Expensive Gifts

About twenty-five years ago, I received a gift that changed my life.

From the start of our marriage, Trish and I had been in missions work. We now had two small children and had just moved to Nashville to join the Christ Church staff (all three of them!). We moved into the Elysian Fields apartments on Nolensville Road, and arranged our very sparse furniture into eight hundred square feet on the third floor. I know; I should have been thankful that I didn’t have to carry much furniture up those three floors. But my mind was elsewhere.

The church had already begun to grow and I was teaching Bible studies every week in Brentwood and Franklin. The people in those Bible studies were all considerably more affluent than any group I had previously served, and I was a bit intimidated. So I often parked my old car down the block from all the nice cars and walked to the Bible study.

I’ll confess that I once got into my car after leaving one of these beautiful homes and sat at the wheel feeling sorry for myself. I wondered out loud to God why I was raising my children on the third floor of an apartment complex while others were living in these fine homes. However, I immediately felt that the Spirit of God was displeased with me for being angry about my lack of finances. So I asked for God’s forgiveness and thanked Him for providing a warm house for my healthy children.

Some months later, after the Sunday night service, Jim Enoch approached me and asked me to sit down on the pew. “I need you to clear your schedule this week,” he said, “I am going to take you to look for a house.”

‘But Jim,” I protested, “I don’t have any money. Also, I have lived for years outside the United States; so I have no credit history.”

He pushed my protests aside with a wave of his hand. “God has spoken to a couple in our church” he replied. “They are going to pay whatever it takes to get you into a house. They told me they want you to pay the same payments you are paying now after all the transactions are finished. And they said that I am to help you chose any house you want.”

I was so taken aback by his words that I didn’t know what to say for a few minutes. I finally got out something to the effect of “No, I won’t choose this house. I might either ask for too much or settle for too little. You and this couple can find the house; we will be grateful for whatever you choose.”

That’s how we bought our first home. It was at 581 Whispering Hills, just a couple of miles from the church.

What a thrill it was the first time we drove our car into the garage – into our own garage!

That one lavish, out-of bounds generous gift, gave us a financial foundation. It allowed us to raise our children. We sent them both to good schools. Year later, we even sent ourselves back to school!

Every financial blessing in our lives since has been tied in some way to that one surprising gift.

I can also tell you this: we have lived in several houses since then. However, no house has been so precious to us or has been more appreciated.

Oh, the couple that gave us that gift. They have never mentioned it to us – not ever. Every time the gift has surfaced in conversation with them, it has been because Trish or I have reminded them of the gracious thing they did for us so long ago, and thank them for all the fruit it has produced.

I deeply appreciate that financial gift, of course. Even more importantly though, I am thankful for how that gift taught me the nature of generosity. That gift taught me what a gift can do to transform lives.

This past Sunday, as I asked everyone to think about making a lavish, out-of-bounds-kind-of-gift this year to someone or to some cause this year; I had in mind the gift that changed our lives. When I asked everyone at our church to make this the year that they would do something so spectacular and unexpected that their gift would touch people for generations – I knew what I was talking about.

I don’t know what people will do with that sermon. I don’t even know yet what I will do with that sermon. However, I do know what such a gift can accomplish. I also know by experience that people really are blessed in order to be a blessing and when they abandon themselves to generosity, great goodness flows into the world.

All three of my grandchildren live in homes that their parents own. All three are being well educated because their parents value education. All three live in safe, warm and loving environments. To a great extent, all this has happened because one couple, who at the time barely knew me, decided to make a contribution that would change our lives.

I cringe when I think that I could have squandered the opportunity. I could have so mismanaged the gift that their good intentions could have been entirely wasted. Such things often happen. We hear about them all the time and they makes us cautious about giving. So I certainly could have added one more story to prove that it doesn’t pay to try to help people. Given my level of financial knowledge, it surprises me that I didn’t do that.
Thanks to my church, who believed that teaching people how to manage money is a Biblical part of discipleship, I avoided the worst mistakes. I steadily built a financial foundation that has already proved strong enough to touch two generations. Our next step is to make our financial structure strong enough to raise the next generation to come. We are working on that!

Anyway, this blog is really a prayer of blessing. I want God to bless my benefactors. In this economically challenging time, May God remember what they did for us. May He prove to them the truth of His word, “he who gives to the poor, lendeth to the Lord.” After twenty years, the interest on the money they paid back then would be very considerable now. I think this would be a great month for the Lord to pay them back! Perhaps He will.

In the meantime, I hope to influence us all to be out-of-bounds-generous. Perhaps we do not have the ability to buy someone a house. But could we buy them a car? Pay a year’s tuition? Buy them a great suit? Buy a computer? Could we send someone’s child to a good school for a year, or pay to get their teeth fixed?

As I learned twenty some-odd years ago, the world is full of opportunities to do good. Every few days I recall how one couple made a strategic investment in my life. I have thought about it more times than I can count. When I do, I shake my head and wonder: how could anyone do something so wonderful, without attaching any strings except for the love that has continually poured from their family into ours for over a generation?

May God remember. May He repay in full. And may He teach me to be as kind and as generous as that one precious couple – our own personal Magi!

Joy

Joy To The World is probably the most famous Christmas carol, after Silent Night. Everyone knows the first line, and most Christians seem to know the rest of the first verse. Naughty little children (I never was one) have been known to change the words now and then. As humorous as those lyrics can be, I want to talk about the real ones.

Joy to the world, the Lord has come
Let earth receive her king!
Let every heart prepare him room
And Heaven and nature sing

The words speak for themselves. They are straightforward and clear.



Isaac Watts was trying to do a musical paraphrase of the 98th Psalm which begins with the line, “Oh Sing to the Lord a new song! For He has done marvelous things.” The Psalm continues to say that we should shout, compose songs, and play musical instruments to express our joy. We should do this the psalmist says because the Lord is coming to judge the earth and to heal it of all of its sicknesses. The Psalm tells us that if we will sing, shout and play our instruments in worship God that nature itself will be healed.

Isaac Watts wanted to express those thoughts in this song. He was not trying to write a Christmas Carol, necessarily. His intent was really more to teach us about the Lord’s Second Coming. But whether we are talking about the Lord’s first coming or His Second Coming, the message is the same: when God shows up, things are going to change.

We know that already, of course. We all want God to come into our lives. But our frustration is that God works in ways that we simply cannot see and sometimes we honestly wonder if he is doing anything in our lives. So how can we be sure that God is at work in our lives? How can we know that the Lord has come to us?

This carol seems to say that the chief sign that God has shown up is the presence of joy in our lives. Joy is our inner radar going off, a resonating of deep inner chords of our soul, telling us that our lives are moving toward God and toward the purposes for which He made us. This means that when we do not have joy, something in our lives is askew. It means that our lives are not moving on, moving toward God’s purpose for us. We may be good people, we may be trying to do our best, but if we do not have joy, either we have taken the wrong turn or there is some new important turn we should take. Well, maybe you have never heard it put like that but it rings true. It’s still frustrating! How do we learn how to move toward joy, and thus toward God and toward His purpose for us?

Obviously, joy does not result from the things we hear people admiring. Time and time again I have watched people whose lives were apparently miserable, perhaps living in poverty or illness of some sort, who nonetheless were full of joy. The presence or absence of joy seems to have little to do with security, fame or fortune. Those things are wonderful and I have known famous and wealthy people who were full of joy. Certainly poverty and loneliness don’t bring joy either. But joy seems to flow from one state of being and that state alone: the state in which our soul feels connected to God and to the purpose for which He created us.



If God created you to be an artist and your Father convinced you that artists can’t make a living, even if you became a very successful banker, all the complements and awards people send your way will not bring you joy. Your soul knows that it has plugged into the wrong place in life.

A friend of mine who is an intelligent, godly, hard working person experienced this a few years ago. He has repeatedly been called upon to lead others. He is responsible and healthy. But last year he decided to attend a painting class. He was embarrassed that as he began to pull the brush across the canvas that the tears were flowing down his face. Great emotion was stirring inside his being. “What was that?” He asked. “Were you sad?” I asked. “Goodness no”, he replied. “I felt incredibly happy!”

As he told me that I recalled that a few years ago my wife bought me dancing lessons for my birthday. You need to know that my church taught that dancing was evil. My wife and I have never danced. As the dance instructor showed us the steps and coached us on how to do what many of you have taken for granted, my emotions nearly overwhelmed me. I got in the car and wept like a baby. I was embarrassed and confused about that emotion. But if you were to force me to name the emotion I was feeling, I would say it was joy. Joy for being able to hold my wife and move to music, joy to know that I was free from damaging rules that inflicted needless pain and which kept me from one of the most enjoyable doors to intimacy with the person I want to love and know the most. Also I love music. My body wants to move to music. I have been suppressing that need all of my life because in the places I have lived and worked, moving ones' body to music is a sure sign of instability and flakiness. On the floor with the dance instructor and my wife, clumsily endangering all feet within reach, something in me was breaking out, reaching to become what I really am, an expressive, musical, emotional person. Being who I really am brings joy. Because by being who I really am I glorify God. By being who I am, I say with my actions – you made me well, my God. I am happy that you made me as I am.

