tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84192679959612993212024-03-13T22:38:38.403-07:00Becoming a Better SinnerMy name’s Ron and I’m a sinner. I'm being changed by God but still have a nose for temptation, like a smoker for a cigarette. So...what's with David, from the Bible? Quite a sinner: killed his friend after bedding his wife. Yet the Bible calls him “a man after God’s own heart”. Somehow God considered David a better kind of sinner. That's what I want to become. Care to join me?Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-78778268298027342122010-08-20T18:15:00.000-07:002010-08-20T18:15:40.289-07:00The Relentless GodWe've been working through a five-part sermon series on the Five Points of Calvinism. (Now <u>there's</u> a hot topic for a California audience!!) Actually, it's been a really intriguing experience, and the theater's been pin-drop quiet through much of the series, except for the time when the theater accidentally started to play their canned music just as I was picking up steam on Limited Atonement. But, I digress.<br />
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Here's what I love about this whole area: it gives us the chance to see the Relentless God who pursues his people even before they start seeking him. Our "personal relationships" with Jesus Christ are not deals we've brokered after careful comparison shopping in the spiritual version of QVC, they are love stories in which a jilted God turns around and seeks out the very loved ones who'd just hurt him.<br />
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It all goes back to Eden, really. That haunting call echoing across God's freshly-ruined creation: "Adam--where are you!?" Now Adam and Eve ultimately had to choose whether to accept the grace that God was offering, but I find it stunning to realize that our whole history of salvation was based on God turning around first.<br />
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He's relentless, and that's one of the things I love most about the Reformed faith. <br />
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How about you? Have you ever been pursued by that relentless God?Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-77389787947291187412010-08-14T21:36:00.000-07:002010-08-15T06:51:18.691-07:00Stupid! (Old Fart on Fixie)I'm preaching a sermon series on the five points of Calvinism. It's called "A Big God". The point being that even though we have free will and ultimately we decide to choose or reject God's grace for us, we still need God far more than we realize we do. In fact we even need him to help us to be able to choose him. Furthermore we simply need Him to be involved in every area of our lives, because without him...well who knows what we might do?<br />
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Some folks don't like a God who's that big or that involved. He seems controlling. They'd rather make their own decisions and deal with their own problems.<br />
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Well, I intended to write this blog post about that series. But I'm going to tell you a little story instead.<br />
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Our oldest son John is into fixed gear bicycles. Fixies, they call them. Basically they're regular road bikes without special gears or the ability to coast. Or brakes. (The no-brakes thing is a key element in this story.) Because John wouldn't be riding his bike this summer he let me store it in our garage. Or ride it. <br />
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Riding a fixed gear bicycle is a lot different than riding a regular bike. You never realize how handy it is to coast until you can't. You swing a leg over the bike and push off and those pedals start going. If you get your feet situated right you pedal right along with them. But if you don't, you've got nothing to stand on: those pedals just kind of push you around until you get settled on the seat or the top bar or whatever part of the bike you land on while you're trying to match your feet to the pedals. <br />
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Riding a fixie isn't hard once you get going. At least on straight roads where there are no cars or other obstacles to avoid. You just ride straight and steady and when you want to slow down you start resisting the pedals a little bit, and then a little bit more and then finally you slow down enough that you can step off the thing. However it's a lot harder if you have to stop suddenly. The really good fixie riders know how to lock up the back wheel into a really cool skid and they stop that way. Then they go buy a new tire, I guess. But I'm not a really good fixie rider, so I can't skid. I just kind of slow down gradually. Riders like me need to be really careful. I also made one little change to John's bike: I took his toe clips off. As scary as it was to be riding a bike that kept trying to take charge, the last thing I wanted was to have my feet strapped to those pedals. I'd probably hurt myself, I figured.<br />
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I commute by bike a lot, so I took John's fixie to my office. On the way I worked really hard to resist the pedals at every intersection. By the time I got to work my legs felt like jelly, but I think I looked really cool. I mean, how many 40-something pastors ride <i>fixies</i> to work? <br />
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There's a big overpass right by our office. My commute takes me over it, and then back again on my way home. My mind was pretty absorbed as I left my office that day, probably thinking about deep spiritual things or the emails I hadn't returned. As my thoughts whirled, my legs churned up and over that overpass, heading down the other side. I'd ridden that climb so often I could do it without thinking.<br />
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Which was exactly what I did. Shortly after cresting the incline the high-pressure racing tires started rolling faster and faster. That was usually the place where I squeezed the brakes on my commuter bike. Right about then that must have I started thinking again, as my brain suddenly realized that I <i>had</i> no brakes. I immediately started doing the resist-the-pedals thing, but after a couple strokes the pedals started going too fast for my feet to keep up with them.<br />
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(Right about now in the story my son starts doing the dad thing: "Oh no...I can't believe you...What were you <i>thinking?" </i>Just ignore him and listen to the story.)<br />
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Apparently those toe clips really serve a purpose on a fixie. I guess they make it a lot easier to slow a bike down because you can resist all the way around the pedal stroke, both pulling and pushing. If you don't have toe clips pretty quickly the pedals get a away from your feet and it's darn near impossible to get them back. <br />
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I had an idea: I would lift my feet and let the pedals slap the bottom of them as they spun by. Picture several people rapidly hitting the bottoms of your feet with golf clubs while you're riding a zip line. Didn't really work for me either. And the unnerving thing was that I was still gaining speed.<br />
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One little detail I didn't tell you is that there is a traffic light right at the bottom of this downhill. In fact, it never really occurred to me how stupid of a place that was for an intersection, but there it was. The street was packed with cars from all directions. And there comes this pastor flying down the hill with his feet lifted up off the pedals. I swerved out into the lane and easily kept up with all the cars. This should be interesting, I figured.<br />
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I'm not much of a gambler, but I quickly figured the chances of catching that light on a green were about 50-50. I feared what might happen if I crashed into a truck or a tree or something. But what I feared even more was crumpling the gorgeous new frame my son had bought when he built the bike last winter. As I continued to accelerate I began to brainstorm just what I might do if the light turned red and I was faced with a delivery truck crossing my path. Try though I might, I really couldn't come up with any good ideas.<br />
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And then I saw it. I've seen a lot of beautiful sights in my life: sunsets, mountain ranges, rocky coasts--but I don't think I've ever seen something as beautiful as that green traffic light shining over my intersection from hell. It's viridescent sphere of hope boldly marking the path that I could take as I careened past the other more-conventional commuters. <br />
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In a moment it was done. I'd reached level ground, the pedals slowed and eventually accepted my feet again and my pulse slowed to something a little closer to normal. It was like waking from a bad dream.<br />
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Like I told you, originally I was going to write a blog post about why I find such comfort in the Reformed understand of a sovereign God who manages even mundane events in our universe. There are those who bristle at the idea of a controlling God who would try to micro-manage the world we live in. They'd prefer to think that they could do just fine on their own. We're not <i>stupid</i>, they would insist.<br />
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I would beg to differ.Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-66631643348714421432010-08-06T16:54:00.000-07:002010-08-06T17:26:01.980-07:00Shooting Straight: What Christians Don't Seem to Get About Prop. 8<div class="MsoNormal">Once again, we’ve got Prop 8 back in the news. For those of you who aren’t from our fair state of California Prop 8 refers to a ballot initiative and constitutional amendment limiting marriage to the traditional 1 man/1 woman format. This week we had one more step in the continuing trench warfare as activists on each side continue to slug it out. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m not quick to jump on a soap-box to make pronouncements on political issues. As a Jesus-following pastor, frankly, I’ve got bigger fish to fry. But at the same time, I cringe as much as anyone else when I see the collateral damage that we continue to inflict on each other in the name of personal rights. Here are four things I wish we in the church would take more seriously.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1. Just because the Bible speaks to an issue doesn’t mean that we should make a law to enforce it. </b> I’ve heard my red-state brethren frequently echo the claim that we’re “A Christian Nation”. News flash--we aren’t. As I recall from Civics class, we’re not supposed to have a government endorsed religious perspective. What we ARE supposed to be is a place where Christians can be Christians without legal recriminations while their Muslim neighbors can be Muslims with the same freedom. If the Muslims in my community tried to pass an initiative outlawing pork, I’d rightly complain. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-add-space: auto;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2. Just because a personal belief comes from my religious perspective doesn’t make it politically irrelevant.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">For a variety of strange reasons we have become very religio-phobic in our country, perhaps especially here in the Golden State. OK, I made that word up, but I’m referring to our paranoia about expressing and defending the validity of our spiritual points of view. Somehow we’ve developed this underlying assumption that our spiritual perspectives are like digestive problems: ideally people shouldn’t have them, but if they do they ought to at least avoid talking about them in polite company.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The fact is, everyone has a spiritual worldview. Even the people who claim that we shouldn’t have spiritual worldviews are themselves expressing their particular view on the Bigger Picture of our existence. The thing that matters is what we do with those perspectives. My devout Muslim friends have strong convictions about right and wrong that are not shared by my devout Mormon friends, who in turn have moral convictions that contrast markedly from the convictions that I hold dear. While it’d be offensive if one of us tried to pressure the others into adopting our worldview, it’d also seem pretty weird if we tried to pretend that we didn’t really care about these things. We do.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And following from that, there’s nothing wrong with any of us voting on issues based on what we believe to be true. Last I checked democracy was supposed to be about people voting based on their personal convictions. If a lot of Muslims want to speak strongly on a pork-rights issue, they should be able to do that. And if they get out-voted, they shouldn’t complain about that. After all, they’ve had their say. It’s a democracy. And so if a lot of folks have religious viewpoints that lead to convictions about whether marriage should include same-gender couples, there’s nothing wrong with them voting their conscience. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3. The Christian church needs to recognize that it has VERY little credibility in the gay rights issue, and that’s a problem.</b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s an ugly truth. One of the reasons why the Christian church has such a hard time putting its foot down when it comes to gay rights issues is that that foot seems to be perforated with bullet holes. When it comes to gay rights we’ve shot ourselves in the foot so often that we’ve got very little appendage left with which to stomp. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Our challenge, of course, is that the Bible simply does have a few passages that make it pretty clear that homosexual unions are not what God originally had in mind. Based on this handful of verses we have all too often voiced outrage towards anyone from the gay community who shows signs of…well, being from the gay community. At the same time we quickly breeze over the page after page after page of scriptures that speak about caring for the poor or forgiving those who have hurt us. Actually the Bible seems to treat gossips with the kind of scandal we assign to gays. We, on the other hand, typically accept gossiping as normal, even entertaining—after all, some people just seem to be born that way, right? And as for gays, well…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So here’s an off-the-wall idea: what would happen if the church quietly agreed to treat gay people the same way as, say, we treat people who have been divorced? After all, both “lifestyles” represent major patterns that are presented in scripture as something less than God’s ideal. Both seem increasingly common and both generally seem to be life-long irreversible situations that usually prove to bring a lot of trauma into the lives of those involved. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have a lot of people in my life whose lives are marked by divorce. And while I’m not ready to say that those divorces represent God’s best for my loved ones (even if they might not agree), I still cringe with them in their pain and rejoice with them as they move on…still divorced. I do that not because I’ve decided that divorce is good, but because there’s a sort of biblical rock/paper/scissors by which I need to determine what is and isn’t worth losing relationships over. It’d be a shame for me to lose really dear friends because of a shadow in their past, just as it’d be a shame for them to reject me on the basis of some other kind of shadow they might find in my past. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What if the church learned to approach GLBT folks in much the same way? Obviously many who don’t share our perspective on the authority of scripture wouldn’t necessarily agree with our position, but it could allow us to stop having all these rallies at which we chant ugly things about each other.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, we haven’t. OK…let me be a little more candid than that. <u>I</u> haven’t. I, and a lot of others in the church, have been all too willing put GLBT folks into some separate category of people who somehow need to be “fixed” before we who happen to be broken differently can accept them. The thing I love about the gospel of Jesus Christ is that it allows someone like me to discover the many layers of my brokenness while at the same time being shocked at a God who loves me in ways I didn’t even realize I needed. Seems to me that there ought to be a lot of room for GLBT friends in that community of broken healing. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be happening very much. And <u>that</u>, I believe, is a problem that extends far beyond this issue. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4. There are some important underlying questions that few people seem to be asking.<o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">Underlying this whole Prop 8 discussion I see a bigger question that has been getting very little air time. How DO we figure out how to define marriage? If “because the Bible says so” isn’t a credible grounds for a nation’s views on marriage, what exactly is? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Is it simply a matter of passing fashion? Gay marriages seem much more popular than they were a century ago, so we’re trying to change things so we can do those kinds of marriages. What if polygamists managed to grow in numbers over the next century—would we someday decide that may having multiple husbands wasn’t so bad after all? Or what about adults and children? Cats and dogs? If marriage based strictly on a popular vote then there is no principle that might prevent us from someday embracing any of those aberrations. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On Wednesday Judge Walker pointed to the lack of a “rational basis” for showing why gay unions shouldn’t be considered genuine marriages. I believe the problem runs deeper than that. Beyond simple popularity, I don’t think we have a rational basis for considering any union to be a real marriage. And so we fight. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I still have this crazy idea that the followers of Jesus Christ might help our communities develop a “rational basis” for this kind of long-term issue. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately that seems to be the one thing in this issue that the church doesn’t get...uh, straight.</div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-62500423248117148942010-05-27T11:11:00.000-07:002010-05-27T11:11:29.927-07:00The Unfairness of God<div class="MsoNormal">I don’t think the Prodigal Son’s older brother gets a fair shake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In Luke 15 Jesus tells a story about a father with two sons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The younger son proves to be a scoundrel, eventually imploding into a scandal that gutted the family’s net worth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The older brother held his ground, remaining at home, pouring himself into the family business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s safe to say that without him the place would have fallen apart.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you’ve read the parable you know, of course, that this loser brother comes home, repents and is welcomed back with the family’s best bottle of Dom Perignon. The old father seems to forget all about the disgrace and wasted inheritance and simply throws his arms around the filthy shoulders of his homeless son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The older brother sees his father cave completely on his boundaries and he stomps outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“This jerk has undone everything we’ve worked for and you slaughter the fatted calf!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve slaved for you all these years and you’ve never even offered me a goat to barbecue with my friends!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He has a point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What good is it to work your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gluteus maximus</i> off when your slacker brother gets a better reward that you do?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doesn’t all your work even <u>matter</u>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve felt that way at times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m dedicated my entire adult life to serving faithfully as a pastor, to being the best husband and dad that I possibly can…surely that’s got to count for something, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certainly God could cut me a break on some of the struggles of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet there are all too many times when God seems to miss some great opportunities to make my life easier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At times like that, I find the older brother’s complaint feels pretty natural:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Look, I’ve slaved for you all these years, and you’ve never even given me a goat (or break on car repairs, or a sudden surge in church attendance or some other fantasy come to life)! </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When it comes right down to it, God has a strange sense of fairness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The grace that led the father to welcome his runaway son is the same grace that leads him to offer a place in his family to spiritually-confused people like you and me who often have little clue just what He’s done for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s the same grace that leads him to stoop to use quirky, sin-tainted folks like me to announce his good news to others who need it as badly as I do.