Good Living in Bad Times

Sermon for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists
For October 20, 2018

Texts: Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7, Luke 3:3, 7-8, 10-14, 18-20


2000 years ago, before Jesus was “a thing,” there was a preacher named John the Baptist. His preaching created waves of excitement across Palestine--among both Jewish and non-Jewish populations.

His preaching was connected with widespread expectation of the appearance of the Messiah--the long promised, long-expected, super-hero of that lived at the heart of Jewish culture, religion, and theology.

The end was near. Or rather, a new beginning. God was going to break into this dismal world with something bright and new and powerful. The excitement spread. The crowds gathering around John the Baptist grew larger.

John’s preaching was framed in the classic denunciations of the ancient prophets. His words were sharp, definite, confrontational.

When the crowds came to John for baptism, he said, "You brood of snakes! Who warned you to flee God's coming wrath? Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don't just say to each other, 'We're safe, for we are descendants of Abraham.' That means nothing, for I tell you, God can create children of Abraham from these very stones. Even now the ax of God's judgment is poised, ready to sever the roots of the trees. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire." 

This was hell fire-and-brimstone preaching. It was thunder and bombast.

Note John’s fierce rejection of self-congratulation based on ethnic/religious identity. You tell yourselves, “We are children of Abraham. We’re good.” “You better shut that nonsense up.” John said. “God doesn’t care who your daddy is. God doesn’t care about your DNA or passport or church membership. God is watching your way of life. Prove you’re a child of Abraham by living out Abraham’s highest ideals.” (Note: Even Abraham did not live up fully to his ideals. You’re going to have to do better than Abraham did if you expect God to be impressed by your doing.)

John was preaching for effect. He did not want the people to “like” his preaching. He wanted them to reshape their lives. Like any good coach he was aiming at improved performance. And fortunately, his students asked the right question.

The crowds asked, "What should we do?"

We imagine ourselves as the spiritual heirs of John the Baptist. We, too, are heralding the coming of the Messiah. We, too, proclaim the coming of a New Age, a New Era. We urge people to repent, to change the direction of their lives, to get ready for the return of Jesus. We are thrilled when people hear this message and ask the question:

“What should we do?” What’s the answer? What’s the special preparation we are to make for the dawning of the age the Messiah?

John replied, "If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry." 

What is the proper lifestyle of those who are getting ready for the coming of Messiah? Generosity. Kindness. Compassion.

All of us have some measure of blessing in our lives. Health, smarts, beauty, a pension, an American passport, some investments, a graduate degree, friends. John told the crowd. “Consider the blessings in your lives and ask yourself how you might touch someone else’s life with that blessing. What sacrifice are we able to make to bless others?” This is the central characteristic of people living in the light of the Messiah.

I received an email this week from a woman named Emme. She had read an article in Adventist Today that described the best of our life together here at Green Lake Church. She had posted a link to the article on her Facebook page. After reading the article, a number of her friends commented, “I would love to go to a church like that.”

What did Emme and her friends find so attractive?

The article described acts of service performed by people in our congregation, acts of generosity to strangers, acts of enduring faithful service within the context of family. I wrote of the church celebrating the amazing accomplishments of our gifted kids. I also mentioned our regard and respect for the people among us who care for children who will not graduate or perform in recitals or win athletic awards. Here, in this community, all children are precious, not just the “above average” kids.

Here we devote a lot of attention to worship. We work to create worship services that feed our souls and give voice to our deepest values--loving God and loving people.

Of course, we aren’t flawless. But we do have high ambitions, holy aspirations. We want to be like God--practicing generosity, faithfulness, and integrity. We know that we are keeping company with God as we rear our children, help our neighbors, build airplanes, write code, heal the sick, drive buses, or sell cars. Every day, in everything we do, we aim to make the world a little bit better. This is how we live in the light of the Coming of Jesus.

When the crowd asked John the Baptist about what they should. John’s first response was generic, something that applied to everyone. Practice generosity. If we have two shirts, share one. If we have two sandwiches, share one.

Then there came a more specific question.

Tax collectors came to be baptized and asked what they should do. John replied, "Collect no more taxes than the government requires."  

In that world, tax collectors were independent contractors. They were businessmen. With the advantage of having the powers of the state behind them.

John’s answer acknowledged the legitimacy of their work. Governments need taxes to provide service. And a business has to collect money if it is going to survive. According to John, It was okay to receive money. To take money. But there was also a moral limit.

It is not morally permissible to take everything I can get, if I’m in a position of power. The primary function of morality in the teachings of Jesus--and foreshadowed here in the words of John the Baptist--is to limit the power of the powerful. Christian morality is not about keeping little people in their places. It is about curtailing and directing the power of the powerful.

Collect taxes, but don’t overdo it. Charge enough to make the business viable, but don’t gouge your customers. Make a profit, but not a killing.

Then some soldiers spoke up.  "What should we do?" they asked. John replied, "Don't extort money or make false accusations. And be content with your pay." 

The soldiers were members of the Roman occupying force. They were essentially the police force. They had power. John directed them to use their power ethically and with restraint. In today’s world where there are heartbreaking stories of police misconduct, it is vital that we as a church celebrate and honor the work of the great majority of police officers who respect the law and the people they serve. It is also our responsibility to speak against police misconduct. Whatever the color of our skin personally, together as a church, we stand with our brothers and sisters, people of color, in their protests against police brutality.

With John the Baptists, we say to those charged with keeping the peace:  Do justice. Do right.

Now we come to the most startling element of John the Baptist’s preaching.

John also publicly criticized Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, for marrying Herodias, his brother's wife, and for many other wrongs he had done. 20 So Herod put John in prison, adding this sin to his many others. 

When public persons engage in egregious evil it is the obligation of the church to speak up. We must be clear about the difference between our values and the values on display in the world around us.

When the president of the United States mocks women, we say, No. That is evil speaking.

When the president of the United States celebrates violence against news reporters. We say, No! That is evil doing.

When a candidate for the Supreme Court lies about his high school drinking parties, we say, No! Lying is wrong. Even if lying will get you a highly coveted job, it is still evil. We are a community of truth.

When the president of our denomination uses innuendo and insinuation to defame congregations and cast suspicions on pastors, we stand up and say, “Stop it.” That is unworthy of any minister, much less the president of the church. Presidents and judges are rightly held to higher standards than ordinary people. Their words have consequences.

Our highest commitment is responding to the call of God. That begins in generosity and compassion. But it moves unavoidably into standing bold and unbending in the face of evil and oppression practiced by the powerful. We stand for truth. We stand against lies, the encouragement of violence, and the idolization of a mythical golden age in the past. Our eyes are on the coming Age of the Messiah, the better land is ahead and beckons us.

Here and now we pledge ourselves to the practice of the values of the kingdom of heaven--to generosity and compassion, to truth and justice, to nobility and dignity.

When these values appear beaten down in the world around us, we come here to church and reaffirm their reality, their beauty, and their ultimate triumph.

God will win.

Truth will win.

Love will win.

And we pledge ourselves to speak the truth and to practice love.

