Five More Mistakes

 Another of Constantine’s big mistakes, theologically, was to make the Church a building.  We do it because that’s what we’ve done for centuries.  Yes, some churches are humble and plain.  But many are ornate and beautiful.  And yes, if you go to the Old Testament, you find the building of the Temple, twice, which was magnificent, by all accounts, one of the most beautiful of its age.  

But does God want us to worship him in a building?  Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:16 "Don't you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you?” That is the only book in the Bible where it explicitly says we are God’s Temple. However there are many suggestions that we are not meant to worship in an ornate cathedral:

• Three of Paul’s letters talk about being members of the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians, Ephesians and Colossians).  

• John 15 has the passage about abiding, specifically 15:4 “Abide in me, and I in you.” 

• Acts 2:46, “...breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts”.  

• Even in the OT, starting with the Exodus, the Israelites worshipped God in an elaborate tent, which continued for four hundred years after they conquered the Promised Land.

Obviously, God instructed the Jews to build the Temple, so I can’t say it wasn’t according to His Will.  I do see, however, that it was not the original plan.  The big building requires a staff to keep it up and a staff needs a leader.  The leader, by definition, tells everyone else what to do.  It did not take too much stretching to turn some of Paul’s writings into a system that elevated men and relegated women.  This also created a hierarchy, which became a tool for politics and oppression.  “You’re going to Hell unless you do X (give your money to us, go kill the Muslims, etc).”  From the Middle Ages to the present day, pastors of all denominations angle for higher positions, often at the expense of their flock.

Reason 1B, is wealth.  How can the Church have so much wealth when there is one person in the world who will die from starvation today, much less the 24,000+ who actually will?  (Yes that is a real number How Many People and Children Starve to Death Every Day.)  Over 3 million a year under 5 years old die of hunger.  James 2:16, “If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”  

Second: despite 1B above, many churches, like mine, now are funded by endowments.  This is the opposite of living on faith.  It is not trusting God to provide.  

Third, the Church as a building negates the message that our very hearts are the place where He resides.  For far too much of my life, I have relegated God to Sunday Morning, content to leave Him in that building and go out into the “real world”, where Faith, Hope and Love often seem far less relevant, but actually matter far more.  

Furthermore, if God resides in my heart, He must also reside in the hearts of all believers.  And every person who does not know Him is still made in His Image and has the potential to have Him abide in them.  Shouldn’t that change how I treat them?  

You may be saying, “why go to church then?”  If so, maybe I overdid it with all this.  For me, church is a largely agreed-upon understanding of who God is and what it means to follow Jesus.  I am sure that without going to Church regularly, I would be lost in my sin.  Probably divorced.  Likely one or more of my kids would be in some kind of trouble, whether with the Law, substance abuse or some other bad track.  And I would not know Jesus as my Savior.  So yes, I think going to Church is important.  But maybe we are doing it wrong.  

Certainly worship is best done in communion with one another and with God.  Some talk about this using the Cross as a metaphor.  Too much emphasis on the “vertical” part makes one “so heavenly minded he’s of no earthly good”.  And too much emphasis on the “horizontal” without vertical and we tend to forget what it’s all about. 

Yay Persecution!

 I wrote last week that one of the great gifts Constantine gave Christians was for believers to no longer fear for their lives because of their faith.  While that allowed Christianity to flourish around the world faster and farther than it had before, and I think it is fair to say that while most Christians truly believed and followed Jesus, the political machine that was built quickly became something else.  But this freedom to worship did come with a cost for everyday believers.

In Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, Kenneth Bailey relates that, when Communism fell in the Soviet republics and Christianity became legal again, the Church had a gating question to new priests: “When were you baptized?”  If it was before the fall of the USSR, they were immediately acceptable.  If it was after, there was a much longer process.  The theory was, if they were willing to risk their lives for their faith, no other questions needed to be asked.  