Does God care if I dance? Yes. It is not the world’s greatest tragedy if I do not dance. I doubt that now I will ever really learn how to dance well. There are many things much more important in my life than dancing. I can live without it. But my point is that dancing was a part of what I was made to do that I have not done, and so it has gone unexpressed. The day I danced with my wife gave part of me a chance to live, and that became a moment of unexpected joy! The joy was a sign that I was moving towards being who God made me to be.

The reality of life is that we will not get to be all that we were created to be. That is what Heaven is for. But we must not needlessly restrict ourselves from being what we were created to be. Not only for happiness' sake, but because God made each of us to be something that brings life to the world. If we miss being what God created us to be, the life He wants to flow through us will be restricted. The sign that this life is beginning to flow is joy!

When God shows up there is joy. When God is near, when we have turned toward God in some way, our soul feels His presence. Our soul knows that He can heal us. It understands that He is our source of life. When our soul realizes that He is closer in some way, it leaps. It knows what our conscious mind has often forgotten to remember, that God has the power and wisdom to deliver us. He can deliver us from ourselves and from all the false moves we have made in life away from Him and away from our true selves. He is our Shepherd. He restoreth our soul.



So let every heart prepare Him room! For if we let Him in, He will begin the work of making us into what we most long to be. Heaven and nature will then sing a duet. Heaven and human nature are harmonized when the Lord comes.

The third verse of Joy to the World is probably the heart of the song, though it is the one most often omitted. Isaac Watts made the most powerful statement of the song in that verse.


No more let sin and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found

The curse to which Watts refers is the curse of sin. Christians believe that this curse has invaded every part of human, animal and natural life. Once you know that, what we call the doctrine of original sin, you will understand why Jesus came, and why he is coming again. It tells us why we say what we do during the celebration of communion: “Here then is the mystery of our faith, that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.” Why has Christ died, risen and coming again? Watts tells us. “He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.”

Well, where is the curse found?



The curse is in our bodies: we get sick and die.



It is in our minds: we get ill in our emotions and thoughts.



It is in our families and marriages: we get out of sorts with those we love, our ability to experience intimacy gets restricted and sometimes even destroyed.



The curse is in our eating. It’s in our sexuality. It’s in our art and science. The curse is nothing less than the erosion that eats at all the good things of life and breaks them down so that they become dysfunctional.



The result of this curse is sadness and sin. But the carol writer tells us that when the Lord comes, He brings healing: “No more let sin and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground.” You already know what that means! The rose is beautiful. It smells so nice. Its velvet petals invite us to tenderly touch its softness. So we get closer and then, “OUCH!” a thorn draws the blood. In this fallen world, beauty comes with a price. But the Lord is coming and He comes to change things. He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.

I don’t know about you, but I have some thorns in my life, thorns that sometimes break the skin and draw the blood. There are things in my life that sting and bite. But then I stop the whining. I remember that I am a Christian. I recall that the Lord has come into my life and will soon come physically into the world. He intends to “make His blessings flow far as the curse is found”.

Isaac Watts urges us to keep confessing that our Lord is sovereign. He is king over all. As He works to remake our world, we should not weep and pine. We should sing.

Joy to the world the Savior reigns
Let men their songs employ
While fields and floods
Rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding Joy.

Nature itself joins in when our lives really worship God. You begin changing your surroundings the day you begin to allow God to change you and God begins to change you the moment you begin to worship Him.

I left the last verse to last because I sometimes struggle with what it proclaims.

He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And Wonders of His love

Truthfully, if God rules this world, he sure rules it differently than I would rule it. He allows his enemies, those who rebel against Him to have their say and to inflict pain on others. Is this any way to rule a world?



I have discovered that when I try to govern things under my authority that way, it just seems to undermine all that I want to do. Why does God allow the injustices and miseries of the world? The answer is that God has not yet abolished evil from the world. He rules fully only in our hearts. As we really become His people by living how He taught us to live, the blessings which come on our lives as a result, transforms us. Then that transformation in us is supposed to spread through the world. That is the part that sometimes staggers me. I wonder sometimes if it could be true.

Does God reign? Despite everything, something deep inside my soul says that He does, and there are times that He makes it extremely clear that He does reign.

A few years ago, my sister and brother-in-law were driving from Juarez, just the other side of El Paso, Texas on their way to Amarillo. They had been to Juarez to visit a sick person in the hospital. On the way back they got into a terrible snowstorm. The snow got so bad that Josias couldn’t see. It was in the early morning hours and the car just wouldn’t stay on the road. They were frightened and didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, they say the lights of a vehicle in front of them. The vehicle was moving slow and they discovered that they could follow its lights and stay in the road. After a while, the vehicle put on a turn signal. Neva and Josias decided to do the same. They made the turn in the blinding snow and found that they were in the parking lot of a church. Josias stopped and looked for the vehicle in front of him. There was none. He got out. There were no tracks. He and my sister waited a couple of hours until daybreak and until the snow had lifted, safe in the house of God.


He rules the world in truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness and wonders of his love. God doesn’t always avert tragedy. He doesn’t always remove pain and sorrow. But when we move toward Him, He gives grace even when we do not understand. The soul can know joy even when the way is hard...if the Lord is there.



Joy to the world!

It IS A Wonderful Life!

If you have been near me during the Christmas season, you will no doubt be aware that I love watching It's A Wondeful life. I don't watch it in March, and I don't watch it 17 times during December. I just need to watch it once a year. My children have grown weary of watching it with me, or even listening to me talk about it. This is because they are not like the good children on television who tell their daddy that bells have something to do with angels.

I like the story. Most of you know it, but for the sake of those who might be like my girs, I’ll retell it. Jimmy Stewart plays the part of a middle age man named George Bailey who owns a small time Savings and Loans company. He didn’t really want to be the owner of the loan company. In fact, he had always wanted to travel the world and do exotic things. But his father died and left him the business, and then responsibilities of various kinds kept piling up. He had a wife and kids. People depended on him. He was trapped in Bedford Falls.

As the movie unfolds, we discover that George is in financial trouble. His uncle has lost a bag of the loan company’s money. In fact, he looses it in the bank before he makes the deposit. What he does not know is that the town banker, the evil Mr. Potter, has the money. Neither George or his uncle know this. They only know that $40,000 is missing and that the government auditor is in town looking over their books.

It is this crisis which pushes George to the bridge at the edge of town. He is about to jump into the icy water below when he hears the voice of an old man yelling for help down in the water. So George jumps in the water not to end his life but to save the life of someone else. Inside the guard house he finds out that the old man's name is Clarence. To George’s great amusement, Clarence reveals that he is not an earthly man at all. He is an angel, second class. All that stands between Clarence and first class status is to finish an assignment from Heaven. Namely, Clarence must convince George of the usefulness of his life.

We know that will be difficult, because George has already said that it would have been better if he had never been born. We also know that George has been grumbling that he had great plans in life, that he had planned to make a big splash. But here he was in Bedford Falls, a boring wide place in the road. He was stuck. And now he was middle age. It was over for him. He had that certain sick feeling that some of us have known -- deep down in the pit of the soul -- that he had squandered life. He had not reached for those great dreams after all.

It is those words “it would have been better if I had never been born which gives Clarence his idea. Suddenly with a wave of his hand, the world becomes what it would have been had George Bailey never been born. As he walks into town the differences he begins to see a town that is filled not with family dwellings which he had helped provide for low income families, but rather slummy run down streets with dives and juke joints, and a sign announcing that this town’s name is Pottersville.

As George begins to comprehend this strange world in which he does not exist, he understands that Pottersville is a nasty village filled with depressed and angry people. Clarence explains to him at each bend in the road how that since Mr. Smith could not get a loan because George’s Savings and Loan doesn’t exist, he had to pay the exorbitant rent demanded by Mr. Potter and that is why he has nothing, and why he is so lacking in self respect and why he is drinking all the time. Home after home is different from what George remembered from Bedford Falls.

It is only after seeing the miseries of Potterstown that George Bailey is ready to return to his life -- to the life that God had chosen for him -- to that life which after having the opportunity to see the alternatives, George is now ready to embrace and delight in. Surrounded by his family and friends, in the middle of a town where one man really has made a great difference, George Bailey sees that it is a wonderful life.

The calling of God is first to be found in our surrounding circumstances. The Holy Scripture is not nearly as focused on individual calling as we would like to think. The Bible presents the story of God calling a people into being. Individuals found their place within that community and did what birth and training prepared them to do. Relatively few individuals were called out from that people to some dramatic, extra-ordinary ministry. And in every case, that special, earth shattering call for extra-ordinary service was for a limited task and a limited time. The main thing of life was just being responsible for the every day, do your best, things-at-hand sort of stuff.

A few years ago, Naomi Judd called me to her home. Her husband met me at the door and took me into her bedroom. She was propped up on enormous pillows and had been crying for a long time. She asked me to sit on a chair by her bed. She informed me that the doctors had said she had an incurable liver disease and that because of this she would be giving a press release later in the month announcing that she would be leaving her career. Then she wept. So did I.

Larry held her hand. I prayed. Then I picked up a guitar and sang. Then we cried again. Sometime in that evening before left, Naomi said something to me that rattled my cage. It was so simple and so true that I could not escape its force. She said, “Dan, our time on the stage is always brief.”

