The Bible, Tool for Freedom and Goodness

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship

Sabbath, December 31, 2011

Text: Matthew 4

Jesus was at a dramatic turning point in his life. For thirty years he had been part of a carpenter's household in Nazareth. Now he was getting ready to launch into a hugely popular and intensely controversial public ministry.

The first thing he did was get baptized by a famous preacher, John the Baptist, then he was directed by the Holy Spirit to head out into the wilderness where he spent forty days fasting.

Near the end of his time out there in the desert, the Devil showed up and tested Jesus with three propositions. The gospel writers picture this as a dramatic showdown. The Devil puts together his best offer. Jesus shuts him down cold. No hesitation. No bargaining. No deal. The Devil finally leaves in a huff.

So what was the secret. How did Jesus avoid the trap, resist the seduction, see through the sales pitch? Jesus countered every move the Devil made by quoting the Bible. Jesus is impervious to demonic suggestion because he is so familiar with the words of the Bible.

Which has important implications for us. We dream that our kids will grow up, get an education and move into positions of power and influence in society. What can we do to give our kids an advantage in dealing with the seductions of power when they succeed?

What can we do to help ourselves live independent of the wily influences of advertising and cultural norms? What can we do to prepare ourselves for successfully brushing off the Devil?

On Thursday of this week Kitty sent out an email for me, asking for suggestions about topics for preaching. Among the responses I received were a couple of questions from Bob Kasprzak:

           “How can we live in this modern world without being part of it?

“With half clothed men and women on TV, how can we avoid the temptations that the media seems to use to sell all of their programs and product.”

How do we – whether we are young or old – avoid becoming mere cogs in the wheels of contemporary society? How do we help ourselves live wisely and freely? How do we prepare ourselves to be of great value for the world we live in?

One powerful tool for preserving freedom and preparing ourselves for service is a deep familiarity with the Bible. It worked for Jesus. It will work for us.

As I mentioned, Jesus was baptized then headed out into the wilderness where he spent forty days fasting. At the end of the forty days he was, naturally, famished. The Devil shows up, not looking like the Devil I presume, and says to Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, make these stones turn into bread.”

This was a reasonable suggestion. Jesus was starving. There were rocks sitting there looking like loaves of bread. Jesus had just spent forty days in prayer in preparation for a ministry that was going to be jam-packed with miracles. So providing himself some bread would have been a logical first step as he broke his fast and headed out into the real world for ministry.

[Note: Jesus could have rationalized making the bread as a parallel to the first act of the Prophet Elisha. Elisha was a “type” or model of Christ, as Elijah, Elisha's predecessor, was a type or model of John the Baptist. Elisha received Elijah's mantle. And his first act with the mantle was to miraculously part the Jordan River so he could return to civilization and begin his ministry.]

Jesus immediately responded to the Devil's suggestion by quoting a famous Bible verse: “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

The Devil then offers his own Bible quotation, a passage in the Psalms: “And he shall give his angels charge over you. They will bear you up in their hands so you won't smash your foot against a stone.” On the basis of this clear Bible promise, the Devil urges Jesus to throw himself down from the top of tower overlooking the temple courtyard.

Jesus doesn't bite. Instead he offers a counter quotation: “It is also written, 'You are not to tempt the Lord your God.'”

Now the Devil goes for broke. He causes a vision of all the glories of earth's civilizations to pass before Jesus. He shows him royal courts and bustling markets, merchant ships and the library of Alexandria. He displays the best and brightest of humanity, then offers, “all this I will give you if you will just once bow to me.”

Jesus laughs in the Devils face. “It is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.' Now, beat it. Get out of here. We're done. Get lost.”

And incredibly, the Devil packs off. After that he never really had a chance against Jesus. Every time he played a hand, Jesus trumped him.

This is God's ideal for us. The Devil is not invincible. He's not really all that tricky. We can know the truth. We can know God's plan. We can be wise. And one of the great tools available to make us wise, to make us strong, to make us skillful in doing good and resisting evil is the Bible.When we are deeply familiar with the words of the Bible those words become ready defenses against the assaults of evil, available ammunition for our own advances against darkness.

As we look to the New Year, I challenge you: make sure you are deeply familiar with the Bible. Allow the Bible to be a counter-influence to the messages you receive through advertising, through overhearing conversation at work, through the begging of your children.

If you have small children at home, here's a very specific suggestion. Every night before your kids go to sleep, read them a Bible story. If they are under five years old, read them the same story every night for a week. By the end of the week, you'll be able to leave out words in sentences and the kids will be able to tell you the words you leave out.

So David picked ________ stones from the middle of the creek bed. He put them in his _____. Then he walked up out of the creek toward the great, big ________.

You will probably find its better to read these stories out of books that are especially designed for children, written in children's language and featuring colorful pictures.

Every night have your kids repeat after you the words of their memory verse. Make it a habit. Make it a tradition. Fill your kids' minds with the words of the Bible. Here's a test: are your kids more likely to reference something they saw on TV or something you have read to them from the Bible?

Part of wise parenting is creating traditions, creating habits that will provide spiritual resources that your kids can draw on in tough situations. The reason Jesus quoted the Bible in response to the Devil was because he was deeply familiar with it. You can help set your kids up for success by feeding them the words of the Bible.

You can't cram it. Kids need small, frequent exposures to the Bible. Don't try to give them too much at a time. If you haven't been in the habit of giving them small doses regularly, don't think you can suddenly force feed them chapters at a time.

Early this week, a young person asked me a bunch of questions about the Bible. Is it historically accurate? Is it reliable? Are there any other ancient books that are also reliable? What do we do about the fact that different people see different and conflicting doctrines in the Bible?

These are smart questions. The Bible is not a simple book. Often in great debates over moral, spiritual and religious issues, the question is not should we do what the Bible says. Rather,the great question is what does the Bible mean?

It is a mark of tragic blindness when people who disagree about religious and spiritual matters accuse each other of willfully ignoring or distorting the Bible. In reality the Bible is so complex honest, smart people often come to differing conclusions about which statement or idea is to take priority in resolving contrasting perspectives. (But see below about the most important truth.)

Jesus' conversation with the Devil in the wilderness throws an interesting light on the question of Bible interpretation. Jesus began by quoting a passage that celebrated the adequacy of the words of God in the Bible. “Man shall not live on bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

The Devil then tries to use Jesus' expressed confidence in God's words as his premise in an argument along the lines of the fundamentalist bumper sticker, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” The Devil quotes the Bible in support of his idea for Jesus to jump from a pinnacle of the temple. The Devil's logic is something like this:  Since I have quoted the Bible – and quoted it accurately as you acknowledge – you are duty-bound to agree with what I say it means.

NOT!

Just because a fundamentalist quotes the Bible in support of their views, this is not proof that they are actually speaking in harmony with the God of the Bible.

All the words of the Bible have their proper place. But not all the words of the Bible have the same weight. When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, he did not hem and haw. He didn't say, “Well, how can you say which one is most important? They're all important.” Jesus was emphatic. The most important truth is this: Love God with your entire being. And right up there with that one is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.

The point of reading the Bible is help ourselves live out these two ideals. The highest purpose of filling our minds with the words of the Bible is to aid in loving God. And the second highest purpose in filling our minds with the words of the Bible is to help us love our neighbors as ourselves. If we are spiteful, critical, faithless, lazy, combative, fearful or greedy, that's evidence against the appropriateness of our interpretation of the Bible.

As we embrace becoming skillful in love as the highest purpose for reading the Bible, some of the questions that engross people become less interesting. For example, the question, is the Bible accurate in every historical detail? is perfect for diverting people from the real purpose of the Bible.