Beautiful Children

Note this is last week's sermon. I'll post this weeks sermon later today. JM

Sermon for Green Lake Church for Sabbath, June 23, 2018

1 Kings 1:32-37

Matthew 14:14-21

Hymn suggestion. 101. Children of the heavenly father

I spent this week working in the primary department (ages 7 to 9) at camp meeting. I knew only three kids--Violet and Lars from Green Lake Church and Austin, a member of North Hill Adventist Fellowship, the congregation I pastored from 1998 through 2012.

Then there were the kids I was getting reacquainted with: Austin, and his cousins, Torie and Jack.

When they divided the kids into smaller groups for an activity I worked on learning the names of the kids in my group. When I came around to Austin, instead of asking his name, I said his name. He glared at me and demanded, “How do you know my name?”

I explained I had known his parents before he existed, even before they were married. I could have added a couple of other details from my memory that would not have been appreciated by a nine year boy!  I remembered his mother having to chase him down because of his wildness on stage during chidlren’s story. I also refrained from saying out loud what I saw now: he was a cool kid. Confident and bold. Lithe, agile, sharp, active, alive!

Then I came to a girl who seemed vaguely familiar, but just barely. When I asked her name, she looked at me with a bit of annoyance or perhaps indignance. Like how could I NOT know her name?

The wounded indignance in her eyes woke up my memory. Torie, how could I forget you? She was Austin's cousin. I had known her parents before she was born, before they were married, before they were even a couple. How could I not remember her? Beside Torie was her little brother Jack. The truth was, since Torie and her brother were placid babies and never made any commotion they had not commanded my attention as infants when I was their pastor. They were just everyday, average kids.

But that was before I spent a week watching them. Listening to them demonstrate superlative memory skills. Watching them interact with other kids. Torie had grown into a remarkable person. She looked out for others around her, exhibiting a calm responsible, mother hen nature. Watching her, I saw an angel hiding stunning intelligence behind a soft, gentle countenance.

And brother Jack--a striking physical contrast to Austin visually. Austin was lithe and dark. Jack was a red head. A sturdy chunk. I was utterly enchanted with his sweetness and goodness and intelligence. Both Torie and Jack fascinated me with their combination of a charming sweetness wrapped around a core of strength and confidence. Even this morning when I call them to mind I’m fascinated by their combination of stillness and strength. Their sweetness and boldness. How can a person hold those things together so naturally and easily.

As the week progressed I learned a lot of names. Our usual attendance was about fifty, with a few new kids every day and other kids leaving with their parents or grandparents. After a couple of days I had learned the names of 80 percent of the kids which was helpful when they were misbehaving. :-)

Also, as the week progressed. I found myself increasingly enthralled with these kids.

At first they were a sea of faces, cute in the way that all children and puppies and ducklings are. As days passed, the sea of faces became individual faces, distinct persons, I was enchanted, charmed, mesmerized by this collection of unspeakably beautiful people.

Noah -- a small guy, hair white-blond, big eyes, a smile that was friendly and impish. The longer the week went, the more radiant and magical his smile seemed.

Lillian--also small. Dark skin, dark curls. Dark eyes that gleamed like fire. When there was noise in her neighborhood, she was always part of it. She was busy. And captivating. When I was up front I found my eyes returning to her neighborhood--back row on the right--not just because she was often making a commotion, but because of her beauty. Our programs were far too slow for her. It was my job to keep her quiet and every message I picked up from her body said quiet was not something she did very well. I was both delighted she was part of our department and sorry she had to endure our endless exhortations to be quiet, pay attention, eyes to the front. Her ebullience was obviously irrepressible.

Then there was Aela, Allen, Grayson, Violet, Daniel, Naomi, Topaz, Levi, Elijah, Tomer, Lilly, Jasper Andrew, Kylie, Natasha, Josie, Evelyn, Alex, Kevan, Caleb and another forty kids.  

Every day, individuals became more vivid. More beautiful. More precious. More magnificent.

I'm sure it was kids like this that Jesus had in mind when he said, “Allow the children to come. Do not hinder them. Because the kingdom of heaven belongs to this kind of people.”

Once the disciples asked Jesus how to measure greatness in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus replied by calling a child over. “Be like this kid,” he said. There he added this, “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

I like to imagine Jesus looking at this kid, maybe taking the kids head in his hands and staring at his face, contemplating the beauty and life and curiosity and busyness and intelligence and goodness shining in that kids face. I imagine Jesus being charmed beyond words by this vision. Then he says, see here in this face is the glory of God. It this body is the kingdom of God. Be like this. Protect this magnificent incarnation of the kingdom.

The feeding of the 5000. Children were there. The Bible does not count them. Maybe because they were too wiggly. But the Bible notices them. I'm not aware of any other reference to children at gatherings of philosophers or ancient religious teachers. Children were there. The kingdom of heaven had ALWAYS included children.

The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these. To these people. These real people. These beautiful people. That’s what Jesus saw. That’s the heavenly vision.

Vision is not information. It is not a scientific counting. It is artistry. It is framing.

It is true that some children at campmeeting were not so immediately beautiful..

Kids with learning disabilities,

Kids with developmental problems.

Kids with faces already marked with fear or anger.

They were there. They needed my afternoon and sympathy and, yes, guidance. For some of them I had to work to see their beauty. And even my “beautiful kids” could also be seen as rowdy problems instead of as beautiful citizens of the kingdom of heaven, if that was the way my eyes were focused.

But I saw the beauty, and I bear witness. I saw the Kingdom of Heaven.

Our Old Testament passage makes a lovely point about children.

King David had a number of sons. He was old and failing in health and in function. His decline inspired a couple of different efforts by sons with the connivance of royal advisers to take over the throne. Finally, David agrees to formally yield the throne to his designated successor.

After David has announced this decision, his most trusted confidant comes in to see him and greets David with these words, “May his throne be greater than yours!”

The whole premise of monarchy is the myth that the monarch is the best--the wisest, smartest, fittest, strongest. Everyone has to carefully protect the myth of the throne. . . . until it is time for his heir to take the throne. In that instant, the rules reverse. It is the next king, the king’s heir who is the wisest, smartest, fittest, strongest--at least in hope. Only when contemplating the glorious future of the king’s heir is it permissible to speak of someone greater than the king. And then it is not only permissible, it is close to obligatory. It is sweet music to the king's ears.

So we and even Jesus himself dream of children who will do greater things than we have done. As we watch their enchanting beauty, their dazzling intellect, their sweet spirits, we take hope. We see already hints of the kingdom to come and pray that even now it is taking root among us. As we contemplate the beauty of these children we take fresh resolve to do all we can to help these children thrive and triumph.

This has pointed application in the life of the church today. Some imagine that the best of Christianity is in the past--back at Pentecost or in the days of the apostles. People speak wistfully of “apostolic Christianity.” But the best Christianity was not in the days of Jesus or in the days of the apostles. If it were, would not God have called his work finished and ended the flow of miserable human history?

Some Adventists imagine that the best of Adventism was back in the days of the pioneers. They idolize a mythic historic Adventism. But if the best days of our faith are in the past, we might as well close church and be done with it. And if we imagine that our religion is better than what God will accomplish in and through our children (or “their” children --whoever “they” is), we ought to simply sit in lament and acknowledge that we have been miserable failures. We have failed to provide the sanctuary needed by our children so they could cultivate the graces and virtues God intended.

