People in Glass Houses

A quote from the New York Times says it about as directly as it can be said: “You can’t believe the Bible without believing that God hates people.  It’s pure nonsense to say that God loves the sinner but hates the sin. He hates the sin, and he hates the sinner. He sends them to hell. Do you think he loves the people in hell?”  The speaker is the Reverend Fred Phelps, the leader of the cult-like family congregation, the Westboro Baptist Church.  It is an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as: “arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate group in America.”

Fred Phelps died this last week after a long illness.  The street protests of the Westboro congregation continue on.  I am sure that a lot of people have tried to understand the influence this one man and his tiny church have had on public discourse in our nation.  There are those who are probably glad he is gone, and there are those who undoubtedly mourn his passing.  But how you and I go about making sense of his twisted version of the gospel, as well as the relentless protests he and his congregation led, will continue on for a while longer.

I went to the Westboro Baptist Church web page to see if maybe the hype about Phelps’ hatred was overblown.  Alas, on the left side of the homepage is a running tally that includes the following:

            6801 - soldiers that God has killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

         124 - people whom God has cast into hell since you loaded this page.

         218,400,000+ - gallons of oil that God poured in the Gulf.

         8 - people that God saved in the flood.

         16,000,000,000 - people that God killed in the flood.

         0 - nanoseconds of sleep that WBC members lose over your opinions and

feeeeellllliiiiiings

No, unfortunately the hype was not overblown.  Here is a community of folks who claim to follow Jesus venting rage and hate under the guise of prophetic proclamation.  I couldn’t help but shudder to think of the impact the witness of these persons has had on those who are unconnected to God. 

The second tally of people—those whom God has cast into hell since you loaded this page--continues to tic higher and higher as you view the rest of the web site’s content.  It must be reassuring in a perverse way to have such absolute confidence about the eternal destiny of those unknown to you.  The lack of sleep lost over the contradictory beliefs of other followers of Jesus Christ belies a God-like certainty in their judgment.  If it is true, I can’t help but be impressed and horrified at the same time.

Looking for some help in thinking this all through, I was struck by an article I read by Matthew Paul Turner on The Daily Beast.  He observed, “One thing we can say about Fred Phelps is that we knew his God. We knew that Fred’s God hated us, or most of us. We knew that Fred’s God couldn’t wait to destroy the world with hellfire and brimstone. We knew that Fred’s God was seemingly void of a conscience…Fred’s hateful God left nothing to the imagination, and was easy to reject. But for countless American Christians, finding a God who doesn’t hate them for what they are is a long and painful journey.”

Two things we might take away from Rev. Phelps’ passing.  One, whatever you might say about the God of Fred Phelps, you knew what that God was like.  It was a God of vengeance and judgment, yes.  But Phelps was transparent to his belief in that God.  How transparent are we to the God of acceptance, forgiveness, and love?  I hope it would be as obvious to the people around us where we stand as well.

Second, Turner’s last sentence really hit home for me: ‘Will countless American Christians be able to connect to a God who doesn’t hate them for who they are?’  Again, that is also up to us.  Have we found in the God of Jesus Christ unconditional acceptance and jaw-dropping grace?  And if getting to that place was a long and painful journey for us, what then can we do to make that journey shorter and less painful for the people around us?

An Attempt to Reflect Biblically On The Role of Government & Shutdown Crisis

       Jim Wallis is the leader of Sojourners, an evangelical social justice community in Washington, D.C.  Wallis is outspoken about the need for women and men of both political parties to come together and pursue the Common Good rather than partisan or ideological wins & losses.  Wallis knows his scripture and reads them with an eye toward what others have called 'The Hole In Our Gospel'--God's deep desire that his people lift up and provide for the poor and oppressed in their midst.  In any case, in a recent blog post Wallis talked as clearly as I've heard in this whole political debate about the biblical understanding of government and its purpose.

I've excerpted a portion of the blog for your edification.  If you want to read the entire post, please do so at:    
 http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/10/03/why-government-shutdown-unbiblical
I am predisposed to agree with Wallis, but even if I weren't, Wallis forces me to step back and ask exactly what the Bible does teach about government as well as my calling not just as a citizen of the Kingdom, but as a citizen of the nation I have made my home.  See what you think.