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The point:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thank God that He’s not fair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His unfairness is our only chance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The issue for me is not really unfairness:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it keeps getting easier for me to see how much I benefit from God’s unfairness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The issue for me is usually <u>control</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wish God would exercise his unfairness in a way that would conform more closely to my expectations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I often wish He would work out his lavish grace in a way that would match what I happen to have on my Christmas list right now. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How about you—what does it take for you to settle into God’s grace?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><!--EndFragment-->Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-7261218913120647242010-05-20T11:25:00.000-07:002010-05-20T11:25:16.960-07:00Good for Nothing<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Grace can really mess with your head if you if you take it too seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A little grace is good: it gives a reason why Jesus had to die on the cross and a place to turn for comfort when we fail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>But if you pursue grace much further than that it can really start to mess with your head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, what good is there from going to church every Sunday if God is going to grant the same salvation to someone who loves Him but loves the Sunday paper even more?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What's the benefit of resisting the urge to cheat on your exams or even on your spouse when God's only going shower the same forgiveness on every repentant liar who comes groveling back to him when the regrets start to hit?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you allow too much grace into your life it starts to erode things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pretty soon even fine upstanding church-folks (like you and me) find we don’t have a leg to stand on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things start to crumble.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And. from the Bible's point of view, that's probably good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the book of Romans the Apostle Paul is pretty clear on the fact that everyone is going to crumble towards something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He calls it being “slaves” either to sin or slaves to God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keeping our distance from grace means keeping our distance from God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of God’s greatest blessings come when He leads us to crumble before Him, whether we want to or not, as the seedlings of His new life begin to shoot through the dirt in our hearts.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If being good is really good for nothing, then most of us probably don't have a leg to stand on. But then again, maybe we don't need a leg to stand on. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The gospel of Jesus Christ has always been based on the outrageous idea that God loves us more than we can, uh...stand. We want to put our best foot forward to make a good impression in heaven's eyes, but God seems to have arranged things so we never really get the chance to get that best foot in the door. Instead He reaches out to draw us...with a nail-scarred hand. The church of Jesus Christ has always been a haven of people who limp in without a leg to stand on. That's why I seem to fit in, for instance.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When was the last time you felt crazy-loved by God?</div><!--EndFragment-->Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-660358105003029572010-05-11T06:00:00.000-07:002010-05-11T06:00:04.825-07:00Ever hate your job?<div class="MsoNormal">( Living Large: Looking for More in an Age of Less, Part 3)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Success is a critical part of the good life for us. Everybody knows that, right? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Granted in a 3<sup>rd</sup> world, more primitive setting people might not worry about this quite a much. When you’re living in a hut in some jungle or desert wasteland all you want to do is <u>survive</u>, but most of us educated people living in what we might call developed countries aim for more than that. We don’t want to merely have lived. We want to have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really lived.</i> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Our language reflects that: we want to “live it up”. We look at wealthy, successful people and marvel: “wow, they really know how to live”. “Man, that’s the life,” we may conclude as we watch them enjoy the fruits of their success. We sum all this up by expressing our desire to “get a life”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The writer of Ecclesiastes looks at all this “getting a life” and once again pushes back against it. In Eccl. 2 he describes all he achieved: “I undertook great projects…I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me…yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Once again the writer of Ecclesiastes questions the real value of something whose benefit we would generally take to be self-evident. Of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">course</i> it’s good to be successful, right? We might say. Ecclesiastes challenges that—really?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This leads us, once again, to ask “why?”. Exactly <u>why</u> do we assume it would be so good to be successful in life? Is it because the things we accomplish really matter so much in the universe? Do we really think the world will be a much better place because we sold more widgets than anyone else in our region?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Imagine this: imagine you’re talking with someone from Haiti who’s about your age. Let’s say that that person slept in the street last night because their shack was of course destroyed in the earthquake a while back. Or maybe they’ve been putting out a heroic effort to carve out a life for themselves in one of the relocation camps. Now picture yourself trying to explain to that person just why it was so critical that you accomplish whatever ambitions you were pursuing this past week. Why it was so important that you landed that overtime pay, or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nailed</i> this meeting or get this promotion. Try and explain to someone who’s had to give up a child because he couldn’t scrounge up enough food to feed her just why your career is worth the sleep you lose over it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Chances are the stress we have from our careers, or lack of them, isn’t really the point. The point is usually something bigger, deeper than making or selling more widgets than anyone else in the company.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The underlying point usually has little to do with widgets and more to do with significance. We want to be <u>remarkable</u>, and we’re afraid we’ll only turn out to be ordinary.</div><div class="MsoNormal">That longing for significance is actually a good thing. It comes from something very important that God hard-wired into each of us—the innate sense that we were created for a purpose. God designed us with an ache to accomplish things that haven’t been accomplished yet. That’s not the problem.</div><div class="MsoNormal">The difficulty, though, comes when we begin to think that our personal career plans will really touch this. The disappointing reality is that many of our career successes tend to have a pretty short shelf life. It feels great to finally land a job after you’ve been unemployed, but before you know it that job becomes…a job. It feels great to get the widget sales award for the month, but then the very next month they turn around and give it to someone else and you have to go back to climbing the ladder. It feels great to be recognized with a promotion or with some new perk, but before long that promotion becomes the new normal and you find you have to aim still higher in order to really feel like you’re somebody. You stake out your kingdom in the widget world, only to discover that someone else’s kingdom is being staked out right over top of your boundaries. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ecclesiastes puts it this way: “So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune (Eccl. 2:20-21).”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In contrast, the Sermon on the Mount talks about pursuing someone else’s dreams. “Seek first (God’s) kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt. 6:33). A passage like this is based on the underlying story line of the Bible: a good creation was ruined by human rebellion (Gen 1-3) just as we were warned. God loved us, however, enough that he was willing to do whatever it took to reclaim not only us but also the entire creation he had designed for us. To do that he carved out his original people, Israel, and through them he crept into our world to position himself to suffer for us so that we could live with him. In doing this he would not only be able to provide forgiveness for our sins, but also bring a renewal to our entire creation. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Bible refers to this cosmic clean-up as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kingdom</i> of Christ<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i> And, more amazing still, he invites you and me to participate in this amazing venture with him. To have our sins forgiven and our lives healed. To spread the word of this unfolding wonder, to starts homes that mirror his grace, to create great art and make scientific discoveries and…yes, even to make widgets in a way that can make this world a better place. Each of us has the opportunity to step into a custom-created role into this marvelous plan. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When we begin to realize that God may have specifically called us to make our widgets or to teach our students or to serve our customers (or even write our blogs or preach our sermons) we find that this changes everything. Suddenly the shelf life factor becomes a non-issue. The work that you and I do, or the dreams that you and I may pursue take on an eternal significance. These things that we do each day prove to be far more than simply ways to pay bills or to keep busy. Somehow, in some way, the career dreams that he has planted in our hearts are part of his eternal career dream for his entire creation. </div><div class="MsoNormal">We’re not just selling this month’s widgets or working today’s shift at the plant or teaching this week’s lesson plans. Somehow, whether we can see it yet or not, the work that God has given us to do will be a part of that eternal Someday when heaven will come down to earth and Christ will wipe every tear from our eyes (Rev. 21). </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Our work, then, becomes meaning<u>ful</u>.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But why, then, does it still seem so hard to get out of bed in the morning? Why doesn’t this eternal-significance-thing give us a spring in our step causing us to head off to work with a spring in our step?</div><div class="MsoNormal">More often that not the problem lies with management—who’s in charge? Not necessarily, who has the corner office, but who’s interests are really at stake in your career or mine? Typically we’re actually serving ourselves while we pretend to work for someone else. We agree to show up for work because we anticipate something that will further our purposes: a paycheck, a chance for recognition or advancement. In short, we work for our bosses because we think they can help us serve ourselves. We naively think that our human bosses can provide us with perks that will last only a short time.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Silly, huh? Like they say, if you work for yourself this way it only means that you have an idiot for a boss.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On the other hand, God has a way of using our job dissatisfaction to lead us to work for someone else. To put our career aspirations under new management. Someone who’s strategic plan can assure us that we’ll be part of something eternal.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The book of Ecclesiastes is a strange book. It questions everything we consider to be self-evident and it proposes ideas that couldn’t seem more foreign to upwardly-mobile people like us.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The book of Ecclesiastes can be irritating. It has a way of poking in the places where we already hurt. The steady refrain of “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Meaningless!” </i>has a way of echoing around the hallways of our empty dreams and frustrating fantasies. It can drive you crazy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Or it can drive you to Him. To reach out for the one who reaches back with nail-scarred hands, and who offers not only a way to escape death but also to find a life. To find wholeness and joy and significance. The chance to pour ourselves into something that will really mean something for a long, long time.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Works for me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-50144230547147610112010-05-06T15:57:00.000-07:002010-05-06T16:00:20.148-07:00Given the chance, would you choose to become rich?<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre;">(Living Large: Looking for More in an Age of Less Part 2)</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 13px; white-space: pre;"></span>Our society requires greed.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If it weren’t for greed most ordinary citizens would never dream<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i> of participating in our so-called reality shows. Without greed no one would pay attention to the ads on TV which pay for those shows, because no one would really care about buying new and improved versions of products they’d already bought the year before. Without greed most pro athletes would get real jobs when their knees started to give out, because without greed most sane individuals would never allow themselves to get clobbered by an defensive lineman just for money. You have to really want money to do that kind of stuff. And without the desire to get rich quick there’d be almost nothing on TV between midnight and 4 a.m.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When it comes right down to it, capitalism is really nothing more than structured greed. Capitalism is based on the fact that if you can make a little bit better widget than your company made last year people will shell out their hard-earned money to get a new one and show it off to their neighbors. That, of course, will be good for the widget companies, who will post a nice profit from all those widgets. That will prompt them to create even more, new-and-improved widgets and to advertise them aggressively to entice people to buy their new ones. These new widgets 2.0 will only feed the cycle more. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Consumers will realize, of course, that they will need a lot of money to keep buying each year’s widget upgrades, so they will work hard at their jobs in order to bring home as much money as they can in order to buy more widgets, which will keep the widget companies busy creating even more widgets with even more exciting features. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If we all decided that we were tired of buying new widgets, it could all grind to a stop. That, in fact, is what starts to happen in a recession. That scares the tar out of corporate executives.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Our society runs on greed. The pursuit of wealth is what keeps it all going. That fact is, if you or I click on the word “wealth” or maybe “treasure” pictures start to pop up on our screen showing what our idea of treasure might look like. Maybe it’s a big house, a cool car or a TV screen the size of Connecticut.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The most important thing to realize, though, is that the benefits of wealth are considered <u>self-evident</u>. It’s not like most people have paused to reflect and eventually concluded that a feverish attempt to accumulate possessions might be the right lifestyle for them. Instead we just assume that that’s what we need to do. Once the benefits of wealth seem self-evident our critical thinking grinds to a halt.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s why the book of Ecclesiastes stops us in our tracks. The Old Testament pushes back on some of our assumptions. What if money <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">didn’t </i>necessarily make us happier?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">“I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on men: God gives a man wealth, possessions and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them…This is meaningless.” (Eccl. 6:1,2)</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This brings us back to the same question we asked in <a href="http://bettersinner.blogspot.com/2010/04/living-large-looking-for-more-in-age-of.html">Part 1</a>. Why<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>exactly would we want to have a lot of money? (I know, that’s a silly question because everyone knows that being rich is better than being poor, etc. etc. but I’m the one writing the blog so humor me.) Is life a game where the one who dies with the most toys wins? What <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> is the benefit of having more money than other people we know? What is the itch that we hope can be scratched with our wealth? These questions take on an increasing relevance during a time of financial struggles. Do we want the possessions? Is the object of the game to have a big of a net worth number as possible? If not, what does really matter?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Let me ask you a question: suppose if you could have everything you were aiming for but without actually owning those things? Let’s say you had a wealthy relative or friend who might loan you his vacation home or private jet, or might take you shopping for that new outfit you’d seen or might make sure that your home entertainment system was state-of-the-art. Would that do it? Through his generosity you ended up with everything you might want, but none of it was really yours, and you had no long-term promises that your standard of living would continue. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I suspect most of us would find this scenario less than satisfying. While taking the Lear to the South of France would be lovely (don’t get me wrong!) in the long run there’d still be something missing if everything came as a favor. Part of the appeal of wealth comes from things that can’t necessarily be bought with money, but might seem to come along with the influx of cash. Self-reliance. Freedom. The security from having a substantial margin with which we can face whatever surprises might come our way. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In short, part of the appeal of money is that we can buy stuff. But the larger, deeper appeal of money comes from our impressions that with enough money in the bank we could know that we could be OK, no matter what life might bring our way. Money brings security and freedom. That seems obvious, doesn’t it? <u>That’s </u> what we’re really looking for from our net worth. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, Ecclesiastes would push back on that. As John Ortberg says, life is a board game and when the game is done all our playing pieces go back in the box. It all goes back in the box. In fact, I’m not so sure that having a lot of money guarantees much happiness during this life right now. A quick glance at the tabloid covers at my local grocery story would suggest that there are a lot of people who have far more money than I do but seem to be having a lot less fun. I’m not sure I’d trade places with Brad and Angelina, even when their marital struggles seem to be having a calm period. