Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship, August 27, 2011
This week I heard an interview on NPR with Michael Wardian about his participation in this year's Badwater Ultramarathon. This race begins at Badwater in Death Valley, 282 feet below sea level. It crosses several mountain ranges gaining a cumulative 13,000 feet of elevation. It ends at Whitney Portal, the trailhead for Mt. Whitney. Michael completed the course in 26:22:01.
This year the race was easier than some years. The high temperature was only 115 degrees. Some years it's been as high as 125 degrees.
It's an amazing race. These guys and gals run nonstop for more than 24 hours. How do they do that?
I pass a skate park on my way to church. Sometimes if I hit a red light, I get a minute to watch the kids do the most amazing stuff. Flying in the air, flipping their boards. How do they do that?
I used to work for Voice of Prophecy. The founder of the Voice of Prophecy was HMS Richards Sr. He was an amazing preacher. A truly wise man, deeply revered across the entire church. He was famous for his deep knowledge of the Bible. He read it completely through more than once every year. His knowledge was so thorough, he had basically memorized it. You could read him any verse in the Bible and he could repeat the preceding or succeeding verse. How did he do that?
In every case, the answer is practice.
Of course, it takes more than practice. Runners have to have two legs and working lungs. Skaters also require some basic physical capabilities. Memorizing the Bible requires a working brain.
But millions of people possess the gifts of lungs and legs and brains and still do not develop the ability to run 135 miles across Death Valley or do flips at the skate park or memorize the entire Bible. Doing those things, developing that kind of mastery requires practice.
It's the same in every area of life. Mastery comes from practice. Today, I want to talk about mastering money.
This week Warren Buffet single-handedly reversed a dramatic slide in the value of the stock of Bank of America. The Bank of America has over 2 trillion dollars in assets. It is the largest bank in the United States. And one man, Warren Buffet, was able to change the value of BoA stock. How did he do that? Practice. Mr. Buffet did not start out as a billionaire. He worked and worked, carefully, you could almost say, ploddingly, to build his financial empire. And now, at age 80, he's able to make decisions that affect trillion dollar businesses.
That's the power of practice.
God wants us to master money. Money is a wonderful tool.
We can use money to buy groceries for a Friday night feast.
To purchase lingerie to inspire our husbands.
To support ministers in the Philippines or Bangladesh. (Adopt a Minister supports full time ministers in the Philippines for 135 dollars a month. Check out their web site at http://a-a-m.org/Index.html. Gospel Outreach supports local people in ministry in Bangladesh and other Asian countries. For about 150 dollars a month you can fund a full-time evangelist. Their web site: http://goaim.org)
Money allows us to send help to starving people in Somalia and Ethiopia.
Money is what enables us to cooperate as a congregation in enjoying this building. Together we pay the mortgage and the utility bills. Together we support our schools, Buena Vista Adventist School and Auburn Adventist Academy.
Money is wonderful stuff – when we master it.
Money can also be a severe and oppressive tyrant.
Rent and mortgage payments are due every month. Many of us have credit cards. Some of us are getting phone calls. “Hello, this is ABC collection company. We need you to make a payment.”
Don't you hate calls like that?
If you are already experiencing the blessing of money as a joy maker, I'm happy for you. Keep it up. But if you experience money as a task master, as a tyrant, as a source of pain and fear, then listen up.
When Israel was fresh out of Egypt, God gave them a bunch of rules. Now at first glance this might appear puzzling. They were slaves in Egypt. God rescued them. Gave them freedom and then gave them a bunch of rules. Wasn't just like putting them back in bondage?
You might especially wonder about this when you read the rules about money.
Well, the rules were not exactly about money. They didn't have debit cards or credit cards. They didn't have paper bills. They did have gold and silver coins. Mostly, though, they had cows and sheep. Figs and olives and pomegranates.
God gave them some pretty challenging rules for managing their money.
“A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain form the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord. It is Holy to the Lord.” Leviticus 27:30.
Another rule about money was that the FIRST bit of income belonged to God. “Bring the best of the first fruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.” Exodus 23:19
Isn't this just another form of bondage?
I suppose you could think of it that way, but the actual effect of doing these things was escape from bondage.
First, giving tithe or first fruit was an affirmation that their wealth—the fruit of their fields and orchards and vineyards and groves—was a gift. God had given them the land. They had not created it themselves. They could not have conquered it themselves. It was a gift. Everything received as a gift is sweeter than it is if we think of it as merely what we have earned.
Second, the act of giving the first fruits and tithe was a celebration of wealth. We are so rich we can afford to give ten percent off the top. If you have so much that you can afford to give some away, right off the top, you are obviously rich.
Think of the reverse. If your wages are garnished, what does that say? It says you're poor. You are so poor, the masters of the world don't trust you to be able to pay your bills. It feels terrible. It feels awful.
Tithing affirms my wealth. It helps me feel rich. It helps me act rich.
One of the principal marks of being rich is that I make decisions about how to spend my money.
Tithing is the ultimate mark of wealth. It is a statement to myself that I have enough, I don't have to be careful. I can just give away ten percent without even really thinking about it.
Tithing is not just a “sign of wealth,” it is also a habit that leads to wealth. Tithing is a deliberate decision. No one sends you a bill. You're not going to a phone call from the church treasurer, “Hey, where is your tithe payment?”
The only way tithe happens is you sit down and decide to do it. This is the first great step toward wealth – sitting down and deciding what you are going to do with your money. Paying bills is not a sign of wealth. Paying bills is better than not paying bills – if you have them. But how much better not to have bills!!!! How much better to sit with your money and decide freely how to use it, than to sit with your bills wrestling with the question of how much of which bill you are going to pay!!!!
Did you know that Jesus managed money?
If you're like me you probably think that Jesus didn't have to worry about managing money. He just lived from day to day on miracles and faith. Jesus did ask his disciples to do an experiment of living that way. (See Matthew 10.) But Jesus did not live that way. He and his disciples actually set up a treasury. They kept money on hand to handle their financial needs and to be able to help others. Apparently they kept a large amount of money on hand. When Jesus told the disciples to feed the five thousand, they said, “It would take eight months of wages to feed this crowd. Do you want us to go and spend that much money buying food?” Mark 6:37. When he asked them to feed the four thousand again the disciples discuss the logistics of buying food. They do not protest that they don't have enough money to feed the crowd. The problem is there is no Safeway in the neighborhood where their money could be used to procure food.
Then there is the infamous story of the last supper. Judas gets up from the table and leaves to go betray Jesus. John tells us the rest of the disciples figured Jesus had sent him to buy something for their feast or to go help some poor person. The reason the disciples thought this was that Judas was the treasurer of the group and carried the money bag.
When you have a treasury, you have to manage it. You have to decide how much to spend, how much to keep in the bag. You have to decide who you are going to help. You have to decide what you're going to buy and what you're going to leave in the market.
Jesus did not spend all his money. Jesus saved – not in the religious sense, in the plain, old, boring economic sense. Jesus and his disciples took in more money than they gave away or spent. They kept gold in their bag.
God want us to do the same.
For decades the Adventist Church has taught its members to tithe – to devote ten percent—the FIRST ten percent—of their income to God. We can quote multiple Bible verses in support of this doctrine. Some people, in modern times, have protested. That's an Old Testament rule, they say. We are New Testament Christians, we can give whatever the Spirit moves us to give.
Of course, people are free to give whatever the Spirit moves them to give. But if they look to the explicit teachings of Jesus about giving, the only amount he ever mentioned was 100 percent! So ten percent is hardly a severe standard.
Over the decades the church has experimented with tithing, we have found with almost no exceptions, that people who tithe come out ahead financially. We usually attribute this to the supernatural blessing of God. I don't discount that blessing, but I suspect there is an additional reason why people who practice tithing seem to enjoy their money more than people who do not tithe. I think it has to do with making prior decisions about using money. When we deliberately manage our money, money becomes an instrument of righteousness. It becomes a tool of joy. That's what God wants for us.
Money is a gift. God has given it to us to enrich our lives and to give us a way to enrich the lives of people we love and even the lives of strangers far away. When we manage money wisely, we are acting like God. We are making free decisions about the allocation of resources for the enrichment of the world, for the enhancement of life. We are partnering with God in caring for people and the world.
Going back to my opening illustration. With one possible exception, no one here today could hope to run from Badwater to the Whitney portal this coming November when the temperatures are cooler never mind trying now in the heat of summer. But we could take a step toward increasing our physical prowess. Most of us, if we wanted, could go for a walk this afternoon. We could begin training and next summer we could complete the Tacoma marathon. It would be difficult. It would be a great challenge. We might have to walk it instead of running, but it is something we could. IF we started today, to take a few steps in the right direction.
None of us can imagine single-handedly affecting the value of Bank of America stock with our savings. But all of us could do something this week to begin moving in the direction of mastering our money. We can do something this week that moves us in the direction of becoming masters of our money instead of slaves of our bills. God wants us to be free. Let's do something this week, tomorrow, to experience the freedom and joy that comes from managing our money in cooperation with God.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Smart and Holy: Adventists and Education
Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship, August 20, 2011
My alarm went off at 4:00 a.m. Friday morning. I groaned and crawled out of bed. I pulled on some clothes and hauled Shelley's (our younger daughter) suitcase and trunk out to the car. Karin (my wife) made her a sandwich and we drove off for the airport. I helped carry her bags through check-in, then she was on her own through security and off to college (Andrews University in Michigan) for another year of biology.
It's a story repeated in thousands of Adventist homes this fall. Adventists encourage their kids to go to college. Adventist families spend millions of dollars to send their kids to Adventist schools. The denomination spends millions of dollars on our elementary and high schools and on our colleges and universities.
Here at North Hill, we have quite a few young people who are pursuing higher education. Chris is headed back to Western Washington for another year of engineering. Lizzie is at the Portland campus of Walla Walla University taking nursing. On Monday of this week Johanna drove east in her new, blue Nissan, also headed for Andrews. Sarah is working on her degree in pharmacy at LLU. Eric Bing is at Union. Alex is working on her degree in journalism. Rachelle is working on graphic design. Travis is at the University of Puget Sound.
Why this obsession with education, especially higher education? Adventists believe it is one of the crucial ways we can carry forward in our world the values and ministry of Jesus.
Jesus lighted up people's lives. He improved the quality of their lives. He improved their health, their marriages, their personal finances. And it turns out that education does the same.
