Outsiders and insiders

Outline for conversation at the weekend retreat of North Hill Adventist Fellowship

Acts 10.

In Caesarea there lived a Roman army officer* named Cornelius, who was a captain of the Italian Regiment. He was a devout, God-fearing man, as was everyone in his household. He gave generously to the poor and prayed regularly to God. One afternoon about three o'clock, he had a vision in which he saw an angel of God coming toward him. "Cornelius!" the angel said. Cornelius stared at him in terror. "What is it, sir?" he asked the angel. And the angel replied, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have been received by God as an offering! Now send some men to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. He is staying with Simon, a tanner who lives near the seashore. And he will tell you what to do."

(Last phrase not in “preferred” manuscripts.)

Note that in this story the angel visits Cornelius because of his goodness not in spite of his badness. He had learning to do. His life was going to change. Still, the place where he enters the story is a good place. He moves from good to better, not bad to good.

Acts 19

While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior regions until he reached Ephesus, on the coast, where he found several believers (Gk: disciples). "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" he asked them. "No," they replied, "we haven't even heard that there is a Holy Spirit."

These guys had never even heard of the Holy Spirit, but they are called “disciples.” There was more for them, but what they had was not condemned or ridiculed. Where they were was good. Paul had something better. The "something better" included the good stuff they already possessed.

Have you been part of a religious community other than Seventh-day Adventist? If so, name it (them).

What commendable elements are there in that (those) communities?

Jesus make a startling statement about the relative goodness of pagan societies:

"What sorrow awaits you, Korazin and Bethsaida! For if the miracles I did in you had been done in wicked Tyre and Sidon, their people would have repented of their sins long ago, clothing themselves in burlap and throwing ashes on their heads to show their remorse. Matthew 11:21

"The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of Sheba will also stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for she came from a distant land to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Now someone greater than Solomon is here—but you refuse to listen. Matthew 12:41-42

Luke 10: The Good Samaritan. The good guy in the story is not Jewish.

Some Lessons: God is active across the world, not in just one single “right” community. Belonging to the right group is not enough. Evangelism--declaring truth as we see it and inviting others to join us-- is a good thing. It does not require us to condemn everything believed and practiced by others. God is pleased with people who still have growing and learning to do--including them and us. God is pleased with you.

Understanding the Bible

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship 9/15/2012

Text; John 6:33. The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

This is a revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the events that must soon take place. He sent an angel to present this revelation to his servant John, who faithfully reported everything he saw. This is his report of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. God blesses the one who reads the words of this prophecy to the church, and he blesses all who listen to its message and obey what it says, for the time is near. Revelation 1:1-3

Depending on who you talk to the Bible is the best book in the world or it is the most dangerous book in the world.

For Christians, it is the Word of God. It is God's mind made available to humanity. It is a source of life, hope, and wisdom.

On the other hand, it has also been seen as the most dangerous of all books. During the last century, the Bible was one of the greatest threats to Communism. It was outlawed in China and in the Soviet Union (for my younger readers, that's the Communist nation that was dominated by Russia.)

Even in so-called Christian Europe, 500 years ago people were executed for translating the Bible into English. The book was too dangerous to allow ordinary people read it. In the last 50 years, some Christians again fought to keep the Bible away from ordinary people. They argued that the King James Version, a translation into old English published in 1611, was the last, definitive revelation of God, replacing the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. They vigorously opposed the translation of the Bible into the language of ordinary people. But they couldn't stop it. And today we Bible translations of all sorts for every kind of reader.

So how do we get the most benefit out of a book, parts of which are perhaps 3000 years old, and the most recent section of which is 2000 years old?

Several of you have asked for sermons on how to understand the Bible. So that is what we are going to examine today.

[Note: In this sermon, I will ignore completely the problem of contradictory interpretations. Sometimes people using identical formal approaches to interpreting the Bible espouse mutually exclusive interpretations. I know of no rational method for resolving these disputes. What I offer here is a guide for using the Bible for the cultivation of saintliness not the resolution of ideological/doctrinal disputes.]

Rule number one: Read the book. All the other rules I mention come in no particular order of importance. They all have a place in understanding the Bible but the order in which I list them is unimportant. However, this rule is truly number one. It is vastly more important than all other rules. None of the other rules even matter until after you have completed rule number one. READ THE BOOK.

Brian gave up Christianity in his early teen years because his father died in spite of his prayers. He became a Buddhist in college. In his thirties we met and began visiting. When he said something that agreed with something Jesus said, I would point it out. “That reminds me . . . ” I'd say, and then I would quote the passage in the New Testament that Brian's comment reminded me of.

Some months into our friendship after one of these conversations, he said, “Maybe I should check out the New Testament. Maybe I should read it for myself.” When he said that, I knew what was going to happen. If you read the New Testament when you are spiritually hungry, the most likely outcome is that you will find deep satisfaction for your soul. God will talk to you.

Sure enough, Brian became a Christian. That's the power of reading the Bible. His story is repeated over and over across cultures and across time. People read the book and discover God and faith in their reading.

To reiterate: Rule Number One is: Read the book. No other rules have any meaning until you begin doing this.

Sunday, I flew back to Maryland to visit my dad. I got into conversation with the woman sitting next to me. She mentioned she had grown up Catholic. Her mother was a truly devout woman, deeply religious, overflowing with compassion and goodness. My seat mate had gotten away from religion, but she had some vague notion of reincarnation.

She said her mother thought that reincarnation had been in the Bible until the Middle Ages, then the church took it out to increase their ability to control people through fear. What did I think of that?

I told her the New Testament had not been tampered with, that we have thousands of manuscripts from way back before the Middle Ages. If she wanted to know what is in the NT originally all she had to to was read a modern translation. Our translations are reliable. Besides, I said the NT was very brief. You could read it all in two or three hours.

I asked a few more questions and was amused. She had opinions about the NT—she thought it used to teach reincarnation—but she had never read it. In fact, she didn't even know it was only a small part of the total Bible. She did not know that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were stories about Jesus. She had never read any of it.

If you're going to get a blessing out of the Bible, the first step is to read it. The Bible is not a talisman, a holy relic, a magic spiritual object you can benefit from just by owning it or touching it.

I am critical of Muslims who make a big deal about the holiness of the Quran but who do not actually read it. I am equally critical of Christians who make a big deal out of the Bible, but don't actually read it. Occasionally someone will strongly disagree with something I say because “That's not what I learned in academy.” Or “That's not what I was taught.” Often when I then ask these people what Bible passage they would quote to either support their view point or to correct mine, they give me a blank stare. They don't know the Bible verses, but they know what they were taught. In the context of Adventism, if you're going to offer an opinion about a theological issue, you really ought to have some idea of how what you are saying connects with what the Bible actually says.

More importantly, if you're going to get a blessing out of the Bible, it's crucial to actually read it.