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The fact is we clutch to our money like drowning people clinging to bricks. Any fool can see that those bricks are really going to help us much, but when we’re feeling frightened and needy we’ll reach for whatever anyone tells us to grab. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here the Sermon on the Mount breaks in a completely counter-intuitive direction. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in a steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in a steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The point: Christ is the only treasure that will really satisfy the needs that lurk behind our credit card bills and bank statements. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">(<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ding! Cliché alert goes off</i>. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Of <u>course</u> Christ is our treasure...duh!) </i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="MsoNormal">But wait a minute. What might we need to rearrange to get to the point where if we clicked on the word “treasure” up would pop a picture of Jesus? That might take a little doing. It’s not hard to picture Jesus as the forgiver of our sins, or maybe the personal body-guard in times of risk. But to think of Jesus as our treasure seems like a bit of a reach, doesn’t it? Take your pick: Jesus or a big screen TV? Which would you relentlessly pursue, your savior or your Lexus?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This raises the question of what Jesus is really good for, anyway, doesn’t it? Of course he’s the one who gets us RSVP’d for heaven but beyond that does he really make that big of a difference.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s where the Sermon on the Mount starts to really get serious. Not only does it question the myth that our “treasures on earth” will really do it for us in the long run, it also points towards the ultimate satisfaction that comes from looking to Christ for the things we might want from our wealth. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Think about it: all the things that we might hope for from our wealth—like security, freedom, a sense of being special, knowing that we’ll be taken care of in the future—those are the things that Jesus promises to provide us beyond whatever we might be able to ask or imagine. Jesus may or may not provide us with huge houses and fabulous luxury cars, but any fool can see those status symbols aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Money can buy you a car, put gas in the tank, and bring you back to the garage of your beautiful house, but it can’t get you real friends to visit, or joy as you travel and it certainly can’t give you peace in your heart as you finish the day in your beautiful home. In fact, there’s a lot of evidence to show that wealth can actually pull you backwards in those categories. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While Jesus never promises an upper-class lifestyle, he does promise to provide us all the things that we might think and upper-class lifestyle might bring us. The stuff we really ache for is the stuff he died for: peace, joy, love and a settled sense of security that can let us sleep like a baby at night.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Store up for yourselves treasure…”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So what does it take to start investing in that kind of treasure?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">First of all, we need to learn to grieve. We need to grieve the illusions we so easily cling to, the silly ideas we have about how deeply satisfied we’d be if we could pay all our bills on time. (see <a href="http://bettersinner.blogspot.com/2010/04/living-large-looking-for-more-in-age-of.html">Part 1</a>)</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Secondly, we need to recognize the reality check that our recession can provide. The money pressures we feel from a struggling economy can help us discover some basic truths. The fact is if I think money could solve my problems then I have problems that money could never solve. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Thirdly, we need to practice imagining real wealth. I’m working on this one the most in my own life. I’m developing my ability to imagine myself being fabulously wealthy with the people in my life and the experiences God’s led me to discover. He’s given me an astonishing windfall with the eternal purpose that He’s woven right into the story of my life. And He’s grounded all these luxuries on a promise that’s a solid as Romans 8:28, guaranteeing that He’ll be working for good in everything because of His love for me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, there you have it; my get-rich-quick scheme.</div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><br clear="ALL" style="mso-column-break-before: always; mso-special-character: line-break;" /> </span>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-52446699121373675732010-04-24T20:30:00.000-07:002010-04-24T20:40:31.932-07:00Living Large: Looking for More in an Age of Less (Part 1)<div class="MsoNormal">I've been reading from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes lately, in fact I'm been doing a sermon series on it. Fascinating book. Strange book. Dark, even. (Perfect for us Calvinist types.)<br />
<br />
The book of Ecclesiastes is brought to you by the word Meaningless and by the concept of Futility, (“Undermining life dreams since Genesis 3”). The opening words of the book: “Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. And then, in case we hadn’t gotten the point: “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” You get the point.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In its opening chapters the book of Ecclesiastes seems to offer very little hope, but by the time you reach the close of the book you find…well, very little hope. We’re pretty much reminded that life is short and death is inevitable. Not the kind of passage that a guy like Joel Osteen usually dwells on. Actually most of us who spend time in the pulpit usually clear a wide berth around this part of scripture. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But the book of Ecclesiastes has something genuinely life-giving to offer. It provides a healthy dose of skepticism in an age of naïveté. It’s amazing how easily intelligent folks like ourselves can find ourselves falling for some flimsy myths about what really matters in life. If all we follow are the ads on TV we’ll spend the better part of our lives straining after things that, while they might give us whiter teeth or better hair color, don’t really do anything to make our lives richer or more satisfying. Ecclesiastes pushes back against all this silliness, offering a reality check. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I find it helpful to pair the book of Ecclesiastes with something like the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew. They make a great combination: Ecclesiastes shows us what doesn’t really matter and the Sermon on the Mount points us towards what does. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ecclesiastes 2 walks us through the author’s mid-life explorations. Solomon (or whoever wrote the book from Solomon’s perspective) traces for us all the various places he’d looked in his search for something meaningful. The chapter reads like the California experience: food, sex, money, accomplishments, fame: he tries it all and finds that each of these comforts leaves him with a nagging sense of emptiness. Nothing really seems to scratch the itch.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now most of the people who would ever bother to read Ecclesiastes would quickly agree with this assessment. Of COURSE those kinds of things aren’t really going to satisfy, and OF COURSE only God can really meet the needs of our deepest hearts, etc. etc. etc. We know that those are the right answers, of course.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And yet, most of us Bible-readers spend just as much energy pursuing these things as anyone else: we want bigger TVs as much as anyone else, and we churn with many of the same sexual fantasies everyone else does, and we knock ourselves out trying to get ahead with the same fervor as the materialist down the street. We just take a break from it all to go to church on Sunday. OK…on most Sundays, at least. The fact is most of us church-going folks take our upgrades just as seriously as anyone else. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://echostains.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/americangothic-grant-wood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://echostains.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/americangothic-grant-wood.jpg" width="164" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">What do you think God thinks of our “pursuit of happiness”? Some might suggest that God just scowls down on our little pleasures, like the dour couple in Grant Woods’ American Gothic. The rest of us snicker, because surely God isn’t <u>that</u> Puritan, but it’s a bit of a nervous snicker as we’re not entirely convinced in the matter.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So what DOES God actually think of our pursuit of pleasure?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s at right about this point that our discussion usually takes a sharp right turn into questions of morality. Is it OK to do this or drink that or watch this? We try to figure out the rules so we can know which pleasures are all right and which we should feel guilty about. Once we figure out the rules we go for it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But there’s a bigger, deeper issue that lurks underneath these questions of morality. We need to learn to ask <u>why</u> these pleasures are so important to us. On the one hand, the answer is obvious. By definition pleasures are…well, pleasurable. If we didn’t enjoy them they wouldn’t be pleasures. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometimes our pleasures are merely a matter of entertainment. “Oh..that sounds fun…” But sometimes we pursue pleasures not simply to enjoy, but also to compensate. We can begin to feel like we need our pleasures. We end up rummaging for pleasures like teenage boys rummaging through the fridge before dinner: “I need something…I’m <u>starving</u>!” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There are telltale signs that can sometimes show when this is happening. One sign is irritation. When part of our world begins to collapse because we have been denied a pleasure that’s a pretty good sign that there’s more going on than mere enjoyment. Another sign is a growing pressure to compromise scriptural standards. When we start to feel like we have to bend the Bible’s teachings on our enjoyment of pleasures because we need food or TV or alcohol or sex—that’s also a pretty good sign that something is out of balance.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So what does God think of our pursuit of pleasure? Here’s where the Sermon on the Mount can serve as a sequel to the book of Ecclesiastes. The one leads to the other.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Sermon on the Mount addresses the issue of pleasure from a completely different point of view. Matthew 5 begins with what we know as the Beatitudes. In Mt 5:4 we read: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now frankly…this sounds pretty stupid. Blessed are those who grieve, who are unhappy, because they will be happy. (This is one of those passages that are probably important for <u>other people</u> to take seriously, but certainly not us.) After all, why would you ever want to encourage someone to mourn? </div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s a good question, actually. Why would you?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Lurking behind passages like this is the dark reality that many of the desires that we have in life often prove to be frustrating and unsatisfying. All too often when we get what we want we discover that that wasn’t what we had really wanted. It might have been good, but it wasn’t it. You’re convinced that you’re dream vacation would make all the difference in your life, but when you actually got the chance to take it you discovered that when you returned home you were still just the same old you, but with a suntan. You couldn’t wait to get the new job or the new spouse or to start your family or send your kids out, but once those things happened you soon realized that your life still felt exactly the same as before except you were surrounded by different people.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here’s something else: often the more fiercely we pursue these pleasures the more disappointed we end up in the end. Ask the college student whose week of spring break debauchery left him feeling both cheap and broke a week later. Ask the young mom who was convinced that getting rid of the guy she married would do it, and she now wakes up each day realizing the havoc she has caused for so many people. Ask the parent who watches his children grow and leave the house as near strangers to him, and he suddenly discovers the true cost of all those evening meetings and business trips that it took to build his career. Often the more fiercely we pursue our pleasures the more fierce our disappointment when those delights don’t prove to be it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There’s a word for that kind of disappointment. Do you know what it is? <u>Mourning</u>. Blessed are those who discover what doesn’t really satisfy, because they can then begin to find what really <u>is</u> it.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s why the Sermon on the Mount provides such a great sequel to Ecclesiastes. If Ecclesiastes helps us discover what doesn’t satisfy, the Sermon on the Mount points us towards what really does. Read Matthew 6: “Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth where thieves can steal and moth and rust destroy. Instead store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Jesus’ point is clear: we’re going to inevitably pursue someone’s kingdom, whether our own carnal interests or His eternal cause. But only one Kingdom will prove to be it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So what might this grieving look like for you? Here are three things that I’m finding helpful:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Become a skeptic</u>. I’m slowly learning to be a bit cynical towards things that probably won’t satisfy in the long run. The ads on TV that broadly hint that if I buy a certain product I’ll become popular or sexy or envied by all my friends. The stray desires that suggest that if my car were classy enough or my home were impressive enough that then I could really enjoy things. Ecclesiastes helps me learn to roll my eyes at some of the ads I see on TV.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><u>Identify our underlying needs</u>. I may know what I want, but do I know what I really want? I may be reaching for more of those chocolate chip cookies, but what I’m really hungering for is some comfort because I’m frightened or tired. It may seem like I really want to upgrade my car stereo or my TV or my backyard, but what I really want is simply to feel impressive. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Finally, I need to learn to <u>claim good gifts from God</u>. God may or may not want me to upgrade my landscaping or get a bigger TV, but he does want me to feel loved, to feel important and to know that it’s good to be me. I’m finding that I often sell him short when it comes to many of these underlying needs. </div><div class="MsoNormal">Every once in a while, though, I have these flashes of clarity where I’ll realize that the stuff I fantasize about wouldn’t really do it anyway, and it will hit me again how much I long to be filled with God’s best for me. When that happens God grins, shows me His best, and I discover that I’ve been comforted. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Hmm...just like He said.</div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-20445465634432069502010-04-04T18:00:00.000-07:002010-04-04T21:17:34.983-07:00Easter: Finding the Remote(Part 2 of a series).<br />
I <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">sometimes wonder if one of the most significant inventions of the 20<sup>th</sup> century was the TV remote. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">I remember “back in the day” when my little brothers and I would have to get up off the couch and manually walk across the room and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">clunk</i> our way around the dial when it was time to watch Hogan’s Heroes, or maybe C.H.I.P’s. Once the show started it was, like, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sssshhh….” </i> if my mom tried to say anything, because we didn’t want to miss anything important.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Today everything is different, thanks to this little device. Not only do husbands and wives have an entirely new collection of arguments to engage in, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(give me that remote!) </i>but the very way we watch TV or movies has changed. Did you know that this little guy can even pause live TV? That’s right. Jack Bauer can be right in the middle of tracking down some bad guys with their stolen uranium rods, <u>and he has to stop when we tell him to!</u> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Uh…hold it right there, Jack, I gotta go to the bathroom. </i> ("Chloe--I'll call you back.") And if something else comes up, Jack will just stay there holding his cell phone while we take care of whatever we might have considered more important than an impending nuclear disaster. Then, when we give the word he’s off again saving the Big Apple for all America. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(Bhmh-bhmh!).</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><i><br />
</i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">You see, for the first time in history, this little device has snapped the unyielding one-step-at-a-time link between the events in a story. Our stories don’t have to unfold one scene after another in steady succession. Now we have the liberty to st….. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(click remote)<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(click remote again) </i> …op for as long as we want before resuming the story. We can even jump back to the beginning to pick up a clue we might have missed or even jump to the end of a pre-recorded show. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">You know, this can really mess things up if we’re not careful. You can get an entirely wrong idea of what’s going on in a story. Back to our buddy Jack Bauer—if one of my sons pauses the show just as Jack is having some terrible things being done to him with jumper cables it’s going to look really bad. Every time I walk through the family room there he is getting beat up. Again. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">WOW…sucks to be him…</i> Eventually my impression of Jack Bauer may begin to change. Every time I see him he’s getting hammered on something awful. I’ll eventually start to figure that he must be some kind of wimp, unable to take care of himself in the big bad world of international terrorism. I may even start losing my faith in our buddy Jack. Man, he’s washed up. He’s done for.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Now, if you ever watch the show <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>24</u></i> you know that that’s not really true. Jack Bauer is actually awesome. Terrorists quake at the sound of his name. In fact, Jack pretty much died not too long ago, but even that couldn’t stop him. Before you could say “conspiracy” he'd be back, ready to rock on completely with some brand new components. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><i><br />
</i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">But here’s the thing—if I got stuck halfway through the story, I wouldn’t know any of that. I’d miss it completely. I’d never see that through some blend of courage and cleverness Jack would not only get out of his latest difficulty, but he’d actually get the best of the guy who at one time seemed to have him licked. And I’d never discover the fact that the bad guy wasn’t really such a big deal after all. He may have looked like a big scary bad guy, but he was really nothing more than a <u>bully</u> with a funny accent. No big deal.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">But wow…if I hit “pause” at the wrong place I could miss all that. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">The same thing can happen if we hit "pause" before we get to Easter. If we stop the action after Satan's infiltration of Eden, or the struggles of the nation of Israel, or the exile years, or--worse yet--Gethsemane or the crucifixion outside Jerusalem. The Bad Guy looks pretty powerful as God stands there apparently dumb-founded by the treachery wrought by His people.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">But if I can remember to his "play" again I can see where the story goes from there. A tomb broken open on Easter morning, followers drawn back together, the church bursting to life on Pentecost Sunday, and the Roman Empire turned upside down. Eventually Revelations gives us a fast-forward look at Christ's second coming: "I will wipe away every tear from their eyes." The bad guy is gone.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">I need Easter. It gives me a chance to hit "play" again.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;">Now where was that remote?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><br />