The future belongs to our children whether we like it or not. We cannot determine the future. We cannot determine what values and beliefs, what doctrines and policies, will endure. That is in the hands of our children and grandchildren. Let us join Jesus in trusting the children. Let’s practice looking at children and seeing the Kingdom of Heaven already present among us.

Friends of Jeremiah

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, September 6, 2014

(Note: this is the manuscript that was the basis for my sermon. It is different from what I put in the bulletin. Sorry about that.)

In October of 2002, six months before the United States launched its Tomahawk cruise missiles against Baghdad, I wrote an editorial opposing the war. I pointed out that Adventist soldiers in the American Army would be bombing Adventist Iraq civilians. American Christian soldiers would be shooting Iraq Christian soldiers. I wondered what would happen to Christian children and grandmothers when the bombs began to fall.

Tragically, history has proven me right. Yes, the American army got rid of the monster named Saddam Hussein. But unfortunately our work in Iraq opened the door for the much greater monstrosities of ethnic and religious factionalism and ultimately for the horror of ISIS which demonstrated its true character by beheading two journalists recently.

In 2002, my anti-war stance was wildly unpopular, especially among Christians. Here in America the demographic most in most in favor of starting a war against Iraq was conservative, Protestant Christians. There were members of my congregation who were very troubled that I would challenge the judgment of the president of the county. If he wanted to go to war, then surely war was necessary.

In those days, opposing the war was seen as unpatriotic or even “unChristian.” After all, those Iraqis were Muslims.

Opposing the war was unpopular, “unpatriotic,” maybe “unChristian.” But it was right.

Opposing the American invasion of Iraq was unpopular, but it didn't cost me anything. I didn't lose my job. I didn't got to jail. But sometimes speaking the truth carries great risk.

Consider, the story of Jeremiah the Prophet. He spent most of his very long career saying unpopular things. At least twice that we know of, people tried to silence Jeremiah by killing him. The first time it was the religious leaders who were after him, the second time it was members of the nobility.

This second attempt on his life happened shortly before the nation of Judea was obliterated by the armies of Babylon.

The capitol city, Jerusalem, had been surrounded by the Babylonian army for several years. People were getting hungry. Army morale was flagging. With this as a backdrop, Jeremiah walked into the center of town and delivered this speech:

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Everyone who stays in Jerusalem will die from war, famine, or disease, but those who surrender to the Babylonians will live. Their reward will be life. They will live!’ The LORD also says: ‘The city of Jerusalem will certainly be handed over to the army of the king of Babylon, who will capture it.’” (Jeremiah 38:2, 3 NLT Accessed through Blue Letter Bible.com.)

Several influential nobles heard the speech, including Shephatiah son of Mattan, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Jehucal son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur son of Malkijah. These guys, understandably, were outraged at what Jeremiah was saying. He was undermining morale. He was giving aid and support to the enemy. It was treasonous. They marched off to the king and demanded that he do something. Well, not just “something.” They wanted the king to order Jeremiah executed for treason.

King Zedekiah answered, “He's in your hands. Do what you think necessary. I can't stop you.”

It was not the execution decree they wanted. The only person who could legally order an execution was the king and he pointedly had not given the order. On the other hand, he made it clear he wasn't going to interfere with much else they might have in mind.

So these nobles had Jeremiah arrested and thrown in “jail.” The jail they chose was a cistern that had no water but did have a deep layer of viscous mire. This jail offered a perfect quarantine for containing the prophet's negative words. Jeremiah would be completely cut off from any contact with the people. In the past the prophet had written letters that had powerful impact. The cistern provided absolute containment. The nation would be safe from the dangerous ideas voiced by the prophet.

For the more sadistic of the nobles, the cistern also promised perfect torture. As Jeremiah weakened he would sink into the mud. Eventually he would die, without a mark on him. He would die from asphyxiation maybe, if he couldn't keep his head out of the mud. Or certainly die of starvation as the city ran out of food.

It was the end of the road for Jeremiah. If Jeremiah had been the prophet Elisha, we might wonder if he would work some kind of magic to escape. But in all the stories of Jeremiah's career there is never the least hint of a miracle. Jeremiah's job consisted of telling the truth, usually unpopular truth. He had survived this long only because he had powerful friends in the nobility. But it looked they had finally run out of political capital.

Back in those days, there were all sorts of prophets claiming to speak for God. They frequently contradicted each other. From our position today, we confidently honor Jeremiah as God's spokesperson. Jeremiah was a real man of God. To us it's crystal clear. But think for a minute what you would have thought if you had been living in Jerusalem in those days.

Jeremiah predicted the institutional death of Israel. The nation of Israel was going to suffer utter defeat. And God's will was to surrender to the forces of Babylon.

What would we think today, if a prophet were to stand up and announce, the church is going bankrupt. It cannot be saved as an institution. If you are following God, go join our critics.

How would we respond to a message like this? If a modern Jeremiah stood up and said something like this how long before we got rid of him—with a little torture thrown in, if we had a chance?

We need to understand how radically unpopular, how absolutely unattractive, Jeremiah's words were. If I had been living in Jerusalem back then, I'm afraid I would have been right there with those nobles asking the king to have Jeremiah executed. And I'm afraid many of you would have been there with me. Jeremiah's error would have been so obvious, so egregious, we would not even need any time to think about it. Silence that man! By any means possible.

But what happened in Jeremiah's story. According to the Bible, Jeremiah really was speaking for God. Jeremiah was telling the truth, even though it was a miserable, unpleasant truth.

God needed someone to rescue Jeremiah, but his latest message was so outrageous, so impossbile to believe that God couldn't find an Israelite to take action, so God called a foreigner, a Black man. A eunuch—which means he was not a volunteer. He was a slave.

This slave, named Ebed-Melech—heard about Jeremiah's situation and immediately went to the king.

My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon, and he is likely to die from hunger in the place where he is. For there is no more bread in the city.” (Jeremiah 38:9. NLT Accessed through Blue Letter Bible.com.)

Now we see why the king had not ordered Jeremiah executed. The king knew Jeremiah was an honest prophet. Jeremiah's miserable words came from his absolute integrity. They were the words Jeremiah believed came straight from God. The king would not admit publicly Jeremiah was right. That would take far more guts than the king even dreamed of having. Still the king knew Jeremiah was telling the truth. So when someone else showed up willing to be the public face of Jeremiah's defense, the king was only too happy to cooperate. It appears that the courage of Ebed-Melech, the African slave, inspired the king to his own bit of courage.

The king gave a direct order: take thirty men and go rescue Jeremiah from the cistern. This is curious. The king did not simply issue a decree and leave Ebed-Melech, the African to try to persuade the guards at the cistern to let him rescue Jeremiah. The king give the African a force—thirty soldiers. When Ebed-Melech showed up at the cistern, there was no question about whether the jailers were going to allow him access to the prophet.

The rescue was a bit complicated. The cistern was too deep for a ladder. The muck at the bottom was extremely sucky and viscous. Ebed-Melech found old rags and clothing for the prophet to pad his arm pits then had him sling the rope under his arms so they could slowly extract him from terrible mud.

Because of Ebed-melech, the foreign-born slave, Jeremiah, the prophet of God, the person who spoke unpopular, even treasonous truth, lived to continue his ministry.