This is so obvious. It is also the most difficult challenge. You could learn Greek so you could study the Bible in the original language. You could read an entire library of commentaries. You could memorize the content of Bible dictionaries and read all about the culture and religion of first century Palestine. All this would be valuable. Still, unless you have sat down and read the New Testament itself, you are an outsider. Your opinions regarding the NT don't count.

AFTER you have read the New Testament, there are a number of ways to enhance your understanding. But let me say it again: AFTER you have read it. Sermons here at church. Radio and TV programs. Books. Magazines. None of these are acceptable substitutes for reading the actual book.

AFTER you have read the book, here are some things that can contribute to a richer, truer, wiser understanding.

Rule Number Two: For most of us, rule number two is, read it again. Some people remember everything they read. They read something once and get it, all of it. If that's you, you can skip the second reading. But for most people reading the NT more than once is an essential preparation for understanding.

Rule Number Three:

Pay attention to the contradictions. The people who wrote the NT were smart people. They knew what they were doing. When they include contradictions they intend to grab your attention. They want you to think. So when you encounter contradictions slow down. Ask yourself, “What is being said here?”

A couple of examples:

In Matthew 6:34, Jesus tells his disciples. “Take no thought for the morrow.” KJV. Or in modern translations: “Don't worry about tomorrow.”

At the end of Matthew 7, Jesus tells his disciples, the person who puts my actions into practice will have a good future. The one who merely listens but does not implement my teachings will face catastrophe in the future. In this passage Jesus is clearly thinking about tomorrow and is teaching his disciples to think about tomorrow.

In the gospel of John, we discover Jesus had a treasurer who kept the group's money in a bag. They did not empty their accounts every day. They kept money for tomorrow!

Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples' money, he often stole some for himself. John 12:6

So what did Jesus mean when he said, “Take no thought for the morrow?” He did say those words. He also said the other statements which clearly teach us to think about tomorrow. A wise student will not ignore either statement. Instead he/she will give attention to both and learn wisdom from the different perspectives offered in these passages.

Another striking statement by Jesus:

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26

How does this passage related to Jesus declaration that our highest duty is to love God and people? Matthew 22:36ff, Mark 12:30ff, Luke 10:25ff.

And what about Jesus' endorsement of the commandment to honor our parents, even if caring for our parents required us to violate some religious rule? Matthew 15; Mark 7.

These contradictions are deliberate. They are in the Bible for a reason.

This brings us back to the first rule: read it. Read it again. Read it again. The NT is not designed as a compendium of religious trivia. It's not like a cook book or a book on weight lifting exercises or yoga postures. You flip through these kinds of books, grab an idea use it to suit yourself.

The NT is better thought of as an invitation to encounter God. One classic definition of good preaching is this: A preacher is to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted. The purpose of the Bible is not to preserve the status quo. The status quo is usually doing quite well, thank you. The purpose of the Bible is to open us to the coaching of God. As a good coach, God offers us what we do not already have in ourselves. Are you quite content? The Bible allows God to ask, could you do better? Are you discouraged, feeling hopeless and helpless? The Bible allows God to reassure you that he is pleased with you. That he takes delight in the mere fact of your existence. When the Bible agrees with you all the time, you might want to double check and make sure you are listening to the Bible.

Rule Number Four

Another way, another PROCESS for gaining wisdom from the Bible—AFTER you have read the whole thing—is to read a section, a story, a paragraph, a chapter, then sit with it prayerfully. Ask God, “What are you saying to me here? What special insight, what challenge, what reassurance are you voicing in this passage?” Then turn your attention to the words, to the characters in the story. Take time. Spend five minutes just letting your mind live with the story, paragraph or chapter.

Rule Number Five

Another PROCESS is reading commentaries. You can buy books. You can find them online. Focus on one book, say Romans or John or Matthew or James. Read the book several times. If it's a short one like James or Philippians, read the whole book every day for a week or month. Then go back through the book, reading a verse at a time and reading commentaries on that verse. You may find it useful to read several different commentaries on each verse to get different perspectives.

Rule Number Six

The ultimate development of this commentary approach is to write your own translation/paraphrase. After you have read several commentaries, put the verse into your own words. Write your own Bible. The process will plant God's words deep in your mind.

At any point in your process of interacting with the Bible, you can test what you're doing by asking questions like: How is what I learning affecting my relationships with people. Are other telling me that I am being kinder, more patient, more thoughtful, more compassionate? Or are people complaining about my self-centeredness, my rudeness, my thoughtlessness? If what you are doing with the Bible enhances life and relationships, great. If it diminishes relationships and life quality—change course. Change understanding. Investigate further.

If you engage deeply with the New Testament in the ways I've outlined, God's words will take up residence in your mind. Your instincts will begin molding themselves around the skeleton of holy words that you building. You will begin to encounter Jesus, not just in words on a page, not just in ideas and opinions but in the events and people and actions of your ordinary life. God will take up residence inside you. Goodness will no longer be alien. It will be your friend and will flow from you to others.

Hosting Jesus

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship

Sabbath, September 8, 2012.

Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. Matthew 9:10.

Jesus surprised people by inviting a tax collector to be part of his inner circle. Then Jesus surprised people again by going to a party at Matthew's house. The party was for Jesus and all Matthew's old friends.

This was not the only time. In Luke 19, Jesus reached out to another tax collector, Zaccheaus. This time Jesus didn't wait for an invitation, he invited himself to Zaccheaus' house for dinner. And again the dinner included more people than just Jesus and the host. It was a crowd.

It appears that this was a habit of Jesus. He liked to go to dinner at people's houses.

Jesus did not just go to houses of tax collectors, he also went to dinner at the homes of Pharisees.

One Sabbath day Jesus went to eat dinner in the home of a leader of the Pharisees, and the people were watching him closely. Luke 14:1.

In Matthew 10, Jesus instructed his disciples to do their evangelism by going to people's houses. Matthew 10:12-13. We find the same thing in Luke. Don't move around from home to home. Stay in one place, eating and drinking what they provide. Don't hesitate to accept hospitality, because those who work deserve their pay. Luke 10:7

In Luke 7, we read the story of Jesus going for dinner at the home of Simon the Pharisee.

One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so Jesus went to his home and sat down to eat.* Luke 7:36

What do these stories teach us?

First, you are invited. Pharisee or tax collector, good person or bad person, someone with an interesting history or someone with a boring story. You are invited. There is a place at the table for you.

Second, you are called to extend the invitation. You are called to host a Jesus party. Invite your friends. So, if your friends are “normal people,” invite normal people. If your friends are “interesting people,” invite interesting people.

The nature of the invitation we are to give is this: come hang out with me and Jesus. You are the host or hostess. You are utterly crucial. Jesus is always available, but many people do not sense his availability. They do not sense the welcome. Your job is to make Jesus' welcome palpable, believable.

Matthew's friends came to meet Jesus only because it was happening at Matthew's house. If Matthew had invited his friends to meet Jesus as some religious person's house, they would probably not have shown up. If Matthew had sent them to meet Jesus at a local synagogue, they would probably not have gone. They came to Matthew because they knew him, they trusted him. They could relate to him.