</span></span></div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-16302458865122902962010-04-03T21:00:00.000-07:002010-04-03T21:58:17.339-07:00Easter: The Last Laugh(Part 1 of a series.)<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">The hardest part of Good Friday is probably the most obvious--the story ends in death. Christ’s death. His final screams of agony, the nervous scrambling of those huddled in the darkness around those torture poles, they all lead up to that one awful moment when Jesus “gave up his spirit”. Finally, after all this, it was finished. And then…<u>nothing</u>. Nothing but a grotesque corpse to be taken away for grieving. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What goes through your mind when you’re one of Jesus’ loved ones, seeing that battered corpse released from that cross? What do you cling to as you receive it, wrap it and start to figure out what to do for a tomb? Do you try to think about the better days? About the times you had together? Or does the cruel fact of the silent corpse in front of you simply mock any memory you might try to pull up?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There’s a really weird kind of emptiness that comes after death, isn’t there? We’ve all felt the chill of that emptiness—losing parents, loved ones, friends. It leaves a silence that can seem deafening, its silent thunder triggering an avalanche of things we wish would do or re-do or un-do one more time. Death is just so…permanent. That’s why we fear it so much. That’s why we try not to even think about it. Death looms like a cloud bank on each of our horizons. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Death has this way of mocking us, like the way coming term papers can taunt even the best day of spring break. Death mocks life.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But here’s the thing. Jesus’ death was the death of death. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">broke</i> death, taking its worst only to come back out the other side a few days later. The permanence of death was shattered. In its place hope could appear. That awful silence of the cemetery broken by the rumble of an earthquake and a rush of angels’ wings. And on Sunday we’ll celebrate how the story comes out.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So here’s the thing: death mocks life. But Easter mocks death.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Ha!!</i></div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-48365954942826204332010-03-16T17:27:00.000-07:002010-03-16T17:27:45.296-07:00Evangelism--Offending People for Jesus<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Most of us cringe at the prospect of evangelism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While it’s necessary, of course, it still feels like we’re getting pressured to offend people for Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here in Northern CA the idea of encouraging someone else to convert to your religious views feels like the verbal equivalent of the Crusades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yet…we’re supposed to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">just do it</i>, aren’t we?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Isn’t that what God tells us?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m increasingly convinced that much of our evangelistic anxiety comes from a pretty basic misunderstanding that we make when it comes to sharing our faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We tend to think of evangelism as something <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">prescriptive. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A person is being prescriptive when he or she is urging someone else to do something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s why a doctor will <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">prescribe </i>a particular treatment for an ailment a patient may have, perhaps even writing a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">prescription. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We typically think of evangelism in this way:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>evangelism is the process through which we exhort our friends and neighbors to adopt our spiritual views.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most people, at least where I live, don’t seem to appreciate this prescriptive approach to spiritual matters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They don’t request Amway sales calls, either.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But another alternative can be found in what we could call <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">descriptive </i>evangelism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A person is being <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">descriptive </i>when he or she is simply describing an experience they’d had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When friends tell you how much they enjoyed a new movie that’s come out or how they loved the new Thai restaurant they tried last night, they are being descriptive about what they’d experienced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t argue with that.</div><div class="MsoNormal">So what if we thought about evangelism in those terms? Prescriptive evangelism would then describe an effort to convince someone else to change their spiritual beliefs at your urging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(“Turn or burn!”)</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All too often, you’d be simply asking for a fight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand a descriptive approach to evangelism could avoid that tension by simply presenting what you or I have already experienced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Telling someone about the peace or joy you’ve discovered, or how prayer has brought noticeable changes in your life would both be examples of descriptive evangelism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The beauty of descriptive evangelism is that it’s virtually argument-proof, when done correctly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s impossible to argue with someone’s personal experience—they’re simply telling you what happened to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’d be silly to try to convince your friends that they actually hated that movie or that they really thought the new restaurant’s food was terrible. You wouldn’t know; you weren’t even there!</div><div class="MsoNormal">Evangelism, viewed this way, would focus primarily on simply <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not hiding </i>the good things that God had been doing in our lives?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And at this point a lot of scriptures would begin making more sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just imagine if we asked God to create opportunities to “let our gentleness be evident to all” as Paul wrote the Philippians?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or what if we prepared ourselves to “give an answer” to explain the hope we have as Peter wrote in his first epistle?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if we simply stopped hiding the lamp of Christ’s love, taking it out from under whatever bowl we’d hidden it as Jesus himself challenged us?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That’d be a lot easier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People wouldn’t need to brace themselves against us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, they’d probably start to get curious:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“what do you mean, you’re at peace in the middle of all this stress? “<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You just prayed about this, and now you’re getting these lucky breaks?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Question for you: if you were transparent about what you’ve experienced with God, what would other people see?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><!--EndFragment-->Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-53248494515653492732010-02-28T08:13:00.000-08:002010-02-28T08:13:57.297-08:00Getting What You Want<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Sometimes it’s not good to get what you ask for.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As a boy, a friend of mine loved to visit his big sister at the deli where she worked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes she’d fix him a treat; one day it was a bagel with cream cheese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> He loved it. </span>On his next visit, hoping for the same treat, he asked his sister for “a bagel with sour cream”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She looked at him quizzically and began to suggest that perhaps he meant <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cream </i>cheese, but he was quite insistent on his order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually she toasted a bagel, topped it with sour cream and handed it to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His face scrunched into a grimace as he suddenly realized his mistake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humbled, he asked for a bagel with cream cheese<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometimes getting what we ask for isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We insist that we want sour cream on our life’s bagels, only to finally get our request and discover that that wasn’t really what we wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes getting what we’re asking for can leave a sour taste in our mouths.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Bible is full of examples of people with gagging on their sour cream. Just ask Jacob, scurrying into the night having snagged the birthright he’d never use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Or Samson, blind (literally) in his pursuit of Philistine pleasures. </span>Or just ask David, finally having enjoyed the friend’s wife he’d been longing for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps you can tell similar stories from your life:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>times when you tried to force a pleasure or an achievement or make a purchase even though others questioned whether your choice was wise. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">God created us to be hungry--but for things that only He can satisfy. What have you been hungry for lately?</div><!--EndFragment-->Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-15334933139873498652010-02-21T18:00:00.000-08:002010-02-21T21:16:48.585-08:00The Faith of Atheists<div class="MsoNormal">I could never be an atheist. It would take way too much faith.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To be fair, I’ve really got to respect people who are so deeply committed to their faith position, even if I don’t happen to buy their viewpoint myself. We can all learn from each other, I figure. And besides, it’s inspiring to see someone stake their entire worldview, and even their whole lifestyle, around something that can’t be proven. You’ve got to admit there’s something pretty bold about shaking your fist in the face of millennia of human common sense. That just inspires me. It’s pretty gutsy, actually. <br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Most atheists I know would never brag about it, of course—which I also respect—but it’s not hard to see how their worldview is based solidly on the kind of faith that can never be proven. After all, how can you prove <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nothing</i>? How on earth could anybody ever check to make sure that God <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really </i>wasn’t there? Ultimately it comes down to their faith that they won’t find themselves in line at some Pearly Gates or shocked to discover that they’ve been reincarnated as some lower life form. Like anyone else, they’ve made their faith commitments.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Throughout recorded history civilization after civilization has succumbed to the obvious common-sense assumption that someone or something Greater Than Us was responsible for life in our universe. Granted, folks had a hard time agreeing on just who or what that “Greater Than Us” actually was. While some subscribed to Jehovah, others signed on for Baal or Allah, or the Buddha or the Great Pumpkin or whatever other local deity they chose. But no matter what brand name people happened to choose, virtually everyone agreed that there was someone or something out there--from tribes in Africa to the great civilizations in the Middle East or Asia, to the rise of Judaism and Christianity, countered by the celtic religions in Europe and all the various brands of eastern religion now featured. (And don’t even get me started on the whole pantheon of gods that the Greeks and Romans developed. Personally, I can never keep them all straight.) But the fact is that until the Enlightenment suddenly sprang up a few generations back, everyone just took it as obvious that someone or something was behind the wonders of our world.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And that makes sense to me. All I have to do is spend an evening up in the Sierras gaping at the infinite fog of starlight that has exploded in our little corner of the galaxy and I quickly slide into the assumption that this could not have happened by accident. Call it peer pressure if you want—I’ll admit there probably is something reassuring about knowing that for untold centuries of human civilization everyone has come to the same conclusion that I have. But regardless, I just think it would be hard to be an atheist outdoors. <br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But that’s why I can appreciate the courage of the staunch minority who in the past few generations have decided to march to a different non-drummer. Recently, as seen from the span of human history, a few bold thinkers have theorized that all those galaxies and constellations have somehow appeared by accident. They point proudly to the theory of evolution as a kingpin in their worldview. I’m no scientist, but my understanding of that theory is that we’re all somehow mutants, having morphed from the first glops of seaweed that washed up on a beach somewhere. Maybe other folks can understand some of these fine points, but I have a hard time grasping this. I’ve known a few mutants in my day (hey, I’ve watched cartoons just like anybody else) and I have a hard time seeing how the continually mutating offspring of the first mutants could result in something like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. You ask me, bass guitar licks like Flea’s don’t just happen.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Maybe my problem is with science. Maybe I should put more willing to put my faith in science as a way to figure these things out. But I figure: the best science of the day got us the Flat Earth theory. Then a little bit later the new-and-improved best science of the day got us the Round Earth theory. (Note: at the time of this writing the earth was still round). I just keep looking for someone to take responsibility for that Big Bang. That much noise, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">somebody</i> had to hear <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something</i>!<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And maybe I’m just a little too common-sense about it all. I suppose any academic discipline can have a bad century now and then. Who knows? Maybe all the pieces did line up just right to enable sea scum to somehow produce Michael Jordan’s dunk shot or whatever magic there is that makes my laptop here come to life when I turn it on. <br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But it just seems like a long shot to me. Buying into that would take a lot more faith that I seem to have. Rumor has it some guy in Ohio dumped 10,000 dominoes off the roof of a school gymnasium and they randomly formed a perfect version of the Mona Lisa, including getting the smile just right. Call me a skeptic, but I have a hard time with that one, too.<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m judging my atheist friends. Most of them are really good people who are genuinely sincere about what they believe. And maybe their faith in science can do for modern medicine what Mother Teresa’s faith did for the poor of Calcutta. What’s not to like about that?</div><div class="MsoNormal">But having said that I also don’t like it when atheists get all fundamentalist on me. Maybe I’m not as smart as they are with their fancy theories about everything, but I can’t help but feel judged when they smile kindly at the fact that I still don’t “get it”. Call me crazy, but I still say the emperor has no clothes.</div><div class="MsoNormal">What I would like to see would be an open-minded kind of dialogue about all of our different kinds of faith. I'm not talking about some kind of evangelistic shoot-out where anybody’s trying to convince me that I should have faith in whatever scientific theories they’re betting the farm on. I’d just thing it’d be interesting to learn from the faith stories of some atheists who’ve been at it a while. How does it feel put your faith in a minority viewpoint? How do you shore up your faith when you have those inevitable moments when you can’t help but wonder whether you may have been put here for a reason? How do you begin to explain your trust in something you could never prove?<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t know. Maybe I’m missing something simple here. But whenever I look for something that would offer a reason to have faith in atheism, all I find is…<br />
