Candy Bars

Deuteronomy 31:6 ESV

Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”

Moses will continue his swan song for a few more chapters. Saying good bye to the final chapter of his life. Giving God’s people as much as he can so that they might, perhaps, stay faithful a little longer. Such is the book of Deuteronomy. As a man comes to the end of his call, he reflects more on what has been done and what the meaning of it has been. He repeats himself twice hear, and not because he is one hundred and twenty years old, rather because Joshua is eighty. The depth and magnitude of what lays behind Moses and what lays ahead of Joshua is a task of such proportion it is for naught to try and quantify it here. Moses reiterates this statement in verses seven and eight as well. Later as the book of Joshua begins it is God speaking to Joshua and he says it twice to him in Joshua chapter one verse six and again in verse nine. Later the people tell Joshua he needs to be “strong and courageous” in verse eighteen of the same chapter.

This last week a little boy praised God that his friend was able to earn a candy bar in Sunday School. It was sweet and cute. Watching as a boy sees the struggle of his friend and yearns for his success even as he can’t win the battle for him. Longing to help but only able to rejoice when victory is finally won, struck me hard on Sunday. We never know how hard another’s life is. Marvin Olasky recently wrote a book about his father, Lament for a Father, in it he walks through the metamorphosis of his dad into the man he remembers. Dwelling a little on what he assumes his father did while stationed in Germany as a Jew who can speak German, immediately following WWII. How his dad had a passion to preserve Jewish culture even as he would reject the orthodox Judaism.  All this in an effort to understand his father. To understand another man. As he wound through the decades of his father’s life you start to feel and long to give grace to such a fallen man. Even one that only once played catch with his son.

We pulled off onto a gravel road. Nothing but fighting and bickering had been coming from the backseat for the five minutes they had been sitting together, and so timeout, nose against the truck was what awaited the two in the backseat. Made and frustrated he exits the back, firmly declaring his displeasure with me, and then choosing to add some stomp into it he falls victim to the reality that gravel on top of pavement yields. Now skinned up a little and crying he puts his nose against the truck (don’t worry both were in time out), still firmly declaring his dissatisfaction with this arrangement.  Such was the beginning of the morning of errands in Salina.

This is why the praise of one boy for another means so much. Even as we laugh a little at such a silly thing, it is not silly to a little boy who struggles for the marginal level of self-control most of us take for granted. As I read Deuteronomy this morning, I did snicker a little as I could only wonder at the level of meekness Joshua must have been displaying that Moses twice, God Twice, and the people of Israel once, all had to encourage him to be “strong and courageous” at his beginning.

Failure comes readily to the people of God. For some inconceivable reason God picks some of the biggest losers to be in it and then calls the prime offenders to lead it. Broken people all. Grace is needed. The trauma that the person you share a pew with may be known to you, but the depth and scars of it won’t be fully grasped by you. Rejoice with them in the silly little things. You don’t know how much strength and courage was needed to conquer such a little thing.

Cruce, Dum Spiro, Fido

Hanging out

Luke 9:57-58 ESV

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

The green grass freshly mowed looked like a carpet in places with the telling sign of worn bare spots where the dirt and rock showed through. We stood inside an old shell of a church building. The adobe had been replastered to some extent, I deducted because the roof had burned off in the 1970s sometime, and the fire that took the roof, stained glass, and floor would likely take a significant amount of plaster as well. The plaque outside told the story of the penitente a group of lay ministers willing to spread the faith of Christ to barren lonely places where the Catholic clergy where unwilling to go. Deep into the inland frontier of the New World, the San Luis Valley at 7500 feet of elevation in this case, is a testament to their faithfulness and sacrifice, a short ten miles from this spot stands the oldest church in Colorado.

As Christ set himself for his last journey to Jerusalem, he was rejected and cast off by those he would welcome into his church later. His disciples could not fathom a king that would take such rejection and offered to destroy the town. Christ rebuked them and moved on. At this moment we are told of a person who would like to follow Jesus. No promises of glory await this individual. He is not told of future glory, of the crown that awaits him, of the streets of gold. Instead, Christ wishes to make sure he is fully aware of all he will lose by following Christ. He is admonished to count the cost. Christ does not seek to entice him to his service with tales of white robes and white horses. If you follow Christ there will be times you don’t even have a place to sleep at night as your home may be taken from you. Continuing Christ warns others of being denied the ability to mourn for loved ones who have died and even ministries so pressing you will be denied time to say goodbye, moments when you must leave before you are ready.