[For those who want chapter and verse for my assertion about the nature of Jesus' ministry:
Matthew once described Jesus ministry this way: Behold the people sitting in darkness have seen a great light. On those sitting in the shadow of death, a light has dawned. Matthew 4:16
In Luke, Jesus summarizes his mission in these words: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim freedom for captives, release for the oppressed. Luke 4:18
Jesus called people to the highest ideal of lifelong marriage. Matthew 19:6
Quoting Matthew again, “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom,and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” Matthew 4:23]
A simple description of Jesus' goal for people is this: well-being. Jesus aimed to give the people the highest quality of life. He worked to improve their well-being. In American society today, one of the ways we can most effectively cooperate with this purpose of Jesus is to help people get a college education. In our society, people who go to college do better in almost every area of life.
Social scientists have measured the effect of education on many different areas of life. Some of the benefits that show up in these studies are these:
Less divorce
Young people who get a college degree are times less likely to get a divorce than people who have only a high school degree or some college. People who completed a college education are happier in their marriages than people with only some college.
More church involvement and volunteering
People with college degrees are much, much more likely to go to church and to be involved in volunteering in the community.
More reading to their kids
Parents with advanced degrees are three times more likely to read to their kids every day than parents who haven’t finished high school, and twice as likely to participate in other educational activities like visiting museums and libraries. What all this means is that the children of people with advanced degrees are themselves much more likely to do well in school. Completing your education is a benefit not only for yourself. It is a benefit for your children. And thus for your grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Less smoking
Between 1998 and 2008, the smoking rate among college graduates declined from 14 percent to 9 percent. In that same period the smoking rate for high school grads barely budged, from 29 percent to 27 percent.
Of people with advanced degrees, 70 percent never smoked, only 3 percent choose to keep smoking, and the rest have quit or are trying to. Of people who didn’t finish high school, half have never smoked, a third have quit or are trying to, and 15 percent choose to maintain the habit.
Less obesity
Those with more education are more likely to exercise than those with less education. College-educated adults are also less likely than others to be obese or have obese children. These results hold for all age groups.
Do we want our kids to succeed in their marriages, to maintain healthy weight and avoid smoking, to read to their kids, and to be involved in church? Yes, of course. These are measures of quality of life. So in harmony with the mission of Jesus to make people whole, we do everything we can to help our young people acquire an education.
Sure a few exceptional individuals do very well without completing college. Bill Gates is an obvious example. If you believe you are exceptional, if you have plans to do something significant, something worth pouring your life into, and you can do it without going to school, go for it! Just don't fool yourself. If you're not getting somewhere, if you are not acquiring skills and experience that make you more useful, more powerful for doing good, then get yourself back in school. Paying your car loan or the rent on an apartment is not a large enough goal to organize your life around.
So, go to school. Do it because going to college and beyond is an important for your own quality of life. It is also the key to improving your skills for serving others and bringing glory to God.
There is another reason why we as a church promote education.
According to the gospels, three different times, in three different settings, Jesus addressed the question, “What is the greatest commandment?” What is the top priority in a holy and wise life?
The answer: Love God with all your heart, your soul and with all your mind.
Cultivation of the mind is one of the highest values promoted throughout the Bible. Being smart is useless unless you feed your mind valuable information. Like every other human capability, our minds reach their full potential only through discipline and practice.
You cannot do the mathematical work required for most science unless you've embraced the disciplines of doing math homework for multiple years. You cannot sit down for an afternoon with a Calculus for Dummies book and the next day start doing the calculations needed to figure the infiltration patterns of fracking fluids or the calculations needed to getting a lunar orbiter into position for its survey of the moon.
This is true in math and the sciences. It's true in literature and writing, in medicine and nursing, in diesel mechanics, in plumbing. These skills require structured learning and structured learning takes time.
The same is true in theology. Some people think they can figure out the hidden meanings of Hebrew and Greek words by using an interlinear or a Strong's Concordance. Real scholars struggle to keep a straight face when they encounter the discoveries people make using these short cuts. If you're going to work with the Hebrew or Greek text of the Bible, you need to spend years mastering the languages.The Bible is a staggeringly complex book. Unlike the Koran which was produced by a single person, the Bible was produced by multiple writers spread over a millennium and a half. The diversity and complexity of the Bible is part of the reason it is a superior revelation to the Koran. A single writer, a single point of view, cannot meet the needs of humanity across cultures and across time.
Given the complexity and diversity of the Bible, discerning its inner coherence and applying its wisdom to contemporary life requires not only years and decades of personal study of the text itself. It also requires familiarity with the understanding and insight of other students—scholars who have prayerfully and studiously devoted themselves to making sense of what God has said in the Bible.
Helping us master the Book (the Bible) and its books (commentaries written by devout scholars over the millennia) is one of the highest purposes of Adventist education. All students are required to take classes that expose them to the Bible itself and to the community of interpretation.
True religion needs to connect the truth of the Bible with the down-to-earth, nitty-gritty reality of everyday life. Adventist education holds together twin convictions: God has spoken in the Bible and in its pages we hear his voice. And God is the creator of the cosmos and creation is a reliable, trustworthy revelation of its maker. Adventist education works to bring together these two realms—the wisdom that comes from the Bible and the wisdom that comes from nature.
Adventist education aims to help young people (and all of us) love God with “all their minds.”
God created humans with a greater need for education than any other creature. No other animal comes close to requiring the amount of education that humans need for well-being. As a church committed fully to cooperating with God in his work to bring humans to their highest possible level of development, Adventists gladly pour enormous resources into education. We urge our kids, get all the education you can. The development of human capabilities that is the goal of education is just what God intended in creation. It is what God is working for in redemption.
My alarm went off at 4:00 a.m. Friday morning. I groaned and crawled out of bed. I pulled on some clothes and hauled Shelley's (our younger daughter) suitcase and trunk out to the car. Karin (my wife) made her a sandwich and we drove off for the airport. I helped carry her bags through check-in, then she was on her own through security and off to college (Andrews University in Michigan) for another year of biology.
It's a story repeated in thousands of Adventist homes this fall. Adventists encourage their kids to go to college. Adventist families spend millions of dollars to send their kids to Adventist schools. The denomination spends millions of dollars on our elementary and high schools and on our colleges and universities.
Here at North Hill, we have quite a few young people who are pursuing higher education. Chris is headed back to Western Washington for another year of engineering. Lizzie is at the Portland campus of Walla Walla University taking nursing. On Monday of this week Johanna drove east in her new, blue Nissan, also headed for Andrews. Sarah is working on her degree in pharmacy at LLU. Eric Bing is at Union. Alex is working on her degree in journalism. Rachelle is working on graphic design. Travis is at the University of Puget Sound.
Why this obsession with education, especially higher education? Adventists believe it is one of the crucial ways we can carry forward in our world the values and ministry of Jesus.
Jesus lighted up people's lives. He improved the quality of their lives. He improved their health, their marriages, their personal finances. And it turns out that education does the same.
[For those who want chapter and verse for my assertion about the nature of Jesus' ministry:
Matthew once described Jesus ministry this way: Behold the people sitting in darkness have seen a great light. On those sitting in the shadow of death, a light has dawned. Matthew 4:16
In Luke, Jesus summarizes his mission in these words: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim freedom for captives, release for the oppressed. Luke 4:18
Jesus called people to the highest ideal of lifelong marriage. Matthew 19:6
Quoting Matthew again, “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom,and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” Matthew 4:23]
A simple description of Jesus' goal for people is this: well-being. Jesus aimed to give the people the highest quality of life. He worked to improve their well-being. In American society today, one of the ways we can most effectively cooperate with this purpose of Jesus is to help people get a college education. In our society, people who go to college do better in almost every area of life.
Social scientists have measured the effect of education on many different areas of life. Some of the benefits that show up in these studies are these:
Less divorce
Young people who get a college degree are times less likely to get a divorce than people who have only a high school degree or some college. People who completed a college education are happier in their marriages than people with only some college.
More church involvement and volunteering
People with college degrees are much, much more likely to go to church and to be involved in volunteering in the community.
More reading to their kids
Parents with advanced degrees are three times more likely to read to their kids every day than parents who haven’t finished high school, and twice as likely to participate in other educational activities like visiting museums and libraries. What all this means is that the children of people with advanced degrees are themselves much more likely to do well in school. Completing your education is a benefit not only for yourself. It is a benefit for your children. And thus for your grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Less smoking
Between 1998 and 2008, the smoking rate among college graduates declined from 14 percent to 9 percent. In that same period the smoking rate for high school grads barely budged, from 29 percent to 27 percent.
Of people with advanced degrees, 70 percent never smoked, only 3 percent choose to keep smoking, and the rest have quit or are trying to. Of people who didn’t finish high school, half have never smoked, a third have quit or are trying to, and 15 percent choose to maintain the habit.
Less obesity
Those with more education are more likely to exercise than those with less education. College-educated adults are also less likely than others to be obese or have obese children. These results hold for all age groups.
Do we want our kids to succeed in their marriages, to maintain healthy weight and avoid smoking, to read to their kids, and to be involved in church? Yes, of course. These are measures of quality of life. So in harmony with the mission of Jesus to make people whole, we do everything we can to help our young people acquire an education.
Sure a few exceptional individuals do very well without completing college. Bill Gates is an obvious example. If you believe you are exceptional, if you have plans to do something significant, something worth pouring your life into, and you can do it without going to school, go for it! Just don't fool yourself. If you're not getting somewhere, if you are not acquiring skills and experience that make you more useful, more powerful for doing good, then get yourself back in school. Paying your car loan or the rent on an apartment is not a large enough goal to organize your life around.
So, go to school. Do it because going to college and beyond is an important for your own quality of life. It is also the key to improving your skills for serving others and bringing glory to God.
There is another reason why we as a church promote education.
According to the gospels, three different times, in three different settings, Jesus addressed the question, “What is the greatest commandment?” What is the top priority in a holy and wise life?
The answer: Love God with all your heart, your soul and with all your mind.
Cultivation of the mind is one of the highest values promoted throughout the Bible. Being smart is useless unless you feed your mind valuable information. Like every other human capability, our minds reach their full potential only through discipline and practice.
You cannot do the mathematical work required for most science unless you've embraced the disciplines of doing math homework for multiple years. You cannot sit down for an afternoon with a Calculus for Dummies book and the next day start doing the calculations needed to figure the infiltration patterns of fracking fluids or the calculations needed to getting a lunar orbiter into position for its survey of the moon.
This is true in math and the sciences. It's true in literature and writing, in medicine and nursing, in diesel mechanics, in plumbing. These skills require structured learning and structured learning takes time.