<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">…nothing.</div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-73833836892241538692010-02-19T10:56:00.000-08:002010-02-19T10:56:15.941-08:00In Trouble<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">Been reading the New Testament book of I Peter lately…part of a sermon series Stan and I are working through here at The Gathering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Great book, especially for those times when don’t seem to be going like you’d hoped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The epistle is all about <u>trouble</u>, which is why it can make for good reading during a recession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A word about trouble:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>there’s a big difference between <u>having</u> troubles and <u>being in</u> trouble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having troubles is pretty normal:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you get a bad grade in school, you come down with the flu, you get a flat tire driving home from work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most troubles, while annoying, can be fixed pretty easily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You pull out your spare tire, figure out how the crazy jack works, and make the switch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before too long you’re on your way, remembering to wash your hands when you get to your destination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Most troubles aren’t really so hard to deal with.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But when you begin to get too many of those troubles it starts to affect your worldview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You begin to get the sense that everything in your life is starting to fall apart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>suspect that even if you were to fix one or two of the problems in front of you there would be two or three other problems that would creep up on you from another side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You find a sense of futility begins to hang over your efforts—even if you fixed one of your problems you’d still face so many others that it’d hardly make a difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">An eerie realization begins to well up inside you:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it’s not that you simply <u>have troubles</u>, you realize that you are now <u>in trouble</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your struggles have claimed your worldview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s when you start losing hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hope is the force field that fends off a sense of futility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you lose hope, despair slowly seeps into your heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Let’s face it;<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>many of us today are losing hope, no matter what our current President’s campaign slogan might have suggested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The economy is a big part of that, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not too long ago it seemed like everyone had a lot of money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my neighborhood everyone was spending re-fi money freely as our homes quickly doubled in value.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone who wanted a job could find one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now today all that has changed, and doesn’t appear to be changing back any time soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But our troubles extend beyond the economy:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>what are we going to do about health care?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About the incessant conflicts in the Middle East or in Africa?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what good is it to avoid losing your home if you don’t really like the people you have to share it with?</div><div class="MsoNormal">Many of us know that sinking feeling that comes when you realize that you are in trouble and probably not likely to escape it in the near future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our hope shrivels under those conditions.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The epistle of I Peter was written to people who felt much like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The letter was probably written around the early 60’s A.D. by Peter, who probably wrote it from the city of Rome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In any case, the letter was certainly written in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shadow </i>of Rome, as the threat of Roman persecution looms over the epistle from the not-to-distant future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The letter was written around the time of the Emperor Nero, under whose persecution Peter eventually lost his life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To put it simply:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>if you were a Christ-follower in the time of Nero you were <u>in trouble</u>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As Christians today we face resistance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look at the nerve touched by the recent Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad where his mom simply acknowledged that she loves her son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that kind of resistance is really pretty minor in the broader scheme of things.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First-century Christians faced a whole series of very real troubles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Troubles from Rome, whose leaders figured that they were atheists, with the way they bristled against worshipping the emperor or his pantheon of gods in favor of this curious invisible non-god they claimed to follow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the Jews, who resented being grouped by the Romans in the same atheist group, and did what they could to purge their communities of these aberrant Christ-followers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And often from their families, since in their day the head of a family determined the religious perspective for everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a person to begin following Christ in defiance of their family was often taken as a rejection of that family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Family leaders were known to go to extreme measures to keep their pagan family members in the fold, and following Christ often meant losing one’s family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Peter was writing to people who not only had troubles, they were <u>in</u> trouble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No matter where they turned there were forces arrayed that could destroy everything their lives had been based on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can easily become paranoid in a situation like that…except that in your case the threats you face are definitely real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So Peter opens his letter to these down-and-outs with a boisterous cheer for the “living hope” that they could share together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Look at I Peter 1:3-12 sometime).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Notice, though, that Peter is not even pretending that this hope will <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">protect them</i> from suffering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, he candidly acknowledges that suffering is coming their way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead he points to something that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">transcends </i>their suffering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As big as their troubles might seem, Peter points them to something <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bigger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A “living hope”, an un-depreciated “inheritance”, and the snug security that comes from being “shielded” by God’s power during turbulent times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter then offers a very different perspective on their suffering:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>instead of being a setback, he interprets suffering as a force that can “purify” the faith through which we ultimately connect to Christ and all these blessings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What Peter is doing is offering a contrasting worldview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s what a worldview is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>everyone has a center to their world, something around which everything else inevitably orbits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the first century it may have been Nero or the power of Rome or the all-star team of Greek and Roman gods that needed to be appeased.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today our worldviews may be a little more difficult to identify, but we still always have something at the center.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may be a conventional religion of some sort or it may be something less clearly defined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may be finances, or recreation or physical beauty or romance or maybe even the right to view oneself as “a pretty good person”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In any case there is something at the center of each person’s world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in the face of insurmountable forces that could easily destroy every other form of security, Peter points his friends toward something unchanging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He invites his friends to stomp down with abandon on a foundation that even Nero can’t shake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s not trying to promise that painful things won’t happen; he’s helping them discover something that will still stand firm, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">even if</i> those bad things might happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So how do you tell what’s really at the center of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your</i> worldview?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ask yourself this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>what would effectively end your life if you were to lose it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each of us undoubtedly has blessings in our lives about which we care passionately and for which we would grieve deeply were we to ever lose them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there is usually one set of blessings which would ultimately prove to be a deal-breaker for each person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deep in our hearts we know that if we were ever to lose our (family, middle-class-wealth, good looks, professional success, etc.) we just couldn’t go on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life would prove to be pointless if that central blessing were taken away.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What would that “deal-breaker” be for you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter invites us to dare to imagine something big enough to tower over any other dream we might pursue or any other potential loss we might face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He invites us to look to Christ and ask Him to fill us with the kind of living hope that comes only when you’re solidly based on something that even a recession can’t take away.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Got hope?”</div><!--EndFragment-->Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-24171588461146674102010-01-03T17:55:00.000-08:002010-01-03T18:03:47.093-08:00Lessons I've Been Learning from 2009I have a tradition at The Gathering of dedicating my first sermon of the year to sharing some of the lessons God had been teaching me during the previous year.<br />
<br />
<div>I’m always a little uncomfortable presenting that sermon because:<br />
a.) Our people get the opportunity to see proof of what they may frequently suspect (that their preacher can be pretty messed-up in side).<br />
b.) Announcing lessons “learned” implies that I've gotten the point. In reality the shelf life for these kinds of lessons seems to be measured in hours, not years, which means that I typically have an awful lot of re-learning going on.<br />
<br />
Well, so be it.<br />
<br />
Having said that, here’s a summary of what I’m sharing this year.<br />
<br />
<b>1. We need to be who God created us to be.</b><br />
God makes it really clear in the Bible that he has custom-designed each of us for specific purposes which He’s prepared for us to do (I Cor. 12). I’ve known that for a long time, yet it seems like I frequently discover how little I grasp what this really means.<br />
<br />
As a pastor, I love seeing how this works. Not long ago I was in a meeting with two of our key leaders. Person A was expressing appreciation for a role Person B had stepped into. “I think it’s so awesome to see how you are able to…” (you get the point). Person B seemed a little flattered, adding how she was amazed every time she saw Person A doing what she did well. They each considered the other to be remarkably gifted and were each surprised to hear the other celebrate their unique contributions.<br />
<br />
</div><div>That conversation just felt very right to me. I love seeing people discovering how they uniquely fit together as we uncover clues as to what God has had in mind for us since the beginning.<br />
<br />
In my own situation God has been nudging (OK…shoving) me in a direction that helps me discover just how big of a deal this really is. A lot of my particular learning has had to do with the significance of being an introvert. I’ve been a Meyers-Briggs INTJ since way back, and I’ve always suspected that if you click on the word “introvert” you’d see my picture pop up. People are often surprised about that since I talk for a living, but I’ve known that for a long time. Introversion isn’t the same thing as shy: introvert refers to someone whose battery recharges when they’re alone while an extrovert’s battery recharges while being with other people.<br />
<br />
However, God’s lead me to read a number of voices during this past year who are helping me discover just how significant this really is in my life. One of these voices is Adam McHugh, who recently published the book Introverts in the Church which has been attracting a lot of attention on the internet.<br />
<br />
Here’s the significance for me: I love people, I love what our church stands for, and I love to explore possibilities with people so together we can figure out how to make them happen. Most of my work time is connected to meetings. But as much as I enjoy that, I also find it incredibly tiring. More often than people suspect I’ll finish an all-day run of meetings and find myself weary to the point of tears. As the adrenaline subsides I’ll discover that I’ve given away more than I had to give. I usually push through that, because you do what you have to do, but that kind of fatigue doesn’t help anybody, and it could really screw up my own life if I’m not careful.<br />
<br />
At the same time, I’m learning that the best stuff I have to offer in life comes from the things that happen in my solitude. What I bring in preaching, teaching or writing comes from the very things that I need to be healthy. You lock a red-blooded extrovert up in solitary confinement and you’ll have a mess on your hands. You lock me up and chances are I’ll write something that you’ll find really helpful. It’s all part of the same temperament.<br />
<br />
So the lesson for me is that I need to be smart about how I spend my time and my energy. It wouldn’t help anyone for me to crash and burn. I need to trust that Christ can take my five loaves and two fish use them to produce whatever kind of meal is needed.<br />
<br />
That’s what I’m learning about how I’m wired. What has God been showing you about how He’s wired you? He’s made you to be very unique, different from anyone else who might read this blog. What has He been showing you about the kind situations in which you can really make His dreams come true?<br />
<br />
<b>2. I Need to Watch for God’s Presence.</b><br />
Theoretically, God is everywhere. He’s omni-present, we say. That’s what David was saying in Psalm 139: “where can I flee from your presence?” In a broader sense it’s impossible to escape the presence of God. Just ask Jonah.<br />
<br />
On the other hand there is a unique sense of flourishing that comes from being deeply connected in relationship with him. Jesus described it as being like a vine with branches (John 15). We were created to live life with an ongoing connection to God: seeing life through His eyes, going through our days with His passions beating in our hearts. That’s what I’ve been exploring at a deeper level lately.<br />
<br />
Here’s one thing I’ve been discovering: joy is one of the by-products of this Presence. I think of it as the God’s cologne which lets you know he’s somewhere in the immediate vicinity. Joy is different than happiness: happiness is a temporary delight from temporary circumstances. Joy is a lasting sense of well-being that will outlast temporary circumstances.<br />
<br />
I’m learning to take that sense of His joy more seriously. Joy is important because it’s good. Grin for grin it’s a better value than happiness and a lot less fragile.<br />
<br />
But tracking joy more closely also tends to unearth some weird stuff that can distort my worldview. For instance, I tend to get spooked by my own unhappiness. If my internal weather report is cloudy I’ll begin to assume that things are going badly in life. That’s actually a pretty atheist/humanist kind of approach. It assumes a bunch of things that don’t sync with the gospel very well: that events in life need to meet my approval, that I’m the one who’s best-qualified to judge what’s good or bad in life, and that my happiness index should consistently rise over time. It puts me at the center.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, if I re-accept God’s hand in my world then it becomes easier for me to rest in a general sense that God’s on the job and that Rom. 8:28 somehow still applies. For instance, suppose God should grant me joy tomorrow without providing me with a corresponding degree of happiness? Would I be OK with that?<br />
<br />
When I slide in my humanist bad habits I tend to over-value happiness and I begin to freak over each potential unhappy thing that might come my way. In short, I worry. Sometimes a lot. But when I shift my focus to tracking His joy more than I track my happiness I find that things change. Then I can be OK without having to be happy. That tends to make life a lot easier in a world that sometimes refuses to bend to my will.<br />
<br />
Here’s what lies behind the whole discovery of joy: God really loves me, loves us. It’s not simply that God approves us or accepts us or even if committed to us whether He happens to like it or not. The mystery of the Gospel inevitably leads us to the startling discovery that God is awfully fond of you, and of me. When we come to terms with that everything else in the Christian faith becomes a lot easier. But until we dare accept his heavenly hug everything else in the Bible seems like a burden.<br />
<br />
I’m not fully there yet…God’s still working on me with that. But he’s still working on me. He used the book The Shack to move me along in this area. I'm slowly getting used to the idea of being really special in God’s eyes.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Pride is a heavy weight to carry.</b><br />
A long time ago I seem to have concluded that I needed to take myself very seriously, since it appeared that no one else was likely to do that for me. And so I developed a habit of being very concerned about how I would do in life, and what people would think of me, how I would come across.<br />
<br />
This can be a clumsy trait for a preacher. It’s hard to help people see that God is great when I’m also hoping they’ll notice that the preacher is pretty good. That’s an understandable, maybe even inevitable, concern but it requires a lot of extra energy to worry about.<br />
<br />
I’m learning that Jesus has called us to a life that’s a lot easier. As Matthew tells us He calls us to seek first His kingdom, promising that He’ll take care of all our other concerns as well.<br />
<br />
I find it’s pretty easy for me to get confused on this point. (As you may have noticed, it’s actually pretty easy for me to get confused on a wide variety of important issues.) Fortunately God has a really effective way of helping me re-center on this point: He leads me into situations where I might not end up looking very good. Perhaps it’s because His particular leading for me may be misunderstood by others, at other times it may simply be due to ways in which I might screw something up. In any case, any dip in the ratings can quickly bring into question whose reputation I’m most concerned. It’s hard to serve both God and reputation. (Although I’m still hoping you’ll really like this blog post!)<br />
<br />
If I were to look for a summary theme through these three lessons I think it would have to do with how big of a God I expect to find in the coming year. God has this way of shrinking or expanding to match our expectations for Him. To the extent that I try to hold my future in my own hands I’ll probably have a rough time of things: I’ll try to be someone I’m not, I’ll fret over my level of happiness and I’ll worry about my reputation. On the other hand, if I’m following a God who has created me to fit exactly into His good plans, who is committed to sustaining me in His joy and will grant me whatever level of success is needed for me to be accomplish my mission…well, then I’ll be set for the coming year.<br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div>How about you--I'd love to hear comments about what God's been teaching YOU.<br />
