Keeping Our Message and Allegiance Clear

            I checked my calendar today as I sat down to write, and I was relieved to notice that election day is less than a week away.  I bet that many of you are as exasperated as I am with political robo-calls and junk mail.  I’m sick of ads on my radio and on my screens.  I’m really sick of all the political posts on social media.  I just don’t want my time wasted on all these opinions slung back and forth.  Most of them are just that, opinions, without diligence paid to their factual truth.  Someone else posted them, therefore they must be true.  Personally, I follow the news, compare it with scripture, and make up my own mind.  I don’t like being told what to think, or just to accept uncritically.  Just tell me what’s going on, and with God’s help I’ll decide on my own what I think.  Each time I see a shared political opinion on my news feed, from either perspective, I block it. (Not the person who shared it, mind you, just the source they shared it from).  I’ve been doing it for years now, and I once thought that after a period of persistent blocking, I could look forward to a news feed free of political propaganda.  I’ve come to realize that this is like trying to plug a failing dam with your fingers.  Political sources reproduce like cockroaches.  No matter how many I squash, hundreds more hatch every time I turn around.  That’s because people have become more passionate, even obsessed, about politics than I have ever seen.  It gets worse with every passing year.  You can’t get away from it, no matter where you turn.  Every form of media, culture and expression of community life is infested with it.  Few safe refuges remain (though I highly recommend reading old books—what a refreshment to the soul!)

            I wouldn’t want to imply that being passionate about certain issues touching politics is a bad thing, though.  Behind all the partisan corruption, pettiness, and empty theatre (which I have NO time for), there are real issues of great moral concern to a follower of Jesus.  When innocent human life in the womb is deemed disposable at our convenience, when immoral practices are encoded into law, and oppression mounts against those who would freely voice their convictions, when religious freedom is in peril, how can a Christian not care?  The church’s role is to speak the truth even when the truth is not tolerated, to lend our voice to speak for the vulnerable, to display the love and grace of Jesus, and to proclaim repentance and forgiveness, both in season and out of season.  The world tells us that God’s truth is out of season (or, “on the wrong side of history,” as the nauseating slogan goes).  We’re called to proclaim it nonetheless, and do whatever we can to stand for those who can’t stand for themselves.  Truly, to pray, act, and raise prophetic voices on such issues is to be a faithful messenger of Christ.

            At the same time, we need to be careful that we keep our vision focused and our message undiluted.  Our allegiance to the Kingdom of God, to the Gospel, must not be confused with our allegiance to people and political parties.  The job of a Christian is to keep a bird’s-eye viewpoint of the entire situation, remembering that we are not agents of a donkey or an elephant, but of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  It’s essential that we support to those leaders whose policies are aligned with Kingdom values, and call out those same leaders when they promote a different measure that contradicts the Bible. We can never allow any human leader or party to co-opt us fully, because no human party will ever be able to faithfully or completely advance the interests of the Kingdom that Christ has shed His Blood to establish.  He will one day return to take direct rule of that Kingdom in heaven and earth, and He won’t ask us our voting record, or how many inflammatory Facebook posts we passed around.  He will evaluate whether we served His interests to the exclusion of all others.  It’s either His Kingdom, or the petty kingdoms of this world.  We must choose whether we will be friends of one or the other.  In chapter 4 of his letter, James warned us “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” (verse 4)   Therefore, we must be very careful with how we lend our allegiances and our voices.  They must always advance the interests of Christ, and no one else.

            With that in mind, I urge you to study closely those who would be our leaders.  Christians must not follow passively in the current of any given group, allowing them to think for us.  We must think critically through each issue, evaluating the positions of leaders through the grid of God’s commands.  We must be like those Bereans, who received Paul’s message, but examined the scriptures every day to see whether he spoke the truth (Acts 17).