In this story, nothing is said about the faith of Ebed-melech. Ebed-melech is honored because of his courage and his energy in resisting injustice and saving life. The prophet Jeremiah—God's man—could do his work only because of the courage and force of a man with no religious pedigree.

In this story, the African slave and the Jewish prophet share the honors, with the foreigner getting the brighter glory.

Are you willing to act like Ebed-melech? Are you willing to speak up and take action when you see someone treated unjustly?

School is starting. One of the realities of school life is the development of cliques and in-groups. Some kids are in and some kids are out. Are you willing to speak up when you see another kid treated unfairly? This is the real test of your Christianity. Do you make it a point of being courteous to every student, every classmate?

When it comes to political matters, are we willing to see the humanity of people with whom we disagree? The Bible does not tell us that Ebed-melech agreed with Jeremiah's point of view. Ebed-melech just knew that it was wrong to imprison a man in a cistern because he spoke what he believed to be the word of God. Let's make sure we don't dehumanize people we disagree with politically. Let's make our arguments. Let's voice and vote our convictions. But let's remember those who have differing viewpoints are also motivated by a desire to see our community prosper.

I've been doing a series of sermons on the church and atheists. As I have said over and over, most of the atheists I know are driven by high ideals. Their atheism is driven by a radical commitment to justice and truth. These are values that live at the heart of the vision that gave birth to the church.

It is vital that we recognize that especially among young atheists, their distance from church is correlated to our distance from the ideals of Jesus. The closer we as a community come to living the ideals of the Master, the closer we will be to our young atheist friends. And the closer they will be to us.

It may well be that we will be able to hear God's truth—the new truth, the uncomfortable truth, the truth that is different from what we have always believed—only when we are confronted by “Ethiopians,” outsiders. Maybe our kids. Maybe our good friends. Maybe people who have not been Adventist for generations. Maybe people who are not Adventist at all.

Zedekiah was confronted by Ebed-melech and to his credit, even though he is infamous as a weak, vacillating character, he recognized the truth of Ebed-melech's defense of the prophet and supported Ebed-melech. Let's make sure we respond as well to the challenges of our children and friends.

If we will demonstrate courage and compassion, people sitting on the fence, people who secretly respect the truth, may themselves find courage to speak up, to take action. Our own actions will be multiplied. God's work will advance.

Special note regarding the life of the church beyond my own congregation:

At the recent Faith and Science Conference our General Conference president made very pointed remarks aimed at purging the church of people who point out inconvenient truth regarding geochronology and paleontology. Like King Zedekiah of old, he gave permission to the nobles in the Adventist Church—the bureaucrats and administrators—to eliminate the voices of faithful Adventists who speak or even think inconvenient truths. I pray that the work of any nobles who attempt to implement this immoral permission will be countered by courageous Ethiopians. Opposing the nobles is risky. But standing for truth is part of the essence of real nobility.

Faith and Science

Faith and Science

Sermon manuscript (final revision) for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, August 30, 2014

Synopsis: 
Science is the pursuit of information about what is and of the skills to change the world. Science is the source of the periodic table, the geologic column, improved crop yields, medicine, airplanes, and smart phones. 

Faith is a vision of how things ought to be. Faith is an enduring source of compassion, the pursuit of justice and peace and our reverence for the primacy of love and life. 

Science helps us increase crop production. Faith tells us to share the technology and our own increase. Science gives us medicine. Faith challenges us to make it available to everyone. If we squelch science we are robbing the world of the tools for doing good. If we squelch faith, we are robbing the world of moral and spiritual vision. Both faith and science are gifts from God. We honor God when we encourage the pursuit of both. 

I nearly became famous in the summer of 1971. I was building a fence around a hundred acres of scrub oak and eroded grass land in northern Mississippi. In places the clay was so hard that the tractor mounted auger we were using would simply spin on the surface. We'd have to dig the holes by hand with a digging bar and posthole diggers. We would dig a section then come back the next day to set the posts.

One day early on, as I prepared to drop a post into its hole, I noticed a critter in the bottom of the hole. I pulled it out. It was a shrew. Dead. I presumed starved to death because shrews have to eat all the time and there were no worms in the bottom of this clay-lined hole. At lunch I carried the shrew back to the trailer and got out my Peterson's Guide to North American Mammals. Nothing quite matched. I didn't think too much of it. Maybe it was an immature.

The next day, I found another shrew. It looked just like the first shrew. Again, I pulled out my Peterson's Field Guide, but I could not match up my shrew with any of those in the Field Guide. I found a third shrew. It looked just like the other two.

At this point, I started to get excited. Was it possible I had found a new species? No. Not possible. But just maybe. On the weekend I took my specimens home and gave them to a church member who was on the faculty of the biology department at the University of Memphis.

When I got back to town the next weekend, I called him. (This is in the days before cell phones.) He reported back to me that I was correct. My shrews were not in the Peterson Guide. However, it was not a new species. It was a rare, obscure species no one had studied, so almost nothing was known about it. But it did have a name. It had been catalogued. Still, the department would be happy for any more specimens I could provide.

I was thrilled. It was exciting to be part of science, to be part of the enterprise of expanding our knowledge of mammals.

Confronted with a dead shrew in the bottom of my post hole, my first questions were scientific questions: What is it? What does it eat? What kind of habitat does it live in? (The ground cover and soil type determined whether I would find shrews in my holes or not.)

But after my initial excitement about being part of science, other questions intruded. What about the poor shrews? How much pain and suffering in the shrew world could be justified by human scientific curiosity? How high a price for knowledge could I justify? Once I had the specimens the biology department wanted should I put sticks in the holes to serve as ladders so shrews could climb out?

These are not science questions. They are questions of faith—values, morality, compassion. We are not fully human if we don't ask these questions.

The title of my sermon today is Faith and Science. I'm not going to try to give us precise definitions of the terms. Instead I'm going to explore the respective neighborhoods associated with these words. I see both as divine gifts. To be fully human we must live in both neighborhoods.

Let's leave my shrews for a minute a look at a Bible story that illustrates the difference between faith and science.

One day Jesus and his disciples were walking along. They saw a beggar who had been born blind since birth.

"Rabbi," his disciples asked him, "why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents' sins?"

(John 9:2. NLT. Accessed through BlueLetterBible.com)

These are obviously questions of faith or religion. And Jesus gave the disciples a religious answer:

"It was not because of his sins or his parents' sins," Jesus answered. "This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.

[John 9:2-3,NLT. Accessed through BlueLetterBible.com]

Having said this, Jesus began mixing science and faith. He stooped down, spat in the dust, then with his finger spread the mud paste on the man's eyes. Then he told him, “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam.”

Jesus' action grosses us out. Yuck. But in that culture spittle was regarded as therapeutic. And the spit of a miracle worker was a common vehicle for the power of healing. So Jesus was doing what a healer would do in that culture. Jesus was practicing medicine, doing applied science.

The man picked himself up and headed off to the spring. Jesus and his disciples kept walking the other direction.

The man got to the spring and washed the mud off his eyes. Then when he opened his eyes, he could see! The spit and mud worked! It was fantastic!

When he got back to his old neighborhood, pandemonium broke out. People shouting and hollering. How could this be? This guy had been blind for decades. They had never seen anything like this. How did it happen, people asked.