I thought about that sentence the next time I walked to the pulpit . I looked out over the crowd, over the faces of the people. And I knew that the pulpit was not mine. I knew that I was merely a place holder for another, and yet another. I knew that even if I stayed there until I was very old the day would come where I would die. Another pastor would come. All the people who met me week after week at the door and made kind remarks about my message, or helped me to know that it was not what they had in mind, would allow memory to fade little by little, and then they too would be gone. Twenty years later, barely a handful would recall the name of that preacher whose name used to be on all the literature.

Our time on the stage is brief.

Not only is it brief, but our time on the stage is rarely the most important thing in our lives. So I urge you to consider with George Bailey at Bedford Falls, what is the real reason for your life? What difference are you making for good or ill in the world in which birth and circumstances have placed you?

God’s words to Jeremiah are very helpful here. We can all listen to what he told Jeremiah and find strength and instruction in his words. First Jeremiah heard God say that he had been chosen before his birth to do what God wished him to do. So Jeremiah had a purpose. So do you. So do I. Nobody is an accident. God had and has purpose for every human being. Happiness in life consists in allowing that purpose to unfold, in not fighting God’s ordained plan for our lives.

God told Jeremiah not to worry about his youth. He could have said “your old age” or your lack of money, or your ugly face, or whatever else makes you excuse yourself from God’s plan. You have within you all the stuff you need to do the task God has called you to do. You may have to train. You may have to wait for experience. But you are fully capable to do all that God wants you to do. If there is some supernatural element needed, you can’t do it anyway, and God will show up in time to do his part.

God told Jeremiah not to be afraid of Man. That’s important. We all want the favor of others. But sometimes doing what God wants us to do doesn’t set well with everyone. Once you are willing to go your own way if you must, you are free from the agony of not pleasing those you would like to please.

Jesus said that we are the salt of the earth. Salt is common. You are never far from salt. Lick your palm and you will find salt. Taste a tear and you will taste salt. It doesn’t take great genius or massive talent to be the salt of the earth. Many a brilliant and talented person on this earth is adding to the decay of men’s souls. And many a dull and average nobody is giving himself to doing what is right. He is salt, and he is doing his duty.

Being George Bailey, being salt, might not feel as spectacular as impressing the world. But if you live out your calling you will impress Heaven. I urge you to live life that way. If you seek fulfillment you will never find it. Fulfillment is a byproduct felt by those who abandon themselves to the task of just doing what is right.

IF you do what is right, day after day, somewhere along the way you will no doubt find along with George Bailey that your life really does matter and that it is, after all, a wonderful life.

Don't Be A Grinch!

I have seen a lot of monuments. But never, not once did I ever see a monument of a critic!

The monuments are built and dedicated to risk takers, men and women of courage who in their field were willing to accept the jeers of the crowd while they did what they felt should be done.

This is true even of the saints. A saint is a man or woman who lives as though what he believes really matters. A military hero charges into battle, risking personal safety because the battle must be fought. He is the leader, he urges his soldiers into battle, and so he must be first in taking the risk. But a saint does the same. He says that he believes in Christ and his teachings, and thus he feels a duty to live by them, even when others say it is impractical or unreasonably radical.

There are two things which characterize the hero: courage and faith. The hero either believes that he will win, even against terrible odds, or he believes in something that is so important that he feels it is better to lose in pursuit of his goal even though it is not likely to be obtained, rather than accept ease and comfort by accepting the inevitable.

Tina Turner sang a few years ago that “We don’t need another hero” but she was dead wrong. We desperately need heroes. What we don’t need is more grinches!

We have become a nation of victims and grinches. We have lost sight of the fact that life is hard and that valuable things cost a lot of effort and uphill struggle. We have lost the knowledge that it takes a change of character to be successful in anything, and that outside forces can never destroy us without our permission. We have forgotten that the grinch is a sick person who has decided to make excuses rather than take action.

A grinch will criticize the government, but will not vote. He will say that the church is not evangelizing but does not himself work to save souls. He will say that money is being misspent but will not tithe. A grinch has nothing to offer, he is a negative force that saps the strength of productive people. A grinch grieves the Holy Spirit.

The difference between a grinch and a prophet is that the prophet offers a solution. A grinch just says, “I don’t like it”. Let me read you a passage of scripture:

Phillipians 2 (New International Version)

12 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,

13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
14 Do everything without complaining or arguing,

15 so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe


What St. Paul is saying here is, offer a solution, offer a loving critique, do what must be done, but don’t be a grinch!

Just Another Birthday

I usually write about my thoughts regarding spirituality, or at least current events. Please indulge me today as I write about something more personal. Tomorrow is my wife's birthday, and I wanted to write about her.

Trish’s and my life took a surprising turn four years ago. It happened on June 1st, just one day before our wedding anniversary. We were still glowing from the birth of our new grandchild.

The day began like any other day. Trish and I got ready for work and walked down the stairs of our desert dream house to have breakfast and then head out to our workplaces. On the way down, Trish pointed to a plaque from Vietnam that some believers had sent to us and which we had hung on the wall.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” That’s what the plaque said.

Trish’s simple gesture – pointing to that plaque – would haunt me for months.

Except for a few brief words in the early afternoon, I would not hear her speak again for nearly two weeks. I would never hear her same voice again. Just a few hours from that moment we paused to read the words on the plaque, she would slip into the valley of the shadow of death. We would both be changed forever. Life would never be the same.

After her coma came a long journey of adjustment and rehabilitation. We moved across the continent because I didn’t think I could both pastor a large church and be a caretaker of an invalid wife. I learned how to get her wheelchair into places not built to accommodate them. Trish learned to walk again.

When she finally got her drivers license back, she fired me as her caretaker. The months turned to years. A new grandbaby was born – our third. Our church in Nashville asked me to be their senior pastor. We started building a new house just before the bottom fell out of the economy. We rented our old house because it wouldn’t sell. We moved into a bungalow waiting for her new house to get finished. Thanksgiving came.

And now, on the fourth of December, Trish will have a birthday. It has taken four years for me to realize that life will not “go back to normal.”

Normal has changed.

For us, there is a new normal. It has also dawned on me that I cannot recall the birthdays she has celebrated since her coma. Its time to stop and take note: the plans the Lord had for us was to prosper us, not to harm us; His plan was to give us a hope and a future.

On this birthday, I want to wake up from my own sleep. I want to be more aware and alert so I can enjoy each and every day, whatever that day brings. And I want to celebrate the joys of walking through our new normal life together.

Happy Birthday, Trish.

Happy Normal, Uneventful birthday.

Love, Dan

Photo Credits: Vickie Riley Photography

What Is Advent?

This Sunday is the first Sunday of the Advent season. Just in case you don’t know, I celebrate Christmas. From the first Sunday of Advent till midnight of Christmas day, I sing carols, I buy presents, I watch Its a Wonderful Life, and I read Charles Dickens’ Christmas carol.



It is, quite simply, my favorite time of the year. I realize that some Christians are too 'spiritual' to celebrate Christmas. They think that we somehow offend the Holy Spirit if we get a lump in our throat about a Virgin Mother, three wise men, and shepherds.

I have never understood that attitude. It seems to me that this world is full of such sorrow, such poverty of spirit; that it offers so few times of wonder and delight – I can’t see why this season, which makes peoples’ eyes sparkle, and moves strangers to take an extra moment for a kind word, would offend Christian people. But some Christians are nonetheless offended. They are as offended at Christmas as the American Civil Liberties Union, which every year, in an effort to protect our liberties, go to war against public nativity sets and lighted crosses. Well, I plan to ignore all the Scrooges this year – heathen, atheist Scrooges and Christian Scrooges alike, just as I ignore them every year, and wish them all a Merry Christmas. What better way is there of infuriating all the sourpusses of the right and left, than to just be happy as we celebrate Advent?


The Advent Season is about the surprising visit of a divine king to this planet. It is the story of an offended God who searched the entire world to find one righteous man, and could not find any. It is the story of how this offended God, our Creator Lord, chose to come down among us so that we would see for ourselves how he truly loved us and how He wanted us to live with him forever.

The advent story takes surprising twists and turns. For one thing, the Jewish priests in the temple seemed oblivious to the story as it unfolded all around them. The king of Israel listened to the story with great alarm. In fact, it moved him to horrible violence, as he commanded that all the children of Bethlehem be killed. Far away, in Rome, the emperor kept collecting his taxes, oblivious that the king of all kings was sneaking into the backdoor o the world. Meanwhile, in Bethlehem, the Innkeeper could not find even a small room for Joseph and for Mary, whose body was crying for a place to deliver her divine baby.

And you wonder how could a priest in the temple could ever miss this baby born in Bethlehem? Week after week he had been swinging the incense, chanting the psalms, preparing the altar -- was there not the slightest spark of longing in his heart? When he put on his robes of his office and walked into the holy temple, was there not a spark of hope that today might be the day the words of the prophet would be fulfilled? Didn’t the prophet say “ suddenly the Lord, whom ye seek will come into his temple, the messenger of covenant whom ye delight in?” Di none of the priest burn with anticipation that perhaps this would be the year messiah would come to “purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord a sacrifice in holiness”? They chanted these words day after day. But no priests came to Bethlehem. There were no priests to care for the mother of the Lord. There were no priests there to burn incense to her newborn son.

And no scribes came to Bethlehem. No, the scribes were too busy looking up words in old scrolls. They were defining this Hebrew word, and comparing it to that Greek translation. They were talking about how this rabbi over here viewed a passage as opposed to that rabbi over there. The scribes kept writing and pondering; they kept studying and reflecting. Herrod asked the scribes to look into the scripture to see where the prophets were predicting the child would be born. Of course, they found the passage right away. They knew the Holy Scriptures. They were knowledgeable men. But still there were no scribes in Bethlehem.