I’m sure we all know the origin of the “Jesus Fish”, the secret code that helped believers recognize one another.  One person would draw one arc ( and the other would draw the second, ) and between the two, you had a fish.  Anyone not knowing the “secret handshake” was dangerous.  Revealing one’s faith could result in imprisonment and death, as Peter, Paul, James and countless others found.  

In America today, many Christians lament the “oppression” of the Church, as if the corruption, bigotry, sexual assault and myriads of other scandals that pervade it do not warrant some kind of pushback.  But Jesus said “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account (Matthew 5:11-12).”  Emphasis on “falsely”.  

That verse is followed by “rejoice and be glad”.  This is not to say we seek out pain.  Jesus did not revel in being nailed to the Cross.  Hebrews 12:2 says, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  

Now, many Christians will say that we need to be bold for Christ and welcome persecution that comes.  However, almost without fail, Jesus and his followers shown spreading the Gospel, do so only to people there to hear a sermon.  The two exceptions to this are when Paul gets stoned and nearly dies (twice) because he did not respect the boundaries and expectations of his audience.

Jesus himself warned not to cast pearls before swine, that is, not to insist on spreading the Gospel where it was not welcome.  Paul has that vision in Acts where just after the Holy Spirit prevents him from going to Asia (Turkey), he is called to Macedonia.  The Holy Spirit prevented him from going to preach where he would not be effective.  He greatly desired to get to Spain.  He never did.  “Preach the Gospel always.  When necessary use words” is attributed to Francis of Assisi.  I like 1 Peter 3:15, always be ready to give a reason for the hope you have, but do so with gentleness and respect.  Being ready to give a reason, I believe, means acting in such a loving way that people stop and ask you, “Why are you doing this?”

Persecution, for many American Christians, is that dirty look or harsh word we get when we say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”; that reprimand we get at work for saying a prayer, including Jesus’ name, in the company meeting, or the public school coach gets fired from his job when he huddles his team up for a prayer.  

So first of all, I think American Christians have no idea what being persecuted for our faith really looks like.  If you want to be persecuted for being bold for Christ, go preach in China.  Second of all, when a coach does get fired, this is not a time to whine and complain that we ought to be a Christian Nation. It is a time to rejoice (see Matt 5:11-12 above).  And third, I suspect that forcing our beliefs on someone without being in a loving relationship with that person is antithetical to what Jesus’ teaching.  1 Corinthians 13:1-3 would seem to agree:  

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to the flames that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

The word "ichthys", fish in Greek, was an acronym for Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior. One thing that may be lost in today's world of buying magnetic Jesus Fish is that the symbol itself, the original secret handshake, required two people coming together in community to complete Jesus' name. I know I can do better finding ways to share my faith with my friends who need it. In love. With gentleness and respect.

The Beginning of the Trouble

 This is the first of my Ninety-Five Theses For the Twenty-First Century.  We'll see how many I actually have.  Call it my “airing of grievances”.  As Frank Costanza said, “I got a lot of problems with you people!” Is this the equivalent of nailing it to the door of the church?

Where to begin?  There are so many subtle things we do that I believe are against God’s Law, things everyone around us is doing and has done for generations.  I want to start at the beginning of the Trouble.  To my mind, that means Constantine.  

Emperor Constantine did some wonderful and amazing things on behalf of Christians about 1700 years ago.  I am sure that no longer having to fear for your life just by confessing Jesus as Lord was a great blessing.  Codifying the books of the Bible is another.  Sorting out who Jesus is and quashing some of the more dangerous heresies was vital to the survival of the Faith.  

However, he also set the Church on some wrong tracks: making the Church an institution, with a hierarchy that quickly became more political than faithful; as a result, women in the Church were relegated to secondary roles only, where the “Desert Mothers” were some of the key leaders of the early Church; making the Church a building first, with a staff that needed money was antithetical to helping those in need; today that has led to churches with endowments, because we worry that God might not provide enough for us to keep it open; the selling of indulgences; infant baptism; the many “holy relics” that were fabricated to bilk the masses; the fear of other religions such as Islam and Judaism that led to the Crusades and the Inquisition.  