Pharisees hung out with Pharisees. So where was Jesus likely to be able to meet Pharisees? At another Pharisees' house.

We are called to invite our friends to meet with us and Jesus. Don't “send” your friends to Jesus. There is not much value in sending any one to Jesus. They won't go. Instead bring them to Jesus by inviting them to join you in Jesus' presence.

If your friends come to church sit with them.

If you didn't bring a friend, look around. There is someone here who would be blessed by your smile. One of the challenges for all of us who are here is to look around for someone who might not feel as welcome as we do. Then go and greet that person. Introduce yourself. You will find yourself more at home in the church if you deliberately look around for someone else to include. And you will be doing a ministry that Jesus himself cannot do, a ministry that he is eager for you to do.

Jesus likes to meet people. He needs you to host the meeting.

You Are Included. So Am I.

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship

Sabbath, September 1, 2012

There is a cat at our house that was not invited. For weeks after she first arrived, I would look at her and say: "Don't get too comfortable. This is not your house. You are merely a visitor.”

My wife would wash clothes. Sometimes when clothes came out of the dryer and were piled on top the dryer waiting to be folded and put away, Karin would come in to find Mama Cat sprawled out on top the clean clothes, her hairs visibly decorating all the dark colored items. Sometimes dirty paw prints decorating the light stuff. When this happened even my wife, the original animal lover, would make noises about getting rid of this cat.

Then Mama Cat peed on the tile by the back door. And on the carpet in Bonnie's room. And on Bonnie's clothes. (Bonnie is our daughter who caught zoophilia virus from her mother.)

I thought, surely now, this cat is finished. This is absolute proof our house is not her house. If it were her house, she would not pee in it.

It is now a year after her arrival. When you come to our house, you'll have to step over Mama Cat who is usually sprawled out on the door mat at the back door. She might open one eye as you step over her, but she won't move. She won't shy. She owns the back porch. And the back yard. And, the whole place.

She managed to ignore all my stern words about her not belonging. She apparently paid no attention to Karin's words of dismay about finding her on top the clean clothes. She made herself at home.

Sometimes, if we are going to find our proper place in the Kingdom of God, we have to be like Mama Cat. We have to reject a lot of what people say. We may even have to ignore some of our own history. Sometimes we even have to ignore verses in the Bible so we can fully hear the welcome God has for us.

Let's look at a famous Adventist passage in the Bible:

I watched as the Lamb broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became as dark as black cloth, and the moon became as red as blood. Then the stars of the sky fell to the earth like green figs falling from a tree shaken by a strong wind. The sky was rolled up like a scroll, and all of the mountains and islands were moved from their places.

Then everyone—the kings of the earth, the rulers, the generals, the wealthy, the powerful, and every slave and free person—all hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to survive?"

Revelation 6:12-17

If you have gone to evangelistic meetings, you have heard this passage. Usually the preacher presents this passage as a warning: Get right with God now so you won't be one of those people hiding from Jesus. Of course, the evangelist goes on the make it clear that getting right with God means agreeing with him on just how to think and live the Christian life.

The division of the world into two groups: the good people who agree with us, and the bad people—the people who disagree with us—does not stay in the evangelist meetings. It creeps into the rest of our lives. Sometimes it poisons our relationships at church. Sometimes it poisons even our relationships at home. We imagine there is only one right way to live—our way. Or, unlike Mama Cat, who completely ignored every mean thing I ever said to her, we hear what other people say and we imagine that we are the unwelcome ones. We are the people on the outside. We are the people who are going to be hiding from Jesus because we feel like we have to hide the “real me” from all the good people at church.

Let's take another look at this passage in Revelation.

Notice that if we take this passage at face value, it offers no escape. It mentions no exceptions.

When the great cataclysm occurs, everyone hides. The kings, the rulers, the generals, the wealthy, the powerful, and every slave and free person. Everyone. The text offers no hope. It's DOOM. Everyone hides because the great day of God's wrath has come, and who will be able to survive? The answer is obvious: No one.

Now, notice what comes next. John writes,

Then I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds so they did not blow on the earth or the sea, or even on any tree. And I saw another angel coming up from the east, carrying the seal of the living God. And he shouted to those four angels, who had been given power to harm land and sea, "Wait! Don't harm the land or the sea or the trees until we have placed the seal of God on the foreheads of his servants."

And I heard how many were marked with the seal of God—144,000 were sealed from all the tribes of Israel:

from Judah 12,000

from Reuben 12,000

from Gad 12,000

from Asher 12,000

from Naphtali 12,000

from Manasseh 12,000

from Simeon 12,000

from Levi 12,000

from Issachar 12,000

from Zebulun 12,000

from Joseph 12,000

from Benjamin 12,000

Revelation 7

So first John writes about terrifying destruction. Everyone is going to be hiding. It's doom and gloom and catastrophe and calamity, terror and horror. Then John gives us a completely, totally different picture. He talks about angels. What are they doing? Holding back destruction. They are protecting—not just God's people, but the entire world. Why are they protecting the entire world? To make sure none of God's people get blasted. According to John they will keep on doing their job of protecting until all of God's people are sealed. Then John describes the angels' work of sealing God's people—certifying them. Marking them. Securing them so they won't be harmed in the cataclysm. John reports that a 144,000 people are sealed in this process.

What does this mean?

This number is not arithmetic. It is poetry. It is John's way of saying that all God's people will be sealed—marked for protection. And that most of these people are invisible to ordinary vision.

Ordinary vision sees famous people, powerful people, working people—the ones who actually generate the wealth that wealthy people control. Those are the people in view in Chapter Six.

Chapter Seven uses a different set of glasses and instead of seeing hopeless destruction, the vision in Chapter Seven sees glorious salvation. Who is saved? 144,000. Who are the 144,000? 12,000 from the tribe of Judah. Judah was the tribe of King David. The tribe whose life centered on Jerusalem. They were an important tribe, a famous tribe.

There were 12,000 from the tribe of Levi. They were also famous. They were the priests and other temple workers. In fact, even to be a janitor in the temple you had to come from the tribe of Levi.

There were 12,000 from the tribe of Benjamin. That was the tribe of Israel's first king, Saul. Not as famous of Judah and Levi, but still highly regarded in the history of Israel.

Then there were 12,000 from the tribes of Asher, Gad, Zebulun and Naphthali. The only thing these guys were famous for is not being famous! They were the nobodies. They were the “joneses” and “smiths.”

Note, in this special vision, in this view from heaven, John does not see one or two people from these “loser” tribes. There are as many people from Zebulun as there are from Judah.

In the second half of Chapter Seven, John uses language that is more understandable to us. In the first half of the chapter, John sees the people being protected and marked by the angels and he HEARS the number. The number he hears is 144,000. Then he HEARS that number divided up, 12,000 from each tribe. 12,000 from the famous tribes. 12,000 from the obscure tribes.