"The Bible speaks clearly about the role of government, and that is what really is being challenged here. It's time for those people of faith who want to shut down the government to read their Bibles. …

"This kind of crisis should cause people of faith to fast and pray and read their Bibles. And whether or not you are a person of faith, you might find it interesting to see what the Bible says about the mess we are now in.

"The biblical purpose of government is to protect from evil and to promote the good -- protect and promote. Government is meant to protect its people's safety, security, and peace, and promote the common good of a society -- and even collect taxes for those purposes. Read Romans 13 by the apostle Paul and other similar texts. The Scriptures also make it clear that governmental authority is responsible for fairness and justice and particularly responsible to protect the poor and vulnerable. Read Isaiah, Amos, Jeremiah, the Psalms, and even the book of Kings to see that God will judge kings and rulers (governments) for how they treat the poor. And it wasn't just the kings of Israel who were held accountable for the poor, but also the kings of neighboring countries -- all governments. That's what the Bible says; so let me be as clear as I can be.

"… First, to be hostile to the role of government is unbiblical according to the Scriptures. Second, because of their hostility to government, many of those who are promoting this crisis are also hostile to the poor, who are supposed to be protected by the government. They blame the poor for their poverty instead of asking how government can protect the most vulnerable and even help lift them out of poverty.

"The facts and the faces of those who suffer first and worst from these crises must be lifted up -- and that is the role of the faith community. Already, thousands of children are losing their Head Start programs, mothers with children are losing WIC (Women, Infants, and Children program), and many of those most dependent on their paychecks are now losing them.

"Jeremiah, speaking of King Josiah, said, "He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well." The subsequent line is very revealing: "'Is that not what it means to know me?' declares the Lord" (Jer. 22:16). Of Solomon, the Scriptures say, through the words of the queen of Sheba, "Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king to execute justice and righteousness" (1 Kings 10:9). Psalm 72 begins with a prayer for kings or political leaders: "Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king's son. May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. ... May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor" (Ps. 72:1-4).

"There is a powerful vision for promoting the common good here, a vision of prosperity for all the people, with special attention to the poor and to "deliverance" for the most vulnerable and needy.

"That vision of "common good" is what we have lost, and there is nothing more important in our public life than to find it again.

"For people of faith, government is never ultimate but needs to play the important and modest role of servant. The criteria for evaluation and judgment of civil authority is whether it is serving the people, whether it is guarding their security, whether it is maintaining a positive and peaceful social order, whether it is helping to make the lives of its citizens better, and, in particular, whether it is protecting the poor. To be opposed to government per se, especially when that opposition serves the ultimate power of other wealthy and powerful interests, is simply not a biblical position. Transparency, accountability, and service are the ethics of good government. "Of the people, by the people, and for the people" is still a good measure and goal of civil authority.

"But people of faith will ascribe ultimate authority only to God, to whom civil authority will always be accountable."

Bishop Coyner's Response to Government Shutdown

       The following is an excerpt from our United Methodist Bishop of Indiana, Mike Coyner.  He publishes a regular blog about issues facing the larger church and world entitled, E-pistles.  I thought today's was excellent and so I've copied a portion of it and posted it below.  If you'd like to see the entire post, please do so at:
        The Government We Deserve

       "I read all of the complaints about Congress and the President in our current government “shut-down” and the arguing over Obamacare and raising the national debt. I hear all of those complaints, and I tend to agree with most of those complaints (what a mess we have in Washington, created by our elected leaders), but if we look a little deeper we have to admit that “we get the government we deserve.” 

      Let me explain:  Our US government is designed to create such stalemates. Our founders did not trust government, so they created a government with so many “checks and balances” that it is hard for any political party to take charge and rule (or simply govern). We have branches of government, a two-house Congress, and an active judiciary which inserts itself into the legislative processes. Our US government was designed that way, so it should be no surprise that we have political divisions in Washington, and on state and local levels. In addition to our system of branches of government, we Americans also tend to elect different political parties to control the White House and Congress. Every time we elect one party into power over both the White House and Congress, in the very next election we typically undo that -- and put the minority party in control of at least one house of Congress. We have done that now. We have elected one party in the White House and Senate and another party in the House. We get the government we elect, and we get the government we deserve.

     But it goes deeper. All of the traits in Washington that we decry are actually an outgrowth of the messed-up values in our whole culture.

    We complain about over-spending by Congress, but the average American household is spending 103% of their income.