This is what you sign up for when you follow Christ. The hermanos, or brothers, is what the lay ministers were called in this region of Colorado/New Mexico. It is not insignificant to note that they were a group. Even as the plaque speaks of the “extreme isolation of the Hispano frontier” these men leaned on each other to maintain their faith and their mission. Christ calls us to hard things, and to make disciples, not by holding carrots in front of people but by helping all to understand the cost of what following him is. To many of us have been won by promises of good times ahead rather than promises of trials and work. The American Church is weaker for it.

Like many churches, San Isidro Catholic Church, was already abandoned by 1973. The fellowship simply unable to survive the ability to drive somewhere else. Boarded up and unkept it burned to what my children played in and I observed, walls with no roof or floor, such is the fate of a church that has lost its heart. To have heart, guts, or grit, which ever term you prefer, you have to have trials to endure and survive, isolation is one of them. The church has often failed to meet the trials of ministering to an isolated people. People who don’t want to gather together with those not their family. People to busy with work or school to invite and spend an evening together around a meal and fun. I said it wasn’t insignificant that the hermanos was a plural noun, they survive where they stayed plural, the church failed where they didn’t.

“We must, indeed, all hang together or, assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” – Benjamin Franklin

Coram deo

Schmuck

Luke 19:40 ESV

He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Inevitable. I, as a fool hardy American, rarely give much credence to, apart from Manifest Destiny of course. Trained from early on, by cartoons, comics, and Disney that there is always away for the good guys to win. Even looking back at all those failures that haunt me I persist in examining them thinking that “there had to be a way”. If I had only done this better, or said this instead, or… Yet, what if something is truly inevitable? If something is certain to happen and unavoidable it is inevitable. Thinking of fate and destiny has us contemplating this concept often. Even as we mortals like to argue about God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Free Will, inherent in that conversation is the idea of inevitability.

As Jesus is coming into the city of David, the city of Kings, the seat of the house of God, his disciples are overwhelmed by the momentous occasion that they are allowed to participate in. The homecoming of the King. The moment that the nation has been praying for, looking for, and dreaming of has come to them, and they breakout giving praises to God and declaring to all what they know to be true, that the moment has arrived, THE prophet has come, THE son of David is on the cold, THE Messiah was here and his coronation was NOW.

Thinking he would recognize the immensity of the blaspheme, or at least the need to be discreet in front of the Romans, they request Jesus to quiet his disciples. To this Jesus responds that his praise is “inevitable”. No matter what happens, Christ will be praised. If all humanity were to be quiet and refuse to own their “chief end” then the very Ground would cry out, why? Because Christ will be praised. His glory and honor will be proclaimed above all else. More certain than “death and taxes”, or even another Marvel movie, is the reality that Christ will be praised. After all, Elijah and Enoch escaped death, and I don’t believe Cesar paid taxes (“It’s good to be king”).

Maybe I am alone in doing things I don’t want to do. I see the need, I know it needs done, I don’t want to, so I wait hoping someone else will do it. When no one else does, I eventually break down and do “it”. In the end I don’t want to be the schmuck that made the rocks cry out. Will churches require preachers, teachers, and song leaders? Yes. Will some of those that are most able, capable, and passionate about these things, continue to abstain from worship, rejecting the opportunity to Glorify God in this way? Yes. What about the rest of us? How many men choose not to sing, allowing the worship to continue, but robbing worship of the POWER of a strong base? Tempting the rocks. Yet, the alto’s step in and try, never quite as good though.

When something is inevitable the question is really, are you the schmuck that made the inferior creation do your job? God’s people will be led in worship. God’s people will be taught. The question is, how many schmucks are there?

Coram deo

A Quick Reply

Deuteronomy 6:4 ESV

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

Definition is always crucial. As God was seeking his people and establishing the framework of their existence as something Holy and set apart, he begins with defining himself so that his people can know how they are to define themselves. This dominate statement is one that hangs on Jewish doorposts and is even used by Christ in defining the “Greatest commandment”. It is this verse that helps the church to understand the Trinity. In the absence of this verse there is no need for such a difficult doctrine as the trinity. In it we learn that even though God is simple he is infinitely more complex than we have hope of comprehending and fully mastering.

This last Saturday I was working with an older gentleman and we were talking. The conversation comes around to church and at this point I am taken aback. I often, foolishly, think others understand basic church history. Yet, this well thought, articulate, individual says “this is what I think, there is one God; why do we have so many churches?” My mind starts racing. How much of an answer does he want? Are we talking Christian churches verse Muslim, Christian denominations, Hindu Temples verse Jewish temples, Protestant vs Catholic? The question is so simple and yet answering it can quickly become unwieldy.