The same is true in theology. Some people think they can figure out the hidden meanings of Hebrew and Greek words by using an interlinear or a Strong's Concordance. Real scholars struggle to keep a straight face when they encounter the discoveries people make using these short cuts. If you're going to work with the Hebrew or Greek text of the Bible, you need to spend years mastering the languages.The Bible is a staggeringly complex book. Unlike the Koran which was produced by a single person, the Bible was produced by multiple writers spread over a millennium and a half. The diversity and complexity of the Bible is part of the reason it is a superior revelation to the Koran. A single writer, a single point of view, cannot meet the needs of humanity across cultures and across time.
Given the complexity and diversity of the Bible, discerning its inner coherence and applying its wisdom to contemporary life requires not only years and decades of personal study of the text itself. It also requires familiarity with the understanding and insight of other students—scholars who have prayerfully and studiously devoted themselves to making sense of what God has said in the Bible.
Helping us master the Book (the Bible) and its books (commentaries written by devout scholars over the millennia) is one of the highest purposes of Adventist education. All students are required to take classes that expose them to the Bible itself and to the community of interpretation.
True religion needs to connect the truth of the Bible with the down-to-earth, nitty-gritty reality of everyday life. Adventist education holds together twin convictions: God has spoken in the Bible and in its pages we hear his voice. And God is the creator of the cosmos and creation is a reliable, trustworthy revelation of its maker. Adventist education works to bring together these two realms—the wisdom that comes from the Bible and the wisdom that comes from nature.
Adventist education aims to help young people (and all of us) love God with “all their minds.”
God created humans with a greater need for education than any other creature. No other animal comes close to requiring the amount of education that humans need for well-being. As a church committed fully to cooperating with God in his work to bring humans to their highest possible level of development, Adventists gladly pour enormous resources into education. We urge our kids, get all the education you can. The development of human capabilities that is the goal of education is just what God intended in creation. It is what God is working for in redemption.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Blessed Are Those Who Mourn
A chapter from my out-of-print book, An Insider's Guide to the Kingdom, a commentary on the beatitudes.
Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted. Matthew 5:4
How can you be blessed when you are mourning? When someone dies, it seems like the light goes out in your life.
A young woman wrote us here at Voice of Prophecy after her fiance was killed by a stray bullet in a drive-by shooting. She described her despair and the tearing of her heart. Was she blessed? It certainly didn't feel that way to her.
We receive letters from parents whose children have died or worse have been murdered. Just the other day, we shared together in our prayer circle, a letter from a mother whose son died after being shot nine times.
In every one of these letters I feel the darkness, the oppression that comes with bereavement. Grief shuts out the future. It shrinks a person's world into a tiny sphere of intense pain. How could it possibly be true that those who mourn are blessed?
I've stood by women who have lost husbands after more than fifty years of marriage. What unimaginable pain they experience. What a huge emptiness the death of their husband creates. I've known parents who have lost a teenager. It seemed to me as a pastor that their grief was the sharpest, most incurable of all.
How do we make sense of Jesus' declaration: "Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted"?
There are three distinct messages contained in these few, brief words:
First, if you are mourning, you are blessed, not cursed. When someone you love dies, it seems that God himself has turned against you. The pain and desperate hunger in your heart seem to suggest that God is tormenting not blessing you.
Naturally we ask, "Why?" Why did God allow it to happen? Why didn't he stop it? Why now? Why her? Why him? Why this way? And behind all of these why's is a suspicion that God has made a mistake, or worse, that God is somehow taking out his anger on us. The ache in our heart tells us we are cursed, that God is against us.
But Jesus contradicts our hearts. We are blessed. As I mentioned in the last chapter, and will mention over and over as we move through these blessings, to be blessed means you are favored by God, that God regards you with kindly affection. When you mourn, no matter what your heart tells you, Jesus assures you that you are blessed. You are favored by God.
When Jesus announced that those who mourn are blessed, he was contradicting the primary emotions of grief. Grief makes you feel utterly alone, Jesus declared that God is with you. Grief insists that God has rejected you or is punishing you. Jesus declared that when you're mourning, you're the object of God's special compassion and love.
Jesus' words not only tell us about God's response to our grief, they also are a guide for how to best respond to our friends when they grieve.
When a friend is grieving, don't try to explain things to them. Don't offer theology or sociology or psychology. Bless them. Show them your favor, your affection. Let them you know that you care for them. And the best way to do that is simply to be there.
Be there physically if possible. Keep your friend company. Spend time with them. Your presence says that they are loved. They may ask all kinds of questions. They may express doubts about God, about life. Don't try to answer the questions. In many ways the questions are beside the point. Your presence answers the most important question of all. It's a question that may never be asked out loud, but is one of the most fundamental in today's society: Does anybody care? Does God care? Is what happened simply another meaningless ripple in the endless ocean of time and chance, or did the life of my child count for something? Is my grief for my wife or husband or friend or brother or sister senseless or is their death really worthy of the enormous pain I feel?
Your presence dignifies their pain. It gives nobility to their grief. You help them know that even in the darkness they are loved. They are blessed.
If you can't be there in person write a note. Perhaps use the telephone, but whatever you do, make contact. Let the grieving person know you care.
Your caring will help make real in their life, Jesus' words, "Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted."
Jesus was not the first person to announce God's compassionate response to our grief. It's a major theme of Scripture. Consider this from the prophet Isaiah:
There is another meaning in the words: blessed are those who mourn. Mourning is the reverse side of love. The reason we mourn someone is because we have opened ourselves up to that person, we have formed an attachment.
In this life, any time we love someone we're opening ourselves to hurt. No relationship can last forever in this world, because people don't last forever. But Jesus honors the pain of love. He declares, Blessed are those who mourn.
This is one of the most important differences between the Buddhist and Christian prescriptions for life. In Buddhism a person is counseled to avoid pain by avoiding attachments. But Jesus calls people to form attachments in spite of the pain. The greatest thing a person can do is love—even though we know ahead of time that love will involve us in pain.
Blessed are those courageous enough to open themselves to others in love. "Blessed are those who mourn" really means blessed are those who love. Blessed -- that is specially favored by God -- are the people who love in spite of the risk of betrayal or abandonment and the certainty of death. Blessed are the lovers. Honored by God himself are those who will model their lives after his and give themselves in love.
Are you grieving? Is it because you loved? Then accept your pain as a witness to the reality of your love.
I conducted a lot of funerals in the early years of my ministry. I thought I understood grief. But then my best friend, Bill Shelly, died. I encountered a pain I'd never even known existed. Though I had cared about the grieving families I had served as a pastor, I had never loved any of my parishioners as deeply and personally as I had Bill. I had not invested years of shared life with them. I hadn't intertwined my heart with theirs in the same way.
But when Bill died, the pain cut to the core of my being. There was no detachment, no "non-attachment." The one comfort I found in my grief was the awareness that the very painfulness of my grief was evidence of the value and the depth of our friendship, evidence of our love.
I remember sitting in the Loma University Church during the memorial service. Kimo Smith filled the church with a tremendous concert of great, classic hymns. A Mighty Fortress. For All the Saints. Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee. As the music washed over me, my grief welled up within and I had to pull out my handkerchief.
I was surprised by the tears. I don't cry. But I treasured the tears. They were proof to me of the depth and reality of the friendship Bill and I had shared.
I mourned because I had loved.
Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted.
An article in the L. A. Times highlights this "good" side of grief. The writer of the article, Howard Rosenberg, talked about the power of television to blur the distinction between acting and actuality. On TV what appears to be real and candid is seldom exactly what it seems.
But the Jesus did not simply dignify grief and mourning. He promised deliverance from its pain. Someday, God's going to prove his kindly regard for people who grieve by giving them eternal comfort. Those who mourn WILL BE COMFORTED.
It may seem impossible. It may seem like a fairy tale, but it's really true: Someday grief will disappear. Not because time has finally healed all wounds. Not because the hole in your life has been filled by another person or you have been distracted by busyness. Jesus' promise of comfort is rooted in his knowledge of another world.
Some people find rich comfort and consolation right here and now in the hope of the resurrection. But when Jesus declared that those who mourn are blessed, he was not talking primarily about present comfort. He was not saying that grief is less painful than we imagine. He was not trying to suggest that real Christians don’t cry. No, Jesus was declaring that grief and mourning are limited. The day is coming when they will exist only as faded memories. Grief closes a person in; Jesus' words opened the window on a bright, glad future.
The certainty of a coming resurrection may not be much comfort immediately after a death. At that time the pain of separation is so intense it obscures the future. But after the first, sharp pain has subsided, the prospect of a reunion becomes a constantly brighter promise.
When Bill died, I was included in the private ceremony by his family at the graveside. After the casket had been lowered and we had filled the hole. A couple of Bill’s aunts decided to sing a song. As I recall it was “In the Sweet By and By.” They said something about the comfort they had in their anticipation of the resurrection. I remember thinking, Humph! Resurrection nothing! I don’t to wait the rest of my life to see Bill. I want to be able to pick up the phone and call him tomorrow. I still had decades of living to do. Decades of filling the emptiness. I didn't want some resurrection way off in the future at the second coming; I wanted Bill back in my life right now.
Several years later I found that the resurrection did give me hope and comfort. I look forward to seeing Bill on that Great Morning. But right then, there in that cemetery, any comfort was off in the future. It was not a present reality.
And that is reflected in Jesus words. Blessed are those who mourn. They WILL be comforted. The comfort is certain. But it is future.
If this life is all there is, then for many people there isn't much to life. But this life is not all there is. At the heart of the Christian faith is the confidence that there is another world coming. A world where love will find its natural expression: endless fellowship and communion.
Those who love in this world will experience grief. They will mourn. But those who have truly given themselves in love will find beyond the pain, beyond the grief, eternal comfort, everlasting joy.
Here's the way the Apostle John puts it in Revelation 21:3-4.
Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted.
Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted. Matthew 5:4
How can you be blessed when you are mourning? When someone dies, it seems like the light goes out in your life.
A young woman wrote us here at Voice of Prophecy after her fiance was killed by a stray bullet in a drive-by shooting. She described her despair and the tearing of her heart. Was she blessed? It certainly didn't feel that way to her.
We receive letters from parents whose children have died or worse have been murdered. Just the other day, we shared together in our prayer circle, a letter from a mother whose son died after being shot nine times.
In every one of these letters I feel the darkness, the oppression that comes with bereavement. Grief shuts out the future. It shrinks a person's world into a tiny sphere of intense pain. How could it possibly be true that those who mourn are blessed?