I want to cover all those areas.  Today I want to look at the Nicene Creed and Constantine’s baptism.  Constantine asked to not be baptized until he was on his death bed. His goal was to have a “tabula rasa”, a clean slate, when he died, as if saving his baptism until then would accomplish what Christ’s death on the Cross could not.  However, practically speaking, he did not want to stop being Emperor the way he knew how - intrigue, war, back-stabbing, oath-breaking and assassination.  These he continued long after his “conversion”, counting on being baptized to wipe clean his many sins. I love that picture of him, sitting casually, even arrogantly, outside a church, contemplating his sword.

According to E Stanley Jones, in his book Christ of the Mount, he made sure that the Nicene Creed would have nothing in it about how Jesus lived his life.  We go right from “born of the Virgin Mary” to “crucified under Pontius Pilate”.  Not a thing about his teachings, his miracles, and especially the way Jesus lived, exhibiting love and forgiveness even to his enemies.  

In this way, the institutionalization of the Church quickly became, in many positions of its leadership, about something other than “Following the Way”.  Yet the people who made up the Nicene Council were genuine believers.  These people were the foundation of the Church, and in many ways, that has been what has kept the Church together ever since, despite the bad and sometimes evil leadership.  I believe that is why people today are identifying as “nones” - the vast majority of these, about 80% of the “nones”, still believe in something, but are not finding it in Church.  There is too much “Religion”, too much greed, corruption, scandal, hypocrisy.  But most of us know deep down, this life is about the Greatest Commandment.  And once again, the ONE Greatest Commandment is to love our neighbor as ourself (Matt 7:12, Galatians 5:14, Romans 13:10, James 2:8).  We love God BY loving our neighbor.  This is why Jesus’ death tore the veil in the Temple.  This is why the early church met in the homes of believers and gave as anyone had need.  

At our first Faith and Reason Conference, I had the opportunity to pray with some people from my church in NJ.  I have known these people for years.  But I tell you, I never felt more connected to them than I was, sitting there on the shores of Lake George, watching the sun rise over the mountains.  We each were able to talk about our lives, our families and our faith in a way we had never done before.  My point is: what kind of religion do we follow where it is possible to know someone for ten or more years and never actually get to know them?  In the pre-Constantine church, this would have been impossible.  Now, it is the standard practice.

I encourage you to get to know someone at church today.  Make an effort to invite them to lunch.  Find out how they came to faith, how their faith has helped them in life.  I suspect that breaking bread together, sharing your needs together, praying and praising God, whether in your home or a restaurant or a truck stop, is more like Following the Way than most of what goes on in that building we call “Church”.  "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2)."

95 Theses More (or Less)

 Building on last week, if you agree that our country is a mess, I suggest this did not happen overnight, or even in our lifetimes.  If you trace back the corruption, the racism, the persecution of the Church, the exodus from the Church, the destruction of morals, if you trace it back, the problems started 250 years ago, 500 years ago, 1700 years ago.  Those are not random numbers.  250 years ago, our beloved Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence.  500 years ago was the Protestant Reformation, the founding of the Church of England in particular.  And 1700 years ago, Constantine declared Christianity to be the official religion of Rome.  

I’m a few dozen short of 95 Theses, but after 500 years, the time seems ripe for another Reformation, quick before He comes again. Here is a list of practices common to the Church now that contradict God’s Word:  

Infant baptism (removes the power of “dying to self”, paints God as a monster who sends infants to Hell); Forgiveness and reconciliation (general repentance and instant forgiveness instead of reconciling with our brother); Belief / unbelief (belief is so much more than thinking it is true, unbelief is hypocrisy); Noah and racism (did you know that Noah is the father of Slavery in the US?); Heaven and Hell (when we go, who gets in where); Discipleship (be prepared to answer for your faith, not preach to the unreceptive, not casting pearls before swine); Church as a building - giving to Christ (setting up endowments is the opposite of living on faith); Women preaching; Cheap Grace; Gospel of Wealth.  It should go without saying that the church should not have its leaders engaged in sexual assault especially of minors, having affairs with parishioners (or anyone else), creating cults, stealing money (or anything else), or any kind of abuse; and the Unforgivable Sin (if it is “lack of repentance”, encourages judgmentalism, if “abusing God’s authority”, a warning to Church leaders who should know better).   