    We complain about the rising debt level, but the typical American is increasingly in debt (and that is even mirrored in our churches which are increasingly in debt).

    We complain about the culture of entitlement, but the typical American has an “entitlement” attitude (just watch the way people drive over the speed limit, cut off others in lanes, and ignore simple traffic rules – all of that reflects an attitude which says “I am entitled to break the rules that I don’t like.”).

     We complain about the rising cost of healthcare, but most Americans are over-weight, out of shape, and in poor health by virtue of lifestyle choices.

    We complain that the politicians are not able to work together, but Americans seem to be more and more disagreeable and unruly (If you don’t believe that, just go to a Little League baseball game and watch the behavior of the parents. Or watch a local school board meeting and listen to the inability of people to listen politely to those with whom they disagree. Or you can even see that unruly behavior in some church meetings.).

     We complain that our government too quickly resorts to the use of violence and unauthorized force, but our whole culture is becoming more violent as witnessed by the violent video games we allow our children to play and as witnessed by the shootings and crime in both our cities and our rural areas.

    My point is this: we can complain about the government, but we get the government we deserve. We get the government we elect. We get the government that reflects the unhealthy trends in our whole American society.

     What is the answer? I believe it is to be honest about the nature of human sin (a word which we seldom use, even in church). We have to confess that we all are the root of the problems we see in Washington. We have to quit destroying good and decent people who run for office. We have to elect persons who reflect the “higher” American values. And we have to pray that God will forgive us for choosing the government we deserve."

What I Would Have Written If I Had The Time

Instead of writing a front-page article for this newsletter, I am going to put my energy elsewhere. I’ve been praying for Steve and Judy Burton, grieving with them over the loss of their ten-year-old grandson, Ethan, hit by a car while checking the mail last Friday afternoon. I just now learned that one of our beloved saints at St. Andrew, Ilah Notestine, has gone to be with Jesus. I look forward to having the privilege of helping celebrate the life God has shared with us in Ilah. It’s a very big Sunday this week with our first ever Homecoming Celebration and I wouldn’t mind being able to put together something special, preaching-wise, for that event. Sure, there’s also all the usual suspects as well: a new Bible Study to put together, important meetings to prepare for, hospital visits to make, recommendation letters to write, and all the other unplanned things that pastors have to plan for.

So much for a front-page newsletter article.

Some of you have heard this song and dance from either Pat or me before. How it is almost impossible at times to keep a balance between all the important responsibilities that a growing congregation puts on a pastor. When you’re working on a sermon you feel guilt—that you should be out visiting or getting through the mountain of pink ‘please call’ notes piling up on your desk. But when you’re out visiting, you feel like you’re shortchanging your sermon or Bible study preparation. Too many things can come between me and one of the true joys of ministry—spending time with my parishioners who need prayer, counsel, or an encouraging word from their pastor. Deadlines, meetings, administrative concerns, and minor brush fires of all shapes and sizes can eat up all of the time you have available.

So much for a front-page newsletter article.

I had a friend in seminary who was one of the few pastors who was actually honest about his shortcomings in the pulpit department. He told me once that he wasn’t much of a preacher on Sunday morning. He wanted to be judged by the “sermon” he preached throughout the week as he went about the task he loved of tending his flock. He told me that what gave his Sunday morning sermons any power at all was that they were just extensions of what he had been “preaching” to his  congregation all week. I never heard him preach from the pulpit, but if he pastored others half as well as he befriended me, then he must have been a regular Billy Graham or Max Lucado. When the demands are heavy and the time for sermon preparation is light, I always remember what he said.

Every once in a while it’s okay not to have a front page newsletter article.

A pastor’s calling can be a demanding one sometimes. But I’ve long since discovered that most of the women and men I am privileged to serve also have demanding callings/careers. Even the most prepared teachers have to wing it sometimes; even the most devoted husbands and fathers have to sleep through some soccer games and school plays when they work second or third shift; the most persuasive sales people are sometimes left without all the information they need to close the deal. The good news for all of us is that how we go about fulfilling our responsibilities and performing our job duties day in and day out is the strongest testimony to our worth and achievement. The most important work we undertake is the daily effort to maintain our integrity, to honor our word, to treat the people around us with respect and kindness, and to live out our faith in the best way we can. We are called to bloom and bear fruit wherever we’ve been planted, each and every day.