</div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-77597878310129690652009-12-23T15:42:00.000-08:002009-12-23T15:42:30.977-08:00The Gospel According to Metallica<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">(The conclusion of a 4-part series)<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Many communities have some kind of small, classifieds-only newspaper designed to offer want ads or job postings to people in their city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a long time one such paper in the Los Angeles area has been the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Recycler</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In early 1981 a teen named Lars Ulrich posted an ad in the Recycler looking for other musicians who were interested in jamming with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guitarist James Hetfield and another musician responded to the ad, and that first jam session eventually resulted in the group we know as Metallica.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>By the mid-eighties Lars and James, along with Kirk Hammett and Cliff Burton had helped create a new genre of rock music known as “thrash metal”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the eyes (and ears) of many, thrash metal offered a refreshing alternative to the spandex-makeup-and-big-hair that had begun to define mainstream rock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thrash metal artists like Metallica played louder, faster and with a sharper sense of defiance than most artists dared portray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their combination of tremendous technical skill and raw fury touched something inside listeners that groups like Kiss or Aerosmith could never reach. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Metallica brought rage into the world of popular music industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Why would a Christian listen to Metallica?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Many Christians tend to shy away from artists like Metallica.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We assume that anyone venting that much rage couldn’t possibly have much to offer towards a biblical worldview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few years ago a pastor friend of mine, John Van Sloten, presented a sermon on the gospel according to Metallica, which began to tip my worldview in this area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m finding that taking artists like Metallica seriously can help us dig more deeply into some easily overlooked themes in the scriptures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might be surprised what we can discover in the Gospel when it’s refracted through Metallica.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Typically we tend to shy away from some of the more gruesome parts of the Bible, hoping to sanitize it into a form more appropriate for religious greeting cards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A God who would release deadly plagues on the nation of Egypt, arbitrarily killing a nation’s generation of first-born children, seems shockingly out of place in most bible story books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But somehow that vindictive rage shown by God seems a little less fundamentalist when described by Metallica:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Die by my hand, I creep across the land, killing first-born man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Die by my hand…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>(from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Creeping Death</i>).<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But why would someone want to revel in that kind of ugliness?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure these scenes are in the Bible, but what’s the benefit in dwelling on them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Artists like Metallica can help us come to terms with the fact that some things in life just aren’t right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We live in a world that’s not like it’s supposed to be.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We were told this, to be fair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Way back in the Garden of Eden God warned us that if we rejected him life in our world would begin to unravel, and we’ve been dealing with this twistedness ever since.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our world if you’re born poor or with the “wrong” skin color you’ll find that you’ve drawn <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“The Shortest Straw”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t have to get very far into “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And Justice For All”</i> to pick up Metallica’s protest to the blatant unfairness that has soaked into our way of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Justice is raped…”<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And God looks down from heaven and says…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>YES! </u></i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">While we stare at him in disbelief He immediately points us to the Minor Prophets where He’s been unsuccessfully to get his people to protest like that for years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.” (Amos 5:12)<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They rely on empty arguments and speak lies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They conceive trouble and give birth to evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Isaiah 59:3-4)<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #020316; font-size: 11.0pt; font-weight: normal; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">There is a conspiracy of her princes within her like a roaring lion<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey; they shed blood and kill people to make unjust gain. The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the alien, denying them justice. (Ezekiel 22:25, 27, 29)<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like an never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24)<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 15px;"><i><br />
</i></span></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But the suffering in scripture isn’t limited to the impersonal pain of far-off victims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Bible is filled with the stories of real people experiencing real pain—the same kinds of pain we experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The members of Metallica are no different than us in that regard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In interviews the various band members tells stories of a father who never came back from a business trip, of a mother who died young of a preventable cause, of parents whose marriage was scarred by a father’s abuse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entire band reeled from the death of Cliff Burton, their first bassist, whose death threw the rest of the band off-balance for more than a decade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Life is painful:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>not just for the anonymous people behind the headlines, but for people like us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what led the prophet Jeremiah to burst out: <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #020316; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Curse the day I was born! The day my mother bore me, a curse on it, I say!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And curse the man who delivered the news to my father:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>"You've got a new baby--a boy baby!"<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(How happy it made him.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let that birth notice be blacked out,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>deleted from the records, And the man who brought it haunted to his death with the bad news he brought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He should have killed me before I was born, with that womb as my tomb, My mother pregnant for the rest of her life with a baby dead in her womb. Why, oh why, did I ever leave that womb?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life's been nothing but trouble and tears, and what's coming is more of the same.” </span></i><span style="color: #020316; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">(Jeremiah 20:14-18, The Message).</span><b><span style="color: #020316;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><span style="color: #020316;"><br />
</span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In their song <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fixxer, </i>the band throws out the same complaint:<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">But tell me<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Can you heal what father’s done?<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Or fix this hole in mother’s son?<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Can you heal the broken worlds within?<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Can you strip away so we may start again?<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i><br />
</i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">That’s anger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anger for a reason.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But you can’t hold anger forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually something’s got to give:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>your health, your relationships, your sanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sooner or later it seems that the irresistible force of anger ultimately crumbles every immovable object we might place in its path.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can hear that in Metallica’s music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s hard to imagine anyone putting more raw passion into any one song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>something’s</u></i> got to give.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And finally it did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly the scene switches to a hill outside Jerusalem where Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is ripped from his Father by the force of a wrath that we’d never even imagined before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’ve seen the movie “The Passion of the Christ” you can probably form a picture of the scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What you’re seeing is the wrath of God coming down like a city bus on an unsuspecting pedestrian. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You can sense that tragedy on Golgotha in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The God That Failed </i>:<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I see faith in your eyes<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Never you hear the discouraging lies<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I hear faith in your cries<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Broken is the promise, betrayal<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The healing hand held back by the deepened nail<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Follow the god that failed…<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Trust you gave, a child to save<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Left you cold and him in grave…<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><i><br />
</i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But wait a minute—was that scene really a failure?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We sometimes twist this story into a narrow, judgmental caricature of a God who doesn’t like to be crossed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if you look at how God presents this event you find something surprising:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>an anger even greater than that of Metallica.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not simply the anger of irritation or wounded pride. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not even the anger of injustice or abuse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the anger of a Creator who knows better than any of us just how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>right</u></i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>this world was created to be, and just how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>wrong</u></i> it has now become since Genesis 3 spoiled everything.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yes, eventually something has to give.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But suddenly the scene switches again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now we see the risen Jesus Christ appearing in John’s vision in Revelation 21.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surveying the final arrival of his Kingdom He states it simply:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I am making everything new</i> (Rev. 21:5). God says <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>HERE</u></i> is where you can point your anger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let your anger surface, grieve mourn and wail as it ripens into a longing for the world that we were made for, the one we ache for in our bones. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sounds like gospel to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Yes, strangely enough, Metallica leads me to Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that the band members themselves have discovered that yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It appears that they haven’t, at least so far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But here’s what I’m learning:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>readers of the Bible need to understand voices like Metallica’s to read the Bible more vividly, just as listeners of Metallica need to turn to the Bible to find somewhere they can go with their rage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each side needs the other.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you’ve stuck with me all the way to the end of this blog post, chances are that you can feel some of what Metallica voices so powerfully.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You get it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe you have lived with some of the same kinds of pain that members of the band have experienced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But then let me ask you:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>where do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>you</u></i> go with your anger, with whatever particular cocktail of hurt and brokenness life has mixed in your heart? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you shake your fist at Heaven, giving voice to your frustration?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or do you try your best to give God the silent treatment? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(not a small feat, given His omniscience). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And how do you picture God responding?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe, like many, you sense God wrinkling His nose in irritation at your bitterness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe you wonder if He even notices at all.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If God were oblivious to our suffering, then it would seem that He has wasted a lot of valuable space in the Bible to include all those laments and protests that he packed into there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why in the world would He include all that ugly stuff if He only wanted us to make nice?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the contrary, God goads us on in our protests, even giving us some good lines to throw back at Him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">God is serious about our protests, because the more we feel just how wrong life still is, the more we begin to realize just how right his redemption will be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If your world only needs a little tweaking to make it right, you’ll only look for a little help from God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when we discover a little more of just how twisted God’s creations has become we’re able to make room for a much bigger, deeper, more powerful kind of redemption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The kind that doesn’t simply make things a little better, but makes things <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>new.<o:p></o:p></u></i><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Chances are God has raised the stakes for you, forcing you to look for a redemption that’s real enough to change a world like yours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s goading you on, looking to finally do some business with you as you creep towards redemption.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What are you waiting for?<br />
</div><!--EndFragment-->Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-8297850620769995152009-12-21T12:18:00.000-08:002009-12-21T12:21:04.919-08:00The Gospel According to U2 ("Still Looking?")<div class="MsoNormal">(#3 in a series of 4)<br />
<br />
On Sept. 25, 1976, 14-year-old Larry Mullen, Jr. had some new friends over to his house. He’d posted an ad at school for starting a band and had gotten several takers. He invited them to a meeting in his kitchen to begin what was to be The Larry Mullen Band. Mullen explains that that dream lasted for about 10 minutes until a particularly high-wattage student named Paul Hewson (nicknamed Bono Vox after a local hearing aid shop) walked in and blew away the chances of anyone else even trying to lead the band. Four years later a record deal…the rest, as they say, is album sales. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the years since that first meeting, U2 has become not only a primary band in the secular music world, but certainly the largest <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Christian </i>secular band. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The work of U2 offers a textbook example of how deeply our backgrounds shape our Christian beliefs. While certainly the written truths in scripture are to be taken at face value, our experiences in life have a dramatic effect on just how we take those beliefs at face value. For instance, just imagine how different the sermons you hear are from the whatever sermons are furtively shared in a house church in a persecuted 3<sup>rd</sup> World setting. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">U2 came together against a very turbulent setting. Their childhood was spent against the backdrop of “The Troubles” in Ireland, where Protestant-Catholic tensions had created strife that was only inches away from a civil war. Bono himself was the child of a mixed home, with a Protestant mother and Catholic father. His mother died when he was 10, and his relationship with his father was very conflicted. Furthermore, as the band developed three of the four members were part of a Christian community that pressured them to choose between their church and their band. Leaving that community was a difficult experience for them.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As a result, U2 writes their songs against a backdrop of pain. Listen, for instance, to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sunday, Bloody Sunday</i>, one of their early anthems protesting the British attack against unarmed demonstrators in the town of Derry in Northern Ireland. This was for Ireland what the Kent State attacks were for US during the Viet Nam era. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In contrast with other bands, such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Clash</i>, U2 were not promoting anarchy. They offered hope, but hope that seeped in through the wreckage of war.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Experiences like these will inevitably result in a different approach to Christianity. Here in the United States today we tend to avoid ambiguity. We prefer them clearly laid out, cut-and-dried. (“Would you like fries with those commandments, sit?”) <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Take, for example, our understanding of Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son, as we know it from Luke 15. A typical reading of the story renders it pretty simply: there’s a good guy and a bad guy, and by the end the bad guy becomes another good guy.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It can be easy to miss a lot in a story like that. For instance, why didn’t the father give his “bad son” a decent hearing with his apology? He cut him off before he could roll into the confession that he’d been struggling with for weeks. Or, why did Jesus leave the “good son” out in the cold at the end of the story? That’s no happily-ever-after. And perhaps more troubling, why do most of us hope our kids grow up to be older brothers? Frankly, we could do worse than have our kids grow up to hard-working responsible types who don’t ask for much, not even a goat.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My point is this: questions like these are troubling, because they can lead to tension and ambiguity. And so we avoid them, to our detriment.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What we miss in our compulsive clarity is that the Christian faith is not merely a religion, it’s a relationship. And relationships tend to be messy, conflicted things. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Religion is generally pretty simple: either you sign on or you don’t. If our Christianity is primarily a religion with rules and doctrines and facts to memorize, then it will ultimately be pretty easy to draw the lines to determine who’s in, who’s out. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">A relationship, on the other hand, tend to be a lot more complicated than that. Compare getting vaccinated to getting married. Both can be accomplished in less than an hour, yet the one can still remain a mystery decades later. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The music of U2 is marbled with tensions and ambiguity. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For the First Time</i> portrays the ambivalence of the sons in the Luke 15 parable, and all of us in our exile from Eden. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Until the End of the World </i>offers a poignant portrayal of Judas reaching out for Jesus from the afterlife. And the tension in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For </i> is self-explanatory.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The cumulative effect of a library of U2 music is to deepen our ache for shalom. Shalom is the Hebrew word describing a situation where everything is right, as it should be. Take every TV ad you’ve ever seen for luxury cars, for investment firms and for brands of beer and morph them all together. The end result will be a brittle concept of shalom.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">U2 helps us ache for shalom. A society like ours can tend to numb us, keeping us too busy to ache much for anything. A band like U2, and a man like Bono, help keep our wounds just raw enough that they can really heal.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Have you ever been famished and had just a tiny nibble to hold you until dinner? (In a family with three growing sons that seems to happen to someone on a daily basis). A bite-sized sample of a coming dinner can only leave you more hungry than before. U2 hungers for shalom, not because they haven’t found anything, but because what they’ve found has only whet their appetites for more. They tasted the feast of the Kingdom, but discovered that dinner might not be served for a while. Jesus put it this way: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Question: if God gave you the choice between being numb and being healed, which would you choose? The fact is most of the things I bring to God in prayer probably fall into the category of pain-relievers. I want my nuisances to go away, my impatience to be satisfied, and my guilt and shame to subside.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Fortunately God loves me too much to merely give me spiritual ibuprofen to mask my lack of shalom. I have a growing sense that many of the things I most resist in my life are actually there to play some part in my healing. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">God loves us too much to merely numb us into complacency. Instead he prompts us to ache for the Shalom that rings through the pages of scripture. On a good day, that makes sense to me.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">So when’s dinner? I'm starving.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-3186830389309927252009-12-18T07:00:00.000-08:002010-08-24T16:30:08.202-07:00The Gospel According to Michael Jackson ("Is This It?")<div class="MsoNormal">(#2 in a series of 4)<br />
