For our wedding, my bride chose a psalm to be read that has had much meaning to us as a couple over the years. Happens to be Psalm 46, which doesn't sound much like a text for a wedding, lamenting as it does about the world falling apart. There are, for sure, sweet verses in the psalm that sound very wedding-like, but surely not ones like these: "Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall, the earth melts."
Reminds me of a song sung at a Christian wedding in Taiwan: "Home, Home on the Range," the old cowboy ode about deer and antelope playing. For our local friends, it had sweet meaning as they crooned, "Where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day." But for us few foreigners present, all we could think of was sweaty ranch hands and cow dung.
Yet Number 46 is a surprisingly fitting scripture on which to start a life together. We all want to live "happily ever after." But life is more often filled with sorrow and pain, chaos and confusion, twists and turns we couldn't have anticipated in a thousand years. While there are those moments of unrestrained joy, there are also those times of agonizing heartache. It is in the midst of all this chaos, the sons of Korah write, that God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
I think about this and the modern world in which we believers find ourselves. We long for peace and security without the panic and turmoil. But God has promised us peace and security in the midst of natural and social upheaval of the nth degree. It is the God of Jacob, a man who led a very complicated and frustrating life, who is "our fortress." Jacob grew up and fled from one very dysfunctional family to another and then started his own, which proved even more of a mess. There was no end to heartache in his life. And yet his God was his anchor, an anchor he found only while fleeing for his life from his own brother.
We want life to go one way and it goes another, so we adjust to that new way, only for it to take yet another turn and go in a third unplanned direction. We keep waiting for that "home on the range" which we think of as a ranch house in the 'burbs of Dallas only to discover that we are homeless in Seattle or helpless in Detroit. In all this chaos of life, slowly it dawns on us that our "home" is -- as I wrote for a school assignment at the age of 13 -- "the presence of God."
I have pondered these thoughts in #46 at various stages in my own life and I have often reflected on them concerning the Church, particularly in America. Unlike most of the rest of the world, we as the American Church are not used to upheavals. Even 9/11, as traumatic as that was, did not really destroy the American dream we have come to accept as our God-given birthright on this earth.
Do we fight for issues like pro-life (meaning anti-abortion) or pro-marriage (meaning anti-gay) because we want to fulfill our role of being salt and light in the world or because we are fighting hard for a certain type of status quo lifestyle, a '50s-style (white) dream world in which all is well with God and the universe? How much we forget that every period in history has been heaven for some, but hell for others and there is no ideal world, in this life at least, we can hold onto.
So what if America goes to hell in a hand basket? I am not saying to go out and tear down the nation ourselves. I am saying that if the world as we know it collapses, it may not necessarily be the much anticipated apocalypse. It may only be the next opportunity for God to prove that God alone is our refuge and strength.
2009-12-16
2009-12-09
Taste Testing God
A custom common to many folks is to use the changing of the calendar as a moment to take stock of life and set goals for the coming year. We often call these goals "resolutions" as in "I resolve to" lose weight or clean out the garage. The standard New Year's joke is that such "New Year's resolutions" last shorter than the proverbial New Year's Eve hangover.
Perhaps the short-lived nature of these goals is because they are given too minimal a gestation period, coming as so many of them do in the closing hours of the old year or even during the lingering hangover the next day. And perhaps goals so conceived are best left at the party anyway.
I've tended to avoid New Year's resolutions precisely because of their sordid reputation. But I have been known to set a lot of goals in my life. Some I've achieved, some I've exceeded, and many others I've failed miserably at, even leaving a few behind the moment I've written them down. I'm not setting goals or resolutions this New Year, but I am continuing a process begun many months ago -- that of sorting through and taking stock of the essentials in life.
I've experienced something the past three years I thought I was going to avoid -- a mid-life crisis. It had to be one, occurring as it did at midlife (I guess) and it was a crisis (without a doubt). I won't go into the gory details, other than to say that I walked through a period of deep depression in which all the realities of life as I'd perceived them were vigorously shaken to the extent that what has come after is hard to connect with what went before.