“Well,” the formerly blind man said, “The preacher named Jesus put mud on my eyes and told me to go wash my eyes in the Pool of Siloam. When I did, I could see!”

The neighbors were thrilled and a little nervous. This healing happened on the Sabbath and routine healing was prohibited on the Sabbath. So the neighbors and the healed blind man headed off to talk with some conservative religious experts—they were called Pharisees.

The religious experts quizzed the guy. “Tell us what happened.” So he told them.

The experts thought for a minute, then they began arguing. Some of them said, with grave and sober demeanor, “This man Jesus cannot be a man of God. No godly person would heal on the Sabbath.”

Others said, “But how could a sinner do such miraculous signs? He must be a godly man.” The gospel reports there was a deep division of opinion among them.

Then the Pharisees again questioned the man who had been blind and demanded, “What’s your opinion about this man who healed you?” The man replied, “I think he must be a prophet.”

Notice how this story flips back and forth between questions of science and questions of faith. What happened? That's a science question. How do we know that this is the same man who was born blind?These were questions of fact and observation. They are the kinds of questions a scientist would ask.

What kind of shrew is it? How long is it? How much does it weigh? What does it eat? How long can it survive in a hole without food or water.

Then came the question of faith: What do you think about the man who did this? The formerly blind man gave a statement of faith. “He is a prophet.”

This movement from science—concrete knowledge of the world—to faith—visions of purpose and meaning, obligation and morality is an essential element of being human.

Our Old Testament reading illustrated this. Consider the stars. What does the grand sweep of sky and stars say about the place of humanity and the power that brought us into existence and sustains our lives? Dogmatic atheists insist the meaning of that grand, expansive vista is that there is no meaning, no purpose. Believers insist the meaning of the stars is that infinite power cares about us and intends to do us good.

It is important that a denial of meaning and purpose in the universe is a statement of faith, not a statement of science. Science cannot even ask a question of meaning, much less answer it.

When we come to church and celebrate faith, we are offering one another a vital human service that cannot be provided by any form of service. We are worshiping. We are supporting one another in the grandest human enterprise possible: we are affirming that life—even suffering and pain—have a beautiful purpose. The blind man who declared his healing had been done by a good man, by a prophet, by a person who represented the purpose of God.

And we declare that the beauty of the world, that instances of love and compassion, that our drive for peace and justice—all this is an expression of the highest intent in the universe, the purpose of God.

The religious leaders did not appreciate the blind man's interpretation. They did not approve of his faith.

“The healer cannot be a good man!” the religious leaders insisted. “A prophet would not do such a thing on Sabbath. The healer broke the Sabbath. He must be a sinner.”

The man refused to get sucked into their religious arguments. He retreated to science: “Here's what I know. I was blind and now I see.”

The religious leaders got really annoyed. They tried arguing with the man. “Tell us again just how it happened.”

“Look, I told you already.”

When the religious leaders could not persuade the man to change his story, they kicked him out of the synagogue.

In this story we see the interplay of faith and science. In the end, the science was incontrovertible. A man had been blind for years and now he could see. His healing happened in connection with the activity of a man named Jesus. When the information of science—observable, demonstrable facts—conflicted with the faith of the religious leaders, they did their best to get rid of the inconvenient fact: They kicked the guy out of the synagogue.

We can see that the religious leaders were foolish.

Right now some leaders in the Adventist Church are attempting to repeat this strategy of the Pharisees. Over the last hundred years the scientific evidence of an old earth has become increasingly compelling. Adventist scientists have wrestled with this evidence. And some of them have been quietly pointing out this evidence. In response, some Adventist religious leaders are trying exile these scientists. They figure if they can get rid of most of the scientists in the church, we can keep our historic religion unchanged.

To outsiders, these church leaders look a lot like the Pharisees in John 9.

On the flip side there are strident voices in the world claiming that science is sufficient to answer all questions. Some atheists even go so far as to argue that questions that can't be answered by science are not important. This is just as foolish as the Pharisaical attempt to deny the scientific facts.

In the story of the blind man, the scientific questions were not the most interesting.

What happened?

An un-credentialed rabbi spat in the dust and rubbed the resulting mud on a blind man's eyes. When the blind man washed the mud off at the Pool of Siloam his blindness was cured.

Are you sure the man who can now see is the same man who had been blind for years?

Yes.

This is all true. There were witnesses. But all this is merely set up or context for the most interesting question of all: What about this healer? How do you explain the healer?

Even in the Gospel of John, this question is understood to be a question of faith. And for 2000 years people have been wrestling with THIS question. It's completely outside science. But if we don't ask it, that would be evidence of our own diminished humanity. It would not be evidence of higher intelligence.

Faith and science ask and answer different questions.

My daughter spent this summer at Rosario Marine Biological Field Station doing research on a sea creature called an isopod. They were barely into the summer when Shelley and her partner, JoAnna Cowles, made a scientific discovery. Current literature says this species of isopod grows to a maximum size of four centimeters. Shelley and JoAnna found one six centimeters long. The complete life cycle of these isopods is not known. Shelley and JoAnna observed babies.

When I visited Rosario, Shelley and Joanna showed me their isopod hotel. Each isopod had its own room, bathed in a constant flow of fresh sea water. I could almost see the smile on their faces. (Well, not exactly.)

Everything I've told you up to this point is scientific—well, except the part about smiles on the isopod faces!

But next comes something utterly non-scientific. At the end of the research instead of dumping the excess isopods on the ground or in the Sound down the beach from the isopod hotel, the women transported the isopods several miles and returned them to their native habitat. Why?

It's an expression of faith, an expression of a value for the natural world that is completely outside the realm of pure science.

Obviously many scientists care deeply about the critters they study. Returning unneeded specimens to their native habitat is standard practice. But the value that drives that kind of behavior is outside the realm of science. Science can answer the question what is likely to happen if an isopod is dumped into salt water that does not have eel grass growing in it. But science cannot tell us we ought to put the isopods in a place where they are likely to thrive. That kind of respect for the life and well-being of a little sea critter comes from faith.

To return to the shrews in my postholes—there is no scientific reason to worry about shrews falling in holes I've dug. Science can tell me how many hours a shrew can go before it starves to death. Science can tell me what shrews eat. Science cannot tell me whether or not I should put sticks in my holes so shrews can climb out and not starve. Science can measure all the specimens I could collect. Science could not make a statement about the value of the life of a shrew.

Or a statement about the value of the life of a human being.

A few years ago a couple of my friends got into a debate about the relative value of religion and science. One of them, a devotee of science, said “If you care about the hungry people of the world, you won't waste your time preaching, you'll give people a science education. It's scientific advances that led to the increase in crop production and the reduction of starvation over the last fifty years. Science feeds people, not religion.”

It was an interesting point. But only partially true. It is true that it is science and technology are the tools that people have used to increase crop production faster than the world's population. But science carries no imperative to share that increased food production with hungry people.

It is faith that teaches us compassion for shrews who fall into post holes and for humans who find themselves in hungry places.

Science is one of the most powerful tools we have for understanding and managing our world. Science gives us medicine and food. It also gives us bombs and IEDs.

It is faith that teaches us to use the tools of science for good. The religion of Jesus calls us to do all in our power to make the world a better place. Science is an indispensable tool in carrying out that mission.