Then John takes a closer look. And when he LOOKS what does he SEE? He sees a huge crowd from every language and people group. It is so huge it cannot be counted. The 144,000 and the huge, uncountable crowd are the same people. John uses two different images to help us understand them. Speaking to his Jewish audience, he assures them that all Jews will be included, even those who have disappeared from human view. At the time John wrote most of the tribes he listed had been extinct for hundreds of years. But John says, no, they're not really extinct because in the heart of God they still live. Then John assures his Gentile audience that every nation, every people group, every ethnic group, people from everywhere are included in God's vision of the future. You are included.

Now, let's apply this to our own lives.

This week I listened to three different people describe their sense of being on the outside. They don't belong in church. They wrestle with a strong sense of being outsiders.

These feelings of being on the outside are perfectly understandable but they are a contradiction of the vision of God. When we feel excluded, when we imagine ourselves as the people needing to hide, we are seeing with the vision of Chapter Six. God calls us to the higher vision of Chapter Seven. God calls us to see ourselves and others through his eyes.

God's people are an astonishingly varied people.

Highly educated, highly respected professionals.

Landscape workers without papers.

People with autism.

People who did drugs and lived in a cave before experiencing a dramatic conversion and becoming an evangelist.

People who grew up Adventist, never ate meat, never did drugs and never were aware of a time in their lives when they were not part of God's family.

God's family includes us all.

In the Book of Revelation, when John surveys the earth, when he looks at the world through the eyes of Fox News or the New York Times he sees nothing but wickedness and destruction. When he looks through the eyes of heaven, he sees abundant salvation. He sees hope and cause for singing hallelujah.

I invite you to spend more time contemplating the heavenly vision and less the worldly view.

John mentions the tribes of Zebulun and Naphthali. They are famous for nothing except just this: When Matthew described the mission of Jesus, he wrote, like John using poetry:

"In the land of Zebulun and of Naphtali, beside the sea, beyond the Jordan River, in Galilee where so many Gentiles live, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And for those who lived in the land where death casts its shadow, a light has shined." Matthew 4:15-16.

The mission of Jesus was to include the nobodies, the people who appeared to be extinct, the people who appeared to be beyond hope. Jesus was famous for the light of love and acceptance, not the darkness of condemnation and exclusion. Jesus' mission is our mission.

Changing Religion -- Questions

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship

August 25, 2012

In two recent sermons, I examined religion spirituality through a modern parable. My parable was inspired by Jesus' parable of wine and wine skins. Jesus compared the vital new spirituality of his disciples to new wine. He compared the long-established traditions of the Jewish religion to old and brittle wine skins. If you tried to contain new wine in old wine skins you risked losing the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be put into new wine skins.

Given my lack of direct experience of of wine and wineskins I talked instead about berries and buckets. When we go up in the mountains to pick huckleberries or out to some local bramble to pick blackberries we need an appropriate container. The container is obviously not the point of our picking. But it is indispensable.

Spirituality—our sense of connection with God—is the point of religion. But the forms of religion—ways of praying and worshiping, ideas about God and the nature of the universe, i.e. theology, rules for living—these things are indispensable in passing spirituality from one generation to another. They are the bucket for the berries of spirituality. As important as the forms of religion are, they are subject to change. I argued, in fact, they must change if the religion is going to stay alive.

A fossil religion—a religion that is unchanged over time, a religion that preserves unchanged the traditions of long-past ages—is a fossil religion, better suited for the museum than the real world we live in.

In response to these sermons some of you texted insightful questions. We didn't get your questions up on the screen last week, so today, I want to address those questions.

Question Number One:

The concept that God never changes is often considered a comfort to many Christians. (The text that comes to mind is “I am God and I change not” Malachi 3:6.) But is it true? Is God unchangeable? How do we deal with stability in our ever changing world if even God changes?

Does God change? Let's look at a couple of pairs of Bible passages:

I am the Lord, I do not change. Malachi 3:6

The LORD was sorry he had ever made Saul king of Israel. 1 Samuel 15:35

Saying God was “sorry” clearly implies some change of mind. God made Saul king hoping for great things. When Saul screwed up God was deeply wounded. God was sorry—sorry Saul had not lived up to God's hopes, sorry that the people of Israel were damaged by Saul's failures, because when leaders fail they hurt more people than just themselves.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8

Even though Jesus was God's Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.

In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him. Hebrews 5:8-9

When you learn you change. You can learn to respond to your children without yelling at them. In fact, you can learn to respond to them without getting angry. When you move from reacting loudly or angrily to your children to responding graciously, calmly you have changed. Learning is changed. Hebrews says Jesus learned through his suffering. It says he became qualified. At one time he was not qualified. Then he became qualified. That is a kind of change. It's good change.

These statements are not contradictory if you accept them as more like poetry than math. 2 + 2 = 4 and 2 + 2 = 8 are flatly contradictory.

“I will never forget you.” and “I can't remember your name.” may not be contradictory. One is talking about the fire in my heart. The other is talking about the function of the cognitive part of my brain. When both are true, the poor guy talking to the beautiful woman is dying of embarrassment and anxiety. He's desperately hoping her name will come to him. Maybe someone else will say it.

Similarly, for some people, “I love you” and “I hate you” are related rather than flatly contradictory statements. The reason for their “hate” is, in fact, their all-consuming love. It is the failure of the beloved to respond with affection and faithfulness that spurs the negative passion of hate. And, if the beloved offers the least hint of relenting in their rejection the lover immediately forgets all of the “hate” and flings themselves back into the passion of love.

The Bible's declarations about God's changelessness are focused on God's passionate engagement with humanity. God loves us so much he would rather die than live without us. His love is relentless, resourceful, stubborn.

The Bible's statements about changes in God reflect the reality that God is in a genuine relationship. When humans spurn God, it riles him. When humans damage other humans, God reacts with the passion of a partisan parent or, in some Bible images, with the passion of a jealous, proud lover.

God is not changeless in the sense of math and logic. He is changeless as a lover, a parent, a friend is changeless. You can count on God. But God is not in a box whose lid we control. God is not a vending machine whose buttons are under the control of our fingers.

The point of religion is to connect God and people. As human culture changes, we should expect religion to change. The forms and practices that nurture our spirituality, our relationship with God, will change. All living human relationships change over time as the individuals change. So the external forms of religion will change. This change is actually predicted by God's “changelessness.” If God loves modern Americans as much as he loved ancient Hebrews, we would expect him to love us in ways that are appropriate to who we are. We would not expect him to require us to become masters of ancient Hebrew culture before he is willing to condescend to interact with us.

If God's love is personal and not merely a “force” or a philosophical construct, then that love will be expressed and cultivated in ways that are distinctive in every culture and every age. We would not imagine that the perfect expression of God's love or the perfect human response was something frozen in time 3000 or 2000 or 168 years ago.

Question Number Two.

Why is prophecy in the Bible?