I've stood by women who have lost husbands after more than fifty years of marriage. What unimaginable pain they experience. What a huge emptiness the death of their husband creates. I've known parents who have lost a teenager. It seemed to me as a pastor that their grief was the sharpest, most incurable of all.
How do we make sense of Jesus' declaration: "Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted"?
There are three distinct messages contained in these few, brief words:
First, if you are mourning, you are blessed, not cursed. When someone you love dies, it seems that God himself has turned against you. The pain and desperate hunger in your heart seem to suggest that God is tormenting not blessing you.
Naturally we ask, "Why?" Why did God allow it to happen? Why didn't he stop it? Why now? Why her? Why him? Why this way? And behind all of these why's is a suspicion that God has made a mistake, or worse, that God is somehow taking out his anger on us. The ache in our heart tells us we are cursed, that God is against us.
But Jesus contradicts our hearts. We are blessed. As I mentioned in the last chapter, and will mention over and over as we move through these blessings, to be blessed means you are favored by God, that God regards you with kindly affection. When you mourn, no matter what your heart tells you, Jesus assures you that you are blessed. You are favored by God.
When Jesus announced that those who mourn are blessed, he was contradicting the primary emotions of grief. Grief makes you feel utterly alone, Jesus declared that God is with you. Grief insists that God has rejected you or is punishing you. Jesus declared that when you're mourning, you're the object of God's special compassion and love.
Jesus' words not only tell us about God's response to our grief, they also are a guide for how to best respond to our friends when they grieve.
When a friend is grieving, don't try to explain things to them. Don't offer theology or sociology or psychology. Bless them. Show them your favor, your affection. Let them you know that you care for them. And the best way to do that is simply to be there.
Be there physically if possible. Keep your friend company. Spend time with them. Your presence says that they are loved. They may ask all kinds of questions. They may express doubts about God, about life. Don't try to answer the questions. In many ways the questions are beside the point. Your presence answers the most important question of all. It's a question that may never be asked out loud, but is one of the most fundamental in today's society: Does anybody care? Does God care? Is what happened simply another meaningless ripple in the endless ocean of time and chance, or did the life of my child count for something? Is my grief for my wife or husband or friend or brother or sister senseless or is their death really worthy of the enormous pain I feel?
Your presence dignifies their pain. It gives nobility to their grief. You help them know that even in the darkness they are loved. They are blessed.
If you can't be there in person write a note. Perhaps use the telephone, but whatever you do, make contact. Let the grieving person know you care.
Your caring will help make real in their life, Jesus' words, "Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted."
Jesus was not the first person to announce God's compassionate response to our grief. It's a major theme of Scripture. Consider this from the prophet Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,Those who mourn are blessed, because God cares for them.
because the Lord has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, . . .
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor . . .
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
Isaiah 61:1-3
There is another meaning in the words: blessed are those who mourn. Mourning is the reverse side of love. The reason we mourn someone is because we have opened ourselves up to that person, we have formed an attachment.
In this life, any time we love someone we're opening ourselves to hurt. No relationship can last forever in this world, because people don't last forever. But Jesus honors the pain of love. He declares, Blessed are those who mourn.
This is one of the most important differences between the Buddhist and Christian prescriptions for life. In Buddhism a person is counseled to avoid pain by avoiding attachments. But Jesus calls people to form attachments in spite of the pain. The greatest thing a person can do is love—even though we know ahead of time that love will involve us in pain.
Blessed are those courageous enough to open themselves to others in love. "Blessed are those who mourn" really means blessed are those who love. Blessed -- that is specially favored by God -- are the people who love in spite of the risk of betrayal or abandonment and the certainty of death. Blessed are the lovers. Honored by God himself are those who will model their lives after his and give themselves in love.
Are you grieving? Is it because you loved? Then accept your pain as a witness to the reality of your love.
I conducted a lot of funerals in the early years of my ministry. I thought I understood grief. But then my best friend, Bill Shelly, died. I encountered a pain I'd never even known existed. Though I had cared about the grieving families I had served as a pastor, I had never loved any of my parishioners as deeply and personally as I had Bill. I had not invested years of shared life with them. I hadn't intertwined my heart with theirs in the same way.
But when Bill died, the pain cut to the core of my being. There was no detachment, no "non-attachment." The one comfort I found in my grief was the awareness that the very painfulness of my grief was evidence of the value and the depth of our friendship, evidence of our love.
I remember sitting in the Loma University Church during the memorial service. Kimo Smith filled the church with a tremendous concert of great, classic hymns. A Mighty Fortress. For All the Saints. Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee. As the music washed over me, my grief welled up within and I had to pull out my handkerchief.
I was surprised by the tears. I don't cry. But I treasured the tears. They were proof to me of the depth and reality of the friendship Bill and I had shared.
I mourned because I had loved.
Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted.
An article in the L. A. Times highlights this "good" side of grief. The writer of the article, Howard Rosenberg, talked about the power of television to blur the distinction between acting and actuality. On TV what appears to be real and candid is seldom exactly what it seems.
". . . nowhere on television is the line separating acting and actuality less discernible than on celeb-laden late-night talk shows, where the performance—a guest's seemingly candid schmoozing with the host in front of millions of viewers—is often mistaken for some kind of bear-all, insightful truth. On the contrary, although there's nothing actually corrupt about the process, it's all part of the show. Give an actor a camera and he acts.One reason Jesus could say, "Blessed are those who truly mourn" is that in mourning we come in contact with the most important principle of life: God made us for love. The value of mourning is so great that even a man of the world like Mr. Rosenberg honors its honesty in the make-believe world of TV. Anything that can actually cut through the artificiality of talk-show TV must be incredibly powerful. Such is the power of grief.
"The few exceptions on TV include the times that Sally Jessy Raphael has spoken of the 1992 death of her daughter, Allison Vladimir, at age 33, and Johnny Carson's heartfelt comments in 1991 when, fighting back tears, he eulogized his 39-year-old son, Rick, who had died in an automobile accident. . . ."
The reason for Rosenberg's commentary was a eulogy by late-night talk-show host, Jay Leno, for his dad. Leno spent eight minutes on his show talking with warmth, affection and heart-break about his father who had died from cancer the previous week at age 83.
Rosenberg wrote:
"It was special; it was memorable. Even rarer for television, it was genuine." ["Jay Leno's Eulogy Does His Dad Proud" L. A. Times August 29, 1994. pp. F1, F10]
But the Jesus did not simply dignify grief and mourning. He promised deliverance from its pain. Someday, God's going to prove his kindly regard for people who grieve by giving them eternal comfort. Those who mourn WILL BE COMFORTED.
It may seem impossible. It may seem like a fairy tale, but it's really true: Someday grief will disappear. Not because time has finally healed all wounds. Not because the hole in your life has been filled by another person or you have been distracted by busyness. Jesus' promise of comfort is rooted in his knowledge of another world.
Some people find rich comfort and consolation right here and now in the hope of the resurrection. But when Jesus declared that those who mourn are blessed, he was not talking primarily about present comfort. He was not saying that grief is less painful than we imagine. He was not trying to suggest that real Christians don’t cry. No, Jesus was declaring that grief and mourning are limited. The day is coming when they will exist only as faded memories. Grief closes a person in; Jesus' words opened the window on a bright, glad future.
The certainty of a coming resurrection may not be much comfort immediately after a death. At that time the pain of separation is so intense it obscures the future. But after the first, sharp pain has subsided, the prospect of a reunion becomes a constantly brighter promise.
When Bill died, I was included in the private ceremony by his family at the graveside. After the casket had been lowered and we had filled the hole. A couple of Bill’s aunts decided to sing a song. As I recall it was “In the Sweet By and By.” They said something about the comfort they had in their anticipation of the resurrection. I remember thinking, Humph! Resurrection nothing! I don’t to wait the rest of my life to see Bill. I want to be able to pick up the phone and call him tomorrow. I still had decades of living to do. Decades of filling the emptiness. I didn't want some resurrection way off in the future at the second coming; I wanted Bill back in my life right now.
Several years later I found that the resurrection did give me hope and comfort. I look forward to seeing Bill on that Great Morning. But right then, there in that cemetery, any comfort was off in the future. It was not a present reality.
And that is reflected in Jesus words. Blessed are those who mourn. They WILL be comforted. The comfort is certain. But it is future.
If this life is all there is, then for many people there isn't much to life. But this life is not all there is. At the heart of the Christian faith is the confidence that there is another world coming. A world where love will find its natural expression: endless fellowship and communion.
Those who love in this world will experience grief. They will mourn. But those who have truly given themselves in love will find beyond the pain, beyond the grief, eternal comfort, everlasting joy.
Here's the way the Apostle John puts it in Revelation 21:3-4.
"Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"Are you heart broken because someone you love has left you through death or divorce or a move? Then know for certain that God has a special affection for you. He treasures the fact that you opened yourself up to the hazards of love. And he guarantees that your pain will not last forever. Some day, you grief will be lost in the joy of reunion and restoration.
Blessed are those who mourn, they will be comforted.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
The Truly Masterful Conspiracy
Sermon for North Hill, July 30, 2011
Texts: Genesis 3:15; 50:15-21, 2 Kings 5; 6:8-23; Revelation 5:13-14,
(Editors Note: Why waste your time fretting over petty conspiracies like the Illuminati, the U.N.'s plan for one-world government, the cabal of rich people, communists, socialists, Islamic World Domination Dreamers, European Sunday Promoters, right wing fundamentalists, etc. If we're going to talk conspiracy, let's talk about one that is actually going to succeed. Which is what this sermon does.)
I was in a meeting not long ago with several other ministers. We got to talking about an incident during campmeeting. A young man with severe psychological problems showed up. He was off his meds and became severely agitated and aggressive. I called the police who came and took him away. It was a scary few minutes but no one got hurt and the young man did not end up with any criminal charges on his record.
One of the preachers in the meeting said, “Isn't that just like the Devil. He'll do anything he can to block the special blessing God has for his people at campmeeting.”
I smiled inwardly at his naivete. I saw it exactly opposite. Here was a needy, damaged person. When he was off his medication, he was a risk to himself and others. God sent him to the one place where his edgy behavior would get him arrested before he hurt anyone – an arrest that would end with him in the care of mental health professionals instead of doing jail time.
I had even received a tip off about his problems before he arrived so I called the police much quicker than I would have otherwise. No one got hurt. (Several us were scared!) He got help. Campmeeting was not disrupted. God won.
So, if the Devil was involved, if the Devil had, in fact, sent this young man to “block the special blessing God had planned for campmeeting,” it was a miserable failure. God won. Again. Poor Devil. He's such a loser!