Then there was the king. I don’t mean the king of Egypt. I don’t mean the king of the Parthians or Phrygians. I mean the king of Israel, the nation of covenant. Israel’s king was supposed to lead God’s people like a shepherd. He sat on the throne of David, the man who wrote the twenty third psalm. He descended from the mighty Macabees. But Herod was comfortable in his palace, and owed his throne to the Roman government far away. He was not interested in change. He had no burning hope in his heart for a coming messiah. So Herod didn’t make the trip to Bethlehem.

It was simple shepherds up on a hill and heathen astrologers in far away Persia who heard angels singing. The heathen noticed the star blazing in the heavens. You see, there were some people ready for a visitation from God. There were some people willing to take a chance, willing to toss off the pursuit of reputation and riches, for the outside chance that there could be some answer to the deepest longings of the human heart.

Let’s talk about the shepherds first. The simple people. Rough people. People who had no stake in the system. People who had never seen the inside of a palace. People who had neither the lineage nor the training to enter the holy temple. These people spent their days watching sheep. They were not real pious most of the time. They got mad and swore. They worried about how to get keep a job to support their children. They tried to stay clear of robbers. They didn’t expect life to change much. Maybe they didn’t even realize how much they needed a word from Heaven. They were just dimly aware, as all of us are dimly aware, of a sharp, deep, sweet pain that keeps saying, ‘there has to be something more than this’.

Then, without warning, without any thought that they would be chosen to be the first to get the news, they were suddenly surrounded with visitors from the court of Heaven -- these rough, country people who had never even visited with earthly royalty. They had no idea how to behave. They had no sense of protocol to guide them, no knowledge of how one is supposed to treat the messenger of a high potentate. They were just awe struck as they heard a sound like they had never heard before:

Gloria! In excelsis Deo!
Gloria! In excelsis Deo!

The angels told them, “come to Bethlehem and see. There is born to you this day in the city of David, a Savior, Christ the Lord!” When they got there, they were so smitten with amazement. They had no words for to express what they were feeling. They could just repeat what they had seen. We still repeat their words when we sing:

Angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing ore the plane. And with rapture their reply echoing their joyous strain!

Gloria! In excelsis Deo!
Gloria! In excelsis Deo!

Meanwhile, in far away in ancient Persia, were a few old men watching the sky. They were called Magi, and were the last remnants of an ancient class of priests. A new religion had come to Persia, so few people now had the patience to listen to these old men guarding their ancient religion. But they kept watch. For there was a prophesy in their sacred writings – writings which, by the way were related to the oldest texts of India, the Upanishads – in these writings, there was an old prophesy. This prophecy told them that a child would be born in the West which would signal the end of their religion. This child would bring a new word from God. After he came, their work would be over. So they watched and waited.

These old gnarled priests, these Magi, just kept going about the duties of their dying, and almost extinct religion. I wonder which one was the first to see the strange sight in the Western sky. He had climbed the crumbling old Ziggurat that evening, just like he had for years. He compared the sky as he saw it that evening with the observations of the ancients. He probably didn’t expect to see anything different that night from any other night. But there it was something different. There was a star. The star stirred him. Something about it glowed with a different quality. It had a power that was pulling his heart against his chest.

He couldn’t contain his emotions. He had been trained to be prudent. He was a man trained in calm and serenity. But somehow he knew that this star shinning out in the West, held the answer to the sweet pain of the human heart. We have all sorts of names for this secret pain. We sometimes call that pain “romance”. We call is “joy”. Sometimes we musicians call it “soul”. Whatever we call it, it is an indescribable hunger of the spirit, a desire to communicate on another level that what we have known. It causes us to search in the strangest places for something -- we are not sure what. This hunger can take us from love affair to love affair. It can make us love a gourmet meal, or a symphony. It can push us into a drug experience. It can make us risk some high-risk adventure. All our art, all our music, all our romantic passion, finds its source in this sweet pain that emits from the vacuum at the core of our being.

Most people finally try to drown that sweet pain with the business of life. We start our lives searching to find the object of this deep desire of the heart. Then, after many disappointments, we usually conclude that there is no answer for the deepest hunger of our soul. We often call this decision, “getting real.” Sometimes we even call it “maturity”. But what “getting real” often means is that we have given up the search for joy. It often means that we have learned how to grow a thick callous layer over the deep wound of our soul. That is why it is so rare to find an old person whose eyes still sparkle with life. Life has a habit of disillusioning the most life-loving spirit.

But what that one lonely man at the summit of the ancient Persian Ziggurat saw ripped the scab from his heart. He started feeling things he had not felt for a long, long time. So, he went and gathered his friends. I wish we knew more about that meeting of the Magi. We don’t. All we know is this: “when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy”.

So they quickly put together the treasures from their temple -- gold, incense, and myrrh . They loaded it on their camels and started off for a land they had never seen.

Look at what a strange thing happened when the Son of God came to visit us. The priests of God, who he had prepared to receive his coming, did not actually come. They didn’t have enough curiosity. It was astrologers from a heathen land who came with tears and gifts. The theologians read their books. They knew where he would come, but they had lost their curiosity. They did not come. It was shepherds and heathen who actually made the trip.

Isaiah, the prophet, had told about the dawning of this day, the day when the nations of the earth would begin their journey toward the God of Israel.

2 In the last days
the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
as chief among the mountains;
it will be raised above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.
3 Many peoples will come and say,
‘‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the house of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
5 Come, O house of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the LORD.

So advent is the season where the church remembers His first visit. But it also is the season where we rehearse what Christians call the blessed hope -- the belief that Christ will come again. We say it during the Eucharist; “here then is the mystery of our faith: Christ has, come, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again”.

This message, that Christ will come again, has continued to stir seeking hearts since the days of the apostles. In the fifth century, there was an aristocratic young man from Northern Africa who was studying in the city of Milan, Italy. He had been going to hear the sermons of St. Amborse, bishop of Milan. Now the words were piercing his heart. One morning in the garden behind his house, Augustine heard the voice of a child saying, “take this and read it”. He looked around and saw no one. But there was a book lying on a table. He took it up and saw that it was St. Paul’s epistle to the Romans. He opened the book and read these words:


The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Awake from slumber! That is the first word for the person who wants to start the spiritual journey. Wake Up! Dare to hope again that the longings of your soul can be satisfied. Dare to feel again.

The advent story reassures us that we will not miss his coming if we are looking for him. But the story also warns us that it is possible to miss His coming. If we get caught up searching for thrills and sensation, if we get to full of lust for things, or we just get preoccupied with the cares of life, we can miss the thing for which the soul yearns. Many ministers will be too caught up with church work when the day of the Lord comes. Many theologians will be too interested declining Greek, or answering a question no one is asking. Many a businessman will be making yet another $100, 000 dollar deal, and many musicians will be working on the next hit song. They will all miss the only event that will make life worthwhile.

While many Christians are caught up with the latest gospel fad, the newest spiritual buzz, or the most up to date preaching style, there is a stir among the heathen. The heathen are buying crystals. They are trying to find peace by squatting on a rug and humming. While many Christians are spending all their energies on trying to resurrect the Eisenhower administration and pretending that the world has not changed, many of the heathen, without knowing what they are doing, are preparing for the coming of the Lord. They are listening for him. And all who truly listen for him, whether they be Christian, Jew, Muslim, or pagan, will hear him. For He, says the Bible, is not willing that any should perish.

No one knows when he will come. All those who say they do are lying. We buy their books and their tapes because we deeply desire to see the Lord. But only God Himself knows when he will come. He has not told us when that will be. He just tells us to live right, to be ready at all times, and to live our live in the glow of His glory.

No, we don’t know when He will come. But He will come. And when he comes, the pains and sorrow of life will melt like frost before the heat of the noonday Summer sun. In a flash we will forget all the hurtful things we have experience here. In a flash we will become immortal beings. We will live forever. All human limitation will be a thing of the past. We will suddenly know secrets that we have longed to know all of our lives. The look in his eyes as we see his face for the first time will make the entire journey of life worthwhile.

It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
Earth’s trials will seem so small when we see Christ.
One look at his dear face, all sorrows will erase
So let us gladly run the race
Till we see God.

The shepherds were drawn into the drama of the ages in just a moment’s time. It took just a flash for the Magi to take the risk and start off toward the Holy Land. In that brief second of choice, the Magi and shepherds decided whether they would or would not trade their mortal lives for immortality. They took the plunge. They obeyed the deepest part of their heart, and journeyed toward that for which the soul longs.

My friend, this morning you may think religion is full of fraud and deceit. I wish I could argue with you, but I have often been dismayed myself at the religious tomfoolery that enslaves people and numbs their minds and spirits. And I will confess that religious deceit is not just to be found in other people’s religion. It is in my own. And I do not doubt that you will find it in this church, or that you will find it in any church you may visit. But I know something else. I know that if you haven’t found out already, you will sooner or later discover that the deepest desire of your soul cannot be found in money, in fine art, in collections of antiques, or even in the arms of a loving human being. All these are things are wonderful. I would not say otherwise. In their place, they are all good things. But the joys which come to us from art, music, companionship, romantic love, are all like the light of the moon. The all are borrowed lights. And sooner or later, the human soul longs to see the true light of the eternal sun, the light of lights, the light from which all other lights derive their own luminosity.