Fundamentalists who answer the question, Yes! and devote intense energy to proving it, often end up condemning everyone who does not understand every detail the same way they do. In their zeal to “prove” the historicity of the Bible they run right past the exalted spirituality and ethics that is the real purpose of the Bible and get lost in endless arguments about details of archeology and ancient history.

Skeptics who answer, No! and devote intense energy to demonstrating the errors in biblical history, are often corrected at least in part by later archeology and scholarship. More importantly they frequently get sucked into meanness and silliness. Pugilistic skeptics are, of course, not helped by visions of compassion, generosity and nobility found in the Bible, and seldom find alternative sources to fuel these virtues.

The point of the Bible is not to give us facts about the ancient world, but to give us wisdom for this world. Those who cultivate the practice of regularly reading the Bible experience multiple benefits spiritually and socially. These benefits are documented in sociological studies. Their lives work better as the wisdom of the Bible permeates their lives.

So for this coming year, I encourage you to create some habit in your life that will regularly expose you to the words of the Bible. Reading the whole Bible from cover to cover is not a very good goal for most people. People tend to get bogged down in the boring parts and sometimes never get to some of the really good parts. Another problem for this approach is the very size of the book. Most people are a bit daunted when thinking about reading a 1600 page book. Set a closer, smaller goal.

If you have never read the Bible, you might want to begin by reading a kids version of the Bible. Or read Bible story books written for kids. This will make it more accessible and will actually help you get a better handle for the flow of the overall Bible story.

Read a graphic Bible.

Sign up for a service that sends you an email each day with a Bible verse.

Baby steps. But do something.

If none of these work, and you'd like some further help figuring out an approach that works for you, talk to me and we'll find something that works just for you.

I think it would be fun to annoy the Devil. I think it would be a wonderful thing for us as a church to prepare our kids to resist the Devil and extend the kingdom of light.

One simple, concrete step we can take in that direction is to fill our own minds and the minds of our children with the words of the Bible.

So, do it.

Christmas Power

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship
Sabbath, December 24, 2011

So on Christmas Eve 2000 years ago, the baby was about to be born, the baby who would grow up to change the world.

That's how great things begin. They start so small you hardly notice.

Who would have thought in 1968, that the nerdy teenagers Bill Gates and Paul Allen would start a company that would change the entire world through their computer software?

How could anyone have known that the little computer designed by two young adults, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak would transform the way people interacted with technology?

Such tiny beginnings. Such transforming power.

The Angel Gabriel, told Mary the baby kicking inside her was a boy. She was to give him the name, Jesus. “He will be great,” the angel said, “He will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:26-33).

Joseph, too, had been alerted that this was no ordinary pregnancy. The angel told him, “She is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Name the baby, Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:23).

So just like Bill and Paul and Steve and Steve, Jesus started small. God started small in his strategy for transforming the world. God started small, tiny, really. But God's plans projected astonishing power.

Here's how the prophet Isaiah saw it:

For unto us a child is born

to us a son is given.

And the government will be on his shoulders

and he will be called

Wonderful,

Counselor,

Mighty God,

Everlasting Father,

Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace

there will be no end.

Isaiah 9:6-7

We start with a baby. A sleeping, nursing, pooping, peeing little, tiny human being. And we end up with someone capable of ruling the world. And not just capable. We end up with someone who is going to do it. The baby will take the throne. And because he is on the throne, the world will be suffused with peace.

Every national leader portrays himself as a benefactor. “My people love me,” they insist. Gaddafi boasted his people would die for him. Then reality set in and he was killed and dishonored. Kim Jong-il, the leader of North Korea died this week. Under his leadership, millions of his people starved to death. His nation's economy shrank. His nation withered. Only people under the control of his propaganda machine mourned his passing. In truth, there was nothing to lament. It was good riddance. What took you so long to disappear?

What a contrast to Vaclav Havel. He died and was widely mourned by people inside and outside his country. By people who had opposed him politically and people who had been his allies.

What made the difference? Primarily this: For Gaddafi and Kim Jong-il the highest objective was the preservation and enhancement of their power. For Havel, the highest objectives were freedom and the rule of law. Havel used power to benefit his people. Kim Jong-il used his people to preserve his personal access to power.

The birth of the baby 2000 years ago was a dramatic statement about God's relationship with power.

Unto us a child is born

And the government will be on his shoulders

and he will be called

Wonderful,

Counselor,

Mighty God,

Everlasting Father,

Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and peace

there will be no end.

Who is it that is going to call this baby-grown-to-be-a-ruler all these wonderful names? The people will, the people whose lives are touched by his rule. People who are fully informed, people who are free to say what they think, people who are free from the manipulation of propaganda, people in touch with reality.

The deeper and broader Jesus' rule extends, the richer and sweeter will be the peace.

No wonder we celebrate his birth. It was such a tiny beginning. It has flourished into such a magnificent tree. A tree of life. A tree of blessing.

This story presents a welcome to all of us to participate with God in heaven's power play.

2000 years ago God dramatically stepped into human history in the person of a little baby. And every time a baby is born, God steps again into the world. And we have the opportunity to cooperate with God in swelling the kingdom of heaven.

Many of us are parents or grandparents. Or aunts or uncles. Or brothers or sisters. We have the privilege and responsibility to touch the life of a growing human being. We can help another human being grow into the Mighty One God destines them to be.

This is the instinct behind giving gifts. In our giving we are paying forward the grace God has poured into our lives. We are acting out the grace of God.

This is the wisdom that lies behind the lights people hang on their houses. In the dark heart of winter, the light shines. In the dark heart of evil, of pain and suffering, in the heart of the kingdom of coldness and death, light shines and will not be quenched.

The truth that fuels our triumphant music is the good news that the baby wins. Goodness and sweetness ultimately will outlast and outshine the darkness.

So Merry Christmas. The baby is born.

The Gift

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship
Sabbath, December 17, 2011

Based on Luke 1 & 2.

It took special eyes to see the astonishing value of the gift earth received 2000 years in the birth of Jesus. In fact, to see clearly the nature of the gift in the manger, it took vision supernaturally informed by heaven.

First, there was the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary, the finance of a man named Joseph.

“Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

The angel's greeting spooked her. What was this about?

“Don't worry,” the angel said. “Don't be afraid. You have found favor with God. You will become pregnant and give birth to a son. You are to name him Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.”

Wow! That's pretty amazing. But how could it happen? Mary was a virgin. And she wasn't naïve. She knew how babies were made.

The angel explained, “The Holy spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

Mary agreed. “I am the Lord's servant. Let it be to me as you have said.”

Soon after this, Mary took off to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who lived several days travel south of Nazareth. Elizabeth was six months pregnant. Her baby, too, had been announced by an angel. It was a miracle. Elizabeth as long past menopause. In fact, when an angel first told Elizabeth's husband that they were going to have a baby, he laughed. After all these decades? No way.

When Mary got to Elizabeth's house, called out her “Hello?” Elizabeth's baby kicked with delight and Mary broke into a fantastic prophecy.

My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

for the Mighty One has done great things for me – holy is his name.

Mary was like all the rest of us. She was just a regular person. But the angel showed her that carrying this baby and caring for this baby was a task of dazzling significance. In her womb she was carrying the Son of God, the heir to the throne of David, the person righteous dreamers had been dreaming about for more than a thousand years. She was going to mother the boy who will turn out to be the hinge of history.

To uninformed watchers, her work will appear to be the ordinary work of ordinary mothering: nursing her baby, burping him, taking care of his messes, wiping his nose, kissing scrapes and bruises, snuggling with him, teaching him to say please and thank you, telling him stories. To the uninformed it would look ordinary, but for those with the secret knowledge, the inside information . . . ah, what words could capture the magnificence of her privilege?