I plan to write separately on each of those: what the Church teaches and why I believe it is unbiblical.  Most of these are common to the vast majority of Churches in this country.  This realization that the Christian Religion has lost its way has been hard for me.  Tied to it is the realization that my country not only has lost its way but seems to have always been on the wrong track.  I became a history major because of how much I love America, so this too has been disconcerting.

What I hope to show is not “All is Lost”, but “This is what God’s Plan (really) is.”  It turns out to be quite comforting to realize that this is not what He had in mind: we are not a Christian Nation.  That is not to say there are no good Christians, or that some of our Founders may have wanted to create a City on the Hill.  It is to say that when you build on a foundation that is faulty, the house will not stand.  But the right path, the Path of Righteousness, is actually very familiar.  And it leads Home.  To where our Father eagerly waits for us.  

Are You Ready?

 Building on last week’s post of learning to hear God’s voice.

A few years ago, God gave me a strange dream and a visitation.  I say that with all trepidation for how presumptuous it sounds.  But this is the only dream I’ve ever had where I learned something new.  And I have spent (not enough) time since that time praying for guidance on what it means and what to do with it. You might suggest I've been afraid to get out of my comfort zone and using the "tell me what you want Lord" as an excuse not to move, and there may be something to that.

God showed me how he made Israel into one nation when they were slaves in Egypt, how the previous generations, from Abraham back to Adam, all the children each became their own nations, and often became enemies of one another.  But in Egypt, surrounded by a great Empire, the twelve sons of Israel became one.  And then in my dream, God told me that in the United States, we have the “opposite” situation.  Instead of being many brothers and sisters among a foreign power, every nation on earth lives in this one Nation.  We have this opportunity to learn how to love one another.

Not long after that, I was awakened in the middle of the night to the sound of a great wind in my bedroom and a terrible voice said, “I AM COMING.”  Now, the voice did not identify himself, offer any details about when, where or how, nor suggest what I should do.  But it seems pretty clear who it was.  What should we do to prepare for His Coming?  To be clear, I was awake when that happened.  And to emphasize, in no way was there any indication of when He might come (which seems “on brand”).  But it was true 2000 years ago and is true today that we should live like he’s coming back tomorrow.  What does that look like?  Let’s go to the Source:

“The one who stands firm to the end will be saved (Matt 24:13).”

Matt 24:45-47 “the faithful and wise servant…give(s) them their food at the proper time”.

Matt 24:48-51 “(the) servant is wicked and … begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards….He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites”.

Matt 25:37-40 ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

There is a lot of noise in the media and social media about voting for this side, supporting that person or group, protesting here, standing up there.  I do struggle with this because I do see wrong behavior from basically all our leaders.  And I do see ordinary people struggling to get by, struggling to get justice, struggling to find their ways too (just like I am).  I know the example of people we revere in history - MLK, Gandhi, Bonhoeffer.  And in the Bible, Paul, Peter, Stephen, James.  Of course, Jesus, but I am looking at people who are “only” fully human right now.  I don’t believe Jesus would advocate rebelling or protesting.  But I do believe he wants us to stand up for people who cannot stand up for themselves.  Which brings those modern martyrs back into the discussion.  

Specifically, now with a second person in Minneapolis protesting on behalf of illegal immigrants being rounded up and deported having been shot by federal agents, I have to ask what the right thing to do is. Clearly these illegals cannot stand up for themselves. And from all appearances, the vast majority of those being rounded up and deported have committed no other crime but to come here without following the rules. I am reminded of another person who paid a great price for protesting the rounding up of a scapegoated people: Corrie Ten Boom. She and her family hid Jews away from the Nazis for years before they finally caught them and put Corrie, her father and her sister in a concentration camp. Corrie would be the only one to survive it.