And yet, I come to the other side of that dark valley in life amazed at how intact some of the most closely held values remain and have deepened -- such as my devotion to God, my love for my wife and kids, and my commitment "to reconcile the alienated, free the oppressed and embrace the misfit" (as I've phrased it on my website). Oh, and my quirky humor (sorry, folks).
What I've also determined is that I'm not going to let presumptions stick just because they already exist. It is too easy in life to believe that something is true merely because you always thought of it that way and were too lazy or too afraid to examine it and see if it really is as true as it purports to be. No exceptions. Not even God.
It is that "not even God" that makes people nervous, especially religious types who depend on there being a god in order for them to remain religious. But if God really exists and He/She really is God, then my thinking is that He/She can stand up to all the scrutiny the world can muster. And, surprise, surprise, God is not intimidated by our scrutiny. In fact, the God I know actually welcomes it.
Where is that line that says "taste and see that the Lord is good"? Happens to be in a Psalm of David, Number 34. Interesting note at the head of the psalm. David wrote it when he was pretending "to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away." Actually while the Psalm is as upbeat as they come, even when it talks about suffering saints and struggling sinners, it was a very low time in David's life, coming as it did when he was fleeing for his life from Saul and living as a man without a country -- and without a friend.
In the midst of that dark hour in David's life, he penned a song about checking God out to see if He is made of the real stuff or is just the sort of fake gods that Abimelech kept around his house.
I've eaten a lot of exotic foods in my time, being a guest to many a host ready to share his or her favorite concoction you've never heard of. They generally, being gracious hosts, only want you to try it and then smile and tell them how good it is before you tuck the rest of it under the cleaned-off chicken bones. It's what you tell your kids when you want them to eat that stuff out of the baby jar, the stuff you wouldn't eat in a million years. "Just taste it," you say.
And that is what David says. Taste God. Just check Him out and see if He really is all He's trumped up to be. If I get this psalm's context right, the time to do that taste testing is not when you're flying high in the good life. It is when you are either acting insane or doing it for real. Any old god can taste good when life is good, but only a true God will come through for you when you are caught between your arch enemies, Abimelech and Saul, who'd kill you first and then each other.
The nice thing about going through depression is that ever after you have an excuse for whatever it is you've ever wanted to do. "Poor thing, he's out of his head," they say. I've decided that, as with David, I'm going for broke. I'm taste testing God.
Perhaps the short-lived nature of these goals is because they are given too minimal a gestation period, coming as so many of them do in the closing hours of the old year or even during the lingering hangover the next day. And perhaps goals so conceived are best left at the party anyway.
I've tended to avoid New Year's resolutions precisely because of their sordid reputation. But I have been known to set a lot of goals in my life. Some I've achieved, some I've exceeded, and many others I've failed miserably at, even leaving a few behind the moment I've written them down. I'm not setting goals or resolutions this New Year, but I am continuing a process begun many months ago -- that of sorting through and taking stock of the essentials in life.
I've experienced something the past three years I thought I was going to avoid -- a mid-life crisis. It had to be one, occurring as it did at midlife (I guess) and it was a crisis (without a doubt). I won't go into the gory details, other than to say that I walked through a period of deep depression in which all the realities of life as I'd perceived them were vigorously shaken to the extent that what has come after is hard to connect with what went before.
And yet, I come to the other side of that dark valley in life amazed at how intact some of the most closely held values remain and have deepened -- such as my devotion to God, my love for my wife and kids, and my commitment "to reconcile the alienated, free the oppressed and embrace the misfit" (as I've phrased it on my website). Oh, and my quirky humor (sorry, folks).
What I've also determined is that I'm not going to let presumptions stick just because they already exist. It is too easy in life to believe that something is true merely because you always thought of it that way and were too lazy or too afraid to examine it and see if it really is as true as it purports to be. No exceptions. Not even God.
It is that "not even God" that makes people nervous, especially religious types who depend on there being a god in order for them to remain religious. But if God really exists and He/She really is God, then my thinking is that He/She can stand up to all the scrutiny the world can muster. And, surprise, surprise, God is not intimidated by our scrutiny. In fact, the God I know actually welcomes it.