Mary's prophecy goes on, celebrating God's power and his long-awaited decision to use his power to upset evil and establish righteousness:

God's mercy extends to those who fear him,

from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones

but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich empty away.

He has helped his servant Israel,

remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever,

even as he said to our fathers.

Using modern words: Mary celebrates the deliverance God has accomplished in the past and has promised for the future. She envisions the grand, final comeuppance for the “high and mighty,” for all who act as oppressors.

Her son is going to be God's agent for all of this. HER son. What a fantastic privilege!

Mary is traveling with her fiance Joseph when she goes into labor. There are no vacancies at any of the inns in town, so Mary and Joseph camp out in a stable. She gives birth, bundles her baby in blanket and uses a feed box, a manger, for a crib.

If you had been in the barn, what would you have seen? An ordinary delivery. If you had looked at the baby lying in the feed box what would you have seen? An ordinary baby. Unless you had special knowledge.

Mary, of course, had special knowledge from the Angel Gabriel. Joseph, also, was in on the secret because of a visit by an angel.

Legend has it that the animals in the barn were in on the secret. I don't know about that, but it's a cute story.

Luke tells us that there were some animals that you might say were in on the secret. That night, an angel visited a group of shepherds out on the hills outside Bethlehem.

Can you imagine? You're camped way out in the middle of no where, sitting around in the dark, watching the stars and talking with your friends when suddenly a dazzling white being shows up. Spooked the shepherds, for sure. The Bible doesn't mention the effect of the angel on the sheep.

The angel reassured the shepherds: Don't be afraid. I am bringing good news of great joy for all people. Today, in the city of David (That was a nickname for Bethlehem.), a Savior has been born. He is Christ, the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You will find him lying in a feed box.

Then that first angel was joined with a huge crowd of angels. The choir blasts the night air with song: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men.”

The shepherds raced off the Bethlehem. They found the baby. They saw the King, the Messiah of God, the main character in the dreams of prophets for a thousand years.

Because of the angels, they, too, could see that that ordinary little person, lying in that feed box in a stable on the back streets of Bethlehem was, in fact, extraordinary. He was the greatest gift of heaven.

Afew weeks later when Mary and Joseph took their baby to the temple in Jerusalem to dedicate him, to present him before God, it happened again – a moment of recognition.

While Mary and Joseph were engaged in the ceremony required for first born sons, an old man came into the temple and made a bee line for them. His name was Simeon. Simeon took the baby in his arms, then looked into heaven and said,

Almighty God, according to your promise,

you may now dismiss your servant in peace.

My eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared in the sight of all people,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles

and for glory to your people Israel.

Simeon saw through the disguise. He saw the gift of heaven in this tiny human being.

And then there was Anna, the prophetess. She came into the temple right behind Simeon. She, too, had been given the secret by God. She recognized the baby as God's promise kept, as the great gift of heaven. And Anna did not keep the secret. She told everyone who might be open to the secret.

With ordinary vision you could not see the fullness of the gift of heaven living in the body of the itty bitty person, the son of Mary. But that was all right because God gave extraordinary vision to a few people. To Mary and Joseph, to Elizabeth, to the shepherds, to the old man Simeon, to Anna.

These people did not keep their secret. And now we know it, too.

The gift of heaven was born 2000 years ago. The wisdom of heaven was cradled in Mary's arms. The power of God lay in a feed box. And we have seen his glory, the glory of God, full of grace and truth.

Because we know the secret of the birth of God 2000 years ago, we are able to see more clearly the treasure that lies in every child. Every child deserves royal treatment. Every child deserves respect and nurture, high expectations and sweet affirmation. Every child deserves medical care and a social environment that encourages the development of their minds and bodies. Every child deserves quality education and clean air. Every child is related to the royal baby in Bethlehem. Every child is connected with the Great Gift of heaven.

Because of the great gift of heaven, we can say we have seen the Son of God, full of grace and truth. And we have pledged ourselves to be his associates in filling this world with treasures made available through heaven's greatest gift.

Christmas Wisdom

Sermon for Sabbath, December 10, 2011, at North Hill Adventist Fellowship
Final draft.

This is how the birth of Jesus came about: His mother, Mary, was engaged to a man named Joseph. Before they came together, Mary became pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

Joseph, learning of her pregnancy, was astonished and hurt. Still being a good-hearted man, instead of publicly shaming his finance, he planned to break off the relationship quietly. While he was still thinking through what to do, an angel appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph,” the angel said, “don't be afraid to take Mary home as your wife. The child she is carrying is from the Holy Spirit. When she gives birth, give the child the name, Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

So, if Joseph was your son or your brother and his finance was pregnant and he knew there was no way he was the father what would you advise him to do? Obviously the smart thing, no matter how much he loves this girl, is to move on. If she messes around on you while you are engaged, the likelihood of a long and happy marriage is pretty out there. Wisdom would tell Joseph to get out while the gettin's good.

Except in this case, getting out wasn't the wisest course of action. Sparing himself heartache wasn't the smart choice. Yes, Mary was pregnant. And no, the baby was not Joseph's, biologically speaking. But Mary hasn't been messing around. She hasn't been unfaithful. Instead, the child she is carrying is the baby of prophecy, the anointed of God. Mary's baby is going to save people from their sins. In fact, Matthew tells us, “All this has happened to fulfill what God predicted through the prophet, 'The virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel – which means 'God with us.'”

Which means Joseph is going to be the stepfather of God, the stepfather of the Messiah. The head of the household of God!

Joseph did the truly wise thing. He keeps Mary as his beloved. He embraces Mary's mystery baby as his very own son.

The wisdom of Joseph's choice was highlighted months after Jesus' birth. Joseph was in his carpenter shop working on a table for the mayor of Bethlehem when Mary breathlessly summoned him to meet exotic visitors.

Their story goes like this. They had showed up in Jerusalem a few days or weeks earlier looking for a child king. Back in Persia, they had seen an extraordinary star which from their study they understood to be the announcement of the birth of the great king of Jewish prophecy.

But in Jerusalem, no one knew anything about the baby. The king, King Herod, had invited them to an interview. He had quizzed them about the star and their study and their travels then sent them off to Bethlehem to search for the king, because according to what Jewish scholars had told him, Bethlehem was the town pinpointed in prophecy as the birth place of the Messiah.

When the Wise Men arrived at Joseph's and Mary's house, the star appeared over the house. This was the place! They had traveled for months and hundreds of miles to pay homage to their baby.

I imagine Mary and Joseph recounted the stories of the visit of the angel to Joseph and the visit of the angel to Mary. They probably repeated the story the shepherds had told them about the vision of angel song they had experienced outside Bethlehem the night Jesus was born. And the story of Simeon in the temple. The Wise Men were satisfied. They worshiped the baby. That is they admired him. They adored him. They paid homage, made obeisance. They presented rich gifts. Then headed home even wiser than when they first headed out.

Wise because they had seen the King.

These two stories set up one of the major themes of the book of Matthew – the secret wisdom of God. There is a deep wisdom that is hidden from the titled and credentialed and revealed to and through babes.

To all obvious appearances, Jesus was just an ordinary child. Or, you might be tempted to say, a disadvantaged child. He makes his first impression on Joseph as the apparent evidence of Mary's indiscretion. Jesus appears to be proof of Mary's foolishness, irresponsibility, unfaithfulness. Turns out that was wrong, but that's what it looked like until an angel helped Joseph see the truth.

The point of the Christmas story is not to emphasize the difference between Jesus and every other human. Rather, the point is the closeness of Jesus to ordinary humanity. Jesus is like every child. Every child is like Jesus. And every man is like Joseph. And Joseph is like every man. And every mother is Mary. Every child is in a sense divine.