            And one, last thing: as I’ve encountered many people’s posts on Facebook, shared or otherwise, I have been struck with how bold—even evangelistic—many Christians have been in their support of their candidates and parties.  They collect posts and shares by the dozens, putting them up on the internet with great zeal.  Let me just ask this question: how bold, how evangelistic, you have been in proclaiming the way of Christ’s Kingdom by comparison?  How zealous have you been to share the good news of repentance, forgiveness, faith, and eternal life in Jesus Christ? Have you been as zealous for your King as you have your political party?  And if not, isn’t that something you should pray about? 

Food for thought.

Is There Anything We Can Do? Yes.

     Covid-19 cases are back on the rise.  Unemployment is still too high.  In the streets, chaos rages.  Unsightly and profane graffiti defaces public monuments, and statues of major historical figures are being removed, torn down or destroyed.  A political circus makes mockery of responsible governance, and recent high court decisions bring the possibility of severe curtailments of religious liberty.  Add to these the hardships we all experience during “normal” times, and the combination of these factors add up to a ponderous burden in the soul to carry around.  We’re bewildered, confused, and at times just about paralyzed.  We don’t know where the world is going or what to do next.  And since we were already confined to our homes for a couple of months, the stress from our physical lockdown amplifies the feeling of psychological lockdown that stalks us. 

Viewing the rancor and chaos in our cities, I’m reminded of the movie adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers.  During an assault on his fortress by thousands of evil beings, King Theoden cries out, “So much death.  What can men do against such reckless hate?”  He is nearly paralyzed.  His orderly world has been replaced by an apocalyptic nightmare.  Perhaps you have felt an immobilizing heaviness of the soul in these dark days.  It’s perfectly understandable.

It’s alright to retreat for awhile, to rest our souls, seek some perspective, and face the fact that the world has changed.  It has changed many times, however, and our forebears have come to terms with it and moved on.  We must do the same.  True, nothing quite like this has happened to this generation before.  We have little experience in the world upending itself so drastically. But neither did most who came before us.  We must figure out how to carry on living, and I think that our focus and attitude will play a key role in this.  For our own good, in the words of the Serenity Prayer, we need acceptance of the things we cannot change, courage to change what we can, and wisdom to know the difference.

I am reminded of a piece from my favorite poet, Robert Frost, titled “The Lesson for Today.”  It’s a look at the comparative darkness of many generations of dark times.  He warns the reader that it is not good to allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by too many things beyond our control.  We cannot allow fear and self-pity to form an excuse for making a difference in the areas we can influence.  He writes:

We have today and I could call their name

Who know exactly what is out of joint

To make their verse and excuses lame.

They’ve tried to grasp with too much social fact

Too large a situation.  You and I

Would be afraid if we should comprehend

And get outside of too much bad statistics.

Our muscles never could again contract:

We never could recover human shape,

But must live lives out mentally agape,

Or die of philosophical distention.  (italics mine)

I trust you grasp what Frost was trying to express, that we must narrow our focus.  If we try to come up with solutions for “too large a situation,” we will blow our own fuses.  The events that spike the blood pressures of news addicts are far beyond their capacity to influence in any way.  That is what makes them fretful—that gives them ulcers.  In the great, sum total of the world’s catastrophes, we become frozen in place.  We are at a loss for anything meaningful to do.  We point to how badly the world is “out of joint,” and lamely excuse ourselves from taking the action we can take.  As Frost says, we have today.  But in the face of the colossal darkness of our time, what can we do with our today? Can you or I bring light to the world?

To the world, no.  An individual can’t fix everything.  But to our little patch of it, we certainly can.

Take the awful, racial unrest in America, for example.  Injustice, we are told, is systemic, transcending individual personalities and choices. And yet, though the evil resides in an impersonal system that no individual can touch, the guilt is imparted on the individual.  It is personal.  As a white person, I am, by definition, a racist.  This has become America’s “original sin.”  A nation which has abandoned God and the Gospel no longer acknowledges personal sin, but misappropriates the term and makes it sociological[i].  It is applied to oppressive classes and ethnicities, and there is no appeal.  To object, to speak at all, is to prove oneself the more inescapably guilty.  To remain silent is to be complicit.  Say something, or nothing, and you are proved guilty of this sin.  And for this sin, there is no Christ, no atonement, no release. Only penance never-ending. The problem is painted in colossal terms—what can one person do?  The fuses blow.  We stand unblinking, dazed by a crisis far beyond remedy by an individual Christian.