Faith supplies the vision of what that better world looks like.

Faith teaches us to join with God in dreaming of a world beyond pain and suffering, a world where injustice and death has been replaced by harmony and life. It is faith that insists that love is the highest value, that love, in fact, is the best, highest description of God and his universe.

Let us aim for that perfect blend of science and faith that will make us skillful and effective in shaping the world according to the vision of God.

Who Do We Mean, When We Say God?

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, August 23, 2014

We've been doing a sermon series inspired my conversations with young atheists. For Americans my age, the word “atheist” is an alien word, a harsh, jagged affront to convention and conviction. But many young people nowadays happily embrace the label. Just last week, sitting on the sidewalk at my favorite table outside Teddy's Bigger Burgers on Green Lake Way, a group of teenagers walked past. One of the guys asked the girl in the group, “So, I hear you're an atheist.” Without the slightest hesitation or awkwardness she launched into an explanation which I did not hear because they had moved beyond my hearing. But I was struck with the casualness of the entire conversation. It is that kind of young, casual atheism that has been in my mind as I've worked on this sermon series.

Once upon a time, a few thousand years ago, the king of Damascus started sending raiding parties into Israel, his neighbor to the south. The story as it comes down to us, does not describe any precipitating event for these raids. The way I imagine it, there was a new king on the throne, a young man. His dad, the old king, had died. Now it was the young buck's turn. He wanted to demonstrate his leadership, so he did what red-blooded kings did in those days. He went to war. Not an all-out, win-it-or-lose- everything war. He wasn't that crazy. But still it was military action that would demonstrate his leadership—and bring in some oil revenue (oops. I should have said olive oil revenue.)

The king led his army in a series of cross-border raids. They set up carefully-planned ambushes. Maybe they were waiting for a wagon train loaded with grain or a camel caravan carrying more expensive stuff. Whatever. They would set up a perfect ambush. The secrecy would absolute. The camouflage flawless. Then nothing would happen. No traffic would come down the road. Not even any Israeli military patrol. Nothing. The raiding party would be sitting there, baking in the sun, eating their own provisions. Bored. Frustrated. And very embarrassed. Because eventually they would head home with nothing to show for their effort.

My guess is the king got mad. (You don't want the king mad!) The king tried different places, different strategies. But every ambush came up empty.

Finally, the king called in all his officers and threw a temper tantrum. “Who is the traitor?” he demanded. “Obviously, one of you is leaking our plans to the enemy. It's the only possible explanation. We have tried every possible method of ambush. Every accessible road across northern Israel. Every time we come up empty. It's crystal clear the enemy is getting inside information. So who is it?”

He stared around the circle of his commanders. It was a pretty tense moment. Each officer knew his own innocence, but still . . . What if someone else suspected him? What if someone started pointing fingers just to divert attention? Maybe some of these officers had Israeli slaves, maybe an Israeli wife or mistress—connections that could look really suspicious if anyone pointed the finger his direction.

People were sweating. The king's eyes were bugging out. “Who? Who is it? You might as well 'fess up because I'm going to find out. Someone is spilling secrets to the Israelis.”

Minutes passed. People didn't move. They scarcely breathed.

Then an old man on the king's right spoke up. He was by far the oldest in the group. Old enough to be the king's father. He had, in fact, served with the king's father for decades.

“Sir, we are your loyal servants. We are not traitors. But I can tell you who is passing secrets.”

He had the king's attention. “So? Who?”

“Sir, it's nobody in this circle. It's a prophet named Elisha. He's amazing. Years ago, before you were born, when your father was king, the commander of our army was diagnosed with leprosy. He had a Jewish servant girl who had claimed that if he went to Samaria there was a prophet there who would cure him. Naaman went down there with a load of gold and came back healed. Sir, his skin was like a baby's skin. I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. That's the kind of power this prophet has. There are even stories of him raising the dead. Elisha can tell the King of Israel what you whisper to your woman when your heads are on one pillow.

“So, be gentle with your men, Sir. They are as hungry for victory and booty as you are.”

I'm always amused by what happens next. To me it is strong evidence that the Damascus king was young and brash.

“Go find out where the prophet is and let's capture him!” The king ordered.

It was a fool's errand, but warriors do as their superiors direct. The Damascus special forces headed south to find Elisha.

They had reports of Elisha being in the town of Dothan. They marched through the night and surrounded the town. Surprisingly, Elisha was still there. God had not alerted him to leave. The soldiers were thrilled. The king was going to be really happy.

Shortly after sunrise an old man appeared on a roof top near the city wall. He looked out their direction, appeared to engage in prayer and that was the last anyone in the army saw. During the prayer, the entire army went blind. They could see nothing. The old man had amazing power.

A little later, an old man approached the army asking to speak to the commander. When the commander was located the old man asked, “What's up?”

“We are looking for the prophet, Elisha.” The commander said.

The old man began laughing. “You've got it all wrong. You're in the wrong place. You're chasing the wrong man.” That much was not all that surprising. The army commander did not really think Elisha would really be sitting in a small walled city waiting for the Damascus special forces to surround it. On the other hand, the power of the old man they had seen to blind the entire army suggested the old man must be the fabled prophet.

The old man told the commander, “Follow me. I'll take you where you need to go.”

What could the commander do? He was blind. His entire army was blind. They were in enemy territory. Following the old man sounded like walking into a trap, but the commander didn't have a lot of options. He was in the heart of enemy territory. Blind. Any moment he expected to feel the edge of a sword against his neck.

So the commander grouped his men. Then hands on shoulders, the mass of warriors shuffled down the road, scared to death, wondering when they were going to fall into a pit, or find themselves on the point of a spear.

For hours, they stumbled along. Hot, thirsty, hungry. Then they could tell they were going through something. A tunnel? A cave entrance? A gate? Maybe this was the end.

A few minutes later, they hear the old man's voice. He addressed his God. “Lord, open their eyes!”

Instantly they could see. The view was not too reassuring. They were staring at the tips of arrows notched in drawn bows, raised swords, pointed spears. This was not good. I'm guessing at this point the soldiers were not too happy with their boy king back in Damascus. What did that fool, the king, imagine he was going to accomplish by messing with the prophet?

Up to this point, this story sounds like other ancient tales of warriors and wizards and magic. But this is not a fairy tale. It is not a story of military folly or magic or romance. It's theology. The story sets up a profound moral lesson.

The King of Israel surveying the band of enemy warriors imprisoned in his town square and says to the prophet Elisha. “Shall I kill them? Shall I obliterate them?”

Imagine for a minute that Elisha was not there. Imagine the king asked you what to do. And your job is to tell the king God's will for this moment. What did God want the king to do?

Remember these Damascus soldiers were part of an army that had been practicing naked aggression. Completely without provocation, they have been crossing Israel's borders aiming to do harm and steal stuff. They came from a nation that had been warring with Israel off and on for generations.

These warriors had been captured on an evil, deadly mission. What should the king do with them? What was God's will?

Among the young people I talk to, the label atheist means a commitment to honesty, justice, and compassion. When they call themselves atheist they are announcing their refusal to agree with the institutional church when it damages people or advocates error. It is a sign that they regard human well-being as a higher value than any dogma, including religious dogma.