We can see fully the glory of children when our eyes have been enlightened by the wisdom from heaven. The little one making messes in her diaper and keeping you awake with his crying and spitting up on your good clothes and vomiting on the carpet is also Immanuel. God is with us in the person of the little people.

That's the meaning of what the angel told Joseph. That's the meaning in our world of what the Wise Men learned from the star and from their study.

You might wonder if I'm just making this up. Is this really what Matthew wanted his readers to understand from these stories at the beginning of his book. If you do wonder if I'm pushing this too far, consider what Matthew writes elsewhere in his book.

In chapter 4, Matthew describes the beginning of Jesus' ministry and offers a very brief summary of an astonishing healing ministry before launching into a three-chapter recitation of Jesus' wisdom, the famous Sermon on the Mount. At the heart of Jesus sermon is this definition of wisdom: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. . . . So be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.”

According to Matthew the essence of the wisdom of God, the bedrock foundation of God's identity is his capacity to see every human as his son or daughter. And we become most like God as we acquire similar habits. We are wisest when we see with the eyes of God.

After outlining Jesus' great, defining sermon, Matthew offers details of how Jesus interacts with people. Earlier he had given a quick broad-brush description of Jesus' sweeping healing ministry. Now Matthew describes specific cases. The very first case involves a leper who was legally untouchable. Jesus touches him any way. Jesus sees in this man, a beloved son. And by his action of touching the man, Jesus offering the crowd wisdom. Misshapen, ugly people are mere disguises for the beloved of God. The man is not untouchable. He is beloved.

The next story Matthew tells is about a Roman officer. The crowd knows this man is a foreigner. He is not part of the people of God. He is not, to use Adventist-speak, part of the Remnant. Jesus tells the crowd this foreigner has a richer, purer, greater faith than anything he has seen in any person who is an insider.

Church people in Jesus' day could have cited chapter and verse for their opinion that this Roman army officer was further from God than they were. They could have told exactly where in the Bible it was written that Jewish people were more highly favored by heaven than outsiders. But Jesus offered a superior wisdom. A wisdom that was even deeper than the actual words of the Bible.

Then in one of my favorite stories in the book of Matthew, Jesus tells about two daughters. One is the beloved, beautiful dream child of a wealthy, religious leader. The other is a woman with an incurable, unmentionable, and (in her society) disgusting physical problem.

The way Matthew tells the story, he leads us to open our hearts to the beautiful 12-year old first. We get caught up in the emotions of the father as he desperately tries to get Jesus to his house in time to save his dear one. Then Matthew throws us a curve. While our hearts are open, while we are fully engaged with the father, urging Jesus to hurry, hurry, hurry, Matthew suddenly confronts us with another daughter. Jesus stops, driving the father of the 12 year old into greater desperation. Jesus turns searching the crowd for someone. We look through Jesus' eyes, checking the faces. It's all a blur, then a woman comes into focus. She moves toward Jesus in response to his demand that she show herself. This is not a beautiful 12 year old. This woman is claimed as daughter only God. She is wanted and treasured and prized only by God. If we don't close our hearts too quickly, we get sucked into the vision of Jesus, the wisdom of God. We see this woman is a daughter, too, the beloved of God, our dear sister, our treasure.

The wisdom of heaven teaches us to see value, dignity, honor where ordinary eyes might see nothing special.

In chapter 11, Matthew reports Jesus' words about John the Baptist. This man who is in jail with no hope of reprieve, this man who had alienated the king, this man, says Jesus, is great. In fact, no one greater has ever been born.

Don't let prison fool you. Don't let a conviction or some jail time fool you.

Then Matthew comes to the grand climax of Jesus' teaching. It's the story of the final judgment. All humanity is arraigned before God and separated into the good and bad.

Good and bad are exactly the same in one sense: they are being tested using an invisible God. Neither neither good people nor bad people pass the seeing test. The good people didn't see God when he showed up. And the bad people didn't see God when he showed up. In this respect they are exactly the same. They had no angel to inform them this is no ordinary baby, no ordinary person. None of them discern God when he shows up to give them the test.

So what made the difference? The good people treated God in disguise the way he deserved to be treated based on his identity as God. The bad people treated God in disguise the way he deserved to be treated based on the identity of his disguise.

The bad people insist they would have done better if only God had let them know it was him. And, of course, that's true. No one in their right mind would mistreat God to his face. The challenge is that God often comes in impenetrable disguise.

Which brings us back to the opening stories of the Book of Matthew.

God comes as crying babies, as children who are rude and insensitive, as rebellious kids, as impossible kids. Yep, that's God all right. Sure doesn't look like him, but don't be fooled by the disguise.

The heart of the pro-life movement is the recognition that every infant carries divinity. Every infant is prized by God. It is this identity that makes abortion evil.

It's vital that we carry our pro-life commitments beyond prohibiting abortion. Prohibiting abortion is easy. It is doing the necessary things for children after they are born that is the challenge. Recognizing the person of God in the face of children means providing them quality schools. It means limiting mercury emissions by power plants. It means working to address the impending environmental devastation caused by global warming. It means preserving National Parks. It means doing any number of things as a society that cannot be done by individuals alone.

When we receive heaven's wisdom from the story of Jesus birth – that God comes among us in the disguise of needy children – we will do all we can in every area of life to make the world a safer, better place for children.

Seeing children as divine naturally has profound implications in the family setting.

If you are a parent or grandparent, I encourage you to cultivate this vision of the grand, noble identity of the little people in your world. Because of their potential, I urge you read to them every night. Turn off the TV. Take them to the park and push them in the swings. Play with them. Hug them and kiss them. Tell them, “I love you.” Make them do their home work and practice the piano or violin or whatever musical instrument they are learning. Make them clean the bathroom and sweep the kitchen floor. Require them to vacuum and to make their beds. Help them learn a Bible verse every week and repeat it every day. They are kings and queens in the making. They deserve all the instruction and structure you can give them. It would be such a tragedy to waste all their talent and potential.

Don't beat them. Don't spank them. If you find you are spanking your children repeatedly then quit. Obviously, it's not working. Try something else. Train your children for greatness. Remember that the child born in your house, the child carrying your DNA is not ultimately yours. Even Mary who was part of Jesus' biology, did not “own” him. She was entrusted with him. She was given the privilege of mothering him. But she did not own him. So with our children. They carry our DNA (unless they are adopted). They carry our hearts (in any case). They own us, but we do not own them. We are trustees of God, serving the children of the king.

Two thousand years ago, a child with questionable parentage was, in fact, the Savior of the world, God with us. His own dad couldn't see it without a special message from heaven. But it was true and Wise Men came a thousand miles to confirm the words of the angels.

Christ is born. The Savior of the world, looking like a mere child. Who knows what grand, fantastic dreams God has for the little ones in your home.

Admiring Jesus

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship
Sabbath, December 3, 2011

[At the beginning of the sermon, I invited people to text the names of people they admired. My rationale for doing this was John's teachings that those who cannot love their brothers whom they can see cannot really love God whom they cannot see (See 1 John). Similarly our admiration of real, live, down-to-earth people is connected to our capacity to admire God. Admiration is a matter of focus.

Here are the texts sent in response to my invitation:

Josh Grobin
Martin Luther King

President Obama
Hillary Clinton
Bill Gates
Nadine and Karin [women in the church] for facing an uncertain health future with courage and determination
Whoever started Occupy Wall Street
My dad
Mohammed Yunis, banker to the poor.
MLK
My daughter
George Meuller
My mom because she is so strong [This is an abbreviation of a sweet message celebrating a gutsy woman who faces daunting challenges and still adds joy and life to our worship services.]
Herb Montgomery
Mom Lauren for faithfully and cheerfully taking care of her paralyzed husband for seven years.
My wife and kids.
Jerry, Ed, Dawn, Ernie, Dave, Ann, Ken, Jean, Alan, Suzzy, John, Karin, Vivien, Vi [all members of North Hill. After church people who do not text told me of additional people they would have named if they'd had the requisite technology.]
Church kids
God's Gals

I talked a bit about the list. It's obvious that these are not perfect people. Especially the public figures on the list could generate debate about their respective merits and demerits. However, everyone on the list is admired for some good they accomplished or at least pursued. Admiring people, even "imperfect people" is good for our soul. Admiring makes us happy and helps form our own lives in admirable ways.