Where is that line that says "taste and see that the Lord is good"? Happens to be in a Psalm of David, Number 34. Interesting note at the head of the psalm. David wrote it when he was pretending "to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away." Actually while the Psalm is as upbeat as they come, even when it talks about suffering saints and struggling sinners, it was a very low time in David's life, coming as it did when he was fleeing for his life from Saul and living as a man without a country -- and without a friend.
In the midst of that dark hour in David's life, he penned a song about checking God out to see if He is made of the real stuff or is just the sort of fake gods that Abimelech kept around his house.
I've eaten a lot of exotic foods in my time, being a guest to many a host ready to share his or her favorite concoction you've never heard of. They generally, being gracious hosts, only want you to try it and then smile and tell them how good it is before you tuck the rest of it under the cleaned-off chicken bones. It's what you tell your kids when you want them to eat that stuff out of the baby jar, the stuff you wouldn't eat in a million years. "Just taste it," you say.
And that is what David says. Taste God. Just check Him out and see if He really is all He's trumped up to be. If I get this psalm's context right, the time to do that taste testing is not when you're flying high in the good life. It is when you are either acting insane or doing it for real. Any old god can taste good when life is good, but only a true God will come through for you when you are caught between your arch enemies, Abimelech and Saul, who'd kill you first and then each other.
The nice thing about going through depression is that ever after you have an excuse for whatever it is you've ever wanted to do. "Poor thing, he's out of his head," they say. I've decided that, as with David, I'm going for broke. I'm taste testing God.
2009-12-02
Beyond Right and Left - Part IV
This afternoon I met with a local pastor friend at his invitation to talk about the tensions between church and politics. We wound up talking mostly about evangelism and pondering how to help people develop relationships in order for communication of the Good News to occur. But before we parted, we got back to the original question as to how we keep the doors of the church open to people of all political orientations without making the Good News so public-forum-averse the Church has nothing to say at all about concerns like blessing the poor or rescuing the pre-born. It is much like the tension often found between a focus on evangelism and a focus on discipleship, a tension harder to balance than it first appears.
There is a tug of war going on inside American Evangelicalism between declaring the Good News and demonstrating the Good News. It is not a new skirmish. In fact, it has been a struggle for over a hundred years now -- ever since Finney's and Moody's 19th Century Evangelicalism splintered at the dawn of the 20th Century. Living the life of faith can sure be complicated at times. Which is exactly what Jesus said we would discover if we take this life of faith seriously.
Earlier today while attending a meeting of the Human Services Coalition of Oregon, a panel was reviewing the plight of society's most vulnerable in light of the economic downturn and subsequent funding cuts. At one point as they digressed, my mind wandered to this tension between demonstrating and declaring the Good News. We as Believers feel other tensions as well, such as how the Gospel is to be declared (relational evangelism vs. proclamation evangelism). And demonstrated (what part should the church play, if any, in individual or corporate acts of compassion and justice?). We may say our answers to concerns about demonstrating the Gospel should be kept separate from our mandate to declare the Gospel, but in reality the two are inseparable.
For example, during the 1950s, Evangelical and Pentecostal church leaders worked to stay out of the Civil Rights movement and at times even voiced opposition to the movement, while at the same time warning that the evangelism of African-Americans would impede the evangelism of White Americans. Such crass attempts at triage -- to say we cannot reach one group or we won't be able to reach another -- are, sad to say, not isolated lapses in the Church's commitment to follow Christ at all costs. And then there are churches who get so activized they forget the One whom they worship.
Sitting in that morning meeting I thought about how important it is that no one ever feel unwelcomed at church meetings because of political orientation. One friend, who once pastored in a Latin American country torn by civil war between the government and communists, shared with me how he had leaders of both sides of the conflict sitting in his congregation Sunday after Sunday. How much that contrasts with a church I recently visited in the States where snide remarks were made from the pulpit about our current American President. Never mind whether or not that was appropriate toward the President. How does that make visitors feel who think differently than the pastor? Either way, it made me less inclined to go back.