So I respect my young atheist friends. But sometimes, when I'm feeling a little grumpy, I challenge them. “Just what kind of atheist are you? The most famous atheists in my life time have not been very nice people.”

When they think of atheists, they think of people like Hemant Mehta who writes a blog called “The Friendly Atheist.” Mehta is generally polite. He seems like a nice guy. But I think of atheists, I think of people like Mao Tse-Tung, Stalin and Pol Pot. Mao killed fifty million Chinese in an engineered famine. Stalin killed twenty million people he didn't think were good for the Soviet Union. Pol Pot thought atheism was the best philosophy for his country and killed twenty-five percent of the population in his zeal to prove that his ideas were the very best.

My young friends get impatient at this point. They would never kill people. They would never approve of the kind of barbarity practiced by Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot.

Still my questions are not irrelevant. Historically speaking, atheism has not always been a bright, shining pursuit of truth and justice. Sometimes it is the name of a dark and evil force.

With this as background, let's go back to our story.

What was God's will for the king of Israel as he surveyed a town square full of dangerous soldiers from an enemy country? What would God do with all these bad men?

This is a tricky question. Our gut tells us that mercy is the right answer, but someone else might argue that God is a stern judge and king. And they could quote Bible verses in support of the king's idea of killing the captives.

They could quote Moses' words about Sihon, King of Hesbon:

And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain. Deuteronomy 2:34

Or the report in Joshua about what God's directions regarding the people of Jericho:

And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword. Joshua 6:21 (There was an exception made for Rahab and her family, but other than that . . . )

Or the instructions of the Prophet Samuel to King Saul regarding Amalekites:

Now go and smite the Amalekites, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. 1 Samuel 15:3

If you based your advice to the king on these Bible verses, what would you say? What would be the right answer to the question, “Shall I smite them?”

It is these verses that cause our young atheist friends to challenge us when we say we believe in God. They want to know, just what God do we believe in? The God of hell fire and capital punishment and genocide and the stoning of brides who cannot prove their virginity on the day of their marriage? Is that the God we believe in? Do we believe in the God of Westboro Baptist Church and Mark Driscoll?

It is entirely fair that our young friends ask us this question.

And what is our answer?

We believe in the God of Elisha. Elisha told the king, “If you had captured these soldiers with your own sword, you would remember the rules of war. Captives must be fed. So feed them. Give them something to drink. And send them home to their master.”

The king did what the prophet said. And the story ends—they lived happily ever after. Well, not in those words, but that's the sentiment. Syria quit raiding Israel. Peace was created.

When I tell my young atheist friends about the God I believe in, this is the God I tell them about—the God of peace. The God who forgives. The God whose grand goal is not retribution but reconciliation. The God whose supreme purpose is not appropriate punishment but glorious healing.

The genocide of the Old Testament is not God's ideal. The commandments in the Old Testament to kill people—whether in genocide, stoning for adultery, or blessing soldiers who commit atrocities—these commands do not express the character and purpose of God. Rather they reflect the brokenness of humanity. The highest virtue of religion is to heal that brokenness, to cultivate a vision that is higher and more noble than retribution, condemnation and punishment.

When we say we believe in God, we are declaring our allegiance to God's program to move people away from brokenness toward wholeness, away from anger and alienation toward reconciliation and peace, away from wickedness to goodness, away from fierceness to harmony.

My guess is when we get this right, when we as a people speak the language of justice and peace and live in harmony with the principles of righteousness, our young atheist friends will see what we are doing and will hear what we are saying, and they will say, “Yes. That's what we meant.”

This past Wednesday, I was back at my favorite table on Green Lake Way eating my vegeburger, working on my sermon when another group of teenagers came by. I could hear them coming. They were asking other diners along the sidewalk for a dollar and sixty cents. They needed that much to buy a pizza. No one was buying.

They got to where I was sitting. “Hey, any chance you could give us a dollar and sixty cents? We're that much short for a pizza.”

It was a test. I had wanted the teenagers who walked past the week before, talking about atheism to stop and let me join the conversation. I love getting all philosophical with kids. But, of course, they didn't stop.

Instead the kids who stop are people who are hungry and are looking for money not wisdom. So I walked next door with the kids, had them place their order and put their money on the counter, then I added a couple of bucks to their pile so they could get their pizza.

I didn't know their stories. I don't know how they ended up that afternoon on Green Lake Way, a dollar and sixty cents short the cost of medium pizza. But I had money in my pocket and food in my belly. And the God I believe in says when we have sufficient, we are called to share.

We believe in God, the God of Elisha. The God who helps and heals, who forgives and reconciles, the God who creates peace and harmony. The more deeply we believe in this God and the more consistently we live in harmony with God's glorious ideals, the easier it will be for our young atheist friends to join and say, “We, too, believe.”

Really, Really Smart

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church

Sabbath, February 1, 2014

Synopsis: Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, was the most successful man of his era. Bill Gates, President Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Pope Francis all rolled into one. Naturally, he was impressed with himself. Then he had a dream. Then he lost his mind. Then he lost everything. Then he became wise.

Based on Daniel 4.

King Nebuchadnezzar was really, really smart. He just wasn't quite smart enough.

His armies were unstoppable. They conquered the entire region of Mesopotamia and Palestine. Nebuchadnezzar filled his capital city, Babylon, with gold and grand architecture.

He funded the arts and philosophy and math and science.

He imported the royalty of every nation and tribe in the region and gave them significant jobs in his government. This worked both to unite the empire and to bring into its very heart the unique strengths of all these various cultures.

Nebuchadnezzar was really, really smart.

As if all these achievements weren't evidence enough, there's this: Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon wrote an entire chapter in the Bible. Can you believe that?

In the Bible, the King of Babylon is usually pictured as the ultimate bad guy. The prophet Isaiah paints such a diabolical picture of the King of Babylon that Christian commentators have long used it as a description of the devil himself. In the book of Revelation, Babylon stands for the forces of evil that attempt to obliterate God's people.

When I pastored in Babylon, New York, back in the 80s, the largest church in town was a Presbyterian Church. It was a grand, classic building with a towering white steeple on Main Street. Members there told me they had a hard recruiting quality pastoral candidates, because no self-respecting Presbyterian minister wanted to pastor in Babylon!

Still, in spite of all this, the prophet Daniel features a document written by Nebuchadnezzar as chapter four of his book.

(This fact should be a sufficient rebuke to those who imagine that God speaks only through “approved channels.” The current president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Elder Ted Wilson, once said publicly that Adventists should read only Adventist books. It was a profoundly wrong statement. He appears to have moved away from that kind of thinking or at least he no longer repeats it in his sermons. God speaks through all kinds of people including the good people of Babylon!)

Daniel Four begins:

King Nebuchadnezzar to the people of every race and nation and language throughout the world: "Peace and prosperity to you! I want you all to know about the miraculous signs and wonders the Most High God has performed for me.

In this document Nebuchadnezzar speaks from personal experience. He is not writing mere theological theory.

It's easy for Christians to get caught up in theoretical discussions. The older I get the less I care about the debates that roil theological circles. I am keenly interested in hearing how spiritual life is working for you. Last week when I talked to you about contemplative prayer, I drew on my own experience. There is a book making its rounds among Adventists which is severely critical of contemplative prayer. It's a silly book. The author knows nothing about contemplative prayer. Not directly. He has read a few books. It's like a monk writing about romance, someone who has never had kids writing a parenting book, a tone deaf person writing music criticism.