What I feel God telling me is to look around at the mess we are in, explore how we got here and, hopefully, offer some hope on where we go from here.  But I also suspect that there may be more to be done. We have this opportunity to learn how to love one another.

So no, I do not know the day or the hour.  Jesus said “only the Father knows”.  But whether it is tomorrow, next week, a decade from now or centuries from now, He Is Coming. Will I be ready?

Oh We Like Sheep Have Gone Astray

 John 10:14 “I AM the Good Shepherd.  I know my sheep.  My sheep know my voice.”

Three brief statements.  The first is one of John’s seven “I AM” statements that show Jesus’ divinity.  It may lose something in translation to the English, but those listening knew exactly what he was saying.  That is why Caiaphas tore his robes at Jesus’ trial, and why the scribes and Pharisees reached for stones to execute Jesus in John 7 when he said “I AM”.  Jesus as Shepherd calls to mind Psalm 23.  The Good Shepherd gives His sheep everything they need.

The third statement is that Jesus’ sheep know His voice.  I understand sheep do know their shepherd’s voice.  I think I am learning His.  Often in the Bible, a word or phrase gets repeated several times in a short space.  “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people” for instance.  Or Psalm 136, where all 26 verses end with “for His mercy endureth for ever”.  About 148 times in the last two weeks, I have seen or been reminded of the verse “My strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).”  I’m not sure, but I think He may be trying to tell me something about humility.  As smart as I think I am, there are plenty of people smarter.  As much as I think I know the Bible, there are many people who know it better.  Which leads me back to Jesus’ second statement.

In one of my favorite movies, When Harry Met Sally, Harry tells Sally, “You know how a year to a person is like seven years to a dog?” Sally asks, “Who is the dog in this scenario?  I am.  I am the dog.”  

I am the sheep in John’s scenario.  I am the sheep.   

It is a marvel that sheep survived as a species.  They have no speed.  No strength.  No teeth or claws.  No hard outer shell.  They congregate in herds naturally enough, but are prone to wandering off for no discernable reason.  They can get stuck in ditches, unable to climb out.  

Perhaps sheep wander off because they see a greener pasture just over there.  Or they think they know a better way than the other sheep.  Or they think the shepherd doesn’t really know what he’s doing.  No, this is not a compliment.  But it is really true.  

As many of you know, I’ve written three books which, combined, assert to be a defense of Christianity as being True historically, theologically and experientially.  What I’ve been amazed to discover is that most believers don’t care about the first two, and don’t want to be told how they should do the third.  I’ve been even more amazed to realize that I don’t think the first two matter much, except in that they help in the third.  And if they do not help us experience and show God’s love and forgiveness, then all the history and theology in the world are useless.  

I tell you, having spent the better part of twenty years on those books, that was a hard lesson.  But I am certainly glad I did all that research and writing, if only for my own part.  It is good to learn about God and to draw closer to Him.  It is better still to learn how to share His love and forgiveness with those around me.  And there, I have a long way to go. 

The Sign of Jonah???

 Matthew 12:39-40 “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

There are few Old Testament prophecies that are explicit about the Messiah dying and rising from the dead.  Isaiah 53:10-11 though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin…After he has suffered, he will see the light of life[d] and be satisfied; by his knowledge my  righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.”  The [d] footnote says Isaiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls does not read “will see the light of life” but “He will see the fruit of his suffering and will be satisfied.”  Quite a bit less clear.

Jesus specifically points to both Isaiah’s Suffering Servant and to “the sign of Jonah”. It is in Jonah we get three days and three nights.  Was Jesus crucified on “Good Thursday”, which would get the “required” three days and nights? That is, if Jesus was Crucified on Good Friday and rose on Easter Sunday, no matter how you count it, that is three days and two nights, making him a false prophet.  (If you count the days listed in Holy Week, we are short a day, so a Thursday crucifixion is possible, but I believe that is largely irrelevant.)