In the end, none of us are judged on a single day’s production quota, sales pitch, student presentation, class lesson, or sermon we deliver. It is who we are before, during, and after each and every one of the critical moments that define who we are in the eyes of God—and for the most part, in the eyes of others. It is an insight we pastors—and all of God’s people—would do well to ponder every now and then.

Still though, it is a shame that I didn’t have time this week to write an article for the newsletter. I have no idea what Laurie will put on the front page

It All Depends Whose Hand It is In

I came across a telling statistic about the two Americas that Brian McLaren talks about in his discussion of the recent George Zimmerman verdict in Florida (see the posting below).  You can understand why there are at least two distinctly different views about the proliferation of guns (and their use beyond sport and home defense).  Consider the following:

According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention a white person in this country is five times more likely to commit suicide with a gun than to be shot with one.

If you’re an African American in this country then you are five times as likely to be shot and killed by someone than to use a gun to kill yourself.

In other words, if you are white, the gun you own for defense poses a much greater risk to you than a  gun in the hands of someone else in your neighborhood.  If you are black, the gun in the hands of someone else in your neighborhood poses a much greater risk to you than the gun you may own for your defense.

Let's make it as simple as possible:  if you are black and healthy and whole then guns poses a real risk to your life in the hands of someone else.  If you are white and healthy and whole then guns don't pose a significant risk to you at all (since only unhealthy, broken folks are tempted to take their own lives).

No wonder people look at what happened on a dark street in suburban Florida in very different ways.

One Nation--Two Very Different Perspectives

     I read a thoughtful commentary this afternoon from a pastor/author whom I respect and find insightful.  He was thinking out loud about the Zimmerman verdict in the Trayvon Martin trial.  He started out by affirming the legal process we have in place in this country, but he quickly moved to the idea that there is legal justice and a spiritual/moral justice.  Sometimes the two are not in sync.  Brian McLaren thinks that this is one of those times.
    McLaren believes that there are two Americas who are reacting to the single not guilty verdict this week.  This is how he puts it.

One America now has more reason to believe that their sons can be presumed guilty until proven innocent without a reasonable doubt when they’re walking down the street armed only with Skittles and an iced tea.

The other America now has more reason to believe that they can get away with murder, or something close to it, as long as the victim is young and black and wearing a hoodie.

One America now has less reason to believe that their sons will have equal protection under the law.

The other America is more secure in its right to “stand its ground” and will be even more determined to carry concealed weapons – and use them.

One America is threatened by the “reasonable doubt” that protects the other.

One America watches as the other America expands their gun rights while reducing protections for its own voting rights.

The other America sincerely believes their own gun rights are more threatened than their counterparts’ voting rights....

One America is scandalized that an armed adult would assess as a threat an innocent, unarmed teenager walking down the street.

The other America is scandalized that anyone would consider the armed adult as anything other than innocent and justified in that assessment.

Members of both Americas are coming together to form an emerging America that wants something better for all Americans. That emerging America wants us to deal deeply and honestly with our largely untreated, unacknowledged American original sin: a cocktail of white privilege, manifest destiny, and racism – in both its personal and institutional forms.

That emerging America believes that the best world is one where people multiply plowshares and pruning hooks, not swords and spears. Or in contemporary terms – one where people multiply community playgrounds and parks, not guns and drones.

That emerging America wants to bring people of all races, religions, regions, parties, and classes together in a common pursuit: a nation and world where there is equal liberty and justice for all.

     I think Brian McLaren is right.  I think more and more there are at least two different ways of looking at everything that happens in our nation.  I think some of it is the fault of 24 'news' programming (on TV, the radio, and all over the internet) which pretends to inform, but instead does all that it can to transform and reinforce the ideology of its viewers.  I think a lot of it has to do with the lingering wounds of race, class, and gender--wounds that we thought were nearly healed, but have become infected all over again.  I think the way politicians put the success of their party and their partisan goals ahead of the success of the entirety of the American people.  A lot of our problems flow from the lack of a shared commitment to the Common Good. And, as you might guess, I think our failure to take Jesus seriously enough--our unwillingness to look through the lens of his life, death, and resurrection--has helped polarize this nation in a way that it has not been for a long, long time.