You may remember that one of the changes I called for in Adventist religion is our use of prophecy. For far too many of us, our focus on prophecy has made us fear mongers. We seldom forward emails that celebrate good news. For example, I have never received an email from an Adventist that mentioned the steady decline in the rate of violent crime in the United States over the past ten years. On the other hand I receive email forwards and facebook posts featuring news of domestic violence as a supposed sign of the end. I have seen official evangelistic productions that featured dramatic portrayals of headlines about violent crime again as supposed signs of the end of time. Logically, if violence is proof that we are nearing the end, then the steady decline in violence would be evidence that the end is receding.

Here is the truth: Around the world, famines kill fewer people now than they did 75 years ago. Wars are less deadly and less frequent now than they were during all of the last century. In spite of the terrible headlines detailing specific killings of policemen, the rate of deadly violence against policemen in the United States is less now than it was 50 or 100 years ago.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that everything is sunshine and roses. But there is much good news. Sadly, many Christians can't see the good news because their understanding of prophecy makes them oblivious to it. They fail to thank God for these improvements in the world. This is a misuse of prophecy.

Which brings us to the question: Why is prophecy in the Bible?

I would answer there are two major blessings that flow from a proper reading of prophecy in the Bible:

First, prophecy assures us that God is looking ahead. And the future is in his hands. Not the devil nor the Illumati nor jihadists nor randomness has the last word. God does.

Back when George W Bush was president, my liberal friends thought he was going to lead America into the Mark of the Beast. I even heard a prophet announce that. It didn't happen. Bush-Cheney were not in charge of the universe.

Now, my conservative friends warn me that President Obama is plotting to institute sharia law or surrender the sovereignty of the United States to the United Nations. That's not going to happen either. Obama does not run the universe.

Presidents do make consequential decisions. Policies matter especially over the long haul. We are responsible as citizens to seek to make informed decisions when it comes time to vote. We can donate money and write letters to seek to influence policy. But when you begin hyperventilating because of what's happening in the political realm, remember the grand truth of prophecy: Nothing will happen for which God is not prepared.

Prophecy teaches us not to freak us out at the impending danger. It reassures us that no matter what happens, God wins. And we win. We are his children, so don't freak out. Freaking out is a denial of the central truth of prophecy. Freaking out is a contradiction of the steady refrain of Jesus teaching which had at its center this command: Do not be afraid.

Second, prophecy highlights spiritual principles that offer us wisdom for life. Historically, Adventists have applied the message of Revelation 13 to the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The focus of that chapter is the use of force to compel people to worship in a particular way. The Catholic Church has certainly done this. There are plenty of historical examples of the Catholic hierarchy employing the force of the state to advance the cause of their religion. The problem with this focus is that it blinds us to the applications of the warning against coercion in religion to ourselves.

Even when we were a tiny sect with no political power, we still in our institutions, especially in our schools, used too much force, too much authority and threat. We thought we could force younger generations to embrace a pure religion by creating an environment that was strict enough, stern enough, to corral their youthful passions.

In doing this we were unwittingly coming close to the very evil impulses warned against in Revelation 13. Now, we have much more power, so we ought to be asking how the principles in these prophecies apply to us. Are we being seduced by the appeal and promise of power?

Let me be crystal clear about a misuse of prophecy. Prophecy gives us no useful information about the calendar of the end of time. No one has ever used their understanding of where we are on the grand time line of prophetic events to provide wisdom for living. Everyone who makes a decision based on some theory of end time events will end up regretting the decision.

If you don't go to grad school because the world is going to end before you can put that education to work, you're going to regret it.

If you build a house or a church or a school based on the notion it won't need to last long because Jesus is coming soon, you or your children are going to regret it.

If you fail to plan for retirement, if you fail to save for your kids college education, if you fail to exercise because you know Jesus is coming so soon you'll never benefit from that kind of advance planning, you're going to live to regret it or you're going to die young.

Prophecy is useless as a guide to calendar-based planning. Prophecy is a rich blessing when we use it rightly: To assure us no matter what happens, God wins. And, secondly, to give us wisdom in the application of spiritual principles in the real world.

Question Number Three

Vitamin A has been introduced into rice. This also is very helpful. It is helpful, passive, easy. A fossil religion is easy, does not take wrestling. How do we make our religion alive, vibrant and one that meets God's purpose in our lives, meets ours and other's needs?

To refresh your memory, I told the story of Dr. Maria Isabel Andrade who changed the farming and eating culture of Mozambique. She got the people there to grow and eat a different kind of sweet potato that provided Vitamin A. Across that region of Africa Vitamin A deficiency had been causing kids to die. Her work led to a markedly improved quality of life.

I think of religion as a culture. In church we create a culture that encourages us embrace wise habits. This helps children and all of us to live better. Our religious culture creates positive social pressure for us to take in the “vitamins” of church attendance, Sabbath-keeping, Bible-reading, exercise, healthy eating, carefulness in entertainment, the practice of systematic generosity, rejection of drugs.

I argued that every generation needs to rethink how to embody spirituality in a culture that works, a culture that helps people connect with God and thrive in the world they live in.

Wayne's question is one of the most profound questions we can ask: How do we make our religion alive, vibrant and one that meets God's purpose in our lives, meets ours and other's needs?

This question points in two directions: How do we avoid a mere fossil religion, one comprised of ancient forms disconnected from our world? How do we create a vital religion that reaches forward and creates new forms and alters old forms so it actively supports authentic, live-giving spirituality?

I am reminded of a question posed to Jesus:

One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"

Jesus replied, "The most important commandment is this: 'Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God is the one and only LORD. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.' The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' [fn] No other commandment is greater than these."

The teacher of religious law replied, "Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law."

Realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God." And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions. Mark 12:28-34

The grand central theme of religion and spirituality is our connection with God. The purpose of religion is to help us love God more fully, to love God with our hearts—with our emotions, our guts, our imaginations. With our souls—our wills, our loyalties—our minds. With our brains, our cognitive functionality, our reason, our theology. With our strength—our money, our muscle, our status, our beauty, our votes. This is the heart of religion. Going to church, reading the Bible, praying, keeping Sabbath—all of this is supposed to help us love God. We test every religious practice by asking the question does this help me to love God? Does it help my friends to love God? Does it help my kids to love God? (Some people use the Bible in ways that cause their children and acquaintances to dislike God. This is strong evidence that their religion is broken.)

Love for God is not the last word, however. There is a second word, a second command. It is actually as important, as crucial, and perhaps even more diagnostic than the first: Love your neighbor as yourself.

This is a very stern test of our religion. Does our religion prompt us to love others—Mexicans and Sikhs, Muslims and Catholics, Republicans and Democrats, Libertarians and Socialists—as ourselves? Not that we agree equally with every idea that comes along. We don't. The religion of Jesus requires us to love persons whose ideas we disagree with. The religion of Jesus requires us to give up hatred and condemnation.