One of the most foundational, bedrock convictions of Adventism is something we call “The Great Controversy.” It's the way we tell the story of the universe. We insist it is the real story of what's happening. It is the secret knowledge of how the universe works. It is the story of a Grand Conspiracy. God is pulling strings, positioning secret agents and public forces, manipulating evil and empowering good so that in the end, love triumphs and evil dies.
There are a couple of reasons why the Adventist conviction about God's conspiracy to assure the triumph of love matters. First, it gives us hope if we have suffered from the machinations of the devil or evil people. We may suffer, but ultimately our suffering will be alleviated – no, I should say our suffering will be engulfed in joy, dissolved in joy. Joy is eternal. Suffering is terribly real, but it will prove to be ephemeral.
Second, this story matters because it gives us the wisdom we need to align our efforts, our energies with the flow of history. We can avoid the tragedy of giving our lives in service to a lost, misguided cause.
Imagine how Robert E. Lee must have felt after the Civil War. He had turned down President Lincoln's offer to lead the Union armies and cast his lot with his beloved Virginia. It was a dumb choice. It turns out he was fighting a tragically misguided war to defend the most monstrous institution in the history of the United States. You know where history was headed. Slavery lost. The South lost. Lee lost. If, instead, he had aligned himself with history, if he had placed his considerable abilities in the service of freedom for Black people, it is probable the Civil War would have been much shorter. Hundreds of thousands of lives might of have been spared. The South would have avoided horrific devastation. Lee could have been a champion instead of a loser.
Attempting to stop the unstoppable course of history is tragic and dumb. We know how the human story is going to turn out. We know where history is going. Since God is the one directing the conspiracy of love, it makes sense to join.
Over the past year we've watched history march forward in the Middle East. If President Mubarak had understood the story was going to go, he would not have foolishly stood in the way of his people's longing for freedom and opportunity. But he did not understand where the story was going. He did not know the plot.
Adventists believe that eventually the human hunger for freedom and truth, for justice and the triumph of love will be satisfied. God is conspiring to make it so. He will not be forever thwarted. Since God is going to win. It makes since to join the conspiracy now.
China's communist party is doomed. The Wahabism of Saudi Arabia is doomed.
Love will win. Freedom will win. Tyrants can delay the progress. Tradition can stall the forward march of history. But neither tyrants nor tradition can forever delay the triumph of love. God will win. Love will win. That's the way the story goes.
To be sure, the Bible acknowledges the activity of the Devil. There are disastrous failures of goodness. There are heartbreaking victories by the forces of evil. But these are merely twists in the plot. They do not alter the end of the story.
God wins. Love wins. No matter how many times the Devil springs surprise attacks. No matter how many suicide bombers he commissions. No matter how inept or weary the agents of God, the eventual end of the story is guaranteed. God guarantees it.
God's victory will be so complete, so total, that the entire universe will celebrate it. Even the Devil will eventually bow and admit God is right. The conspiracy of love will prove so successful, eventually every force of evil, even humans who have appeared utterly captivated by wickedness – all will finally pay obeisance to God and love.
This is the direction of history. This is the climax of the plot. This is where the conspiracy is headed.
So we live in hope. The oppression of Islam will vanish. Communism will collapse. The tyranny of right wing zealots will disappear. The suppression of women and marriage by the papal system will evaporate. The swagger of capitalism will collapse.
Love will triumph. Community, harmonious relationships, altruism, mutual care and respect, righteousness and peace will fill the earth.
Allow me a couple of applications:
1. God is more clever and powerful and determined than the Devil. In light of this, it is silly to obsess over the putative conspiracies of the left or right. The Illuminati, the papal system, socialists, communists, Muslims, the U.N., the Aryan Brotherhood – pick your favorite bogey man – each of these and all of them together are no more consequential than Hosni Mubarak. They will fall. They will fail. They do not run the world. They will not rule the world. So don't freak out. Refuse to feed your worry. Instead feed your faith. Don't listen to people like Rush Limbaugh or Walter Veith. These men are most eloquent when talking about stuff they fear or hate, a profoundly misplaced eloquence.
2. Devote yourself to doing what you can to further the conspiracy of goodness. Enlist in the winning movement. Practice generosity. Give yourself to the cultivation of affection and intimacy with family and friends. Spend less than you earn and build savings regularly. Exercise regularly. Eat wisely. Spend time every day watering the plant of faith through reading, prayer, meditation, music, art, acts of service. In case I've not been clear enough: Read (books, internet sites, magazines) stuff that celebrates goodness. DO NOT READ stuff that outlines the methods or supposed accomplishments of the forces of evil. If everything the fear-mongers say is true, what should you do? The things I've listed above in this paragraph. If nothing the fear-mongers say is true, what should you do? The things I've listed above in this paragraph. The fear-mongers give no guidance for life. They offer no wisdom, no help. So leave them alone. Give your attention to the winning conspiracy, not to the ones guaranteed to fail. Do things you'll be happy to talk about at the victory feast of the conspiracy of heaven.
Texts: Genesis 3:15; 50:15-21, 2 Kings 5; 6:8-23; Revelation 5:13-14,
(Editors Note: Why waste your time fretting over petty conspiracies like the Illuminati, the U.N.'s plan for one-world government, the cabal of rich people, communists, socialists, Islamic World Domination Dreamers, European Sunday Promoters, right wing fundamentalists, etc. If we're going to talk conspiracy, let's talk about one that is actually going to succeed. Which is what this sermon does.)
I was in a meeting not long ago with several other ministers. We got to talking about an incident during campmeeting. A young man with severe psychological problems showed up. He was off his meds and became severely agitated and aggressive. I called the police who came and took him away. It was a scary few minutes but no one got hurt and the young man did not end up with any criminal charges on his record.
One of the preachers in the meeting said, “Isn't that just like the Devil. He'll do anything he can to block the special blessing God has for his people at campmeeting.”
I smiled inwardly at his naivete. I saw it exactly opposite. Here was a needy, damaged person. When he was off his medication, he was a risk to himself and others. God sent him to the one place where his edgy behavior would get him arrested before he hurt anyone – an arrest that would end with him in the care of mental health professionals instead of doing jail time.
I had even received a tip off about his problems before he arrived so I called the police much quicker than I would have otherwise. No one got hurt. (Several us were scared!) He got help. Campmeeting was not disrupted. God won.
So, if the Devil was involved, if the Devil had, in fact, sent this young man to “block the special blessing God had planned for campmeeting,” it was a miserable failure. God won. Again. Poor Devil. He's such a loser!
One of the most foundational, bedrock convictions of Adventism is something we call “The Great Controversy.” It's the way we tell the story of the universe. We insist it is the real story of what's happening. It is the secret knowledge of how the universe works. It is the story of a Grand Conspiracy. God is pulling strings, positioning secret agents and public forces, manipulating evil and empowering good so that in the end, love triumphs and evil dies.
There are a couple of reasons why the Adventist conviction about God's conspiracy to assure the triumph of love matters. First, it gives us hope if we have suffered from the machinations of the devil or evil people. We may suffer, but ultimately our suffering will be alleviated – no, I should say our suffering will be engulfed in joy, dissolved in joy. Joy is eternal. Suffering is terribly real, but it will prove to be ephemeral.
Second, this story matters because it gives us the wisdom we need to align our efforts, our energies with the flow of history. We can avoid the tragedy of giving our lives in service to a lost, misguided cause.
Imagine how Robert E. Lee must have felt after the Civil War. He had turned down President Lincoln's offer to lead the Union armies and cast his lot with his beloved Virginia. It was a dumb choice. It turns out he was fighting a tragically misguided war to defend the most monstrous institution in the history of the United States. You know where history was headed. Slavery lost. The South lost. Lee lost. If, instead, he had aligned himself with history, if he had placed his considerable abilities in the service of freedom for Black people, it is probable the Civil War would have been much shorter. Hundreds of thousands of lives might of have been spared. The South would have avoided horrific devastation. Lee could have been a champion instead of a loser.
Attempting to stop the unstoppable course of history is tragic and dumb. We know how the human story is going to turn out. We know where history is going. Since God is the one directing the conspiracy of love, it makes sense to join.
Over the past year we've watched history march forward in the Middle East. If President Mubarak had understood the story was going to go, he would not have foolishly stood in the way of his people's longing for freedom and opportunity. But he did not understand where the story was going. He did not know the plot.
Adventists believe that eventually the human hunger for freedom and truth, for justice and the triumph of love will be satisfied. God is conspiring to make it so. He will not be forever thwarted. Since God is going to win. It makes since to join the conspiracy now.
China's communist party is doomed. The Wahabism of Saudi Arabia is doomed.
Love will win. Freedom will win. Tyrants can delay the progress. Tradition can stall the forward march of history. But neither tyrants nor tradition can forever delay the triumph of love. God will win. Love will win. That's the way the story goes.
To be sure, the Bible acknowledges the activity of the Devil. There are disastrous failures of goodness. There are heartbreaking victories by the forces of evil. But these are merely twists in the plot. They do not alter the end of the story.
God wins. Love wins. No matter how many times the Devil springs surprise attacks. No matter how many suicide bombers he commissions. No matter how inept or weary the agents of God, the eventual end of the story is guaranteed. God guarantees it.
God's victory will be so complete, so total, that the entire universe will celebrate it. Even the Devil will eventually bow and admit God is right. The conspiracy of love will prove so successful, eventually every force of evil, even humans who have appeared utterly captivated by wickedness – all will finally pay obeisance to God and love.
This is the direction of history. This is the climax of the plot. This is where the conspiracy is headed.
So we live in hope. The oppression of Islam will vanish. Communism will collapse. The tyranny of right wing zealots will disappear. The suppression of women and marriage by the papal system will evaporate. The swagger of capitalism will collapse.
Love will triumph. Community, harmonious relationships, altruism, mutual care and respect, righteousness and peace will fill the earth.
Allow me a couple of applications:
1. God is more clever and powerful and determined than the Devil. In light of this, it is silly to obsess over the putative conspiracies of the left or right. The Illuminati, the papal system, socialists, communists, Muslims, the U.N., the Aryan Brotherhood – pick your favorite bogey man – each of these and all of them together are no more consequential than Hosni Mubarak. They will fall. They will fail. They do not run the world. They will not rule the world. So don't freak out. Refuse to feed your worry. Instead feed your faith. Don't listen to people like Rush Limbaugh or Walter Veith. These men are most eloquent when talking about stuff they fear or hate, a profoundly misplaced eloquence.