The simplest and most fundamental answer to this question is sin. Why do we not see God and worship him as we ought? Sin. Our depravity hides God from us and hinders us from obeying him. Cain does not worship God correctly because of sin and then in sin destroys the one who is worshiping correctly. In sin Peter separates from the Gentiles in Antioch and starts to form two churches one Jewish the other Gentile. Paul confronts him and in humility he publicly acknowledges his error (Galatians 2:11-12). This conquering of inborn personal sin is something that is required to maintain the unity of the church. When it doesn’t occur, new churches are formed. This refusal to repent of sin when you choose to depart from the way is how we come to the Arian controversy that divides the church in the fourth century. Much later we find it in the division of the Reformation as the powerful Catholic Church refused to do what Peter did and see how they had left the faith repenting of their error.

This answer is correct but it is not true all the time. For instance, why is there a “Tenth Presbyterian Church” in Philadelphia? A lot of people need a lot of churches. You can only get so big before you are no longer functional as a church and are actually functioning as a temple instead. Even in a small community of one thousand people, you must have a few churches simply to make sure people are growing and maturing in their faith, requires intimate interaction. “How’s it going?” I asked my sister, after answering she asked me how work was going. That has become a tough question for me. I responded by asking if she could give me a good way to measure the spiritual growth of an individual and then aggregate that over the whole. Left with metrics that really don’t correlate to the question, it is hard to answer.  To answer it well you have to be intimate with the congregation. To a point that you can know the struggles and errors that are being made.

Why are their so many churches in Lincoln, given that God is one? Sin and size. Mostly it is simply sin. Even when size would dictate a need for a new church it Sin, often, that functions as the impetus to dividing a church so it can better function as the family of God that it is. Even as family reunions may be fun, smaller intimate groups of family, function better to meet the needs of those in them.

How did I answer my friend? I would like to say it was with such a well thought, theologically astute answer. But well thought answers require much thinking not spur of the moment. I answered the best I could with such notice. And now that I have thought more, I get to send an email. Don’t be afraid to have theologically rich conversation and then think, so you can give a more reasoned reply. God is gracious and, if they really care, they will be also.

Coram Deo

Whole Hearted Failure

Psalm 119:1-3 ESV

Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD!

Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart,

Who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways!

I turned and looked at Kelly and told her “I think if we can get our kids to read the bible every year, they’ll be okay.” Obviously, a lot can happen, it does “rain on the just and the unjust” but if my kids are reading their bible every year, and continue to do so, they’ll be okay. I say this because of my greatest worry as a parent is that my children would grow up to reject God and his word. They will sin a lot in their lives. They will fall and have to get back up. They will turn away and have to repent. They will say mean and nasty things, and have to say “I’m sorry”. They will have to forgive those who don’t want forgiveness. They will have to help those who have hurt them deeply. All of this repentance, grace, and mercy is bolstered and buttressed by THE word of GOD.

Many survive on less. Many find a verse with some commentary enough to sustain them through their day, their week, and eventually their year. This level of spiritual anorexia only has the effect of making anorexic Christians. As if the old maxim were true that “A verse a day keeps the devil away”. What though, of the abundant life. The fullness that we are promised in Christ? A verse a day will never suffice to create in us a FULL-figured Christianity. Our communities will be left with skeletons with skin on them, rather than robust, loving neighbors.

The bible reading plan that I use takes sections from different parts (Old Testament, Wisdom Literature, New Testament) of the bible to help work your way through the entire bible without losing heart in the Pentateuch. And after five days I came to the end of Psalm 119. A song of 22 different sections each of eight verses. All dedicated to one thing, God's word. To help you as you read through this psalm I recommend lightly underlining every time the author references it in some form. The Law of God, Your law, Your testimonies, Your precepts, your statues, your commandments. The author seems to rejoice in the myriad of ways he can tell God of how great this book is and how wonderful it is for him. And yet when it is divided into five days of reading it is easy to lose sight of the Gospel intrinsic in it. As all of God’s word points to Christ a poem 176 verses long expressing love of the word of God it should be evident the Gospel is present in this Psalm if anywhere!

It begins with the blessing on the blameless, on those who keep the law and walk in it with their whole heart. Those “who do no wrong but walk in his ways” are blessed and lifted up. The gospel begins with bad news. This isn’t you. I know, because it isn’t me either. Who among us is such a sterling example of human virtue? No, we are those who stand condemned and are not only NOT blessed but are cursed! This though is not where the Psalm stops. As the author persists in his endeavor of devotion, he calms to the same revelation that we do. In examining and praising the Law, testimonies, precepts, etc.… he cries out at the end in verse 176 “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.” Only God could save him. Only the shepherd can find this lost sheep. He may have rejected the commandments for a time, he may have not chosen to hearken to the voice of the shepherd for a time. But the commandment has not left his heart, and so he cries out to the one who can save him. The one whose word he loves.

Let us join such a cry and stay the course as we read and love the word. Let us dine on a full table, not content with a breakfast of lettuce to sustain our lives.

Coram deo.