According to Jesus we have to love people who believe rape victims are magically protected from pregnancy and people who believe that gay people should be allowed to marry. We have to love children who have been abused and monsters who have abused children.

The essence of a vital, alive religion is a commitment to loving God and loving people. Notice, Jesus does not mention any of the forms of religion. He doesn't mention going to church. He doesn't mention any particular theory of salvation. He doesn't talk about Sabbath-keeping or prophetic theories. He doesn't name any of the particular rules that we list in our beliefs. He names none of the cultural expressions of genuine spirituality.

Instead he gives us the grand, central principles which test all else.

In his own life, Jesus embraced the particularities of Jewish life. He went to church. He ate kosher. He had a practice of intense prayer. He memorized the words of the Bible. Jesus was not “merely spiritual.” He was also religious.

As a church, we are to be both spiritual and religious. We have the challenge and opportunity to create and pass on doctrines and practices that help us live out these two great commandments.

But when we come back to Wayne's question: How do we make our religion alive, vibrant and one that meets God's purpose in our lives, meets ours and other's needs? The answer is we evaluate everything we believe and do in the light of these two great commandments. We reject religious practices that no longer help us love God and our neighbor. We embrace new practices that work in our culture to cultivate love for God and love for our neighbor.

These commandments do not make everything simple and clear. They are, however, the unquestionable touchstones. They remain the final authority.

Asking how our religious practices help us live out these commandments is the first and perennially relevant question.

New Buckets, Part Two

Sermon for North Hill Adventist Fellowship, August 18, 2012

I heard a fascinating piece on NPR this week. Some years ago health organizations made a surprising discovery. They had been working to improve life for malnourished children. Everyone assumed the problem was simply not enough calories. So aid organizations had been working to provide rice or corn. This extra food helped. But then someone did an experiment. They gave kids a vitamin A supplement. It cut the mortality rate by 25 percent! This was a wonderful discovery but it posed a huge problem: how do you distribute vitamin pills to the tens of thousands of villages across rural Africa?

Then someone had a bright idea; What if we can get farmers to grow crops that will provide the vitamins? That way the people will not be dependent on aid organizations. There was initial skepticism. Was it really possible to get people to change their food culture? Changing the farming and eating culture would be by far the most effective way to improve the well-being of the people. But it also seemed to be an impossible goal.

A researcher named Maria Isabel Andrade took on the challenge. Farmers in Africa have been growing sweet potatoes for over 200 years. But the sweet potatoes they have been growing are white or yellow inside and they don't provide vitamin A. However, the orange variety common in North America does.

Dr. Andrade began researching varieties of the dark orange sweet potato that would grow well in Africa. In 1997 she began distributing the dark orange sweet potatoes to farmers in Mozambique. She launched a major advertising campaign promoting the advantages of the orange sweet potato. It caught on. Farmers began marketing their dark orange sweet potatoes as more nutritious. They could actually sell them for a higher price than the white or yellow varieties. Now over a third of the sweet potatoes grown in Mozambique are of the dark orange variety. The culture is changing. People are eating better. The blood levels of vitamin A in kids has gone up measurably. Life is better.

Changing eating culture is very difficult. But it can be done, and when done wisely, it results in a better life. Religion is the cultural expression of spirituality. Religion is the outward, social form of the values and beliefs that live in our souls.

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about religion and spirituality. I compared religion to a berry-picking bucket and spirituality to the treasure of berries that we put in our bucket. Obviously, the most important thing is the treasure in the bucket, not the bucket itself. On other hand, there is no way to gather enough berries to share or enough to freeze for Thanksgiving pies without using some kind of bucket.

Sometimes in religion, we get so attached to our traditions and forms, to doing things the way we have always done them, to doing things the way we did them when we were young, that we damage the treasure of spiritual life for our kids. We insist that the only way to be genuinely spiritual is to be religious like we are.

We sometimes think the best religion is one that doesn't change. I strongly disagree. A changeless religion is like a fossil—a dead relic of something that was once alive. If it never changes it is no longer alive. What is the value of a dead religion, a fossilized religion? You could put it in a museum, but it doesn't offer much for life.

Vital spiritual life always is expressed and reinforced through external forms—that is through religion. We can't really be “spiritual but no religious” at least not over the long haul. And for sure, we cannot pass on to our children and grandchildren a vibrant spiritual life that is disconnected from concrete traditions and habits. Trying to escape religion is a fools dream. On the other hand, healthy, wholesome religion will change over time. If we do a good job, our children's religion will be similar to ours, but it will not be identical.

Once we accept the fact that a healthy religion will change, we immediately face the question: What kind of change is good? What kind of change is bad? When we examine our own religion, how do we figure out what is worth preserving and what needs to be updated?

Jesus addressed this issue head on.

Sabbath keeping was the centerpiece of Jewish religious life. It was the most distinctive, universal practice. It was enshrined in the heart of the Ten Commandments. The Sabbath was so important, the rabbis had come up with hundreds of rules detailing proper Sabbath-keeping. As I often remark, it's vital for us to understand these rules were developed out of a devout, thoughtful commitment to honoring the command of God. The people who came up with these rules and passed them on from generation to generation were good people, holy people.

Then Jesus comes along and blatantly ignores some of those long standing Sabbath rules. People were flabbergasted. How dare he ignore the historic rules? Jesus explanation of his behavior expressed a principle that can be applied across the board.

Then Jesus said to them, "The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!" Mark 2:27-28.

The purpose of religion is to meet the needs of people. God did not invent religion as a way for people to meet his needs. So when we find religion damaging people it's time to change it.

When we find religion helping people, we want to preserve it and strengthen it. When we find some element of our religion damaging people, it is our duty to change it.

What elements of Adventist religion are demonstrably helpful? What historic rules should be kept? What historic rules should be abandoned or modified? What beliefs are good? What beliefs are better jettisoned?

Smoking

Let's start with an easy one: The Adventist rule against smoking. Years ago I was studying some scientific literature on smoking cessation. What factors in a person's life were predictive of success in quitting smoking? This particular study observed that the best way to increase your odds of successfully quitting was to join the Mormon or Adventist Church. The church rules against smoking created such strong social pressure that people who joined those churches and quit smoking were most likely to be successful long term.

The value of the church rule against smoking is the assistance it gives people in achieving their own goal of non-smoking. Of course, some Adventists smoke. When one of our members is struggling with smoking, we don't scold them. We don't condemn them. We feel sorry for them. We love them. We pity them because of the power of the addiction. One thing we don't do is soften our rule. The Adventist rule is: No smoking. That is the norm in our community. And it works. Fewer Adventists smoke than people in the general public. Fewer Adventist kids smoke than is typical of American kids over all.

The rule, Don't Smoke!, is built on fundamental spiritual principles. Our bodies are the creation of God, so habits that wreck our bodies are an affront to God. The centerpiece of Jesus' public life was the ministry of healing. Smoking contradicts that high regard for human health. As followers of Jesus, we have special regard for the vulnerable, the weak, the feeble. We might be able to smoke moderately like a friend of mine back in New York City. She enjoyed four or five cigarettes a year. That amount of smoking would not hurt you. But, of course, the vast majority of people find that any smoking leads quickly to lung- and heart-destroying addiction. Our concern for the large number of people who are at significant risk of cigarette addiction prompts us to absolutely outlaw smoking.