I want to invite you to join the pilgrims. Come join the magi and the shepherds. Come join the seekers. We will soon see something ever bit as grand and glorious as the choir of angels and a star in the East. We will soon see the eternal city of God coming down as a bride adorned for her husband. The Son of God will descend and evil will melt away in the brightness of his coming. An angel of the Lord will put one foot on land and one foot on sea and proclaim that time shall be no more. The pilgrims will see it. Something deep in your being wants to see it with us. Now is the time. Decide now. Make your choice.

And in this season, perhaps for the fist time, celebrate it as a spiritual experience. Sing the carols. Learn all the old words. Ponder and reflect on the messages they teach. Put lights all over your house. Wish people a Merry Christmas. Give unexpected gifts to people who don’t seem to have many friends or family. Tell people that you love them. Be a child again and feel wonder and joy. Watch the movie It’s a Wonderful Life and let the questions and hopes it raises in the heart stir you and wake up your spirit. Most of all – prepare your heart to live forever with God. Decide that this will be the season in which you really come to know Him.

EPIPHANY!

I was reading a book by Madeline L'Engle -- I forget which one -- and came across a sentence that burned into my memory. The sentence was, look for the epiphany. The word “epiphany” refers specifically to a Christian feast day, January 6. It is the celebration of the wise men’s visit with the baby Jesus. The word comes from Greek, as many good words do, and means simply “appearance”. My daughter's name, Tiffany, comes from the word epiphany.

Tiffany was well named. She came to us on January the 22nd, in the middle of the worst blizzard we saw while we were living in Montreal. The streets were all but closed down. I went to and from the hospital on the subway. One evening when I returned to our apartment, the car had been broken into. The thieves had broken the steering wheel trying to get the lock to release. Then I went on into the apartment, and the oil stove had clogged up. It was 15 below zero outside, and I had Talitha, my three year old daughter in a house without heat, and before I could get the oil flowing the phone rang. It was a church in Florida wanting to know if I wanted to be their pastor. I died a real death telling them that God had called me to Quebec, and I just couldn't consider their wonderful offer. Tiffany came in the middle of all of that, a wonderful, healthy child, full of life and joy.

Tiffany was right name for her. Because an epiphany is an unexpected appearance of God. He often visits us in a way we don't expect. The men on the way to Emmaus discovered this. They were worried and troubled. Their spirits were cast down. They walked looking at the road. (By the way, we should never do that. Only practical, pragmatic people walk that way, and those are not usually the ones who get to see the wonder that can suddenly settle on the world when least expected. Usually the impractical dreamers are the ones who get to witness such things. ) But these men on their way to Emmaus were so practical. Jesus was dead. Hope was lost. Their dreams were shattered.

I don't know when they noticed that they had a fellow traveler. It was dusk, and they were on a well traveled road. Also, their grief was too overpowering to pay much attention to the stranger who had just decided to walk along beside them.

"You look sad, my friends", the stranger said. "Why are you so troubled?"

"Oh, you must be a stranger to our area", one of them replied. "We have seen terrible things these last few days".

They talked on like this for a while. Then they came to the town. They were about to turn into the road home. They noticed that the stranger was about to move on. They pressed upon him to go home with them, to eat dinner and sleep. Then he could continue on his way. Finally the stranger turned in to their home.

They recognized him in the breaking of the bread. When he held up the bread, they were seized with who he was. It was the Lord. Then, like so many times, just as he was recognized, he vanished.

It was only then that they realized how they had felt while he was there. "Did not our hearts burn within us as we talked with him along the way?" But that was hindsight. They had said nothing about that while they were walking. It was the epiphany that helped them see what had been there all along.

The first year we lived in Montreal, Trish and I were in language training. On Sundays we went to the church pastored by our friend, Lewis Fontalvo. It was a wonderful congregation and we enjoyed the services. But like most pastors of growing churches, he was very busy. We didn’t see him personally very often.

One evening though, Lewis decided to pay us a visit. He came to the house and stayed for about a half an hour, maybe more. The only problem was Talitha, my daughter. She wouldn't leave the man alone. She brought him cookies, paper, scissors - anything she could find. She had gone into her room to look for something else when he left. When she came back into the living room, she said, "Daddy, where did God go?"

"God?, what do you mean, honey"

"Well God was here"

"Where?"

"Right here, he sat in this chair"

Then I realized. We always talked about going to God's house. Lewis was the guy in the front at God's house, and was in charge of things. He must be God. And God had come to Carrignan street on the East side of Montreal, to visit two parents and a little girl. It didn't seem strange to her. God does things like that. And she was right.

We must be like my little child, we must keep looking for the epiphany. I find Christmas time an easy time to see Him. Sometimes he’s in the face of the Salvation Army man, collecting change and ringing a bell. He may show up in a Christmas play, and a little doll will suddenly really becomes the baby of Bethlehem. But maybe He will show up in a long distance telephone call -- from a person that has been hard to get along with. He may suddenly be very present in the reading of the Holy Scripture, or in a praise chorus.

But you have to watch for him. Don't miss Him.





Watch for the epiphany.

God, Our Mother?

It is becoming increasingly common for people to use feminine terms in reference to God. Well, why not? In one way, this is not so radical. After all, the Bible itself uses feminine metaphors for God. We know that God created male and female in “His own image and likeness.” Therefore, women as well as men bear God’s image and likeness. This means that something of God’s essential nature is revealed through women in a way that it is not revealed through men. So why can’t we call God, “Mother”?

Lets begin our answer with this: we believe that the Bible is much more than a human document. Were it merely a human document, we would be free to edit it to reflect our growing sensitivities about such things. After all, women have often been greatly harmed by male domination, even within the church. Throughout much of history, a father or husband has been able to beat a woman of his household without answering to anyone for his actions. He could approve or disapprove his daughter’s choice of husbands. He had control over any income the women of the family might make. Most of us no longer believe that such male domination is an acceptable practice. So, naturally enough, some believe that addressing God as a Father only reinforces the old culture of male domination (the formal term for that culture is patriarchy). They argue that by sometimes calling God “Mother” or escaping from the dilemma altogether by calling God, “Parent”, will help us to avoid the reinforcement of patriarchy.

These arguments make sense. They will gain strength as new generations become the teachers and pastors of the faith. They are often made in all sincerity by sincere and capable people. They are not as Biblically weak as some conservatives might believe. Nonetheless, however noble the cause may seem, we simply do not have the authority to edit Holy Scripture.

When we develop theology from an orthodox view of the Bible, we are constrained by the belief that God inspired the Bible to be written in such a way that it reveals God as He wished to be revealed. In the Bible, God nearly always chooses to speak of Himself in masculine terms. Even the most conservative believe agrees that God “as He really is,” is beyond all gender distinction. Nonetheless, God “as He reveals Himself” in Scripture is nearly always masculine. The orthodox believer must ask, “should we do otherwise?” The answer one gives to this question depends on one’s view of the Bible.

Is the Bible the product of fallible human beings who strained to give us a divinely inspired message, in the best way they knew how, but distorted nonetheless by their own cultural biases?

Or, is the Bible, though certainly a product of human minds and hands, so inspired that its message is divinely protected from error?

Christians who are more liberal tend to give the first answer. More conservative Christians give the second one. It is a question that every Christians has to settle for himself or herself.

I am a conservative Evangelical. Although I am a fallible human being, and therefore realize that my interpretation of the Bible and of God’s intentions can be faulty, I believe that God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture comes to us through history as He intended. I do not believe we have the right to edit that revelation, however noble our reasons.

There is another reason why conservative Christians are reluctant to use feminine language in reference to God. Through history, when people have spoken of God as feminine, they have tended to drift into a sensual, pantheistic, fertility worship. (Pantheism is the idea that the earth is God’s body, and that everything that exists is a part of God.) “Goddess” spirituality seems to produce an earth religion, a sexualized spirituality without ethical demands. Through the centuries, Christian and Jewish thinkers have seen this as a dangerous seduction that takes us away from God’s Word. That redefines God, making human beings the judge of how God should be understood rather than accepting God as He wishes us to understand Him.

For all the reasons stated above, orthodox Christians conclude, together with the saints throughout history, that we should reject the current fad of so-called “gender inclusive language,” where the nature of God is concerned. This is not, or at least should not be, a political or social bias. We do this on the basis of a godly fear, resisting the potential for heresy at the core of our faith: God’s revelation of Himself to us.

The challenge facing Christians regarding so called gender inclusive language, is how to be orthodox without being reactionary. When translating the Bible from the original languages, we should feel free to be gender neutral where the original languages are gender neutral. In older English translations of the Bible, words that in the original Greek and Hebrew had been gender neutral, were often translated into gender specific words in English. The translators did not do this on purpose, they were merely reflecting the culture of their times. Also, we must remember that until fairly recently, the words “men” or “mankind” were often used to include both men and women. Nowadays, that practice is more rare. When modern Bible translators attempt to address these changes of linguistic habits, it does not necessarily mean that they have a liberal bias'.

The bottom line is that we must be faithful to the Word of God; we should not be resistant to change unwarranted discriminatory language. Words change. (Just think of how the word “queer” has changed.) To insist on freezing language in print when the meaning has changed on the street is foolish. It does injustice to God’s word, which was not written in English to begin with! The point in Bible translation is to make the Word of God clear to those who read it in languages other than Hebrew and Greek.