    I will admit to not knowing the details of the trial--I have not followed the proceedings and therefore have no opinion whatsoever on the verdict that was rendered.  But I believe McLaren is on to something in pointing out that there is a huge split in how we Americans are trying to make sense of these events.

    Prayer seems in order (prayer always seems in order to me).  We continue to pray for peace through the fullest kind of justice.  We pray for the Martin family, for Trayvon's friends, for his church.  We pray for George Zimmerman and his safety.  We pray for those who live in an almost constant fear that they or the ones they love will be victims of violent crime.  And I pray that this leads us to a new dialog about how we might bridge the gap between these two Americas--how we might find a moral clarity that will help us affirm the many things that bind us together.

For the whole article check out:

http://www.redletterchristians.org/trayvon-and-george-a-tale-of-two-americas/

Just A Tree Until It Sprouts An Actual Apple

    In worship we’ve been looking at some of the most misunderstood and misapplied passages in the Bible.  And when the sermon series is over I am confident there will be dozens of passages we never got to.  In my own devotional life I’ve been going over the gospels again with an eye toward the things I can understand and apply—the teachings of Jesus that he expects me to put into action in my daily life.  The fact that this is the third time I’ve tried to go back and put together a comprehensive list of these ethical, moral, and spiritual imperatives is probably an unfortunate sign that I prefer my teachings hypothetical and intellectual.  Alas, I soldier on ever hopeful.

     This last week I came across a warning Jesus gives in Matthew’s gospel against false teachers:  men and women who claim to speak on God’s behalf but end up leading their audience astray.  How can you tell whether someone who speaks of God is a true or false teacher?  Jesus says, “You’ll be able to tell them by the fruit they bear: you don’t find grapes growing on thorn-bushes, do you, or figs on thistles?  Well, in the same way, good trees produce good fruit, and bad trees produce bad fruit.”  As a ‘God teacher’ myself this has particular resonance for me.  And yet it’s bigger than that.  Jesus is pointing out an essential truth intended for all God’s children.

      For a long time Christians have thought of faith as an act of intellectual assent: a life-changing “I believe” after which we fill in the blanks according to which branch of the Family Tree your church springs from. 

      There have been reform movements that said agreeing with some propositional truth wasn’t good enough.  Many of those movements came to believe that it wasn’t enough to believe with your head—you needed to include your heart as well.  They believed that in order to be an authentic follower of Jesus you had to have a moving emotional experience of God’s forgiveness and love.  Your head can be filled with the most profound theology, but if your heart wasn’t “strangely warmed” as well, then you needed to go back to the drawing board.

      Please don’t get me wrong.  Faith most definitely involves the heart and the head.  I used to teach a class in parenting teens and the curriculum always went back to what they called “the think-feel-do cycle.”  How you see the world determines how you feel about that world, and how you feel will shape and guide what you do as you live in that world.

I just find it very interesting that Jesus doesn’t concern himself with the content of these false teachers.  He doesn’t worry about whether their appeal makes us feel one way or another.  Instead Jesus just says, look at what they do—look at what they get done.  If you want to know what is in the heart or head of a teacher, look at the results—the fruit—of what they do and say.

      Passages like this always give me pause and lead me to evaluate my own life.  It’s reminiscent of the old question:  “If loving God and loving people were against the law, would there be enough observable evidence to convict you?”  If you were a tree, and a group of botany students were tasked with identifying what kind of tree you were—based solely on the results of your actions (or fruit you bear)—what kind of tree would they choose?

      I’m one of those people who wishes that good intentions and generous impulses could count for more than they do.  I’m always being prompted with an idea for a quick note, an act of support, a gift of appreciation, a random act of kindness, but I never seem to complete the prompt by actually mailing the note or delivering the gift.  In my mind I’m a thoughtful, considerate, generous person because I’ve felt grateful, wanted to be generous, and have considered the desires of others all the time. 

      The problem is that I have very little tangible evidence of those kind thoughts and helpful impulses.  My heart and head are light years ahead of my visits, check stubs, and trips to the mailbox.  And Jesus warns me that the disconnect between thinking, feeling, and actually doing is a real problem and that I need to address that problem very soon.

Maybe I’m not the only one.  It’s possible that you are every bit as well intended as I.  Maybe you struggle almost as much as I do with following through.  If so, I suggest we pray for each other.  No, I mean you email me and I email you and we encourage one another on a weekly basis.  “Done anything fruity this week?”

         Tim