But the Bible rejects the premise.  First, read Ezekiel 18.  It is too long to post here, but verse 20 sums it up nicely: “The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.”   Society is trying with all its might to tell a different story, but God holds us accountable for our own lives, our own sinfulness and righteousness. To be accountable for my own actions, thoughts and words is quite enough of a concern, thank you.  On that basis alone, I am eternally condemned apart from the cross.  It is a tremendous weight taken from my soul to know that, before the throne of God, the sins of others will not be accounted in my ledger. 

On the other hand, I must be all the more vigilant to bring the things I can affect under the Lordship of Christ.  There certainly is a solemn obligation there.  But in Jesus I have an advocate, interceding for me at the right hand of the Father (1 John 2:1-2).  Even when I do fail my King or my neighbor, the blood of Christ washes me clean and transforms me so that I can more consistently do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before my God (Micah 6:8).  I can never stop growing, but I can rest in the grace of Jesus until I stand before Him, glorified.  He supplies my lack.

The Gospel also rejects the premise of this age. Jesus came to reconcile me to God, but He also came to reconcile me to my neighbor.  The hatreds and bigotries of this sick old world have no cure in human ethics or politics.  That is why injustice continues to this day; we can march in the streets, smash buildings and destroy landmarks until the last trumpet, but we will only make the damage worse.  Only in the cross can the debt be paid and the poison of resentment be expelled from our hearts.  Paul beautifully expressed, in Ephesians 2:14-16 --

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility… His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.”

This promise does not deny the struggles of my neighbors who have been treated unjustly for far too long.  It does not give me leave to assume that their experiences are just the same as mine, or that their cultural distinctives are the same as mine.  It does not absolve me of speaking up and working for fair treatment when I can.  But it flatly denies that we are doomed to live in these assigned roles of perpetrator and victim, bereft of hope that we may ever live as one family, worshiping the same Father and serving one another. At the cross of Jesus, we are all on the same footing—all wretched sinners,  for whom Christ paid with His blood to wash us clean, to make us one with God and each other.  As Paul wrote, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

Under the Gospel narrative, am I locked into helpless guilt without remedy? No—Christ paid the debt in full. Am I paralyzed in the face of a broken world, or  is there anything I can do move the needle? With Christ in me, quite a bit, as it turns out.  Instead of standing immobilized and mute at the profound darkness of this world, I can start right where I am.  I can worship the Lord and befriend my neighbor with an open and hospitable heart.  I can bridge the distance of difference and intentionally make friends with those whose stories are different than mine.  We can eat together, and I can listen to their stories, their victories and struggles.  I can grow in my knowledge and love of them to the point that I begin to understand how I can stand beside and serve them.  I can refuse to live according to the mentality of polarized camps of race and class; I can be a neighbor to everyone God places into my life, as in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  I refuse to be anyone’s enemy or oppressor; I will gladly be their friend and servant. And the biggest part of my service is that I point them to the cross, where their sin and bitterness can be washed away—where they can become reconciled to God and with each other as brothers and sisters.  That, my friends, is the spirit of the Gospel.  That’s the narrative I live by.  I invite you to join me.

Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. – 1 Peter 2:12.

With Love,

Pastor Scott.

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[i] Bottum, Joseph. An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America.  New York: Image, 2014.

Braggarts, Blowhards, and Humility

The Jones family recently took delivery of a tremendous bargain we found on eBay: the complete set of The Red Green Show/The New Red Green Show on DVD.  In case you’re unfamiliar, it’s a comedy program from Canada which aired on PBS for many years.  Set in at a ramshackle Northwoods lodge/clubhouse, the title character (a backwoods, “Tim the Tool Man Taylor”-type) and his nephew get into all kinds of awkward situations through their ineptitude.  One of the colorful characters I enjoy is Possum Lodge member Hap Shaughnessy, an outrageous liar who tries to squelch doubts through sheer bravado.  Whenever his frauds are exposed, he doubles down on them.