But why Jonah?  The Bible Project has an excellent summary of Jonah’s life.  Book of Jonah Summary: A Complete Animated Overview Briefly: Jonah appears in 2 Kings 14, telling Israelite king Jeroboam II to restore Israel’s original borders.  While this was successful, at least for a short time, Jeroboam’s reign is called “evil”.  And in the book of Jonah, he shows himself to be a terrible prophet, running in the other direction when God sends him to Nineveh; daring God to kill him rather than save people he hated.  And after “repenting”, he gives a minimal message to the Ninevites, but they repent anyway.  His response is to sulk and again beg God to kill him.  Like many of Jesus’ parables, Jonah’s book ends with a cliffhanger: does he repent?  

Someone suggested that Jonah is the OT equivalent of the older brother in the Prodigal Son.  I always want to believe the older brother will come in and celebrate the younger brother’s return, but Jesus does not tell.  In Jonah’s real-life story, the entire city of Nineveh, more than 120,000 souls, have repented, but Jonah is bitter about it.  

The one “problem” with the Prodigal Son is that there is no sacrifice, other than the fatted calf.  But interestingly, Jonah himself is reluctantly “sacrificed” for the people of Nineveh.  Perhaps Jesus is saying that, though Jonah was (apparently) a false prophet, and a reluctant, petulant one, Jesus knew he would spend three days and nights in the tomb, just like Jonah, to redeem both the Israelites (the older brothers, the “Jonahs”, the Pharisees) and the Ninevites (the younger brother, the sinners of the world).  I suggest the Older Brother is way too common in Church today - the judgmental, bigoted “Christian” who is glad to tell others where they’ve gone wrong.  And the Younger Brother is way too common everywhere else in this country - only turning to God when there is no other way.  Otherwise, happy enough in their lives, or at least pretending to be.  Would that I did not see myself in both of these misguided sons.  

But seriously - why “the sign of Jonah”?  It’s weird, isn’t it?

Green Fields of the Mind

 Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Since its inception, the NFL has played its games on Sundays, and we take that for granted now.  Sunday afternoons, for many millions in this country, are dedicated to watching football.  In the Super Bowl era, those numbers have continued to climb, as the NFL has grown in popularity.  Over the last two decades, the NFL has started to play more and more games in Europe, with five there in 2025.  The East Coast start time for these games is usually 9AM.  Sunday morning.  

The NFL has been hosting at least one game on Christmas every year since 2020.  This year it played three games on Christmas Day.  Last year it played two, with Christmas on a Wednesday.  In 2023, it played three on that Monday.  Interestingly, with Christmas 2022 on a Sunday, it also played three games, with 11 games played on Christmas Eve that year.  

Recently, the NFL made this growing practice in Buffalo of baptising your baby as a Bills’ fan into a commercial.  You can see it here on the NFL website:  Baby Mafia || You Better Believe It

Last night, I noticed the 49ers’ jerseys had a little word printed just over their numbers.  Can you read it there?

Faithful.  

Faithful to what?  To who?  

In Matthew 19, Jesus is asked how one obtains eternal life.  He says to keep the commandments, and a very short list out of the 613 from Jewish Scriptures:  “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”  

Nothing about loving God.  Nothing about the Sabbath.  

But of course, the man is not satisfied.  Jesus replies, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

I believe this second response describes the “narrow path” that “not many find”.  We tend to interpret passages like this as hyperbole, or that this was specific to this particular man, who “went away sad, because he had great wealth.”  And perhaps that is right - he was ruled by his possessions.  As to Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, where he says we should pluck out our eye rather than have it lead us to sin, certainly that is hyperbole.  

But one of the aspects of following Jesus that appeals to me is the notion that it is much more than getting through each day without committing murder or adultery.  I can do better today than I did yesterday.  With God’s help.  Through surrender to His Holy Spirit, I can, perhaps, be perfect.  

I can see how much time I have wasted in my life pursuing things of this world, temporary things with no value.  Fantasy sports jumps to mind.  I used to spend untold hours figuring out how my beloved Mets should retool for the next season after their latest failed bid at a World Series title.  The egotism that “I know better than they do”, the slothfulness of sitting idle, wasting the precious gift of time.  And the false hope of sports.  