2. Devote yourself to doing what you can to further the conspiracy of goodness. Enlist in the winning movement. Practice generosity. Give yourself to the cultivation of affection and intimacy with family and friends. Spend less than you earn and build savings regularly. Exercise regularly. Eat wisely. Spend time every day watering the plant of faith through reading, prayer, meditation, music, art, acts of service. In case I've not been clear enough: Read (books, internet sites, magazines) stuff that celebrates goodness. DO NOT READ stuff that outlines the methods or supposed accomplishments of the forces of evil. If everything the fear-mongers say is true, what should you do? The things I've listed above in this paragraph. If nothing the fear-mongers say is true, what should you do? The things I've listed above in this paragraph. The fear-mongers give no guidance for life. They offer no wisdom, no help. So leave them alone. Give your attention to the winning conspiracy, not to the ones guaranteed to fail. Do things you'll be happy to talk about at the victory feast of the conspiracy of heaven.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Love and Health Nuts
Sermon for North Hill, July 23, 2011
When Karin was being treated for cancer, women from this church brought food and cleaned our house. That was love.
When the women of this church put on a church dinner to feed a huge number of guests – with only a few days notice – that is love.
When the men of this church spent nearly every Sunday for a year or two, working in mud and cold and rain to construct our landscape. That was love.
When you help one another move – that is back-breaking love.
Loving well takes muscle. Cleaning a house, mowing a lawn, polishing shoes – all require some level of physical strength.
One of the most famous stories Jesus ever told featured a strong man.
A man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. Somewhere on the road he was ambushed by bandits who robbed him, beat him and left him for dead. A priest came along, noticed the victim lying in the road, and kept going, hugging the opposite side of the road. A Levite came along. He, too, kept going. Then a Samaritan came along.
He stopped, bound up the victim's wounds, then lifted the man onto his donkey and transported him to an inn. The Samaritan nursed the robbery victim through the night. In the morning, he paid the inn keeper for the night and paid extra to have the inn-keeper look after the man until he was back on his feet (Luke 10).
Jesus told this story in response to a question about just what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves.
When we ask, “What is God's will for our lives?” the answer is: Love. Love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. Because loving others takes strength we have an inescapable moral duty to cultivate strength, to safeguard our physical health.
Adventists have long taught that taking care of our health is a moral obligation. God wants us to be lovers. And loving requires strength. It takes muscles to put somebody on a donkey. It takes muscles to clean toilets, hold babies, shovel snow, drive a car, give a massage. Our bodies are the essential tools in acts of love and so taking care of our bodies is clearly a moral obligation.
Another story. This not a story told BY Jesus, but a story told ABOUT Jesus. Jesus was teaching in a synagogue one Sabbath. He noticed a woman there who was crippled and bent over. She had suffered from this condition for 18 years. Jesus called the woman forward. “Woman,” he said, “you are set free from your infirmity.” He placed his hands on her and immediately she straightened up and praised God (Luke 13).
It is the quintessential picture of the ministry of Jesus. When he comes into contact with human suffering he immediately takes action. He heals. He restores.
Christians are followers of Jesus, disciples, students of Jesus. We order our lives in harmony with the example and teaching of Jesus.
As God send Jesus, so Jesus sent his disciples (John 17:18). In Matthew, Jesus sent his disciples on mission saying, “Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8))
Jesus was a healer. We are to be healers. This is the foundation of the Adventist hospital system and the the reason the Adventist church established a medical school in Loma Linda a hundred years ago (and more recently (1975) another in Montemorelos, Mexico and in 1994 another at Universidad Adventista del Plata in Argentina).
Loving people means participating in their healing, giving them aid. Acting as healers takes strength and health on the part of the healers. Helping people enjoy optimal health means far more than offering aid to the sick, it means teaching people how to avoid disease.
Medical and miraculous healings are wonderful ways to touch other people with love. Even more effective in the long run is helping people embrace healthy practices. Healthy habits are far more effective than miracles. Miracles, by definition are rare. The laws of health, by definition, are common. They work most of the time. (Not all the time.)
Teaching people to exercise, eat less and eat better is a far more productive way to deal with obesity than praying about it.
Lung cancer is far more reliably prevented by not smoking than it is cured by miracles or operations.
So both in obedience to the command to love and as an act homage as disciples of Jesus, we practice and teach healthy living.
You can find all sorts of lists of rules for healthy living. And once you go beyond the basics, sometimes the lists disagree with one another. But there are some basics that are incontrovertible.
First. Number one. Numero uno: Move. Walk. Bike. Jiggle. Dance. Do pushups. Lift weights. Swim. Do crunches. Stretch. Bend. Run. Healthy bodies move. And moving promotes health. So move. Park farther from the door of the store.
Number two. Eat better. Eat smarter. Eat less stuff that comes in fancy packaging. Beware of crinkly bags. Pretty much anything that comes in a crinkly bag is suspect – chips, Cheetos. Eat more veggies. Eat less sugar, less cheese, less meat.
Number three. Drink water. Beware of beverages other than water. Orange juice is not a health food. It is a desert. (The same is true of any fruit juice.) Soda is dangerous. Never use it to quench thirst.
Number four. Sleep.
The goal of all this healthy living is not to live forever. No degree of rigor in the pursuit of health will give us perpetual youth, much less eternal life. We all get sick. We will all die. We do not practice healthy living under the illusion that somehow it will keep us from experiencing pain and sickness and death.
Instead, we practice healthy living because we want to be strong enough to love well. We want to minimize down time when we are unavailable to serve others. We practice healthy living because we are lovers. Like God is.
(And we keep much humor and grace on hand. Part of being healthy is not fretting—about our own habits or the behavior of others. Do what you can right now, in the moment, to foster health, and laugh at your own failures and the failures of others. You'll get another chance tomorrow to get it right. Or not.)
When Karin was being treated for cancer, women from this church brought food and cleaned our house. That was love.
When the women of this church put on a church dinner to feed a huge number of guests – with only a few days notice – that is love.
When the men of this church spent nearly every Sunday for a year or two, working in mud and cold and rain to construct our landscape. That was love.
When you help one another move – that is back-breaking love.
Loving well takes muscle. Cleaning a house, mowing a lawn, polishing shoes – all require some level of physical strength.
One of the most famous stories Jesus ever told featured a strong man.
A man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. Somewhere on the road he was ambushed by bandits who robbed him, beat him and left him for dead. A priest came along, noticed the victim lying in the road, and kept going, hugging the opposite side of the road. A Levite came along. He, too, kept going. Then a Samaritan came along.
He stopped, bound up the victim's wounds, then lifted the man onto his donkey and transported him to an inn. The Samaritan nursed the robbery victim through the night. In the morning, he paid the inn keeper for the night and paid extra to have the inn-keeper look after the man until he was back on his feet (Luke 10).
Jesus told this story in response to a question about just what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves.
When we ask, “What is God's will for our lives?” the answer is: Love. Love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. Because loving others takes strength we have an inescapable moral duty to cultivate strength, to safeguard our physical health.
Adventists have long taught that taking care of our health is a moral obligation. God wants us to be lovers. And loving requires strength. It takes muscles to put somebody on a donkey. It takes muscles to clean toilets, hold babies, shovel snow, drive a car, give a massage. Our bodies are the essential tools in acts of love and so taking care of our bodies is clearly a moral obligation.
Another story. This not a story told BY Jesus, but a story told ABOUT Jesus. Jesus was teaching in a synagogue one Sabbath. He noticed a woman there who was crippled and bent over. She had suffered from this condition for 18 years. Jesus called the woman forward. “Woman,” he said, “you are set free from your infirmity.” He placed his hands on her and immediately she straightened up and praised God (Luke 13).
It is the quintessential picture of the ministry of Jesus. When he comes into contact with human suffering he immediately takes action. He heals. He restores.
Christians are followers of Jesus, disciples, students of Jesus. We order our lives in harmony with the example and teaching of Jesus.
As God send Jesus, so Jesus sent his disciples (John 17:18). In Matthew, Jesus sent his disciples on mission saying, “Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8))
Jesus was a healer. We are to be healers. This is the foundation of the Adventist hospital system and the the reason the Adventist church established a medical school in Loma Linda a hundred years ago (and more recently (1975) another in Montemorelos, Mexico and in 1994 another at Universidad Adventista del Plata in Argentina).
Loving people means participating in their healing, giving them aid. Acting as healers takes strength and health on the part of the healers. Helping people enjoy optimal health means far more than offering aid to the sick, it means teaching people how to avoid disease.
Medical and miraculous healings are wonderful ways to touch other people with love. Even more effective in the long run is helping people embrace healthy practices. Healthy habits are far more effective than miracles. Miracles, by definition are rare. The laws of health, by definition, are common. They work most of the time. (Not all the time.)
Teaching people to exercise, eat less and eat better is a far more productive way to deal with obesity than praying about it.
Lung cancer is far more reliably prevented by not smoking than it is cured by miracles or operations.
So both in obedience to the command to love and as an act homage as disciples of Jesus, we practice and teach healthy living.
You can find all sorts of lists of rules for healthy living. And once you go beyond the basics, sometimes the lists disagree with one another. But there are some basics that are incontrovertible.
First. Number one. Numero uno: Move. Walk. Bike. Jiggle. Dance. Do pushups. Lift weights. Swim. Do crunches. Stretch. Bend. Run. Healthy bodies move. And moving promotes health. So move. Park farther from the door of the store.
Number two. Eat better. Eat smarter. Eat less stuff that comes in fancy packaging. Beware of crinkly bags. Pretty much anything that comes in a crinkly bag is suspect – chips, Cheetos. Eat more veggies. Eat less sugar, less cheese, less meat.
Number three. Drink water. Beware of beverages other than water. Orange juice is not a health food. It is a desert. (The same is true of any fruit juice.) Soda is dangerous. Never use it to quench thirst.
Number four. Sleep.
The goal of all this healthy living is not to live forever. No degree of rigor in the pursuit of health will give us perpetual youth, much less eternal life. We all get sick. We will all die. We do not practice healthy living under the illusion that somehow it will keep us from experiencing pain and sickness and death.
Instead, we practice healthy living because we want to be strong enough to love well. We want to minimize down time when we are unavailable to serve others. We practice healthy living because we are lovers. Like God is.
(And we keep much humor and grace on hand. Part of being healthy is not fretting—about our own habits or the behavior of others. Do what you can right now, in the moment, to foster health, and laugh at your own failures and the failures of others. You'll get another chance tomorrow to get it right. Or not.)