Occasionally in the middle of the news on All Things Considered, there will be a puff piece, an unabashed admiration of someone. A famous artist or writer or humanitarian has died and it's time to remember them.

The host of the program will say something like this: Henry Smith wrote thirty novels that exerted a major influence on the English language. His works were translated into forty languages. Some say he gave the Northwest its fullest literary identity since Jack London. His wheat farmers and fishermen, engineers and rock singers, small town mayors and governors – all were somehow more real and grander for having been touched by his pen. Here, with an appreciation is Jill Adler.

I like that: Instead of calling it an obituary, they call it an appreciation. These pieces are not analyses. They make no pretense of being careful, balanced reports. They celebrate the good stuff. The reporter clearly admires the person featured.

One of the central elements of worship is admiration. In worship we admire God the Father. We admire Jesus. This is the heart of our worship. It is the heart of our faith. It is the center of our theology.

The New Testament – the book created by the Christian Church and the book that serves as our constitution – begins with four appreciations of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Each writer offers his own special version of an appreciation of Jesus. They admire Jesus and their point in writing is fuel our admiration as well.

Matthew begins his book with these words: “This is a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”

Jesus has the right genealogy. He comes from good stock. He is the direct descendant of Abraham and David. And not only “a descendant.” He is “the descendant.” Jesus is the “seed” promised to Abraham, the dynastic heir promised to King David. The Jewish people, prompted by prophets and the entire ethos of their religion, have anticipated a special person who will set the world right. The perfect king, the perfect priest, the supreme prophet. That's Jesus. He will be the Lamb of God, the holy sacrifice, the gleaming lamp of the temple, the ultimate shrine of God's presence.

Before Jesus was born, an angel appeared to his father and confirmed that Jesus was fathered directly by God. Adam and Eve were the children of God, every other human after Adam and Eve was a grandchild. Until Jesus. His mother was Mary, but his father was God Himself!

After telling Joseph that Jesus' father was God himself, the angel told Joseph what to name the baby: Call him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.

In concluding this section of his book, Matthew declares, “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel which means, 'God with us.'”

No wonder we admire Jesus.

To make sure we get it, Matthew includes in his book the story of the Magi from the east who came to admire Jesus. These men, nobility if not royalty, traveled a thousand miles to admire Jesus in person. Wise men admire Jesus. Fools, scoundrels, losers – these are the people who get sucked into jealousy or merely fail to awaken to admiration.

Here is the great heart of our faith. There are many good things we share with many other religions. Basic morality is exhorted by every major religion. Compassion, honesty, faithfulness, integrity – these are not distinctively Christian virtues. They are universal virtues.

Our special heritage, our special spiritual treasure is Jesus – the perfect embodiment of all these virtues. All these virtues are admirable. And we are privileged to witness them in Jesus, so our admiration of virtue becomes anchored in a person. We admire Jesus because he embodies all the most wonderful virtues. And we see the great virtues more clearly and more happily because they are embodied in the person of Jesus.

Admiring the goodness of God as it is revealed in Jesus helps to shape our own lives into a more admirable pattern.

Recently I got to thinking about an acquaintance. Everything I remembered from our conversations was negative. If the conversation touched on politics, he made a point of saying that all politicians were wholly corrupt. The only reason they went into politics was for fame and power. They had no interest in actually helping anyone. Doctors: well, everybody knows the only reason they decided to become doctors was because they had dollar signs in their eyes. When I protested that my friends became doctors because they dreamed of making people whole, Bill dismissed my naivete. Bosses were all jerks. They regarded employees merely as expense centers to be minimized as much as possible without incurring lawsuits. Truck drivers: they're all uneducated men stuck in jobs they hate and lacking the brains to do anything else. Bible translators: they twist the Hebrew and Greek to support the theology of the people paying their salaries.

As these memories were running through my head, I checked myself. That's the way I remembered it, but surely Bill wasn't really that negative. He couldn't despise everybody. So the next time we visited, I asked him, “Bill, is there any one you admire?”

Bill thought and thought. Finally, he said, “No one comes to mind right off.”

No athlete. No politician. No missionary. No doctor. No aunt or uncle. No scientist. No one. Bill didn't admire anyone, at least, no one came to mind. Bill is big on human depravity. All people are thoroughly infected by the corruption of sin, so how could any of them be admirable?

A little later in the conversation, he finally thought of a preacher he liked. I asked if he knew the preacher personally or just knew his sermons.

Bill said he didn't know the preacher personally. He just liked the man's preaching. Which made sense. The preacher specializes in denouncing human evil, self-deception and pride. He's down on people. He constantly hammers away at human depravity.

Which highlights the importance of admiration. We tend to move in the direction of that which we admire. If we admire people who are abrasive, negative, condemning, guess what . . . over time we will enhance our own tendencies to be negative, abrasive and condemning.

If we spend time listening to preachers who berate their listeners, who scold and condemn, and spank and scorn sinners, why would we be surprised if we tend to become negative parents, negative spouses, negative friends?

Admiration matters.

And as Christians the center of our admiration is Jesus.

Matthew admires Jesus as the wisest of all teachers. The rabbi who perfectly teaches the way of God.

The gospel of Mark sets up a different picture of Jesus. Mark says nothing about Jesus' birth. He pays no attention to Jesus' ancestors. He focuses on Jesus activity as a minister, as a rabbi, a teacher.

Jesus is baptized, then immediately triumphs in a daunting confrontation with the devil in the wilderness. Coming out of the wilderness, Jesus enlists Peter and Andrew and James and John then charges into ministry. He drives out demons, heals so many people no one can keep count. He welcomes lepers back into the community and cures their leprosy. He manages theological controversy with compelling authority. Thousands hang on his every word.

Mark shows us a man that nearly every one admires. Even his enemies recognize his power and goodness, even while they do everything they can to trip him up.

The gospel of Luke takes us back to the stories surrounding Jesus' birth. Not only was Jesus birth special, the birth of his cousin John was also supernatural. John's father was visited by an angel and after John was born, Zechariah uttered a fantastic prophecy. John's ministry set the stage for Jesus.

Luke traces Jesus' genealogy not merely back to David and Abraham, but all the way back to God. “Jesus was the son of Adam who was the son of God.”

Luke tells of a choir of angels visiting shepherds on the night Jesus was born. They announced the birth of a Savior in the city of David. A clear reference to Jesus as the Messiah.

Luke tells of an old priest in the temple, Simeon, who recognizes Jesus as the Messiah. Even though from all outward appearances Jesus is merely the unremarkable son of peasant parents, Simeon is informed by God and announces the deeper, more wonderful reality: This is the Messiah of God.

The Jesus we admire is fully human. True. It is equally true that he embodies the presence and grace of God. He is Immanuel, God with us. He is the Savior, the one who will rescue us from condemnation.

Jesus was born of the right ancestry. His birth was announced and witnessed and celebrated by angels. As a youngster, he increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. We admire him because he made God accessible. We admired him because he did the things we hoped God would do.

John, in his gospel, zooms way back in time. Before the angels sang to the shepherds, before the Wise Men saw the star, before Jesus began preaching. John goes back before time. “In the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All thrings were made through him and apart from him nothing was made.”