 I find him hilarious because he reminds me of certain departed members of my extended family.  One of them, a blowhard who had neither the education nor sense to keep himself out of danger, gathered with the rest of the family one Fourth of July several years before I was born.  According to family lore, this great-uncle of mine had gotten the hair-brained notion that you can set off a firecracker between your fingers without harm, so long as you pinch it hard enough.  Others challenged this as nonsense, so he had to prove it by demonstration.  (This was in former days when fireworks carried significantly more punch.)  The fuse was lit, he squeezed with all his might, and BAM!  His fingers were burnt black, and though they remained on his hand, those two fingernails were nowhere to be found.  When the family exclaimed with alarm, he merely grit his teeth, forced a smile and said, “I told you—it doesn’t hurt at all.”

            Braggarts and blowhards – I’m sure we all know at least one.  We might find them funny, or infuriating, depending on the level of bravado they express.  But while they are lifted up as tragic or ridiculous characters, they represent the shadow side of celebrated traits in America: confidence and assertiveness.  The “alpha dogs” are the heroes of our culture, those who charge ahead with an air of self-assurance.  Their followers are pulled in by the impression that these “alphas” know exactly where they are going.  They have everything figured out, everything under control…although they really don’t.  These are the types of people who are on debate stages during election years.  They act as if their solutions are simple and comprehensive, that all difficulties will be cleared away, if you will just trust them to follow along with the program.  You rarely see these people reflective, acknowledging the complexities of contemporary issues and admitting that their ideas will meet with only partial success.  Humility does not build momentum or win elections.  It won’t get you ahead in the business world or in prominent social circles. 

            Though it may not be an upwardly-mobile trait in today’s culture, the Lenten season reminds us that humility is absolutely essential to a right relationship with God.  Humble people admit that they are not wise, just or righteousness enough to stand in the presence of God.  They acknowledge the fundamental corruption of human nature which disqualifies them from His eternal dwelling of perfect righteousness.  They have no strength to mend and perfect themselves, let alone the wisdom to address the complex problems of mortal life with anything approaching real justice.  We are radically dependent on our Creator, the source of wisdom, holiness and justice.  This is why Solomon declared that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Pr. 9:10)  Though arrogant humanity thinks that it can reason out anything, we cannot understand anything independent of the God who IS where all true understanding resides.  Indeed, the merely human understanding will only render us utterly lost, for “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9)

            During Lent, we face the reality of our deceptive, sinful hearts.  We admit that we cannot cure ourselves.  The truth is that “There is no one righteous, no even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God, All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Rom. 3:10-12)  But by His infinite grace and love, Jesus came to rescue us from ourselves.  He took on Himself the full weight of our wickedness, canceling its curse through His death on the Cross.  His resurrection on the third day proclaims the good news that the Great Exchange worked perfectly: our sin for His righteousness; our death for His gift of eternal life.  On Easter we will sing Alleluia for this glorious victory, but during Lent we must acknowledge that we cannot gain this victory on our own.  We are utterly bankrupt and lost, and we must confess our poverty if we are to receive the riches of His grace.

            Our world is full of sinful people pretending to have it all figured out, arguing and competing with other sinful people pretending to have it all figured out.  Election years simply provide us with a microcosm, our world in miniature so that we can view just how corrupt and self-deluded we can be.  The problems we face are massive, complicated, and only worsened when we think we can solve them by ourselves.  May Lent remind us that neither we, nor any human person or party, have any solutions.  Instead, let us find hope in this promise: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (Jas. 4:10)  The secret to the mending of our world is not found in any seat of human power, but simply in the way we relate to the Lord and to our neighbors, right where we are:

“He has showed you, O man, what is good, And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8, NIV)