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Death and Hope and Hell
First draft of my sermon for North Hill, July 16, 2011. Critical comments welcome. I will be making changes and will replace this post before 9:00 a.m. Sabbath morning.
When I first met Jim, he hobbled around his apartment in Huntington, NY, with the aid of a crutch. Still, he exuded great confidence. In contrast to the billions of humans who had died over the ages of human existence, Jim was going to be one of the special ones who never experienced death. He was going to go straight from “life here” to “life there.” It was a sweet hope. Jesus was coming again. Jim was going to be one of the 144,000 who would actually see Jesus come in the clouds of heaven. He would never taste the night of death.
A couple of years later instead of a crutch, Jim needed a wheel chair to get around. He was frustrated with his decreasing mobility. Disappointed that his body was letting him down.
Another year or so and Jim was bed fast. He needed help just to get out of bed. With great embarrassment and disappointment he began to say out loud that he didn't think he was going to make it to the Second Coming. He didn't see how he could make it through the Time of Trouble. He realized he was going to die without seeing the Second Coming. This realization was a daunting challenge to his faith.
Turns out he was not the first person to experience this crisis of faith. He was not the first Christian who had thought the Second Coming was so close he didn't need to even think about death.
Almost two thousand years earlier, the Christians in the city of Thessalonika faced the same dilemma. They had become Christians through the preaching of the Apostle Paul. Paul had talked about the Second Coming of Jesus with such enthusiasm and conviction that the new believers figured they would all experience the Second Coming together. Death was something that happened to other people, not to Christians. They weren't going to have time to die. Jesus was coming too soon for that.
Then some people in their congregation died. It was a crisis. Death was not supposed to happen to Christians – not to people in the church! They were all going to welcome Jesus together at the Second Coming. Now their friends had died. Did that mean they were going to miss out?
Paul wrote them a letter to reassure them.
Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. Thessalonians 4:13-15
Don't worry about the believers who have died, Paul says. They are not going to miss out. Death has not foiled Jesus' plans for his friends. They will be ever bit as present and included in the Grand Climax as those who remain alive straight through until the Second Coming.
The Book of Hebrews addresses this same issue from the opposite direction. Some people imagined that all the good people of God who died through the ages have been rejoicing in the presence of God. They are the lucky ones. We are here, facing all the hardships of life on earth, struggling against the forces of evil – it hardly seems fair.
In answer, the author goes through a list of great heroes in Bible history – Moses, Abraham, Rahab, prophets, warriors, mothers, martyrs. Then referring to this list, he writes, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”
Paul writes that there was nothing to worry about for people who died before the Second Coming. The writer of Hebrews writes there is nothing to worry about if you are still involved in the struggles of this present life.
The Grand Heavenly Feast, the Great Holy Party, will surely happen. And it will happen when all of God's people – those who have died through the ages and those who live at the very end of time – are gathered in God's presence.
For believers, life and death point in the same direction: forward. Toward God. Toward the Second Coming.
Here's some further input from the Apostle Paul:
For the Lord himself will come down from haven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we how are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thessalonians 4:16-17
Notice how Paul puts it. The very first “event” of the Second Coming is the resurrection of God's people who have died. Those who have already died experience the Second Coming along with those who never died.
Jim hasn't missed out. He is not going live through eternity wishing he had “made it” to the Second Coming. His death was an interruption of his plans. His death brought grief to his son. But his death did not interrupt God's plans.
Paul ends this section about the second coming this way:
And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
A few paragraphs later, Paul writes,
“Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:10-11.
What does all this mean for us?
God has plans for us and death cannot cancel those plans. Our great hope is resurrection—the grand reunion that happens at the Second Coming.
One obvious implication of this hope in the resurrection is our belief about what happens when a person dies: When people die, they do not go to heaven or to hell. They go to sleep. No one goes to the heavenly party until everyone goes.
When a person dies, our grief – our pain at their absence – is a mirror of the very pain of God. The person who dies is not longer immediately present with God. God himself is eagerly awaiting the resurrection. The great hope of both believers and God himself is the resurrection. Death is an interruption of life. It interrupts earthly life. It interrupts heavenly life. The remedy for death is the resurrection which happens at the Second Coming.
The threat announced against those who reject God and practice evil is also future. People do not go to hell when they die. Even if you "bought a ticket to hell," you can't get there from here. The train does not go there, because there is no hell to go to.
Hell is the opposite of the Grand Party. And just as the Grand Party cannot get started until everyone is there. So Hell cannot happen until all the people who signed up have arrived. So it must be future. Hell cannot exist now. It cannot happen now.
For the person who dies, death is almost a non-event. It is like going to sleep. Twice I've received general anesthesia for something called cardioversion. My heart was not working properly. The procedure involved electrocuting me and stopping my heart and then restarting it.
Both times somebody came in and started explaining to me what was going to happen. As they were talking, they gave me an injection. An instant later, I opened my eyes. My heart was working properly. I was feeling great.
Death is like that. One instant someone is explaining to us what is going to happen, the next instant it has happened. A thousand years has passed. Or a day. We don't know. We close our eyes. We open them. Death has happened. Death is over. The Heavenly Party is beginning.
For those of us who do not die, the experience of death is like the experience of the cardiologist and nurses and anesthesiologist. They are busy. There may be some tension. If the heart doesn't snap back to the proper rhythm . . . if it doesn't restart . . . I suppose there are all sorts of complications that could arise, all sorts of tensions that might be experienced in the operating room.
For the living, death is long and drawn out. The pain of loss, the blasting of hope, the interruption of loving and sharing eats at our hearts. Death can be a crushing and prolonged misery. Because for us, the living, resurrection is a long way off. The procedure of death – for those who remain alive – is not instantaneous. We feel the slowness of the clock. But those who are asleep, for those who die, death is an instant, a moment between going to sleep and awaking.
Our grief does not come from the pain of dying. Rather, it is the pain of living fully aware of our loss.
God invites us to comfort one another with his promise that the separation of death is not eternal. Resurrection is coming. Life and the power of God will ultimately triumph over the darkness of death. God guarantees it.
Note on Hell: The notion of eternal hell is based on the idea that humans are inherently immortal, that we have “immortal souls.” According to this view, all people are immortal—believers and unbelievers, good people and bad people, saints and sinners. A person does not need faith to have eternal life, faith only changes the quality of eternal life from miserable to happy.
Adventists believe (based on the Bible) that humans are naturally mortal—that is, when our bodies die, we die. A human being is a living body. A dead body is not properly a human being, it's like a fossil—evidence of a life that was, not a life that is.
A dead person cannot experience hell (or anything else). In order to experience hell, a person would have to be resurrected. Adventists hold a variety of views on the exact nature of hell. Some focus on the nature of justice and thus teach hell as a punishment that God owes to the victims of evil. Others focus the coherence of moral and natural law and thus teach hell as the natural consequence of alienation from God and creation. A tiny minority focuses on the nature of God as father/mother/parent and imagine that hell is ultimately superseded by redemption. What all Adventist agree on is that it is inconceivable that God would resurrect people for the express purpose of torturing them for billions of years. Hell, as Adventists understand it, is an event that at worst is a punishment commensurate with the evil committed by the condemned. It is nothing like eternal. Even the eternal “effects” may be ultimately altered by the universe-suffusing grace of God.
Death does not have the last word. God does.
Death is not eternal. God is.
In grief, God and humans are united in painful separation from those we love.
In resurrection, God, the living and the dead will be reunited in a grand, holy, ecstatic festival of love.
Therefore, comfort one another with these words.
When I first met Jim, he hobbled around his apartment in Huntington, NY, with the aid of a crutch. Still, he exuded great confidence. In contrast to the billions of humans who had died over the ages of human existence, Jim was going to be one of the special ones who never experienced death. He was going to go straight from “life here” to “life there.” It was a sweet hope. Jesus was coming again. Jim was going to be one of the 144,000 who would actually see Jesus come in the clouds of heaven. He would never taste the night of death.
A couple of years later instead of a crutch, Jim needed a wheel chair to get around. He was frustrated with his decreasing mobility. Disappointed that his body was letting him down.
Another year or so and Jim was bed fast. He needed help just to get out of bed. With great embarrassment and disappointment he began to say out loud that he didn't think he was going to make it to the Second Coming. He didn't see how he could make it through the Time of Trouble. He realized he was going to die without seeing the Second Coming. This realization was a daunting challenge to his faith.
Turns out he was not the first person to experience this crisis of faith. He was not the first Christian who had thought the Second Coming was so close he didn't need to even think about death.
Almost two thousand years earlier, the Christians in the city of Thessalonika faced the same dilemma. They had become Christians through the preaching of the Apostle Paul. Paul had talked about the Second Coming of Jesus with such enthusiasm and conviction that the new believers figured they would all experience the Second Coming together. Death was something that happened to other people, not to Christians. They weren't going to have time to die. Jesus was coming too soon for that.
Then some people in their congregation died. It was a crisis. Death was not supposed to happen to Christians – not to people in the church! They were all going to welcome Jesus together at the Second Coming. Now their friends had died. Did that mean they were going to miss out?
Paul wrote them a letter to reassure them.
Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. Thessalonians 4:13-15
Don't worry about the believers who have died, Paul says. They are not going to miss out. Death has not foiled Jesus' plans for his friends. They will be ever bit as present and included in the Grand Climax as those who remain alive straight through until the Second Coming.
The Book of Hebrews addresses this same issue from the opposite direction. Some people imagined that all the good people of God who died through the ages have been rejoicing in the presence of God. They are the lucky ones. We are here, facing all the hardships of life on earth, struggling against the forces of evil – it hardly seems fair.
In answer, the author goes through a list of great heroes in Bible history – Moses, Abraham, Rahab, prophets, warriors, mothers, martyrs. Then referring to this list, he writes, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.”
Paul writes that there was nothing to worry about for people who died before the Second Coming. The writer of Hebrews writes there is nothing to worry about if you are still involved in the struggles of this present life.
The Grand Heavenly Feast, the Great Holy Party, will surely happen. And it will happen when all of God's people – those who have died through the ages and those who live at the very end of time – are gathered in God's presence.
For believers, life and death point in the same direction: forward. Toward God. Toward the Second Coming.
Here's some further input from the Apostle Paul:
For the Lord himself will come down from haven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we how are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thessalonians 4:16-17
Notice how Paul puts it. The very first “event” of the Second Coming is the resurrection of God's people who have died. Those who have already died experience the Second Coming along with those who never died.
Jim hasn't missed out. He is not going live through eternity wishing he had “made it” to the Second Coming. His death was an interruption of his plans. His death brought grief to his son. But his death did not interrupt God's plans.