This is all easier said than done! We Christians can get downright testy when we think someone is guilty of deliberately tampering with our faith. We also have a tendency to elevate the cultural idiosyncrasies of a particular bygone era to a pedestal of special honor. Certainly, we should honor the Christians of the past. We should preserve their contributions. However saintly they may have been though, they were not right about everything. Peoples’ opinions about gender roles, like much of what we call “common sense,” is usually based on the accepted practices of the particular time and culture in which they live. One of the responsibilities of a Bible translator or a theologian is to carefully, prayerfully, and honorably separate what the Bible claims to be unchangeable truth from that which merely relates to his or her own cultural comfort.

In the matter of God’s 'gender', we must recognize that both male and female are made in His image and likeness. From that truth, we infer that both maleness and femaleness have their origin in God Himself. This obviously means that God transcends gender. Even so, for His own reasons, God chose to refer to Himself most often as male. This must be respected. But we should not make more of it than the Bible itself does.

Serve Somebody

Friends,

All through the presidential election, people kept pressing me for my opinion. I decided to remain silent for a number of reasons, not the least of which is my repugnance at the politicizing of the pulpit in recent years on both the right and the left. Also, we have a racially mixed congregation whose unity I want to guard. Finally, I felt I simply did not have the grace and permission from God to speak about it. Now the election is over. So as I prepared for the sermon, I noticed that the Common Lectionary reading included Joshua 24. That’s when I felt permission from God to speak about the present climate of our nation.

You will not find specific praise or blame for any of the candidates in the sermon. Instead, you will see my passion to keep the people of God focused on eternal things and to not allow themselves to be highjacked by transitory things.

Here at Christ Church, we are experiencing an ingathering of people from many walks of life. God is at work in a mighty way. I want us to keep the main thing the main thing: “loving God, loving each other, making music with our friends.”

May God Bless each of you, our new president and our beloved country.

You Gotta Serve Somebody

(Joshua 24: 14-24)

The people of the United States have entered a new era. Future historians will note how drastically our nation’s culture shifted during the years between the bombing of the World Trade Center and the presidential election that we experienced last Tuesday. This shift of our national culture makes many Americans anxious. For them, the changes represent an unmitigated disaster and a lunge toward an uncertain future. For others, the shift represents the opening of new opportunities and a deeper connection with the rest of the globe. Therefore, these Americans view the cultural shift with a sense of excitement

So, we are divided about what these historic changes mean. The truth be told, none of us yet know what they mean. Those who fear the cultural changes worry that their most cherished values may be in danger. Those who celebrate these changes hope that we are stumbling toward a more globally aware and equitable society.

History suggests – and our faith asserts – that both our fears and our hopes of cultural change are often overblown. Nations and cultures go through seasons. The French Revolution, the October Revolution, the Cultural Revolution; the long march, the war to end all wars, the great society; the reformation, the renaissance, the enlightenment; all these great movements announced their arrival with great sound and fury, made their impact and then became the cultural artifacts that our children learn about in school.

After seventy years of Communism, Russia returned to being Russia. After sixty years of Marxism, the Chinese realized that being Chinese was more important than being Communist. The French have been as French without their monarchy as they were before they stormed the Bastille. Neither the League of Nations, The United Nations, or the North American Treaty Organization ever delivered even a fraction of what some people hoped. However, they also did not deliver even a fraction of what some people feared.

I would not for a moment minimize either the fears or the hopes of any American facing the current changes of our culture. Our economic changes are real. The election results are clear. Globalization has overwhelmed our borders and overturned our provincial views of the world. It is therefore impossible (and ultimately irresponsible) to ignore these realities. We certainly cannot live in any other era than our own. If we try to escape our own era of history, we become mere curiosities – like the people who insist on driving buggies and banning cell phones in order to escape the evils of modernity. Nations, churches and individuals do that at the cost of becoming entirely irrelevant.

As your pastor, it is not my responsibility to weigh in on political issues anyway, except when those issues clearly relate to our spiritual lives. However, it is my responsibility to remind you that we are an eternal people and that we serve an eternal God who is faithful in every era and in every culture. Therefore, we do not have to fear any culture; we were made to thrive in them all.

Moses led the children of Israel, out of slavery and into the Promised Land because God was with him. Then he died. Joshua was the nation’s next leader. He conquered the cities and villages of Canaan because God was also with him. When Joshua was an old man, he addressed the people who had followed both him and Moses. The Israelites now lived in very different circumstances than when Joshua was a young man marching from Egypt. The days of slavery were now far behind them. The battles for Canaan had been won. The Israelites were no longer nomads and wanderers. They were a settled people living in their own homes.
As so often happens, the man who had led the Israelites for so many years felt more connected to the era of his youth than to the one in which he was now living. He was fearful that the values that had brought God’s people from a place of bondage to a place of security and safety might be destroyed. The complacent and dispassionate attitudes that often develop when a people are no longer in danger, could undermine the very purpose of Israel’s existence.

Joshua is concerned about these things as he gives his final address to his people. So this passage is an impassioned plea: do not forget the Lord! Do not fall into idolatry and the debauched life styles of your neighbors. Remember that you are the people of God. Hold on to the past as you move on into the future.

Joshua goes on to say that living as a covenant people in any era requires that they make a deliberate choice. He is saying that covenant requires intention, awareness, mindful actions and disciplined thoughts. He understands that one can drift into apostasy but that fidelity to covenant requires an intentional choice. Every generation of believers must make such a decision and then they can adapt themselves to live in their own times as children of God.

“Choose you this day who you will serve,” the old man insists. Then he does what all real leaders must do; he makes his own choice. His choice will not be predicated upon the choice of the people. Although a political man decides what the people think and then makes his choice, a leader chooses his path and then invites others to follow. “Whatever you decide to do,” he says, “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!”

This is the heart of the matter: we must deliberately decide whether we intend to be people of covenant or if we will merely drift along with the flow of public opinion and popular culture. As Leon Kass so capably points out in the greatest commentary written on the book of Genesis in our lifetime[1], The God of Israel does not base his work on those who do heroic deeds in order to become “men of renown” but upon those who remain faithful to their God, to their families and to the teachings of covenant. These kinds of individuals have the courage to appear insignificant to others as they just do the right thing day after day.” In other words, covenant people live in their own times but are not obsessed with their own popularity. They realize that popularity can be a detriment to one’s character and productivity.

I am not unaware of the importance of the historic events of our times or of the impact of our great leaders. Occasionally, some event really does change the world. Sometimes a person really does galvanize nations into action. However, I want to remind you that great events and great leaders ultimately do not impact the world nearly as much as the small actions of small people who live in insignificant places. Nero is dead and is barely remembered. I dare say that few of us in this room would be able to say when he lived or what he did. That may be deplorable but it is probably the truth. However, what person here will not know who St. Paul was, or what he did?

The Bible implores us, pleads with us, to resist the allure of fame and fortune and to focus our fleeting lives upon making a real difference in the world. The Bible insists that the way we make a difference is by learning and applying the teaching of Holy Scripture to our lives and by organizing our deeds around long-range plans that will rarely come to fruition in our own lifetimes. Covenant people live their lives in service to God and they act in order to benefit their descendents and their neighbors. This way of life is completely contrary to anything the secular world teaches, on either the right or the left side of the aisle. However, it is that sort of kingdom living or “serving God” that ultimately changes the world.

Let me tell you some stories that will illustrate what I mean.

In the gospel of St. Mark, chapter 12, Jesus watched as the people came to the temple to give their offerings. He watched several of them conspicuously drop in great sums and heard the onlookers gasp in amazement. Then he saw one widow bring a mite (approximately two pennies in American currency) and place it in the offering. Jesus stopped to say to His disciples, “the others all gave from their surplus but this woman has given everything she has.”

In a real sense, that woman’s actions impacted the world far more than the actions of the Emperor. I say that not only because of that one widow who gave that small sacrificial offering; I say it because she is merely one of multiplied millions who have given small and seemingly insignificant offerings, year after year, decade after decade and century after century. These accumulated offerings of money, time and action have changed the world. Those who have given the offerings - widows and farmers, maids and butlers, soldiers and carpenters -- are mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts and babysitters of great leaders and of mighty kings. I guarantee you that some Chinese child of some well respected Communist leader is being diapered and loved today by an insignificant Christian maid who makes no money and takes all sorts of abuse. As the years pass, this child will be learning songs and memory verses from the maid whom he will love all his life. Someday, when he is called to leadership, the words of scripture that she taught this child will mold his thoughts and guide his decisions. That is what a “widow’s mite” does. It changes the world because it is a tangible expression of serving God.

Last Sunday, as I was leaving the church, a lady came to me with just such an offering. I have known her for years. I know that her life has been difficult. She has had very little money and has always struggled with poor health. She lives alone and in poor circumstances. She had an accident not long ago that resulted in a financial settlement that she did not seek and did not expect. She was able to use her modest settlement to help pay her rent and to get a more reliable car. However, she also wanted to give something back to the church because the church has helped her several times through the years. It was only when I got home and looked at the check, that I realized it was for $1,000.00!