And it works. Most Adventists don't smoke. Most people who join the church quit and never smoke again. For a few people quitting takes a really long time. One of my Adventist friends battled cigarette addiction off and on for forty years before he finally achieved long-term freedom. Another friend escaped a horrible addiction to street drugs. He joined the church, but was still seriously addicted to

cigarettes. It took another ten years after he joined the church to escape the tobacco addiction. But freedom did come. And, in part, it came because of the pressure created by rules of the church. His congregation loved him. He was not ostracized or criticized or scolded. Still he felt the pressure of our religion's public, emphatic insistence that smoking is evil.

This is part of our religion I definitely hope my children and grandchildren will continue. Smoking is declining among educated, wealthy Americans. But the poor, the under-educated and people of color are still being ravaged by the cigarette industry. In places like China and Africa smoking is still spreading like wildfire. Our church is a global community, a community that includes those who are well-off financially and those who are poor, Americans and Africans, Germans and Chinese. This global community is best served by a religion that strongly resists the allure of tobacco addiction.

Our principles of care for creation and commitment to the ministry of Jesus call for a religious rule against smoking. I hope our children will agree.

Alcohol

Our prohibition on alcohol is more controversial in some circles. Why? First there is some evidence that a very low level of regular wine drinking might actually be helpful for our hearts. Second, quite apart from the putative cardiac benefit of minimal, regular wine usage, there is the argument that a little bit of alcohol doesn't do enough damage to worry about. Third, the Bible explicitly allows for drinking alcohol, just as it allows for polygamy and slavery. Or to put the other way around, there is no Bible prohibition on moderate use of alcohol.

So, should we modify our religious rule against drinking?

I argue that even if the above arguments are correct, our religious rejection of alcohol is still helpful for humanity over all. Why?

Alcohol causes about 80,000 deaths and costs $250 billion deaths a year in the US (See CDC web site). Much of that $250 billion is borne by tax payers and paying health care customers. Alcohol abuse is a major societal problem. While it is theoretically possible to use alcohol in ways that are safe, practically it poses a serious threat to human well-being. It is by far the most expensive drug problem in the world. Something that expensive and damaging deserves a thoughtful, conscience-guided response from religion. Binge drinking is a huge problem on college campuses all over the country. It happens even among Adventist students. But the number of kids involved at Adventist schools is a fraction of what it is elsewhere. The Adventist taboo on alcohol helps to protect Adventist kids from this plague. We include Natives in our church family. Their genetics means even the slightest exposure to alcohol is horribly risky. We do not condemn Natives who get caught in the trap of alcohol, but we publicly work to create a culture where it is okay NOT to drink. Being a man, being an adult, being cool—none of these things has anything to do with drinking.

The Adventist religious rule against alcohol helps protect our Native members. It helps protect our college students. It helps protect the large number of people who carry an unknown level of risk of alcoholism and alcohol abuse. This bucket—the rule against recreational alcohol consumption—contributes contributes to human well-being.

Sabbath-keeping

This bucket, this aid to human well-being, is irreplaceable. If Sabbath as a whole day of respite from the demands of commerce and achievement ever disappears from a community, it would be almost impossible to regain its blessings. We can observe this in most Christian churches. Over the last thirty years most churches have recognized that “Sunday-keeping” has no basis in Scripture. Preachers have no warrant for urging their people to protect Sunday as holy time. So, most American Christians no longer keep Sunday. Which means, of course, that they keep no day. Their lives have no dedicated day to the cultivation of spiritual, family and social life. Americans live under a tyranny of unrelenting pressure. Soccer practice. Long hours at work. Long hours working on work even while away from the office.

Sabbath is so precious it is worth great effort to preserve its role as sacred open space in our lives.

Some of our historic Sabbath practices need to be changed. The notion that children playing on Sabbath is a violation of Sabbath sacredness is wrong. The Bible does not prohibit play on Sabbath.

Some of our women need to give up the notion that Sabbath dinner needs to be some version of Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. I remember that shock I experienced as a kid when I went to my Aunt Louise's house after church and she fed me and my cousins peanut butter sandwiches and fruit for Sabbath lunch. It was a complete violation of our family's Sabbath habits. One other thing I noticed: lunch took minutes to prepare and minutes to clean up after. The entire house was more relaxed.

In today's world where nearly every one is working full time, we need to change our idea of meals together so that focus is on “together” instead of the meal. Or we need to make meal preparation itself a community affair. So that people come together and prepare a meal instead of having the designated hostess have everything ready for the guests.

Some of our historic rules need to be reinforced. In our world where everything works 24/7 we need to push back against the creep of “necessary work.” It is true that far more than “medical work” must be done on Sabbath. Police and fire, transportation and electricity, for example, must be sustained 24/7—and that includes Sabbath. We cannot logically prohibit our members from providing services which we ourselves use on Sabbath. Still, especially in liberal congregations, we need to strategize toward protecting Sabbath from the overwhelming pressure of “necessary work.” We must work to protect its sacredness, its openness.

All rules for Sabbath keeping are a bit arbitrary. Still there is decided value in having some clear limits to our engagement with “ordinary stuff” on Sabbath. (See other sermons where I have developed this idea at length.)

Adventists and Prophecy

This is an area where we need significant change. The historic Adventist approach to prophecy led our members to focus on bad news. We often believe things are worse than they actually are. Our prophetic convictions actually increase our fear and anxiety. This is not good.

When Adventists send me emails about the state of the world or post things on facebook. They almost always post bad news or bad speculations. Just this week someone posted on my facebook page a link to an article about the imminent collapse of the American economy.

I couldn't help laughing when I read it. Over the last 30 years I have seen many such predictions. Global meltdown in the next six months or the next year. David Gates, the famous Adventist missionary issued such a warning three or four years ago. Famous Adventist evangelists specialize in this kind of dramatic predictions.

No nation, no empire stands forever. The US will not always be at the top of the dog pile of nations. But after thirty years of doomsday predictions that have failed, I think we would do much better to largely ignore them.

If you want to pay attention to threats, give your attention to threats that have a high likelihood of touching you and your children. Obesity is a far greater threat to our children than chemicals in our soil or Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (which, of course, did not exist!) So get your kids outside and moving. Which, of course, means you need to get outside and move. :-)

The historic Adventist notion of a “final, perfect generation” is deleterious to long term spiritual health. Young people find this idea exciting. It fills them with holy ambition to prepare themselves to be part of special group of people. But then by the time you term fifty or sixty, you realize you aren't going to make it. You are not going to triumph over every “hereditary and cultivated tendency to evil.” So, if participation in God's plan for the end requires a perfect character, you aren't going to make it.