Here is the beginning and ending of “The Green Fields of the Mind”, an epic essay by Bart Giamatti.  Giamatti: The Green Fields of the Mind

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. 

I need to think something lasts forever, and it might as well be that state of being that is a game; it might as well be that, in a green field, in the sun.”

The Shiny Apple

Genesis 3:6 “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”

More thoughts on Artificial Intelligence.

It is a scientific fact that we remember things better when we write them with a pen and paper.  It is also a fact that people who lived centuries ago had much better memories than we do today.  In order even to qualify to study at the feet of Gamaliel, the Apostle Paul was required to memorize and recite the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.  That was the entrance exam.  

We may think artificial intelligence is desirable for gaining wisdom, taking shortcuts to faster results, but in the end, we are surrendering our souls, our very selves, to this machine.  I say this with all distaste of someone with a large investment in Nvidia, and one who is trying to start a new reinsurance company that will be built on AI technology.  

And that is how it starts.  The most insidious evils in this world are not the murderers and rapists.  Those are most obviously evil.  More insidious are the evils that appear good.  Take food.  The most delicious food, in my opinion, is laden with sugar, carbs or salt.  Cookies.  Ice cream.  French fries.  Heart attack.  Diabetes.  Eating healthy is not as obviously attractive.  It is more expensive.  But it leads to healthier bodies, longer lives. 

Sports.  Exercise and competition keep our bodies fit.  Force us to push ourselves to excel.  Focus mind and body.  At their best, they encourage kindness, sportsmanship.  We desire to WIN.  We cheer for Our Team and against Their Team.  And sports divide us, creating hatred instead of camaraderie.  I have been blessed to root for some pretty lousy teams over the last few decades, allowing me to turn away from the inanity of it all without regret.  And as the money these athletes are paid gets more and more obscene, the athletes seem more and more entitled.  Then we laud the athlete.  Then we desire for our children to be great athletes.  And then we frequent the sports field instead of the church. 

Work.  We wrap our self-worth up in our success, our promotions, our salary, our house, cars, clothes, vacations.  Of course, I am better than that, because I am happy with “enough”.  My four weeks’ vacation each year.  My trips to England are to see my daughter, to Guatemala to feel more blessed in my possessions.  I go to church (nearly) every week!  I am a good person!  

In order to attain and sustain, we work harder.  Both parents must, in most families.  And our children are raised by other people. Or by machines.  On machines.  For machines.  And we wonder at the skyrocketing mental health issues.  Suicide rates.  Mass shootings.  

Religion.  Is it a way to seem Good?  Have people think well of you?  To busy yourself with working for the Church?  Paul spent the first part of his life dedicated to Religion and missed entirely getting to know God.  I have more than a few similarities.  I went to church my whole life.  I was taught right from wrong and a bit about Jesus.  I am starting to suspect that most of what I was taught in Church was slightly off target, more about Religion than Love and Forgiveness.  One of the seminal moments in my life was when I was arrested for shoplifting and my parents made me apologize to the store owners I had stolen from.  Looking back now, I see how much I learned about Forgiveness that day.  

For Paul, all his wealth, all his knowledge studying at Gamaliel’s feet, all the prestige: a Pharisee, a Benjaminite a descendant of Jacob’s favorite son, circumcised on the eighth day, a Hebrew of Hebrews; he considered it all garbage, sewage, dung.  Paul did not give up making tents.  He continued that profession so that he could spread the Gospel without being a burden on others.  That is what I take from this.  Perspective.  Focus on the Important Stuff.  Focus on Him.  Everything else is...

That shiny Apple.  So good for food.  So pleasing to the eye.  For gaining wisdom.  