The offering that this economically challenged woman gave last week was given to help the people of this church who may run into temporary difficulties in the next few months because of the economy. When I told Bill Spencer (the leader of NarrowGate Ministries) about this offering, he said, “I want to add $500 to that fund.” Trish and I also decided this week to make a sacrificial gift toward the fund. What the church will do with this money is keep our people solvent and stable through the challenges ahead. If someone has trouble with a light bill or a car payment, we can help them. Naturally, we will first help those who have been faithful to the congregation. This will help keep our church financially sound. It is also the way scripture instructs us to care for people – “to the household of faith first.” We will also pay close attention to our widows, single moms and others who work hard but can barely keep their heads above water. If we all pitch in, no one should be devastated by this temporary downturn in the economy.

I am not going to make a big deal about contributing to this fund. You have already been giving generously. Our tithing has increased and our mission’s commitments were almost $250,000 for the coming year. So this is not a sales pitch or a marketing ploy. We will take whatever money comes in and then we will disperse whatever we receive. However, I do want you to know that this woman’s gift was a holy thing and that it is the sort of action that Jesus said changes the world. It demonstrates, far more than my words, the lordship of Christ.

There is another story that the gospel writers tell about a boy who offered five loaves and two fish to Jesus when a multitude had run out of food. (You can read the story in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Mark.) The Lord’s disciples looked for food but the little boy’s lunch was all they could find. They also reported that they did not have enough money to buy food. But they found out that Jesus knows how to make much out of little!

He still does!

For over a year we have been engaged in a philosophical debate in this country about the role of government. Many Americans believe that it is not government’s place to care for the elderly, the poor or the sick because the government has no capacity to distinguish those who are truly in need from those who simply refuse to work.

If this is our view, then as Christians we must become even more responsible to care for our own widows, sick and elderly. We can hardly rebuke the state for trying to care for people if we refuse to step up to the plate to care for our own families or our own church members. So let us resolve to do this. Let us resolve to put action behind our words. Instead of speaking bitterly of those whom we believe are asking the state to do what the state cannot do, let us demonstrate with our money and our actions what a responsible and Christian community does. Perhaps the nation needs some good examples of how things ought to work.

This is an essential part of what it means to be a person of covenant: to demonstrate our discipleship in deeds as well as words. We don’t yell at people; we serve people. We don’t theorize; we act.

As the elderly Joshua spoke to his people, he urged them to decide who they intended to serve. When they insisted that they wanted to serve the Lord, he urged them to get rid of their idols and ungodly practices. He was teaching them that following God is much more than merely praising God in song and word.

Serving God is about applying God’s words to everyday life. That’s what one lady did in our church last week with her check. She was not acting from compulsion or guilt; she was full of joy because she was finally able to contribute. It was her attitude as much as her gift that changes the world.

I believe her gift is a seed. I believe it will encourage many of us to give sacrificially so that everyone in this community can weather the storm. If we do what God teaches us to do, none of us will need the government to help. That will become a testimony to the world that we practice what we preach. That’s what a “widow’s mite” does; it grows small seeds into big fruit.

Of course, a “widow’s mite” is not always money. Sometimes it is a small action or a short word.

In early 1960, the Evangelical community was terrified at the possibility of a Kennedy presidency. John Kennedy was a well known Roman Catholic and there were all sorts of dire predictions circulating about how the Pope would be secretly taking over the government and so forth. So, although I was from a family of union organizers and coal miners, they all intended to vote for Richard Nixon.

As you know, John Kennedy won the election.

A few days later, after the election, I was singing a jingle I had learned at school about John Kennedy. It was not very flattering but not all that bad either – just a cute campaign jingle form the Nixon campaign.

My father will probably not remember stopping me and taking the opportunity to teach me how godly people deal with authority.

“Son, Christians do not speak ill of the leaders of their country."

“But dad,” I protested, “I thought we voted for Nixon.”

“The election is over now,” he said. “The Lord decided to appoint Senator Kennedy to the presidency. Now, it is our responsibility to pray for him. Four years from now, we will get another chance to vote. Until then, Kennedy will be our president and we will respect him.”

Do we really believe that God “puts up kings and removes kings?” if we do, then we must manage our emotions and pray fervently for President-elect Obama as he makes his selections for cabinet positions, ambassadors and all of that. We must pray also that God will send people into his life who fear God. This is the way Christians behave.

I learned this from my father in 1960. I have tried to manage my attitudes toward national leaders accordingly. I was dismayed by the movie ridiculing President Bush that came out recently because it violates the honor of our highest office and it is an ungodly and heathen act to ridicule and humiliate someone who is trying to wrap up a most difficult term of office. I pray the movie becomes a disaster and a disgrace to its producers.

I hope I am making myself clear this morning. We are a people who order our lives and attitudes differently than the unbelievers. We are called to deliberately think and act differently than those who do not know the Lord.

Tuesday is Veteran’s Day. We will honor those who serve our country in the armed forces on that day. That is important in my family. My uncles all served in World War II. My wife’s uncle was killed in the Normandy invasion and her cousin was severely injured in Vietnam. I have a son-in-law serving right now in Iraq. So I know that when we ask people to put their lives on the line on our behalf, they deserve our respect – not only while they are on duty but when they return home.

All those who want to follow Christ must also “put their lives on the line.” It is possible that years of prosperity and comfort have made us numb to the seriousness of being covenant people. It is possible that some of us have allowed immorality and greed to take over our lives. Well, now is the time to get that stuff out of our lives. It is time to choose. We all have to serve somebody; it’s time to decide who that will be.

God is obviously doing something powerful in our church. He is asking us to get serious about our service to Him. We may feel we have little to offer – perhaps merely a “widow’s mite” but let us offer that “mite” today. Tomorrow, let’s give it again. Then, let us do the same thing the following day.

If we all do what we are able to do, God’s work will go forward in this, or in any other era or culture. At any rate, as Bob Dylan said many years ago, we all have to serve somebody. It may be the devil, it may be the Lord, but we have to serve somebody!


You may be an ambassador to England or France,You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You're gonna have to serve somebody,Well, it may be the devil or it may be the LordBut you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You might be a rock 'n' roll addict prancing on the stage,You might have drugs at your command, women in a cage,You may be a business man or some high degree thief,They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeedYou're gonna have to serve somebody,Well, it may be the devil or it may be the LordBut you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk,You may be the head of some big TV network,You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame,You may be living in another country under another name

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeedYou're gonna have to serve somebody,Well, it may be the devil or it may be the LordBut you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a construction worker working on a home,You may be living in a mansion or you might live in a dome,You might own guns and you might even own tanks,You might be somebody's landlord, you might even own banks

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeedYou're gonna have to serve somebody,Well, it may be the devil or it may be the LordBut you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride,You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side,You may be workin' in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair,You may be somebody's mistress, may be somebody's heir

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeedYou're gonna have to serve somebody,Well, it may be the devil or it may be the LordBut you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk,Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk,You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread,You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeedYou're gonna have to serve somebody,Well, it may be the devil or it may be the LordBut you're gonna have to serve somebody.

You may call me Terry, you may call me Timmy,You may call me Bobby, you may call me Zimmy,You may call me R.J., you may call me Ray,You may call me anything but no matter what you say

You're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody.
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Copyright ©1979 Special Rider Music; Bob Dylan


[1] The Beginning of Wisdom, Leon Kass, Chicago University Press

Election Day Response

Many of you have been calling, e-mailing, texting and otherwise communicating with me that you want to know my thoughts on the election outcome.

I am working on my response, but as this is such an important topic, I want to take my time with such a response.

As I sat down to write my thoughts, it quickly turned into a sermon. (I know you are surprised!) I am continuing to work on this material throughout the week, and will post something within the next few days.

Please check back. I look forward to your thoughts.

Dan Scott

What Do Narnia and Physics Have In Common?

A few years ago, I wrote a paper with my son-in-law, Austin, that we presented at a C.S. Lewis conference held at Belmont University. Though the paper is largely about education, our premise centered on the idea that learning of any sort must be preceded by wonder. As we are entering the time of year when thoughts quickly turn to wonder, I thought this might be an interesting read.

“Wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel

Albert Einstein became the world’s most famous physicist because of a day dream. When he was sixteen years old day dreaming came more naturally than study, and he attributed his successes to the fact that he never gave up this propensity. The daydream came while he was reading Aaron Berstein’s Popular Books on Natural Science. The author asked his readers to imagine running beside an electric signal as it moved through a telegraph wire. It was a small leap for him to shift his imagination to something even more fantastic, running along side a beam of light.

This fantasy would preoccupy him through a number of alterations until the visions used him to incarnate themselves within mathematical equations, one of which is now as famous as any chant or incantation. “What would it be like to race a light beam?” This question does not exactly qualify as a scientific problem worthy of a hypothesis and study, but it is the very question that ended up toppling Newtonian physics.


Every educator dreams of igniting such dreams in even one student. It is the rare physics professor though who realizes such a lofty dream. Einstein was not intellectually conceived through the skills and disciplines of the field but rather through the flash of one powerful image in a moment of awe and wonder. In the beginning was the fantasy and the fantasy became flesh and dwelt among us. That is the path of all great ideas. The issue now is, from where will such ideas come in a world without wonder?

Knowledge after all is not a thing that can be possessed. It is a state of being. The moment a student comprehends a theory imposing order on a random string of information or grasps the essence of a particular object, she is wooed into an altered state of awareness. Like all altered states, the one provoked by a quest for knowledge is addictive to some and repugnant to others.