<br />
It’s a long ways from Gary, IN to Neverland Ranch. When I was a boy I lived close enough to Gary to smell it. The community where my family and I were safely tucked away was only about 15 miles from Gary; I would look at the interstate frontage as we drove to visit family in Michigan for holidays. Like most of my neighbors, though, I never actually set foot in Gary. It was a certain kind of town for only certain kinds of people. Through no merit of my own, I wasn’t one of those people.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I could, however, smell the town when the wind blew from the right direction. Whenever the breeze shifted to the northeast the industrial stench from the steel mills in Gary would drift over Lansing IL, and for a few hours that distant world clouded my own. When that happened I was forced to go inside and enjoy the air conditioning.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">During those same years a crane operator at one of those steel mills was doing what he could to earn a living for his wife and 9 children. Feeding all those growing children was tough, and so Joseph Jackson did what he could to moonlight in an R-and-B band. As his sons grew he discovered that they shared his love of music. He helped his sons form a group, eventually called the Jackson 5. They even had little Jermaine and Michael singing back-ups and working their tambourines. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Eventually the little guys worked their way to the front. And after that the littlest guy, Michael, became the solo front singer for their group. And they were amazing. Polished, singing with an ease and maturity beyond their years. (Check out their videos on Youtube sometime. I’ve been to a lot of elementary school music programs; trust me, they didn’t look <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anything </i>like that!) They didn’t look at all like Gary, they looked like Hollywood. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What no one knew at the time was that behind those practiced smiles was a domineering father who supervised the endless rehearsals with his belt ready to enforce his authority. As various family members have explained in interviews, if you made mistakes you “got your butt tore up pretty good”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Over time Michael Jackson moved from the front singer to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">THE </i>singer, launching his solo career as the groups star began to decline. He emerged on the scene just about the time a new music-video network was getting established: MTV. Michael and MTV fit like a marriage made in Neverland. Before Michael Jackson MTV videos were mostly promotional footage for bands, showing concert footage and studio shenanigans of long-haired musicians. But Michael reinvented the music video, shaping it into a form of cinema in its own right. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Billie Jean</i> translated the classic detective movie into a musical form, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beat It </i>re-invented <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">West Side Story</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thriller </i>blew everyone away as the ghouls quietly emerged from their graves, clearly showing “the soul for getting down”. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In all of these, Michael was amazing. He could chase away the bad guys, he could reconcile rival street gangs, he could tame the dreaded ghouls from the graveyard…just by dancing! He could fly loops around the globe faster than you could say “Black or White”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And it wasn’t just that he was good. Michael Jackson’s ability transcended whatever limitations mere mortals like you and me had to live with. Gravity didn’t seem to hold him, the basic laws of physics were no more than mere guidelines as he moonwalked across the stage, sliding and bending in ways that only cartoon characters can hope for.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He made it look <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">easy.</i> That was the thing, really—watching Michael Jackson made you think you could be cool. For a few minutes even a heavy-footed, Midwest white boy could imagine gliding and sliding gracefully, every move just perfect. A few weeks ago I watched “This Is It”, the tribute movie hastily thrown together for Michael Jackson. It was fascinating to watch him: a relentless perfectionist, working very hard making it look that easy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately Michael Jackson’s videos all ended after 5 or 10 minutes, only to leave me disappointingly aware that this middle-aged preacher wasn’t going to dance that smoothly any more than he was going to juggle chainsaws. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Of course, I knew that would happen…it happens every time. But still…something inside me can’t shake the idea that I was meant to be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">awesome</i>. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And it’s at this point that God looks down on me from heaven and says…“You think?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s right about then that I’m driven to Gen. 3 where I’m told that things <u>were</u> created to be awesome, that life was intended to be elegant and powerful and nothing was supposed to feel bleak or heavy or clumsy. And once again I’m driven to realize that even though you can take people out of Eden, you can’t quite take the Eden out of people.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">C.S. Lewis once wrote: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. … Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing."</i><br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i>Michael Jackson’s smoothness made us ache to get past the clumsiness of this life that we consider “real”. We ache to moonwalk our way from our individual Gary, Indianas, to whatever Neverland might be waiting for us in the pleasant hills of Santa Barbara. We ache for that…only to find that we can’t get there from here.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And, of course, the media have always made it very clear that not even Michael Jackson was actually as cool as Michael Jackson seemed to be. The signs of an unsatisfied longing were obvious: the compulsive plastic surgery (reportedly spurred by his father’s verbal abuse accusing him of being ugly, having a big nose, etc.). The various rumors and sexual charges that, at the very least, proved some serious eccentricity. In fact, the man just seemed…bizarre, even before he dangled his child off that balcony.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Michael Jackson presented something that he probably didn’t have a whole lot of himself: hope. The hope of escaping the heavy drudgery which turns our loving into conflict, our creativity into mere day jobs and the creation itself into a series of environmental crises.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">1 Peter 1 talks about the “inexpressible and glorious joy” that can be ours through Christ. Not because we can finally <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Beat It, </i>but because Christ himself will someday wipe every tear from our eyes, restoring the glory that we ache to see here in Gary Indiana. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can almost—but not quite—get used to living in the bleakness of life after Eden. But when I see magic set to music something inside me is roused to eager expectation, if only for a few minutes. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The man may have had flaws, but he helped us ache past our own.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-63789193577306263192009-12-16T07:00:00.000-08:002009-12-16T09:31:56.648-08:00The Gospel According to The Beatles ("All You Need is...What?")(First in a four-part series.)<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">If you’ve ever gotten truly filthy, you know how good it can feel to get cleaned up. Maybe it’s a long day landscaping, or a really good mud football game, or a long-distance run in the rain. Once you get inside there’s nothing like the feeling of a long, hot shower and the chance to slip into some clean, dry clothes. You start to feel human again.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can imagine how that feeling must have swept across Britain after the horrors of World War 2. After the endless years of air raid sirens, gutted buildings and children sent away to hide in the country it must have felt wonderful to simply settle down again. To get cleaned up once again. It’s not surprising, then, that the years following the war on both sides of the Atlantic were marked by an exaggerated sense of tidiness: the “Leave It To Beaver” era. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">But it was during these years of tidiness that a new wave of children were entering their parents’ world—the Baby Boom. They arrived untouched by the grime of their parents’ nightmares; they just wanted to have fun. What had felt snug and secure to their parents began to feel sterile and confining to them. Soon voices of protest began to emerge.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">One of the first of these voices came from a group of young boys from the working-class town of Liverpool, in England. They were crude, but clever, and they gained a following by gently poking fun of their parents’ generation. Eventually they were discovered by a record shop owner who offered to serve as their manager, and they were whisked off to Hamburg Germany where they served as a non-stop opening act for various all-night strip clubs there. After several months of (amphetamine-boosted) marathon performances they returned to England, exhausted. Eventually this trial by fire forged The Beatles.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Despite their humble start, The Beatles’ creativity rattled English society, like a shot of tequila at tea-time. They only stayed together 9 years, yet in less than a decade they changed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything</i> musically. <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How? They expressed an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ache</i> that many Baby Boomers had been feeling but couldn’t quite express. Whether in the cute romance of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Saw Her Standing There, </i>the melancholy grieving of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">She’s Leaving Home</i> or the wistful longing for community in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yellow Submarine, </i>The Beatles’ music somehow made it easier to believe that there was more to life than dear old dad and mum might ever imagine. All you need is love, right?<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Really? <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The problem, of course, was to figure out just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what </i>they were actually longing for. Albums like the landmark <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sgt. Pepper </i>sharpened and deepened that desire, without pointing towards a clear remedy. The group wandered in and out of a variety of world-view alternatives, including Eastern religions, without finding something credible to hang their spiritual hats on. And ironically, it was during the years of this search that the Beatles themselves began to unravel in some very unloving ways. By the time their two final albums were released the band members were facing each other in court, squabbling over everything from money to creative differences. All you need is love…and a bigger share of the groups’ royalties.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Beatles had a point—there is more to life than material possessions. At the same time, The Beatles were ultimately pointless—they had no idea what might present a better alternative. And they apparently didn’t know that they didn’t know that.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the Beatitudes Jesus encouraged us to grieve our inability to straighten out our worlds. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” he said in the Sermon on the Mount, urging us to recognize the futility of creating our own “Octupus’ Gardens, in the shade.” <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Furthermore, the Bible makes it clear that there is only one place to turn to get things straightened out in life. In Col. 1:15-23 we’re told that Christ is the only one who can reconcile that which is ruined. To discover the gospel involves grieving our complete inability to fix things in order to cling tightly to the One who can.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">We can’t do this on our own. Left to our own devices we will pendulum-swing from one disaster to another. The 60’s “free love” led to the STD’s of the 80’s and the broken families of the 90’s and the hopelessness marked by the children of those generations. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Beatles helped us ache for that “long and winding road” that might lead us to healing. What they didn’t realize was that that path was actually straight and narrow.<br />
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</div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-48687521546325686982009-12-14T21:26:00.000-08:002009-12-14T21:28:34.807-08:00Discovering the Gospel in Rock Music<div class="MsoNormal">I’ve been thinking about popular music a lot lately, as our church has just finished a series of services looking at the topic. I’m going to use my next series of blog posts to reflect on that. For more on the series, visit <a href="http://www.gatheringchurch.org/">www.gatheringchurch.org</a>.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">A generation or two ago most Christians were keeping their distance from the disturbing new music known as “Rock ‘n’ Roll”. There were enough concerns about Elvis (“the Pelvis”) Presley and others of his ilk to convince most decent church folk to keep their distance. It just didn’t seem <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">normal</i> and it certainly wasn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">godly</i>. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Today things have changed greatly; for better or for worse. In most Christian families children listen to a variety of popular music stations without hesitation, and their parents may have their own blend of classic, heavy metal, or light rock artists. Most believers rarely question the fact that all these hours of listening time are devoted to secular<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>music, any more than they might question all the hours they spend watching secular<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>TV. After all, who would seriously consider watching only Christian TV? <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Clearly our idea of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">normal</i> has shifted, along with our listening habits. Is that a good thing?<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Right about this point this conversation usually veers directly into questioning the lifestyles of various rock artists, their dubious credibility as role models, etc. While these are valid questions, Christians have generally found a way to separate the music of their artists from their lifestyles. Spend a little time reading up on the personal lives of Mozart, for example, (much less Tchaikovsky) to be reminded of God’s ability to inspire amazing art from flawed individuals. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">This blog is not intended to pursue that conversation, as it has already gotten enough column inches during the past several decades. Instead, I believe there is a far more important conversation that’s been generally neglected: finding hints of the Gospel in rock music. Throughout the astonishing breath of the popular music industry one can find hints and urges that, if followed, can lead us directly to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(Now <u>that</u> sounds like a gimmicky seeker-friendly way to try to lure people into your church! Why not just </i><u>preach</u><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> the gospel rather than going all Hollywood about it? If we’re not careful we could lose our bearings!)<o:p></o:p></i><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">If you read Acts 17 sometime you may be surprised to see the Apostle Paul losing his bearings in the city of Athens. As any decent Jewish Christ-follower could tell you, Athens was dangerous. In a first-century world where people collected false gods and goddesses as a hobby, Athens was one of the destinations of choice for someone who really wanted to get serious about it. Athens was for idolaters what Las Vegas is for problem gamblers.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Paul found himself with time to kill in Athens. He’d run into trouble in another city and had to leave town quickly. His supporters brought him to Athens where he would then wait for Silas and Timothy to join him later. Before long, Paul had found the Jewish synagogue and had begun challenging folks with the news of Jesus Christ. One thing led to another and before long he’d gotten sucked into the whole “pantheon of gods” scene. Before you could say “abomination” he found himself talking face to face with some of the big names in idol worship. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Greek idolaters seemed to get a kick out of Paul. They kept goading him with questions and challenges. Eventually Paul hit pay dirt. Pointing to the Altar of the Unknown God (their catch-all for whatever deity they may have failed to invent along the way) Paul looked them in the eyes and made his pitch: I know about this mystery god. Let me tell you about the god you’re already worshipping.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">There was a method in Paul’s madness. Although in most Jewish eyes he probably seemed to be compromising in his efforts to recruit followers of Jesus Christ, he was actually making surgical strike in a spiritual hot-spot in their world. Instead of lobbing the gospel at the Athenians from the outside, bellowing condemnation like Jonah in Nineveh, he found something they were already looking for and joined them in their search. He came alongside of them, respectfully but with full integrity, and helped them with the search they were already on.<br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">There’s a lot that we can learn from Paul’s approach. Often we approach evangelism as if everyone “out there” were spiritually tone-deaf and needed to be rebuked into the gospel faith. While rebellion has indeed spread throughout humanity like a spiritual H1N1 virus, the fact is that many people around us are longing for Christ’s redemption, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">but may not know it yet.</i><u><o:p></o:p></u><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">In Romans 8 Paul explained that there’s an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ache</i> inside each one of us: a deep-seated sense that life could be, should be more that what it is—but isn’t. Rom. 8:22 assures this that this is real. All creation, we’re told, groans in expectation waiting for God’s redemption to be fully ushered in. But sometimes we can get so used to this nagging ache that we lose our sense of it. When we lose our ability to ache we lose our sense of redemption and our awareness of the gospel. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">One of the reasons why it can be important for Christians to follow popular music is that popular artists often have an instinctive way of tapping into this chronic ache. Let’s face it, when an artist is able to sell millions of albums he or she is clearly offering a lot more than a catchy melody or rhythm line. Somehow, on a deep level, that artist has been able to connect with something that a lot of potential fans are feeling. A best-selling artist is able to, in some way, provide listeners with a shock of recognition: “yes, I feel like that, too!” <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">Thoughtful listening to popular music can go a long way in helping us rediscover the human ache for God and the redemption He offers us. The particular artists may or may not have anything helpful to offer to help with this ache, but they can undo a lot of the numbness that the followers of Jesus can sometimes develop. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">In the next four posts on this blog I’d like to share some reflections on how this ache for God can be seen in the music of The Beatles, Michael Jackson (yes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that </i>Michael Jackson), U2 and Metallica. <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">These four artists each speak to the inner ache many of us would just as soon avoid. By exploring the significance of their voices we can re-discover important aspects of the gospel. <br />