Here we are invited to admire Jesus, not merely as the best human ever, not only as one who made God present among us. We admire Jesus as God, as one, who unlike any other human had an existence that stretched backward into the reaches of unimaginable antiquity.

In John, Jesus is the light of the world, the bread of life. He is the judge of all, the being who enlightens every human who is born, the gift from heaven that secures eternal life for all who believe. John, Jesus is not “born.” He arrives. And in him, God arrives and sets up his tent next to ours.

Have you ever camped with a group of friends. Do you remember how sounds go right through thin nylon walls. You know your friends in a whole new way after you've camped together. Jesus camped with us. He set his tent up in our campsite. And we beheld his glory, full of grace and truth.

No wonder we admire him.

As we move through this Christmas season, I encourage you to admire Jesus. Put away any need to be “above” sentimentality. Dismiss your need to be skeptical, your need to demonstrate your imagined perspicuity. Christmas is a time to unabashedly admire. Sure, human beings provide us with ample justification to be suspicious, wary, cautious, on guard. But healthy, happy life includes admiration, unabashed affirmation of the goodness, beauty, competence, generosity and nobility exhibited by people.

If Jesus thought enough of us to come and live among us, if he admired us that much, we ought to admire one another. As we cultivate our admiration of one another and of Jesus, our worship will become richer. Our relationships will become sweeter. We will find ourselves practicing for heaven. And our practice will make even this world a sweeter, holier place.

God's Grief

This is a chapter from my book The Faith I Highly Recommend: Adventist Spirituality for Thinkers and Seekers published by the Review and Herald Publishing Association.

It was also in the earlier version of that book published by Adventist Today under the Title: Fifth Generation: The Spiritual Treasures of Mature Adventism.

I'm posting it here because of a reference to it in a chapter in my memoir, God, Rocks and Souls. 

I had been in my new church just a few weeks and was making my rounds getting acquainted. It was not very many minutes into my visit with Lois when she began telling me about the great hole in her life left by the death of her daughter, Angela. Her grief was sharp and fresh like Angela had died just yesterday.

I listened closely as details spilled out. Angela had drowned. She had been a beautiful girl, sweet, thoughtful. It was a hot summer day. She and some friends had gone to the lake.

It did not quite make sense to me. The way Lois talked, I was sure the accident had occurred only a short time ago. But Angela sounded like a teenager. And Lois was eighty years old. Finally Lois mentioned the detail I had been listening for. Angela had died on her sixteenth birthday, more than forty years before.

A mother’s heart does not forget. Her grief does not go away.

According to traditional Christian teaching, when someone dies, he or she goes immediately into the presence of God or enters the torments of hell. And in modern American funerals, it is nearly always assumed someone who dies is headed for heaven. In this view, before death, God is limited in his interaction with people by the separation between heaven and earth, but death erases this separation and leads immediately to the joy of unhindered fellowship between God and his children. So for God, death is a great boon. We who are left bereft on earth may be wracked by grief, but God’s heart is gladdened by the homeward flight of his child.

The Adventist understanding of what happens when people die paints an entirely different picture of God. When someone dies, the person ceases to exist as a conscious, communicating personality. Certainly the person is not lost to the heart or memory of God. But as an active, thinking, loving, talking human being, the person no longer exists. In the language of the Bible, the person “sleeps” (John 11:11-14). A dead person has no awareness of anything. The person remains “unconscious” until the resurrection. At the second coming all of God’s people are united and taken into the presence of God together. They all arrive at the heavenly party together (Hebrews 11:39-40).

In this view, God himself is as deprived of the living companionship of a person who dies as are the grieving family and friends. Instead of death being a boon to God, death robs God of the worship of his people (Psalm 115:17). When people die, the heavenly Father no longer hears the voices of his children in praise and prayer. He has memories to cherish, but he is not in fellowship with their vital, interactive “souls.”

In the story of Jesus’ friend, Lazarus, we read that moments before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, he wept. Given Jesus’ divinity, this incident portrays God’s identification with human pain. Jesus knew that Lazarus was not going to remain dead, but the heartbreak of his friends brought Jesus himself to tears. It is a truism that when children hurt, their moms and dads hurt as much as or more than the young one. And God, our heavenly parent, hurts for his children. When grief batters our hearts and wets our eyes, God hurts because we hurt. But there’s more.

God’s grief is not simply the response of his heart to the arrows of pain that wound us. God himself is wounded by the separation caused by death. Death interrupts God’s own conversation with his child. God bears the emotional cost of the system he has designed and allows to continue even in its broken condition. When it comes to enduring pain, God asks nothing of us that he does not require of himself.

This perspective of God as a grieving parent has large implications for how we view the “delay of the Advent.” Why Jesus hasn’t come back to earth as he promised? What’s taking him so long? Explanations include: God is waiting because he wants to save more people. He is waiting for some predetermined time or for evil to reach its full flower or for the gospel to be preached in all the world or for the character of Christ to be perfectly reproduced in his people.

Each of these theories has something to recommend it, and each has problems. The Adventist understanding of the nature of death does not answer the question, why does God wait? It does, however, change the emotional content of the question. In addition to asking why God doesn’t hurry up and rescue us from our trouble (a very good and proper question), this picture of God’s grief prompts us to ask as well, why doesn’t God spare himself? If the redeemed are sleeping in their graves waiting the great resurrection morning described so vividly in the New Testament, then every day God delays the second coming is another day he carries the wounds of a bereaved parent. Since God loves every human more intensely than a mother loves her only child, the Adventist understanding of death is a picture of a brokenhearted God.

So why does God continue to put off the end of human history? I don’t know. But knowing the pain the delay causes him gives me increased confidence that there must be some powerfully compelling reason. If God’s heart is as tender as the heart of Angela’s mother, then the delay must cost him terribly. If he misses his children who died four hundred years ago as much as Lois misses her girl who died forty years ago, then the enormity of his grief is beyond imagination.

In the traditional view of death, there is little motivation for God to bring human history to an end. Every day God is finding fresh delight in the addition of earthlings to the heavenly court. Every day he is welcoming children home. But in the Adventist view, every day that passes adds to the grief that weighs on God’s heart.

God does not ask us to bear burden he himself does not carry. He does not encourage us to be brave in the face of pain that he himself does not feel.

I remember sitting in the back at a funeral in Akron, Ohio. The front row included four or five kids. The coffin held an eight-year-old boy, killed when the front wheel of his bicycle hit a rock and he swerved in front of a car.

The preacher was trying to make sense of this senseless tragedy. He spoke directly to the young people on the front row. “Try not to take your brother’s death too hard. I know you miss him, but God needed him up in heaven and that’s why he took him. God must have some very important job in mind for your brother up there. Stay close to Jesus and some day you’ll join your brother in heaven, and he’ll show you around the New Jerusalem and tell you all about what he’s been doing while you were down here working for Jesus.”

I respect the pastor’s effort to find meaning in a senseless and heart-numbing accident. He was doing what a pastor is supposed to do–mining the spiritual and theological resources of his community for all the comfort and solace he could find. But sitting there on the back row, it was all I could do to keep from jumping up and interrupting.

“So are you telling me,” I imagined shouting, “that every time God runs low on kitchen help in the heavenly cafeteria he throws rocks in front of little kids’ bike tires? Is God really that hard up for help in heaven? When they run short of tenors in the heavenly choir does he tell an angel to go knock off another kid? What kind of God is that?”

The pastor was trying to announce good news, but the picture of God he painted was repugnant to me. If I were to take his words seriously it would mean our deepest wounds bring great joy to God. People who are the most lovable and leave the greatest hole here on earth when they die, bring instant joy in the courts of heaven. We on earth bear all the cost of improving heaven’s work force.