Repeatedly, I have talked with older Adventists whose spiritual life is clouded with the inescapable realization that they are not going to be part of the movement they spent their entire lives preparing for and praying for. Because they realize that after decades of trying (praying, surrendering, trusting—use any expression here you want) . . . after decades of dreaming of being part of that final PERFECT generation, they recognize it isn't going to happen.

We need to get rid of this idea. It damages the sweetest, purest, most sincere believers. God is not waiting for a “perfect generation.” You do not have the ability to throw a kink in God's global plan. You do not need to achieve some higher level of perfection for God to be able to use you as an agent of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Instead of talking of some theoretical “final perfect generation,” give your attention to the perpetual call to holiness. (God does not ask anything from the “final generation” that he does not ask from every generation.) Cultivate holiness through positive spiritual disciplines like Sabbath-keeping, Bible reading, prayer, meditation, listening to sweet music, sharing fellowship with other believers, going to church, contemplating beauty. Protect holiness through the negative disciplines of fasting, abstaining from hate-mongers and fear-mongers. (To be specific—most talk radio, some preaching, some Bible study.)

Fundamental Principles

There are Bible passages that can function as declarations of basic principles. These principles offer wise, reliable guidance as we assess our religion. Here are my favorites:

Micah 6:8. He has showed you O Man what is good. And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Matthew 5-7. Everything from “Blessed are the spiritually bankrupt, because even they have a place in the kingdom of heaven” to “Hating is not allowed” to “Be perfect as your father in heave is perfect” (with perfection defined as profligate generosity) to “Don't worry” to “Doing matters far more than believing or liking (in the facebook sense). In chapter 5, especially, Jesus emphatically rejects the notion that the explicit language of Bible rules is the last word. Instead he points to high ideals that lie beyond any possible rule.

Luke 10:25-37. Love God. Love your neighbor. Who is your neighbor? The person to whom you can render aid.

All religion, our practices and beliefs, prophecy and behavioral standards, our administrative structures and practices, everything can be evaluated in the light of these passages.

We can trust the next generation to do their own shaping of religion in the light of these principles. We can trust God and our children with the future. Our calling, our mission, is to form a church culture where the truths enunciated in these passages become the test of all of our own practices and beliefs. As we do that, we are fulfilling our God-given mission. It will be enough.

Submission?

Submission? A Reaction to Recent Statements by President Wilson II

(Revised from a posting two days ago.)

Occasionally, I come across accusations that there are Jesuits at the General Conference. I am alternately amused by the silliness of these charges and saddened by the spiritual sickness they evince. Then I read President Ted Wilson's (President Wilson II) repeated calls for submission to the authority of the church, and I recognize a theme that has characterized Catholic spirituality for a thousand years.

Anyone who has known President Wilson II for decades finds accusations that he is a closet Jesuit so preposterous it's difficult to give a coherent response. On the other hand, he is following a trajectory described by his father in the Merikay case of movement away from anti-hierarchicalism toward a form of church governance reminiscent of the papacy. A primary reason for this movement is its effectiveness. If your objective is a global, coherent, long-lasting organization, the papacy is by far the most compelling exemplar. President Wilson II's commitment to the Adventist ideal of the remnant—not merely as a spiritual movement but as a recognizable, ordered church—requires the imposition of a discipline that can only be achieved through an authoritative hierarchy.

When Wilson urges people to submit to the church, by “church” he means the top clergy, more specifically he means the General Conference Executive Committee.* President Wilson II acknowledges people may have sincere, individual differences of conviction regarding women's ordination. They may believe their respective views are supported by the Bible. Still, he insists, they must subordinate their individual consciences to the decisions of the church (i.e. the GC Executive Committee which Wilson dominates). This is another baby step toward the establishment of an Adventist papacy. Two hundred years from now historians will be writing about the efforts (successful or unsuccessful) of Wilson II to secure the unchallenged primacy of the Bishop of Columbia in the hierarchy of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (a.k.a. American Universal (catholic) Church).

The teaching of submission as a virtue has a long and venerable history in Judaism and Christianity. Passages in the Bible advocate submission. Certainly, we are warned about the folly we can get into when we reject wisdom from outside ourselves. However, the great heroes of the Bible were not mildly submissive.

Abraham directly challenged God's announced plans for Sodom. Moses twice flatly rejected God's stated judgment on Israel. The Syro-Phonecian woman blithely dismissed Jesus' explicit statement that she was asking him to operate outside God's template for his ministry. In each of these cases, God bent to the will of his challengers.

Jesus repeatedly rejected the authority of the church of his day. He gently chided Peter for acquiescing to the Jewish leaders' claims of authority over Jesus in the matter of paying the temple tax. (This would be the equivalent of messing with tithe policy in the Adventist Church.)

The great revivals in Israel were led not by the high priest but by the kings--Hezekiah, Josiah, Jehoshaphat. On the other hand, Elijah and Elisha modeled principled, sustained opposition to the authority of King Ahab. The high priest Azariah with eighty of his fellow priests confronted King Uzziah when he overstepped his prerogatives and went into the temple to offer a sacrifice. In Israel God never consolidated authority into a single person or institution. The monarchy and the priesthood each traced its roots back to an independent inauguration by God. Neither was the "final word." Then there were the prophets--wild cards in the authority structure of Israel. Their role is filled in our day by bold preachers of the left and right who call for the radical application of principles that are deeply rooted in our heritage.  

Ellen White celebrates the intervention of Frederick of Saxony to protect Luther from the authority of the church of his day. She repeatedly delights in the refusal of the reformers to submit to formally constituted church authority.

When President Wilson II orders people in the church to submit, he is voicing his sincere convictions about what people ought to do. He is fulfilling his divine mandate as he understands it. He is seeking to defend the institution of the church. This is the normal (and I would argue, appropriate) role for a church bureaucrat. Reformers ought to respect the sincerity of President Wilson's convictions.

On the other hand, reformers—other church bureaucrats, pastors, laity—who oppose President Wilson II, are also acting out of sincere conviction. Their commitment to God and justice requires them to exercise all available means compatible with integrity to shape the church according to the vision God has given them.

The Bible offers no tidy formula for resolving this conflict. Passages can be cited in support of both institutional primacy and prophetic (individual) primacy. Frequently in the Bible the formal structure of religion is shown to be opposed to the will of God as voiced by minorities and individuals. Other times dissident individuals are portrayed as mere rebels.

I look for the bottom line by measuring ideas and practices with the yardsticks of the Two Great Commandments and Micah 6:8. Neither mentions institutional conformity as a primary virtue.

*Wilson writes: “The General Conference Executive Committee, the highest deliberative authority of the worldwide church between General Conference Sessions, includes nearly 120 union conference and union mission presidents as voting delegates, along with elected officers, departmental directors, pastors, frontline employees and numerous laypersons.” The inclusion of "laypersons" in this list is disingenuous. This committee is dominated by clergy, primarily the higher ranking clergy.