us all.

Can you feel her anguish?  I'm not going to use her name because her comments might ignite existing anger in someone's heart and put her life in danger.  Let me just say that her story is our story, too.  At least it ought to be.  Donne wrote, "No man is an island entire of itself.  Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."  Ladies and gentlemen, we are in this thing together, and we had better look deep within our very souls and take hold of something greater than ourselves, something that includes us all. 

When the founding fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence they included these words,

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I'm not convinced at all that the founding fathers meant Black people when they wrote the words "All men are created equal."  Slaves simply were not equal.  Don't even go there.  Over the years our culture, moving slowly like a turtle, through many tears and sorrows, have sought to change the trajectory of the nation, but here we are 240 years into the experiment, baffled at the anger and hostility that still exists, stunned that rage reigns so supreme that it raises its ugly head in just about every facet of society.

I live in my culture as a Christian, a man seeking to be a Christ-like man.  I believe Jesus is God's response and initiative to the deepest needs of the human heart.  Many people disagree with me, and that's fine.  Everywhere we turn, though, there are people of the Jewish faith, the Muslim faith, as well as Buddhist and Hindus, and people of a hundred other faiths and beliefs, even people of no faith at all.  We live together on this planet.  At this point in history it is the only planet we have on which to live.  We had better solve this violence issue, and soon, or the planet is going to faith and belief and ideology and cause itself out of existence.

I thank God for the local church of which I am a part.  We are seeking to be Christian through and through, and our worship lifts up the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  In this atmosphere our pastor believes that church must be a safe place for people to come, find a place of healing, a place to connect, a place comprised of people who are living out the implications of hospitality.  If I've heard him once I've heard him say a thousand times that we are not here to judge people.  That's God's job.  We must leave that kind of insight and knowledge to One who is sovereign and all knowing.  Our role is to be shaped and formed into the image of Jesus and to live out the implications of the Sermon on the Mount. 

We are certainly not perfect, and would never knowingly leave the impression with others that we are so.  Yet, we are real and we are honestly seeking how to live out the meaning of a cruciformed life.  Our Savior is the Prince of Peace, and our intention and commitment is to be like Him by the way we live and move and have our being in the world.

Whatever you believe or not believe join me in an effort to make for peace in the neighborhood in which you live.  I don't have much sway beyond the small sphere of influence in which I live, and even then I'm pretty sure I don't have that much sway.  Still, I do live in a house that sits on a street in a town that deals every day with anger and violence.  Hardly a week goes by that we don't read in the paper about a senseless death or a senseless act of violence, a gang shooting, road rage, racial confrontations, ethnic unrest, and simple acts of tribalism and ego hurting.  The truth is I live in a city I love.  It is beautiful city of many cultures and languages.  I love living here.  Yet, we all know that on any given day, one little act or misdeed could light the fuse and this town could be a war zone in a heartbeat.

Is this the way we want to live?  Is this what the future will look like?  Is there a way to give peace a chance, to give hope a chance, to holster our weapons and smoke a peace pipe?  God help us, I hope so. 

I surely hope so.

Let me close with John Donne's complete statement.  Please take it to heart because we all are only one unfortunate event away from a tragedy that could take us to the hospital, waiting anxiously for a doctor's report or to a cemetery in which we weep over the body of a loved one.

No man is an island, entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were; as well as if a manor of thine own, or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.

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.

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."

THOUGHTS ON PRAYER AND PRAYING

I don't have a theology of "answered prayer," but with all my heart I believe Scripture calls us to empty ourselves of ourselves and to draw near to God, laying on His altar everything it means for us to be who we are.  In the simple act of prayer human beings express the deep need to turn to God in all things.

In Genesis 4:26 we learn of the time people began to pray and call upon the name of the Lord.  Cain had killed his brother, Abel, and a man named, Lamech, confessed that he had killed a man for wounding him in some way and had killed a boy who had struck him (Genesis 4:23). The murderous ways of the human heart were underway.  Then, though we are not given the reason, except for the context in which it is explained, people began to pray.  It was a dangerous world and some folks had the wisdom to call out to God.    

It is still a dangerous world.  We still need men and women who call upon God. 

In 1913 E. M. Bounds released a book called, Power Through Prayer, in which he says,

What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men and women whom the Holy Spirit can use – men and women of prayer, men and women mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through people. He does not come on machinery, but on people. He does not anoint plans, but people – people of prayer.

In Matthew 21:13  Jesus said “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer…" (NASB).  In 1 Corinthians 10:31 the apostle Paul calls the church to live for the glory of God and he summarized it this way, "Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (NASB).  The apostle Peter said to the Church, "You…as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood … You are … a royal Priesthood …a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light … you are the people of God …" (I Peter 2:5, 9-10).

As people of Jesus we are present in the world to live and move and have our being in God.  The Church is the living Temple of the Living God.  Stephen, using the prophet Isaiah as his source, reminded the people, "The Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands; as the prophet says: "Heaven is My throne, And earth is the footstool of My feet; What kind of house will you build for Me?" says the Lord.  Or what place is there for My repose? ‘Was it not My hand which made all these things?" (Acts 7:48-50. Isa. 66:1).

Being the living Temple of God, which is a house of prayer, it is crucial in this house of prayer that we glorify the name of God. 

Our passion is to praise the name of God. 

Our craving is to live for the glory of God. 

Our aim is to obey God for God's glory. 

Our pursuit is the will of God for His glory. 

In short, we are a people of prayer.

The Bible says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (Philippians 4:6, NASB). Jesus went so far as to say, "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it"  John 14:13-14 (NASB)

EVERYTHING IS FOR THE GLORY OF GOD ~~ EVERYTHING!

When we pray may our prayers be God-centered and God-glorifying. Psalm 19:14 says, "Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer" (NASB).

May God's will be done.