The traditional view of death does give some comfort. It places those who have died in a good place far from all pain. And for the person who dies, this traditional view accurately describes his or her experience. When a believer dies, the very next moment in their experience will be the resurrection and the presence of God. The time in the grave that we who are alive feel all too keenly aware of does not exist in the experience of the one who has died. Believers die, and the very next instant, as far as they know, is resurrection morning.

The Adventist view, on the other hand, addresses the reality of pain confronted by those who are still alive. For those who survive the death of a loved one, the only “immediate” reality is grief and hurt. And the Adventist view of death shows that one of the survivors, one of the mourners is God himself. There is no benefit for God in the death of his children. He is not knocking off children to fill the heavenly kitchens. He does not forget our grief in the great joy of his communion with his children who have escaped into his presence from their earthly prisons. Instead God enters the very depth of our grief. In fact, our purest, deepest grief is in reality a mirror of his own.

The deeper our grief, the closer we come to understanding one aspect of the mystery of God.

Saved by the Law

Saved by the Law

Preliminary draft for a presentation to the Pacific Northwest Adventist Forum

Volunteer Park Adventist Church

3:00 p.m., December 3, 2011

Announcement on the Pacific Northwest Adventist Forum website:

Volunteer Park SDA Church, Seattle

1300 E. Aloha Street

LEGALISM:  THE WAY OF SALVATION

By John McLarty

What do we mean when we use the words, save, saved, salvation? What are people saved from? What are people saved to?

 Saved from hell?

Saved from self-destructive behavior?

Saved from oppressors?

Saved from feelings of guilt and shame?

Saved from moral indebtedness and divine condemnation?

Saved from habits that ruin their children or neighborhoods?

Saved from cancer?

Saved from pain?

Saved to heaven?

Saved to a radical, all-consuming religiosity?

Saved to social, spiritual well-being?

Saved to meaningful, purposeful life?

Saved to happiness?

Saved to prosperity?

Saved to health?

Saved to satisfying marriage?

Obviously, some of these goals are gifts we cannot earn. It is equally obvious that some of these goals are best pursued through smart habits. Behavior matters more than faith.

In forming a healthy church community what is the proper role for legalism? Classic Adventist legalism made “overcoming all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil” a condition of salvation (salvation understood as the opposite of damnation). Most of us have rejected this notion.

I unabashedly advocate “neo-legalism.” Neo-legalism promotes attention to and obedience to wise laws as the most effective way to pursue salvation (salvation understood as a synonym of well-being).

“Saved by grace through faith” is a useful understanding of one element of religious life. It is not a summary of the whole.

John McLarty is Pastor of North Hill Adventist Fellowship in Edgewood, Washington. 

Manuscript for my presentation.

Thanksgiving dinner at our house featured a large crowd of mostly young adults. We were seated around two long tables set together in an “L” shape in our kitchen. The conversation was boisterous, bordering on raucous. Politics, religion, ideas, current research, dreams, relatives – nothing was off limits. The kids – forgive me for calling these young professionals, 'kids,' were telling stories from their practices and residencies and projects at work. These young people have been gathering around out Thanksgiving table long enough their particular contributions to our feast have become traditions in themselves – Bonnie's pies – pumpkin, apple and berry – Katrina's kuboka squash soup, Naomi's avocado and grapefruit salad.

I savored my food and wondered at the privilege that gave me a seat at this table. Surrounding me was a gaggle of attractive, accomplished young adults, doctors, a lawyer, a couple of M.D./Ph. D.s, a musician, a couple of missionaries, an administrator with a Federal agency, some married, some single. All doing well. All actively involved in church.

How does such a thing happen. What is the key to prosperous, happy life passed from one generation to another? Legalism. A long, steady embrace of the disciplines of study, health, spirituality and relationships.

These kids were born to privilege. That was a grace. They were born intelligent and physically attractive. That, too, is a grace. They grew up in homes and churches that planted deep tabus against alcohol and drugs and promiscuity. Those same churches and homes surrounded them with a pervasive expectation that normal life includes higher education. That was all grace.

So these kids studied hard, practiced for thousands of hours, avoided the prohibited destructive behaviors, ate healthy food, engaged in a variety of physical disciplines. That's legalism. And it has launched them into lives full of promise.

Legalism is the key to good life.

Interaction with the audience: What do you mean when you use the word legalism? And what do you mean by “salvation?”

I am deliberately being provocative. For many of us the word, legalism, emblemizes the dark underbelly of Adventist theology and experience. It conjures emotional weeks of prayer in which preachers warned us that a single unforsaken, unconfessed sin would doom us when our name came up in the Investigative Judgment. Legalism referred to the sometimes tacit, sometimes explicit conviction that our standing with God was strictly contingent on our conformity to Adventist notions of Christian perfection.

Then we heard the gospel. Morris Venden or Des Ford or some other preacher opened the windows of heaven and filled our lives with the light of grace. Venden famously insisted, it's not what you know, but who you know. It's not about behavior, it's about relationship. Ford used the theological language and the metaphors of Reformed theology to bring hope and release to thousands of guilt-bound Adventists.

Many of us have spent most of our adult lives trumpeting this good news and battling the evils of Adventist legalism.

Now, I'm calling for a restoration of legalism. I expect an argument, but I'm right. The fact is, legalism is the key to the good life we want for our children and grandchildren. If we want young people to do well, to finish college and grad school, to make good money, to enjoy good health, to have a fighting chance for lasting marriages, to participate in church as adults then we will do everything we can to promote legalism. Legalism is an essential ingredient of any kind of life you would dream for your kids.

Let me sharpen my challenge: It is absolutely vital that we who are in our sixties or seventies or eighties quit trying to shape a church that will serve us well. Instead, we must work for a church serves well our children and grandchildren. And their greatest need is legalism.

What I mean by legalism.

What is legalism? A deep appreciation for the value of rules or standards. A legalistic life, is a life lived in harmony with rules and standards. In a more philosophical vein: legalism is the idea that the entire universe is lawful, that God himself is constrained by law.

What do I mean by salvation?

In much of the conservative Protestant world, the great, burning question in spiritual life is: How can a person be saved? Salvation in this context is merely avoiding the torments of hell. In this world view, the default status of all humans is damnation, i.e. eternal torment. Salvation is rescue from this looming fate. Adventists softened this somewhat by redefining damnation as painful annihilation, but, in general, we still think of the default destiny of humans as damnation. The most valuable action a person can perform is to move another person from their natural state of doomed to hell to being saved.

If, indeed, the great, burning question of our lives is how can I avoid hell, then legalism is useless. No amount of ordered living will protect you from hell. And based on the story of the thief on the cross, just the slightest nod to the Savior will accomplish your salvation. Concern for law in any sense becomes irrelevant at best.

I reject the idea that the default destiny of humanity is damnation. If God is the Savior, then I assume salvation is the default destiny. Otherwise God is necessarily viewed as a failure. Since I reject damnation as the default destiny of humanity, I don't view rescuing people from damnation as the highest calling for Christians.

I regard the natural destiny of human beings to be reigning with God. One of the principle goals of the kingdom of heaven is human well-being. Our calling is to help people experience well-being for themselves and to share it with others. Being saved means enjoying well-being. This well-being begins in this life as health, happiness, wealth, pleasant relationships and is fully realized in eternity. Salvation understood as the fullness of human well-being is inseparable from legalism. It is the behaviors commanded by the law and a view of the world that insists even God himself (and thus all other possible authority figures) is subject to law that contributes most to salvation or the experience of well-being.

The Benefits of Legalism

First, it is an essential condition of a good life.

Legalism is the foundation for the quality of life enjoyed by the young adults around our table on Thanksgiving. They are living well now because when they were younger their behavior was constrained by a comprehensive corpus of smart regulation.