The Word of God (Part Two)

The second hidden gem in John’s introduction is what he means by calling Jesus “the Word”.  An idea is a powerful concept.  Words and ideas can inspire people, create movements, change the world.  But an idea is hidden until it is expressed, either in word or deed.  E. Stanley Jones suggested in his book “Christ of the Mount” that Jesus, the incarnation of God, is the human expression of God in the same way that a spoken word is the expression of an idea.  If we want to know what God is like in terms we can understand, look carefully at Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection.  Look at what he said, what he did, how he treated people.  He was humble yet strong.  Poor but kingly.  Loving but challenging.   

The phrase “What Would Jesus Do?” swept through American churches and inspired a 2011 movie, created the bracelet fad (WWJD) and spawned many websites that have a well-intentioned mix of Jesus’ sayings taken out of context and usually coming across as judgmental and even hateful toward the down-trodden and outcast.

In his earthly life, Jesus was both loving and judgmental.  But who was he loving to except the down-trodden and the outcast.  Who was he judgmental to?  The proud and the religious elite who had forgotten to be loving and merciful.  I am not saying we should not tell the truth about sin and its consequences.  The consequence of sin is death: separation from one another and from God.  If I am honest with myself, assuming I have been forgiven (and I hope I have been forgiving!), I have sinned and continue to sin at an astonishing pace.  We all will rely on His Grace.  If I have any hope at all in Jesus, how can I possibly judge whether someone else should not?  

The Word of God (Part One)

John 1:1-4 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

This introduction to the Gospel of John is one of the most powerful sections in the Bible.  It starts with the obvious reference to Genesis 1:1 but with an apparent sharp turn.  There are, however, two hidden gems to understand this passage better.  First, in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning” can mean “the first thing to know” or “the first thing that happened” - or it can mean “by the first” or “through the first-born”.  That is, literally Jesus was there in the beginning, co-creator with God the Father.  John did not invent this idea.  He merely restated what Moses wrote.  If you go to the very next verse in Genesis 1, the Holy Spirit is also there in the beginning: “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”  

Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Without him nothing was made that has been made.  The verb tense here is the imperfect, meaning an action that began in the past and continues.  The Alpha and the Omega, who was and is and is to come.  Creator of everything that has ever been, is now and everything that ever will be.

Stay tuned for part two! 

Ya Gotta Believe!

 If you remember the movie Chariots of Fire, you remember being moved by Eric Liddel’s stance to not run a trial heat on a Sunday because he felt it important to keep the Sabbath.  “I believe God made me for a purpose, for China, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.”  The British Olympic Committee tried to convince him that “it’s only one heat” and for King and Country, he should run. 

- Duke of Sutherland: The "lad", as you call him, is a true man of principles and a true athlete. His speed is a mere extension of his life, its force. We sought to sever his running from himself.

- Lord Birkenhead: For his country's sake, yes.

- Duke of Sutherland: No sake is worth that, least of all a guilty national pride.

What Sutherland was saying is that if Liddel had compromised, he would have lost his connection with God.  I believe this is what happened to Samson.  It was not Samson’s hair, per se, that made him strong.  It was his belief that God had ordained him to be a Nazarite and that he was chosen before he was born to lead Israel.  His long hair was the symbol of that connection with God.  And when he woke up and realized that Delilah had betrayed him, he realized he had betrayed his faith.  Devastated, he could not raise a hand to defend himself and he ended his life in shame and in chains, capable only of one final act of defiance.

I would suggest that Samson had already been unfaithful to God in using his strength for his own gain, and perhaps that is why God allowed him to be put to shame.  Conversely, Liddel held firm to his faith, and won a race four times as long as he was used to running. 

This, I believe, is what it means to have “the faith of a mustard seed”.  When we face daunting trials and pray for God to see us through, can we go forward convinced that God will act?  The book of Daniel (3:16-18) has the famous story of the three friends thrown into the furnace for refusing to bow in worship to the king and is, I believe, a perfect example of how to have faith:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

In other words, they firmly believed that God would rescue them (and he did), but were not going to change their mind or their actions even if they knew he was not going to.  Similarly, as Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will but thine.”  

Are you facing a trial?  Insurmountable odds?  As Al Michaels famously said, “Do you believe in miracles?”  And as Tug McGraw said, “Ya gotta believe!”