And yet, what happens if we go to great lengths to make the church inclusive as some have attempted to do in making the church politically neutral for the sake of avoiding divisions or alienating seekers, or out of concern for protecting their non-profit status? In so doing, are we creating a false dichotomy in the life of faith? Does such an avoidance of all things socio-political lead to a sense among Believers as well as outsiders that faith and justice have nothing to do with each other? Does such neutrality inadvertently legitimize a politically centrist approach as the most spiritually valid position? Does avoiding the causes and concerns of society and the world lead us as Believers to a purely internalized faith devoid of relevancy to life on earth? Do we conclude that we can declare without demonstrating God's love?
A friend sitting next to me in the morning meeting whispered at one point that perhaps as we have become less of a Christian nation, we have become more individualized, meaning we are less concerned about the communities around us and even less concerned about the poor. I'm still not sure what to think of his observation. But I do recall the Apostle Paul saying he could go along with the particular priorities of the Jerusalem church about worship and life styles as long as the Believers did not forget the poor.
If you are wondering where I am headed with all this, I am just asking questions, wrestling with thoughts I have had for most of my life and wondering if I will ever find conclusive answers. Maybe you are blessed with easy answers, but I'm not sure how satisfying or how true to the Gospel such easy answers can be.
There is a tug of war going on inside American Evangelicalism between declaring the Good News and demonstrating the Good News. It is not a new skirmish. In fact, it has been a struggle for over a hundred years now -- ever since Finney's and Moody's 19th Century Evangelicalism splintered at the dawn of the 20th Century. Living the life of faith can sure be complicated at times. Which is exactly what Jesus said we would discover if we take this life of faith seriously.
Earlier today while attending a meeting of the Human Services Coalition of Oregon, a panel was reviewing the plight of society's most vulnerable in light of the economic downturn and subsequent funding cuts. At one point as they digressed, my mind wandered to this tension between demonstrating and declaring the Good News. We as Believers feel other tensions as well, such as how the Gospel is to be declared (relational evangelism vs. proclamation evangelism). And demonstrated (what part should the church play, if any, in individual or corporate acts of compassion and justice?). We may say our answers to concerns about demonstrating the Gospel should be kept separate from our mandate to declare the Gospel, but in reality the two are inseparable.
For example, during the 1950s, Evangelical and Pentecostal church leaders worked to stay out of the Civil Rights movement and at times even voiced opposition to the movement, while at the same time warning that the evangelism of African-Americans would impede the evangelism of White Americans. Such crass attempts at triage -- to say we cannot reach one group or we won't be able to reach another -- are, sad to say, not isolated lapses in the Church's commitment to follow Christ at all costs. And then there are churches who get so activized they forget the One whom they worship.
Sitting in that morning meeting I thought about how important it is that no one ever feel unwelcomed at church meetings because of political orientation. One friend, who once pastored in a Latin American country torn by civil war between the government and communists, shared with me how he had leaders of both sides of the conflict sitting in his congregation Sunday after Sunday. How much that contrasts with a church I recently visited in the States where snide remarks were made from the pulpit about our current American President. Never mind whether or not that was appropriate toward the President. How does that make visitors feel who think differently than the pastor? Either way, it made me less inclined to go back.
And yet, what happens if we go to great lengths to make the church inclusive as some have attempted to do in making the church politically neutral for the sake of avoiding divisions or alienating seekers, or out of concern for protecting their non-profit status? In so doing, are we creating a false dichotomy in the life of faith? Does such an avoidance of all things socio-political lead to a sense among Believers as well as outsiders that faith and justice have nothing to do with each other? Does such neutrality inadvertently legitimize a politically centrist approach as the most spiritually valid position? Does avoiding the causes and concerns of society and the world lead us as Believers to a purely internalized faith devoid of relevancy to life on earth? Do we conclude that we can declare without demonstrating God's love?
A friend sitting next to me in the morning meeting whispered at one point that perhaps as we have become less of a Christian nation, we have become more individualized, meaning we are less concerned about the communities around us and even less concerned about the poor. I'm still not sure what to think of his observation. But I do recall the Apostle Paul saying he could go along with the particular priorities of the Jerusalem church about worship and life styles as long as the Believers did not forget the poor.
If you are wondering where I am headed with all this, I am just asking questions, wrestling with thoughts I have had for most of my life and wondering if I will ever find conclusive answers. Maybe you are blessed with easy answers, but I'm not sure how satisfying or how true to the Gospel such easy answers can be.
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