Nebuchadnezzar was really, really smart. In addition he had immediate access to the smartest, most highly educate people of his day. But still he wasn't quite smart enough. So God decided to complete his education.

Here's what happened:

I, Nebuchadnezzar, was living in my palace in comfort and prosperity. But one night I had a dream that frightened me; I saw visions that terrified me as I lay in my bed. So I issued an order calling in all the wise men of Babylon, so they could tell me what my dream meant.

That would have been standard operating procedure in that society. Dreams were considered significant. There was an entire industry of dream interpretation. Nebuchadnezzar continues:

When all the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and fortune-tellers came in, I told them the dream, but they could not tell me what it meant.

If you're familiar with the stories in the Book of Daniel, this sounds familiar. Once before, the wise men, astrologers and soothsayers had been stumped and Daniel had to be called in. That first time Nebuchadnezzar could not even remember the details of his dream. He demanded that these experts come up with both the dream and its interpretation—an obvious impossibility. At the last minute, just before Nebuchadnezzar has the entire corp of astrologers and soothsayers executed, Daniel finds out about the situation and saves the day.

This time, the king tells the wise men the details of his dream. And this time, it's those very details that render Nebuchadnezzar's wise men mute. The dream is unmistakably bad news. And you did not give Nebuchadnezzar bad news. And live to tell about it. So the kings wise men mumbled their apologies. They could not interpret the dream.

So finally Daniel is called in. Again, Nebuchadnezzar recounts his dream. He saw a massive, spreading tree. Animals and people found shelter in its shade. Its fruit fed the entire world. The top of the tree scraped against heaven. The branches spread across the entire world. It was a grand, munificent scene.

So far, so good. But the dream is not finished.

Next, as I lay there dreaming, I saw a watcher and a holy one coming down from heaven. The messenger shouted, "Cut down the tree and lop off its branches! Shake off its leaves and scatter its fruit! Chase the wild animals from its shade and the birds from its branches. But leave the stump and the roots in the ground, bound with a band of iron and bronze and surrounded by tender grass. Now let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and let him live with the wild animals among the plants of the field. For seven periods of time, let him have the mind of a wild animal instead of the mind of a human. For this has been decreed by the watchers and the holy ones, so that everyone may know that the Most High rules over the kingdoms of the world. He gives them to anyone he chooses--even to nobodies.

You don't have to be an expert in dream interpretation to see that this dream is bad news. The wise men listened in dumbfounded silence. When the king pressed them for an interpretation, they hung their heads. They muttered excuses. They cannot tell the king what it means. So Nebuchadnezzar summons Daniel. He repeats the dream and Daniel goes pale. He is stunned, speechless. The king sees it and encourages him, using his Babylonian name,

'Belteshazzar, don't be alarmed by the dream and what it means.'

Finally, Daniel pulls himself together.

I wish this dream applied to your enemies, my lord!

The tree you saw growing very tall and strong, reaching high into the heavens for all the world to see, that tree with fresh green leaves and fruit for all to eat, that tree which sheltered animals and provided nesting sites for birds, that tree, Your Majesty, is you. For you have grown strong and great; your greatness reaches up to heaven, and your rule to the ends of the earth.

This sounds good, but you know the dream doesn't stop there.

You saw a watcher and a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, "Cut down the tree and destroy it. But leave the stump and the roots in the ground, bound with a band of iron and bronze and surrounded by tender grass. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven. Let him live with the animals of the field for seven times.

Here is what the dream means, Your Majesty: You will be driven from human society, and you will live in the fields with the wild animals. You will eat grass like a cow, and you will be drenched with the dew of heaven. Seven times will pass while you live this way, until you learn that the Most High rules over the kingdoms of the world and gives them to anyone he chooses. But the stump and roots of the tree were left in the ground. This means that you will receive your kingdom back again when you have learned that heaven rules.

No wonder Daniel went pale when he heard the dream. Can you imagine telling an absolute, divine-right king, “You are going to go crazy. You will be deposed from your throne!” Men were commonly killed for far less than that.

Daniel does stop there. He offered the king some advice. The king was smart. Really, really smart. But not smart enough. Daniel provides the missing insight:

Stop sinning and do what is right. Break from your wicked past and be merciful to the poor. Perhaps then you will continue to prosper.'

One of the vital missions of the church is to speak to those in power and urge them to stop sinning and do right, especially for the weak and lowly ones.

I was troubled to read this week a characterization the farm bill that was passed this week in the House. The bill cut food stamp benefits and left in place the massive farm subsidies which go principally to wealthy corporations. That is wrong. Christians should speak forcefully against the use of government to redistribute wealth to the wealthy. That is a misuse of government.

To his credit, Nebuchadnezzar did not have Daniel executed. But neither did he take Daniel's advice.

Nebuchadnezzar continues with his story.

Twelve months later I was taking a walk on the flat roof of the royal palace in Babylon. As I looked out across the city, I said, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?”

While these words were still in my mouth, a voice called down from heaven, 'O King Nebuchadnezzar, this message is for you! You are no longer ruler of this kingdom. You will be driven from human society. You will live in the fields with the wild animals, and you will eat grass like a cow. Seven times will pass over you, until you learn that the Most High rules over the kingdoms of the world and gives them to anyone he chooses.'

"That very same hour the judgment was fulfilled, and I was driven from human society. I ate grass like a cow and was drenched with the dew of heaven. I lived this way until my hair was as long as eagles' feathers and my nails were like birds' claws.

For seven years Nebuchadnezzar was literally out to pasture. I imagine it was a walled area, the best asylum that could be provided. Still, it was a prison. For seven years, Nebuchadnezzar lived as a ward of the state. No authority. No freedom. Did he realize he was crazy? I don't know.

After this time had passed, I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up to heaven. My sanity returned, and I praised and worshiped the Most High and honored the one who lives forever. His rule is everlasting, and his kingdom is eternal. All the people of the earth are nothing compared to him. He does as he pleases among the angels of heaven and among the people of the earth. No one can stop him or say to him, 'What do you mean by doing these things?'

When my sanity returned to me, so did my honor and glory and kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored as head of my kingdom, with even greater honor than before. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and glorify and honor the King of heaven. All his acts are just and true, and he is able to humble the proud."

There are two morals I take from this story.

The first is that we are to use our powers—our intellect, our social connections, our good luck, our charm, our education to serve. God calls us to act as partners in his work to suffuse the world with grace and peace. Economists, engineers, caterers, attorneys, dishwashers, grandmothers—God needs the work and gifts of us all to do the work of his kingdom. Daniel urged Nebuchadnezzar to avoid doom by turning his energy toward service instead of self-congratulation.

You think you're smart? How are you using your gifts? Are you serving the poor? Really smart people are not infatuated with themselves. They do not limit their largesse to their friends.

The second lesson is to remember all we have is a gift. Money, brains, good looks, social charm, an American passport, health, faith, moral background—however hard you worked, you would be nothing apart from gifts.

When we allow success to call us into stewardship and gratitude, then we are really, really smart.

God will be pleased and we will know ultimate satisfaction.