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</div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-16093563440435191972009-12-03T12:32:00.000-08:002009-12-03T12:32:23.802-08:00DownstreamIt's surprising how easily you can get swept away in a river. I remember swimming with our family once in a mountain river near us ("Ruck-a-Chucky" -- isn't that a fun name to say 10 times in a row?)...I remember wading in the icy, waist-deep water and barely being able to stand still. The water wasn't moving all that fast, but it was still powerful enough to give the power of gravity a good run for its money.<br />
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Now ordinarily it's not that hard to stand still. Mostly it requires, well, just standing there. But standing still presents a whole new challenge when the lower half of your body is surrounded by slowly moving water. There's a power called buoyancy which makes your body a lot less heavy. And once you start to lose your traction even the slowest current can start to take you away. The waters there were pretty calm and so we weren't in any danger, but I still remember how hard it was to simply stand still. I'd lift my arms out of the water, stretching as tall as I could out of the buoyant water to get as much weight on my feet as I could. Reaching up seemed to shift my center of gravity and help me settle back down. But even then my feet would still slip easily through the sand.<br />
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I find the same thing can happen when surrounded by the currents of busyness. When I go through seasons where the events on my calendar want to sweep me downstream I find myself feeling like a one-armed paperhanger. Soon I'm struggling simply to get settled into who I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to be doing...<br />
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(<i>Oops--just got a text about something I was supposed to have done by now. Bummer. But back to my train of thought)</i><br />
<br />
...and soon it can feel surprisingly difficult to simply stand still. To "be still and know that (He) is God" as Psalm 46 says.<br />
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What helps, I've found, is to raise my hands. Reaching up seems to change my spiritual center of gravity and help me feet to settle back down on terra firma. I don't know exactly how He does it, but God seems to put my feet back on solid ground (Psalm 40:2).<br />
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Ever have that?Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-36526530588334635082009-12-01T10:30:00.000-08:002009-12-01T10:30:00.346-08:00"Zoom" Adjustments<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s not easy to live with suspense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I find I talk to a lot of people who are living with a profound sense of suspense:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>will I lose my house?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Will I lose my job?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Will I ever find another one?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As a church planter it seems like my own life has been up in the air for a long time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">As Christians, of course, we know we’re supposed to pray about these kinds of struggles, and the Bible seems to indicate that prayer should help us discover a certain kind of peace about things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But saying our prayers doesn’t necessarily seem to change how things look, at least right away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And that can be unnerving.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m writing these words on my laptop computer, sitting on my patio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One of the things I like about writing on a computer is the “zoom” feature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sitting here with my laptop on the top of my…uh, lap I find that the text can seem a little bit too small to read easily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I might just crane my neck and try to squint to track whatever it is I’ve just written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But that looks funny and can get really uncomfortable after a while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What works much better is to go to the “View” menu, click “Zoom” and then simply make all the text appear bigger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>With a few gestures on the touchpad (or better yet, keyboard shortcuts!) I suddenly find that everything is so much easier to keep in perspective.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Back to the suspense thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wonder if there is a “Zoom” feature in our lives that we need to learn to use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe even develop a few keyboard shortcuts for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here’s how it seems to work for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I find that most of my suspense comes from things that await me in my future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Problems that may come up next week, next month or even next year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sometimes I can even fret on the basis of a career trajectory or retirement plan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Actually I’m a pretty nimble worrier:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I can switch almost instantly from worrying about catching a traffic light green to worrying about what I’ll do when I retire several decades from now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe it’s a mid-life thing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So here’s what I’ve noticed:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the Bible speaks very bluntly about our worry, but much of what it says seems to focus on my daily needs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In His pattern prayer Jesus tells us we should pray “give us this day our <s>annual</s> daily bread”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He also cautions us (in Matthew) to let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day, since each day has enough trouble of its own. And after all that’s how the whole manna meal plan worked in the desert; one day at a time.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then it occurs to me, maybe my problem is that I need to set my mental “zoom” to the daily setting, not a weekly or monthly or annual view.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And that really seems to help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If I adjust the zoom so all I can see is today, God’s faithfulness seems obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“By His great love I am not consumed; His mercies are new every morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Great is His faithfulness” (to borrow words from Lamentations 3).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One day’s needs matched up with one day’s grace. Not bad.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">But if I zoom back to include more of the future, then suddenly a lot more questions pop up in front of me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now I'm now faced with 365 days worth of needs pitted against only one days’ grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ve got 365 times more problems than I have grace to deal with them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That looks a lot more dismal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And if I start to think a few decades ahead things can get pretty overwhelming pretty quickly. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So…one of my spiritual disciplines is to learn to re-set my zoom setting to daily more often.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And sure enough, I keep finding that His mercies are new every morning, and that each day I’m given my daily bread.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can live with that.</p> <!--EndFragment-->Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-66682625399125748262009-11-14T20:42:00.000-08:002009-11-15T07:25:44.982-08:00The Last-Minute God<div>Do you ever get the impression that God doesn't mind letting you struggle? Perhaps by design ("builds character!"), or maybe just by accident? </div><div><br /></div>Sometimes it can seem like Gods having to scramble a bit to take care of our basic needs? Like he maybe didn't really plan ahead and so like a procrastinating student he's having to cram his Providence in at the last minute, just before your life slides into the brink. That doesn't make much sense to me, but I see it nonetheless. He's the Almighty, with the limitless resources of Heaven at his disposal, and yet he so often seems to delay his care for us until the very last minute. And even then he usually ends up wanting us to do a lot of the heavy lifting. The suspense of following a last-minute God like that can really rattle your nerves.<div><div><br /></div><div>It drives me crazy, actually. While I'm glad God has cared for me along the way, sometimes I just want to feel SAFE, to feel SETTLED. Instead of worrying about whether he'll come through I'd just like to be able to see that he's already thought through everything I will need.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Seems like he's always been that way. Take, for instance, the day that Jesus ran out of food with all those people. The crowd had gathered, the air was thick with the Holy Spirit and the time must have flown by. Suddenly the day had ended and people were fading fast. Nobody had eaten anything. Jesus turns to his disciples, apparently dumbfounded. Instead of doing something properly Son-of-God like and zapping some rocks into bread, he tries to hand the situation off to his 12 followers. "<i>You </i>feed them", he said (Mark 6). They tried to get him to wrap his mind around the situation. "Eight months' wages wouldn't feed this crowd!"</div><div><br /></div><div>But Jesus didn't get it. He just wanted to know how much food they did have. He was apparently hoping that the crowd had somehow thought to bring along several thousand picnic baskets. Maybe he was stalling for time. Can you imagine how stupid you feel as a disciple going around asking people if they happen to have a lunch big enough to feed five or ten thousand people?</div><div><br /></div><div>They came back with one lunch, from a little boy who hadn't eaten it yet. Jesus took the five rolls and two fish and turned his face toward heaven to give God thanks. Have you ever heard someone say thank-you in a way that made it clear that there was more to the story than you'd realized? Jesus gave God <i>that</i> kind of thank-you. And then he started distributing the rolls and the fish, breaking them off. And darned if that lunch didn't keep spreading until baskets of it had been spread throughout the thousands of people who were now watching in stunned silence. </div><div><br /></div><div>By this point the disciples were the ones who were dumbfounded. They'd just experienced first-hand something that couldn't be explained. They'd handed the boy's lunch to Jesus, they'd heard the thank-you he gave the Father, and then they'd seen those little rolls and the dried fish somehow prove to be sufficient.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes I wonder what it would have felt like to be that little boy: "That was <i>my</i> lunch that Jesus took. I <i>saw</i> him do it--he broke up those rolls my mom made and started give them to the disciples. And he did the same thing with my dried fish!" The boy who'd probably resigned himself to walking home hungry now discovered what it felt like to be part of God providing more than they could ask or imagine.</div><div><br /></div><div>What<i> </i>would that have felt like--to have been a first-hand player in a wonderful scene like that? I'm guessing that that little guy was never hungry in quite the same way again. Even if his belly emptied, I'd like to think that his hunger only served to remind him of the fact that food can be stretched to provide what's really needed. In fact he'd probably discovered something that can only be learned when you're hungry. And I'll bet he felt SAFE, even SETTLED; filled with the sense that God really has thought through everything. </div><div><br /></div><div>All the things I'd like to feel like.</div><div><br /></div><div>God apparently let him hunger in a way that would let him discover what it felt like to be truly filled. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'd like to be like that boy when I grow up. In the meantime, here's my lunch, Lord.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-39665151095771012362009-11-12T11:24:00.000-08:002009-11-12T12:00:37.587-08:00Getting "Fed" by Your PreacherPeople often talk about the need to feel "fed" by their preachers. Secretly a lot us preacher-types cringe at those conversations, probably for a lot of different reasons. <div><br /></div><div>Sometimes listeners can be "picky eaters" and so no matter what you put on their plates they're going to have low blood sugar by the time they turn on the Sunday afternoon sports on TV. Sometimes we cringe because we wish we had more to offer them--pastors with overflowing to-do lists have to deal with the reality that there simply isn't as much time as there should be to create a truly substantial meal. But sometimes we cringe because those kind of conversations can end up being vague, unhelpful volleys of cliches. What do people really NEED from a sermon? </div><div><br /></div><div>Obviously, people need the Bible. Without that a preacher is merely slinging anecdotes and illustrations. But just because a preacher refers to a lot of Bible verses or really takes apart all the words in one passage doesn't mean people will walk out feeling fed. The reality is that there are different "food groups" listeners need from scripture, and heaping a congregation's plate full of an unneeded food group can still leave them strangely unsatisfied, even if bloated.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here are three major food groups people need from sermons:</div><div>* Biblical information. What does the Bible <i>say</i>? People need to become familiar with what's in their Bibles. They need to learn important people and events recorded there, they need foundational doctrines presented in it, and most of all they need the simple, over-arching story of a perfect world, ruined by sin that's being reclaimed by Christ in anticipation of the day when all things are made new. If people don't know their Bibles nothing else will make sense.</div><div>* Biblical application. What does this mean I should <i>do?</i> Knowing scripture without knowing how to apply it can sometimes result in disappointingly little life-change. All the bible knowledge in the world will make very little difference if listeners never discover what it will look like for those teachings to be <i>applied</i> to their lives. What do they need to do differently because of what the Bible says to them?</div><div>* Biblical self-knowledge. Why do I often <i>resist</i> this? Biblical information and practical application alone won't necessarily bring change to someone's life if their heart isn't open to that transformation. The fact is that as fallen people our hearts instinctively resist receiving God's grace and sharing it with others. Our hearts can unexpectedly spasm, leaving them hardened against God's transformation. Preachers need to help listeners discover some of the more common ways in which the Enemy tricks us into turning our backs on the new life God offers.</div><div><br /></div><div>These are three of the more common food groups needed in a sermon diet. One of the challenges facing preachers is that no two congregations have the same dietary needs, and and in fact no two listeners in any one church family need exactly the same thing. A preacher offering solid Biblical information may leave people starving for application, or sermons that are rich with application may ring flat if people aren't helped to open their hearts to receive what scripture offers. </div><div><br /></div><div>Pray for your preacher as he or she plans your congregation's menu. </div><div><br /></div><div>And then clean your plate when the meal is served. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8419267995961299321.post-45684302634168687232009-11-07T19:02:00.000-08:002009-11-07T19:33:28.548-08:00A Call for You?Why do you do whatever it is you "do" in life? If you're a student, an executive, a lawnmower repairman or whatever it is...why did you decide to head in that direction? Chances are there may be some pretty good common sense reasons for your choice: a good opportunity, the need to pay bills, maybe the expectations of other around you. <div><br /></div><div>When you become a pastor they don't talk like that. Suddenly the whole "what-to-do-when-you-grow-up" takes on a much more pious tone. You don't merely decide to become a pastor, you <i>discern a call</i>. Sounds a lot more mysterious--kind of like Jake and Elwood Blues deciding to get their band back together in <i>Blues Brothers. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">That kind of talk is taken as normal for preacher-types, and I've had a lot of conversations where I've told people of the process through which God called me to serve him in full-time ministry. </span></i></div><div><br /></div><div>But to a lot of people that kind of talk would sound funny applied to other jobs or professions. "When did you discern your call to drive that delivery truck?" "When did you discover God was calling you to be a personal-injury attorney? Somehow it seems strange to think of people in other jobs actually being <i>called</i> to those professions.</div><div><br /></div><div>OK, let me get more specific with you: when did <i>you </i>first realize that God was calling you to (insert your job or school status here)? Chances are most non-minister types would look at me kind of funny in the face of a question like that. People may choose their jobs for an of a number of reasons, but a clear call from God usually isn't very high on the list. </div><div><br /></div><div>That seems strange to me. The Bible speaks so clearly about God's plans for our lives: Eph. 2:10 reminds us that we are "God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared in advance for us to do". Psalm 139 assures us that "all the days ordained for (us) were written in His book before one of them came to be." If God has plans for every single day of our lives, and if there are some very specific reasons why you and I are exactly where we are--then wouldn't it make sense for us to ask God what He wants us to do? And if we start to get tired of whatever that was, wouldn't it make sense to ask Him again before jumping into whatever comes next.</div><div><br /></div><div>In our denomination we take a minister's call very seriously. In fact there are pretty tight restrictions placed on people like me who have been called to ministry. I think that's good; if God called me to something I should think twice before jumping into something else just for a change. What if we did that with substitute teachers or computer techs or with oil change specialists? </div><div><br /></div>Ron Vanderwellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01066136957488313464noreply@blogger.com0