Paul ends this section about the second coming this way:
And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
A few paragraphs later, Paul writes,
“Our Lord Jesus Christ . . . died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:10-11.
What does all this mean for us?
God has plans for us and death cannot cancel those plans. Our great hope is resurrection—the grand reunion that happens at the Second Coming.
One obvious implication of this hope in the resurrection is our belief about what happens when a person dies: When people die, they do not go to heaven or to hell. They go to sleep. No one goes to the heavenly party until everyone goes.
When a person dies, our grief – our pain at their absence – is a mirror of the very pain of God. The person who dies is not longer immediately present with God. God himself is eagerly awaiting the resurrection. The great hope of both believers and God himself is the resurrection. Death is an interruption of life. It interrupts earthly life. It interrupts heavenly life. The remedy for death is the resurrection which happens at the Second Coming.
The threat announced against those who reject God and practice evil is also future. People do not go to hell when they die. Even if you "bought a ticket to hell," you can't get there from here. The train does not go there, because there is no hell to go to.
Hell is the opposite of the Grand Party. And just as the Grand Party cannot get started until everyone is there. So Hell cannot happen until all the people who signed up have arrived. So it must be future. Hell cannot exist now. It cannot happen now.
For the person who dies, death is almost a non-event. It is like going to sleep. Twice I've received general anesthesia for something called cardioversion. My heart was not working properly. The procedure involved electrocuting me and stopping my heart and then restarting it.
Both times somebody came in and started explaining to me what was going to happen. As they were talking, they gave me an injection. An instant later, I opened my eyes. My heart was working properly. I was feeling great.
Death is like that. One instant someone is explaining to us what is going to happen, the next instant it has happened. A thousand years has passed. Or a day. We don't know. We close our eyes. We open them. Death has happened. Death is over. The Heavenly Party is beginning.
For those of us who do not die, the experience of death is like the experience of the cardiologist and nurses and anesthesiologist. They are busy. There may be some tension. If the heart doesn't snap back to the proper rhythm . . . if it doesn't restart . . . I suppose there are all sorts of complications that could arise, all sorts of tensions that might be experienced in the operating room.
For the living, death is long and drawn out. The pain of loss, the blasting of hope, the interruption of loving and sharing eats at our hearts. Death can be a crushing and prolonged misery. Because for us, the living, resurrection is a long way off. The procedure of death – for those who remain alive – is not instantaneous. We feel the slowness of the clock. But those who are asleep, for those who die, death is an instant, a moment between going to sleep and awaking.
Our grief does not come from the pain of dying. Rather, it is the pain of living fully aware of our loss.
God invites us to comfort one another with his promise that the separation of death is not eternal. Resurrection is coming. Life and the power of God will ultimately triumph over the darkness of death. God guarantees it.
Note on Hell: The notion of eternal hell is based on the idea that humans are inherently immortal, that we have “immortal souls.” According to this view, all people are immortal—believers and unbelievers, good people and bad people, saints and sinners. A person does not need faith to have eternal life, faith only changes the quality of eternal life from miserable to happy.
Adventists believe (based on the Bible) that humans are naturally mortal—that is, when our bodies die, we die. A human being is a living body. A dead body is not properly a human being, it's like a fossil—evidence of a life that was, not a life that is.
A dead person cannot experience hell (or anything else). In order to experience hell, a person would have to be resurrected. Adventists hold a variety of views on the exact nature of hell. Some focus on the nature of justice and thus teach hell as a punishment that God owes to the victims of evil. Others focus the coherence of moral and natural law and thus teach hell as the natural consequence of alienation from God and creation. A tiny minority focuses on the nature of God as father/mother/parent and imagine that hell is ultimately superseded by redemption. What all Adventist agree on is that it is inconceivable that God would resurrect people for the express purpose of torturing them for billions of years. Hell, as Adventists understand it, is an event that at worst is a punishment commensurate with the evil committed by the condemned. It is nothing like eternal. Even the eternal “effects” may be ultimately altered by the universe-suffusing grace of God.
Death does not have the last word. God does.
Death is not eternal. God is.
In grief, God and humans are united in painful separation from those we love.
In resurrection, God, the living and the dead will be reunited in a grand, holy, ecstatic festival of love.
Therefore, comfort one another with these words.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Happy Church
Commentary. This is not a sermon.
Nancy visited our church a couple of times before she came to our house for Sabbath lunch. Over lunch, she explained why she would not attend our church again. First, there were drums. The mere sight of them up in the front gave deep offense to her. And the sound! – it was a devilish seduction. (Not surprising, given the extraordinary finesse and musicality of our drummer. Thanks, Kent.) Second, she told us, she could tell ours was a liberal church just from the way people interacted with each other and with visitors. It reminded her of a church she used to attend in a small town back east. One of the most noticeable characteristics of liberal churches was the way people were all friendly and happy.
Conservative churches are not like that, she said. People in conservative churches were not so cheerful and outgoing. Conservative churches were not so welcoming and nice. Liberal churches were friendly and the people had fun. Conservative churches had the truth. They had the Three Angels. And since, in our area, there was more than one Adventist church to choose from, she was letting me know she would not be back to our church. She enjoyed friendly people as much as the next person, but her commitment to truth required her to go where there were no drums and where the preaching gave a straight testimony.
I wished her bon voyage!
I understood her concern. If “finishing the work” were up to us and if creating a “perfect final generation” were our obligation, then perpetual gloom would be understandable. The notions of "finishing the work" and "a perfect, final generation" are counsels of despair. Numerically speaking, the first assignment is steadily receding from us. The second assignment requires us to do something which 100 generations of Christians have been unable to accomplish. If these were truly our assignments, then the critical, watchful spirit Nancy observed in conservative churches made perfect sense. Wouldn't you just hate it to see other people delaying the Second Coming by their laziness in witnessing? Wouldn't it make you angry, the way Adventists were careless in diet, dress and speech and by their carelessness interfered with God's ability to see his image perfectly reflected. And since God could not see his image perfectly reflected the Second Coming could not happen. No wonder conservative churches are gloomy and critical.
Liberal churches, on the other hand, believe that God makes himself responsible for finishing his work. To be sure, he calls us to participate in the work with him, but he does not turn over responsibility for finishing the work to humans. Liberal churches believe that humans were created in God's image and still bear that image. Human love and faithfulness are still beautiful mirrors of God. We do not believe Adventists can keep Jesus from coming back by their predictable failure to live flawless lives. We do believe that God is working with Adventists as they are to accomplish his purposes. We believe it is enough to devote ourselves here and now to the work outlined in Micah 6:8 and Matthew 28. There is no need to distract ourselves from present faithfulness by speculations about some fictional cadre of “Super Saints” who will finally accomplish what 100 generations of Christians before us have failed to do – in spite of God's best efforts.
What makes liberal churches happy is their confidence in God. Our confidence in God gives us confidence in one another. So we are happy. We believe that above and beyond human failures, natural disasters, and even grievous evil, God is active. God will win. He assures we will triumph with him.
So we clang our are cymbals. We lift our hands. We shout hallelujah. We sing. We play our drums (well, other people do. I lack the rhythm necessary for the noise I make to be joyful in the ears of others). We are happy. And if you're tired of a spirituality characterized by hand-wringing and fearfulness, we invite you to join us in the happy church. Come find encouragement to continue in faithfulness. Come celebrate with us the goodness and competence of God.
Really, there is no law against happy.
Nancy visited our church a couple of times before she came to our house for Sabbath lunch. Over lunch, she explained why she would not attend our church again. First, there were drums. The mere sight of them up in the front gave deep offense to her. And the sound! – it was a devilish seduction. (Not surprising, given the extraordinary finesse and musicality of our drummer. Thanks, Kent.) Second, she told us, she could tell ours was a liberal church just from the way people interacted with each other and with visitors. It reminded her of a church she used to attend in a small town back east. One of the most noticeable characteristics of liberal churches was the way people were all friendly and happy.
Conservative churches are not like that, she said. People in conservative churches were not so cheerful and outgoing. Conservative churches were not so welcoming and nice. Liberal churches were friendly and the people had fun. Conservative churches had the truth. They had the Three Angels. And since, in our area, there was more than one Adventist church to choose from, she was letting me know she would not be back to our church. She enjoyed friendly people as much as the next person, but her commitment to truth required her to go where there were no drums and where the preaching gave a straight testimony.
I wished her bon voyage!
I understood her concern. If “finishing the work” were up to us and if creating a “perfect final generation” were our obligation, then perpetual gloom would be understandable. The notions of "finishing the work" and "a perfect, final generation" are counsels of despair. Numerically speaking, the first assignment is steadily receding from us. The second assignment requires us to do something which 100 generations of Christians have been unable to accomplish. If these were truly our assignments, then the critical, watchful spirit Nancy observed in conservative churches made perfect sense. Wouldn't you just hate it to see other people delaying the Second Coming by their laziness in witnessing? Wouldn't it make you angry, the way Adventists were careless in diet, dress and speech and by their carelessness interfered with God's ability to see his image perfectly reflected. And since God could not see his image perfectly reflected the Second Coming could not happen. No wonder conservative churches are gloomy and critical.
Liberal churches, on the other hand, believe that God makes himself responsible for finishing his work. To be sure, he calls us to participate in the work with him, but he does not turn over responsibility for finishing the work to humans. Liberal churches believe that humans were created in God's image and still bear that image. Human love and faithfulness are still beautiful mirrors of God. We do not believe Adventists can keep Jesus from coming back by their predictable failure to live flawless lives. We do believe that God is working with Adventists as they are to accomplish his purposes. We believe it is enough to devote ourselves here and now to the work outlined in Micah 6:8 and Matthew 28. There is no need to distract ourselves from present faithfulness by speculations about some fictional cadre of “Super Saints” who will finally accomplish what 100 generations of Christians before us have failed to do – in spite of God's best efforts.
What makes liberal churches happy is their confidence in God. Our confidence in God gives us confidence in one another. So we are happy. We believe that above and beyond human failures, natural disasters, and even grievous evil, God is active. God will win. He assures we will triumph with him.
So we clang our are cymbals. We lift our hands. We shout hallelujah. We sing. We play our drums (well, other people do. I lack the rhythm necessary for the noise I make to be joyful in the ears of others). We are happy. And if you're tired of a spirituality characterized by hand-wringing and fearfulness, we invite you to join us in the happy church. Come find encouragement to continue in faithfulness. Come celebrate with us the goodness and competence of God.
Really, there is no law against happy.
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