Thus, some seek for the minimal bits of knowledge needed for their basic survival but disengage from the quest as soon as possible. Others find themselves being seduced by the allure of the quest and find in learning a delight that rivals all physical joys. Education is the process by which this altered state takes place and through which a self becomes transformed.

C.S. Lewis understood that education was driven by wonder. He wrote on a wide range of topics with such a depth of knowledge that it is difficult for anyone to speak about his corpus as a whole. Many do not even attempt to find a single basic element in Lewis’ works. However, one basic element did inspire Lewis throughout his career and in all of his work—the ability to wonder. Awe united Lewis’ academic works to his fairytales and his faith to everything.
The Jewish philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel said,

“There are three aspects of nature which command man’s attention: power, loveliness, and grandeur. Power he exploits, loveliness he enjoys, grandeur fills him with awe. We take it for granted that man’s mind should be sensitive to nature’s loveliness. We take it equally for granted that a person who is not affected by the vision of earth and sky, who has no eyes to see the grandeur of nature and to sense the sublime, however vaguely, is not human.”

The world around us inspires awe and wonder, and the sense of the sublime and the feelings it inspired in Lewis became his muse.

--This was just a small excerpt of that paper, but I love the ideas that it presents. What things inspire awe in you? What brings you that incredible feeling of wonder? If you are busy in the activities of day-to-day life, you might, like myself, have a tendency to forget those awe-inspiring things. But it is important to remember and reflect. While we cannot always jump and act, we can always consider. Where would we be if C.S. Lewis had forgotten his sense of wonder? How much richer life is because he remembered!

Reformation Day - Why Is It Important?

Well, Reformation Day is this weekend. Unfortunately, many Christians are unaware of the importance of the Reformation.

Why is that important? Well, the answer to that question involves Mr. Henry M.
Never heard of him either?

Ahhh…..

Almost everyone who takes an introductory psychology course reads a passing reference to Henry M. in the textbook. However, I finally read his entire story and was spellbound by it.
In the early 1950’s, Henry M. was struggling with some sort of emotional difficulty that seemed resistant to all conventional treatment. So, incredibly to us today, his doctors decided to lobotomize him. They removed his hippocampus, a small organ inside the human brain whose purpose was unknown at the time. Then, for the rest of his life, the psychologists studied him.
After surgery, Mr. M. could do almost everything normally. He could speak without difficulty. He could read and write. He could take care of his basic needs. He had no problem with eating, dressing, hygiene and performing daily tasks. He only had one problem: he had no past. He didn’t know who he was or what he had experienced. On any given day he could not remember the events that took place. He couldn’t remember the people whom he had met, or things he had read, from the day before. He could listen to the same jokes again and again with fresh delight. Day after day he met the doctors and nurses, who cared for him at M.I.T, as though he were meeting them for the first time. He had become a prisoner of an eternal present.

Think about what “life” became for Henry M. Although he survived, although he could have fun, was capable of reproducing, could function in all the functions necessary for human existence, he did not really experience “human” life. The human being that Henry M had been, died in 1953, the year he lost his past. A person without a past doesn’t know who he is, does not know how he connects with the rest of the world, and does not know what any of his actions, even the pleasurable ones, actually mean. He experiences every event in life as disconnected from all previous and future events. He experiences events one at a time, isolated from any frame of reference or explanation that would link them together. In other words, the events of his life may provoke emotions, but never meaning. He becomes an intelligent animal. He lives, but he doesn’t know why.

Some years ago, I came to the conclusion that the spiritual life of most modern American Evangelicals and Charismatics has become like the world of Henry M. We like our joyful services. We experience the presence of God. We have learned to market ourselves. We carry on our church business. We continue to exist. However, we have largely lost our spiritual past and this has left us woefully unprepared to meet the spiritual challenges ahead. It leaves us incapable of growing quality lives and of reaching for maturity in all areas of life. We move heaven and earth to convince people to begin the spiritual journey, but have lost the map of where to direct them afterwards. Our interconnection with the culture around us has become almost entirely reactionary. We rage at cultural change but we offer no alternatives. We do not read. We do not create. We do not offer solutions. We seem only capable of critiquing the secular culture. And, while meaningful critique is important, it is not enough. Our spiritual ancestors did not just rage at other cultures and religions. They created an alternative civilization. They developed and refined their gifts and talents based on their Christian worldview. Now, the surrounding culture views us as perpetually angry and defensive. The unbelievers know we do not like what they are saying and doing but they do not see us as having any developed ideology or culture of our own.

In my opinion, the reason for this state of affairs is that we have forgotten who we are. For well over a generation we ridiculed and abandoned all the tradition, ceremony, doctrine, spiritual wisdom and artistic heritage of our Christian past. Instead of blaming our sense of inadequacy and spiritual dissatisfaction on our lack of prayer, study and creativity, we blamed our ancestors and their contributions. In other words, because we were unhappy with the present state of the church, we lobotomized it. Now, instead of connecting our lives and churches to the Christian community of the ages, we seem only interested in the feelings of today. The future frightens us because we are not sure of who we are. So, we don’t prepare for the future either. We have learned to be content with good services and a growing crowd. We watch our church budget and try not to make waves. We seem neither to notice nor care that the quality of our people’s lives seems not to change from month to month or from year to year – not to even mention from generation to generation. We have become content with just existing.

I believe that we have tried to address some of these issues at Christ Church, but doing that is going against the tide of both the American secular culture and the church culture. Nonetheless, I believe that we must keep moving against that tide. American Christians are in danger of becoming unbearably superficial, simply because we no longer take the time or energy to learn and draw from the richness of our heritage. That means that it becomes more and more difficult to win thinking pagans to the faith. It also means that it becomes more and more difficult to give our children the tools they need to grow into mature and well-equipped Christians. At best, they tend to become pagans who go to church on Sundays.

We do not know our Jewish heritage. Hence, we no longer memorize or recite the Ten Commandments. Therefore, our children do not know or revere them.

We do not know our Christian heritage. Hence, we do not know the creeds or the stories of good and evil that the church has participated in throughout the centuries (and may do again)! Therefore, we have no defense against heresy or mental sloth.

We do not know our reformation heritage. Hence, we do not know the deeds or words of Luther, Calvin or even Wesley. Indeed, we do not even know why these people are important to us. In many cases, we do not even know who they were.

We do not know our artistic heritage. Hence, we have lost our appreciation for centuries of hymns, painting, stained glass, architecture and other artistic treasures that were the results of gifted Christians creatively using materials to give witness to the story of redemption. Like science and mathematics, art is a continual conversation with the present and the past. Art builds upon or reacts to, what has come before. Without a Christian past, our modern Christian artists can only borrow from the secular world for their artistic ideas, or, if not, they remain trapped in perpetual artistic adolescence because they have no mentors, colleagues or adversaries.

We do not know our spiritual heritage. Hence, we have lost the lessons of the church fathers, the medieval mystics, the reformers, and the thousands of Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox people of prayer and spiritual disciplines who wrote of the dangers and delights of their spiritual journey. Therefore, we too easily fall prey to charlatans, self-appointed gurus and con artists. We also tend to remain superficial and juvenile in our own individual spiritual journey.

We do not know our literary heritage. Hence, we have lost Dante, Milton, Bunyon, and Augustine. Much more seriously, in an age when the English Bible is available in a thousand versions and supported by thousands of commentaries, serious Bible study has become the dinosaur of American church life. Therefore, we cannot draw on our own heritage when we attempt to explain and defend our reasons for disagreeing with the non-believing culture around us. As we face a world that is increasingly hostile or apathetic about out faith, we have neither a light for our feet nor a lamp for our pathway. Indeed, we have no pathway. We insist on making up the journey as we go along.

In such a climate, it is no wonder that we provide few great leaders or thinkers for the various fields of society. Those Christians who do make it into places of leadership often keep their faith reserved for the “spiritual” part of their lives. It seems not to influence their decisions as bankers, governors, scientists or educators. Even more ominously, the faith increasingly seems not to influence the various aspects of the individual Christian’s private life. Many Christians seem amazed to hear anyone think that their faith should influence anything about their lives outside of that emotional part they call their “spirituality”.

Our definition of “spirituality” is much too narrow. Our happy church life is simply not enough. Likely, Mr. M was happy enough when he was well fed, sheltered and clothed. He was no doubt happy that his immediate needs were fulfilled. Happy or not, he had lost his ability to think about long range issues. In his lobotomized state, he had no future difficulties to face, or future opportunities to meet. That very illusion helped him to be happy. However, it was a shallow happiness that was the result of being incapable of realizing his true situation. That, I believe, is the state of American Evangelicalism, and certainly the state of the Charismatic Movement.

Like Mr. M, we too are locked into seeking only what appeals now, at the moment. Or, worse still, we are locked into defending and perpetrating the secular culture of a generation ago, believing that to be our Christian heritage. The lobotomy has affected both the right and the left: Christian liberals want us to adopt the present secular culture, the conservatives want us to adopt the secular culture of the 1950’s. In both cases, our Christian roots have been largely lost.

Remembering the events and issues of the Reformation would go a long way toward helping us recover our heritage and our minds!

Well, I’ve certainly written enough for now. I didn’t even get around to talking about the history of the Reformation! I promise to write that information next. At least then you will be prepared to know why it is important.