Legalism – assenting to and practicing particular habits – is the key to well-being in every area of life.

Do we want our kids/grandkids to avoid the epidemic of obesity? We will inculcate habitual behaviors in regard to food and physical activity.

Do we want our kids to be accomplished musicians? We will do our best to provide lessons and to support regular practice. There is no other way.

Do we want our kids to be financially independent? We will model and teach habits related to earning and managing money.

Do we want our kids to be involved in church as adults?

Do we want them to experience lasting, happy marriages?

In the United States, one of the greatest predictors of success in marriage is for both partners to finish college. I'm sure that teaching our kids grace will help them be better spouses. We hope that as they experience God's grace they will find joy in passing it on to their spouses. However, at present helping our kids complete college appears to be more effective as an aid to good marriage than giving them proper theology.

Completing college is an exercise in legalism. Showing up for class, meeting the demands of teachings, paying bills, paying attention to the requirements spelled out in the bulletin. Legalism. It is the key to finishing college. And finishing college is the key to marital and economic success in the United States.

Second, legalism is the foundation of pious liberalism.

Since God himself is bound by law, we dare to challenge specific biblical prescriptions when they violate the great law of love. Whatever was the situation in Moses' day, we reject stoning as an appropriate response to Sabbath-breaking or rebellious sons or inappropriate sexual encounters. We reject genocide. We insist genocide is immoral. We simply dismiss the Bible anecdotes that suggest otherwise.

In thinking about homosexuality and slavery we dismiss certain explicit Bible passages condemning or condoning respectively using the words of Abraham, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” We hold God and the church and religion to standards embedded in our notion of universal law.

Legalism – a world view that sees God himself subject to norms of fairness and justice – liberates us from the tyranny of fundamentalism, the swagger of ecclesiastical authoritarianism, and even from the tyrannical impulses of scientism and democracy.

What About Morris Venden?

Morris Venden used to famously say, “it's not about behavior, it's about relationship.” This is a great line. And in the context of Venden's time it communicated an important truth. But what was Venden's central, overriding message: spend an hour a day in thoughtful contemplation of the life of Christ.

His conversion story which I heard a number of times featured him going through the book Steps to Christ and underlining everything it told him to do. After doing this a couple of times, he boiled Christian life to this: Read your Bible, pray and tell others what you found in the first two. In his preaching this was distilled further to spending time with Jesus every day. The young people who heard him preach understood this to mean spending time reading the Bible or Ellen White with emphasis on the Gospels in the Bible and Desire of Ages among the works of Ellen White.

The people I hear decades later still expressing gratitude for the impact of Venden's preaching on their lives are the people who embraced his call to a specific behavior – daily devotions.

Venden's discovery of the “way of salvation” in Steps to Christ, did not deliver him from the necessity of behavior, rather it reduced the hundreds of picky rules about eating and entertainment and thinking and believing to a single, simple rule: spend time every day with Jesus. Venden argued that if you did this, everything else would take care of itself. God would inspire you to do whatever it was he expected you to do.

It didn't really work that way, but the practice of daily devotions does have an impact on one's spiritual life. Doing something daily to cultivate spiritual life will – not surprisingly – lead one to a greater sense of involvement with God.

One point where Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism agree is that spiritual life can be cultivated. And this cultivation takes time. Ideally this will involve a daily practice. Whether you call this daily time: devotions, a quiet time, prayer, Bible study, meditation, contemplation or worship, all of these religions agree that the ideal cultivation of spiritual life involves a daily habit. A behavior.

Another of Venden's proverbs was, “it's all about relationship.” Or “It's not what you know, but who you know.” Again, this was a wonderful corrective to the excessively cognitive-based Adventist spirituality of the time. Venden worked to make the person of Jesus the center of our religion, displacing the maze of prophetic interpretations and the details of doctrinal and lifestyle teachings.

But if take Venden's proverb out of its context and make it a universal principle, it describes the world of corruption and abuse. In nations and cultures where it's really “all about relationship” poverty and systematic injustice are the norm. When “it's all about relationship,” then whether you get signed off on a building permit or not depends on your connections with the inspector, not the quality of your work. When it's all about relationship, what happens in court has less to do with the facts than your connections with the judge or prosecutor. Pushed far enough, relationship can even trump the money you spend on a lawyer.

“All about relationship” government gives us Egypt under Mubarak, Tunisia under Ben Ali and Syria under Assad. Relationships apart from a sturdy framework of law are susceptible to all sorts of distortions.

Domestically, “it's all about relationship,” allows incest and other abuses. As long as the abuser/molester claims to love, the behavior is justified. Glenn Beck famously asserted in one of his 9 Principles, “4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority.”

When a man and his wife are the ultimate authority, who is to say they have gone too far in disciplining their children. Recently the Seattle Times had a front page story about a girl who died from the administration of discipline by her adoptive parents. People are understandably outraged by these parents' behavior.

Our outrage is an expression of legalism. Mom and Dad are not outside the law. Even supposedly “well-intentioned” harm to a child is damnable evil. Good motives are not excuse for starving a child, beating a child, demeaning a child. Love does not justify all behavior. Love itself requires definition. And law provides the definition.

Good relationships are inseparable from a sturdy appreciation of the rules and norms that in other contexts are called “the law.”

So Venden, like every other preacher and prophet, must be understood in the context of his times. A doctrinaire application of his words in a different context can turn helpful truth into toxic ideology.

What about Richard Rice's Believing, Behaving, Belonging?

Rice correctly highlights the profound value of a sense of belonging. Young people growing up in a community need to know they have a place, a home. Ideally, belief and behavior flow out of this sense of belonging. We believe what we do and behave the way we do because particular beliefs and behaviors are congruent with our identity.

Those who argue for the priority of believing, seek to liberate us from the oppressive weight of classic Adventist soteriological legalism which demanded a person achieve perfection in order to earn salvation. In rebutting this anxiety-producing theological, gospel Adventists say, “Only believe.”

Many of us who in our teens and twenties embrace this liberating gospel discovered as we got older that behaving was, in fact, easier than believing. Especially men who were devout in their teens and twenties and got a graduate education, over time the details one was required to believe in order to be saved or even a member in good and regular standing became more and more problematic. It was easier to keep the Sabbath than to believe 6000 years. It was easier to go to church than to affirm without qualification every aspect of the forensic model of salvation. It was easier by far to be a vegetarian than to believe the “ABCs of Prayer.”

People need some kinds of markers of belonging. Belief can be one of those markers. Behavior is another, and for some, a more accessible marker.

Conclusion

We set up our children and grandchildren for the richest success in life by inculcating a deep, abiding respect for ordered, healthy habits – the habits prescribed by law – and a deep sense of the subordination of every “authority” to law.

Of course, a healthy community will make provision for the inevitable failures to perfectly embody law in our performance. The willingness and disposition to extend grace to ourselves and to one another is, in fact, one of the foundational laws of happiness and health.

Legalism, a high regard for law both in our opinions and in our behavior, is an indispensable condition of human well-being. And human well-being is the highest definition of salvation.

The Next Step:

Where I want to go next is to list and defend some specific rules and norms that I think the church should actively promote.

The goal of these rules and norms should be human well-being. We should recognize that most rules are situation specific. Smart rules of a hundred years ago need to be modified if they are going to be smart rules for today. On the other hand, no community can be called “smart” if it is unable to articulate specific, concrete behavioral norms for the children and converts maturing within it.

Some rules I would defend:

1. Friday night as a Sabbath celebration
2. Church attendance
3. Higher education as a norm.
4. Public vegetarianism
5. Strong anti-drug stance, including a Teetotaling approach to alcohol
6. Sabbath afternoon hikes/walks
7. No in-between meals snacking
8. A preference for non-combatancy