When the World Went Mad

I said in a sermon a few weeks ago that sometimes I sit and try to figure out exactly when the world went mad.  When did the world lose its mind?  If you don’t agree with me that the world has gone mad, do you never watch/check the news?  Do you not watch “COPS”?  The decisions made by individuals, organizations, factions, and governments are so often simply whack in my humble and unbiased opinion.  It’s a crazy world.  I’ve wondered when it became that way.  You’ll be glad to know I’ve figured it out.

For a while I thought we’re approaching the 50^th anniversary of the big turning point for the sanity of the world.  February 9, 1964, the Beatles’ first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, brought a cultural change.  The new emphasis on youth, freedom of expression, and throwing off former norms began a major shift.  Disillusionment and the emergence of a new proliferation of drug abuse came along with that, and eventually brought many people and neighborhoods into ruin.  The drug-related early deaths of several rock music stars of the era seemed to personify much of what was happening to the world people once new.  With the war in Viet Nam coming along toward the end of that decade, I began to think that it was the 1960s that ushered in the madness we have now inherited, with the turning point being February 9, 1964.

But I had to back up from there and think about where and when the seeds were sown that bore fruit in the 1960s.  Sure enough, the influences that would shape the 1960s were coming out of the new affluence of the 1950s, and backing up from there, of course, much of what shaped the 1950s came from the second world war of the 1940s.  Much of that event that rocked the world came out of greed, madness, and a will-to-power not just found in Adolf Hitler, but in many humans in many nations.

You may be seeing the picture coming into focus.  When you start trying to figure out when the world went mad you just keep backing up in time, and that’s where the pursuit took me.  But I finally did come to a moment that signaled the corruption of all that was good and right with the world.  It was when the first people God created used the gift of free will to oppose the God who gave it to them.  It was when they didn’t trust God and bit off more than they could chew.  When they were expelled from the garden they ended up east of Eden, in the land of Nod, which means “wandering.”  That’s when it all started.  That’s what it says in the Bible.

Thanksgiving is Sacred

This Thanksgiving there were more stores open on Thanksgiving day than in years past, and that caused some controversy amongst the American public.  The concern was primarily for the employees of those stores who were being pressed into service on Thanksgiving day rather than having the day off.  I saw a story about it on a network newscast where they interviewed a woman who was out shopping the day after Thanksgiving.  She was very opposed to stores being open for business on Thanksgiving day.  Her reason?  She said, “Thanksgiving is sacred.”

Really?  What does that mean?  What does “sacred” mean?  I suppose that woman was using the word to say that Thanksgiving day should be regarded with a certain reverence, but I think that because of the religious connotations of the word, it might be a rather strong choice of adjectives in this instance.

We could say that it’s good to set aside a day to give thanks for all our blessings.  We could say it’s helpful.  We could say it’s healthy.  But sacred?  What makes something sacred anyway?  I would think that some kind of God-involvement would make something sacred.  Something that is set aside for God or by God is often referred to as sacred.  With that in mind, is there a day other than Thanksgiving day that better qualifies to be described as sacred?

How about every Saturday if you’re Jewish or Seventh-day Adventist?  How about every Sunday if you’re Christian?  How about one day out of every seven if you’re anyone wanting to live according to the way prescribed by the God of the Bible?  Rather than one day every year being regarded as sacred, how about one day every week?   What about one day every week where it’s not mostly about money and it’s not even mostly about family, but it’s mostly about God? 

“Thanksgiving is sacred” is not in the Bible.  “It is good to give thanks to the Lord” (Psalm 92:1) is in the Bible, as is “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8).

Our Guardian God

Angels are very prominent in the Christmas story and in the celebration of Christmas.  They’re prominent in the Bible’s narratives regarding Jesus’ birth in that they make announcements to Joseph (Matthew 1) and Mary (Luke 1) and to shepherds (Luke 2).  They’re also prominent in the celebration of Christmas as we know it in the modern era.  Just look at the pictures that adorn the front of Christmas cards.  Note the lyrics of Christmas carols.  Notice the decorations on front lawns and you’ll see angels included quite often.

Christmas season or not, many people like angels.  Many people especially like the thought of a personal, guardian angel.  Many like to think about, “my angel watching over me.”  I suppose it’s comforting to think of a heavenly being with no other assignment, no other purpose, nothing else to do than to watch over little ole me.  It’s not in the Bible, though there is something close to that in Matthew 18:10 (… their angels…).

But what if there was a time when every person on earth did have a personal, guardian angel.  What if there was a time when the population of the earth was such that there were enough angels to go around, so everyone on earth could have an angel of their very own.  But what if there are a fixed number of angels?  What if there were a certain number of angels created in the beginning and there aren’t more being added as time goes by?  What if, as the population of the earth grew, there came a time when there were no longer enough angels to go around?  And what if God decided that that predicament wouldn’t lead to a worse thing, but to a better thing?  After all, that seems to be the way God works.  So what if God determined that the better thing would be that rather than everyone having a personal angel, a personal representative of God, they would instead have a personal God?  What if God determined the improvement this predicament would usher in would be that in the Spirit God would spread Himself around and be with every person, everywhere, all the time?

That string of events isn’t in the Bible, but in this Christmas season it’s good to remember that what is in the Bible is that the Savior born unto us is introduced in Matthew’s gospel as Emmanuel, which means, “God is with us” (Matthew 1:23).  Better than angels (Hebrews 1:4-14) is the personal guardian of your soul (1 Peter 2:25), who says, “Lo, I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20).

Ask Not...

There are websites devoted to “the question of the day.”  These sites will ask you, or send you via e-mail, a different question every day in order to challenge you or allow you to compare your answer to the answers offered by others.  But many of us don’t challenge ourselves with a different question every day.  Instead, we ask ourselves the same question again and again day after day.  I can’t tell you what your question of the day is, but if you stop and think about it you’ll probably come up with it.

So, what’s the question you ask yourself just about every day?  Here are some possibilities:
What terrible thing will happen to me today? – or - What good thing will happen to me today?
What’s wrong with me anyway? – or – What’s wrong with them anyway?
How am I going to make it through this day?

You get the idea.  Do you ask yourself some question like that as you begin each day?  You probably do, in a rather automatic, sub-conscious way.  The question you ask yourself each day sets your expectations and perspective for the day.  The question you ask yourself frames the way you look at the day as you go through it and it frames the way you’ll evaluate the day once it’s over.  So, the question of the day is important in shaping your satisfaction level with your days and therefore with your life.

Mindful of that, let me suggest a question of the day that will serve us well.  Try this: “How can I bless someone today?”   In tribute to JFK I borrow from him to say, “Ask not what others can do for you; ask what you can do for others.”  It’s not exactly in the Bible, but it’s very compatible.

All You Need Is Love

It might seem hard to argue with the sentiment that all you need is love, but I would like to try.  First of all I need to say it’s not in the Bible.  Some people might want to suggest it is in the Bible by pointing to the first few verses of 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul keeps saying (in essence), “If I don’t have love I’m nothing.”  But even before that chapter concludes Paul says that “faith, hope, and love abide”.  In other words he lumps love in with two other vital aspects of our being; faith and hope.

To me, saying that love is all you need is like saying that warmth is all you need, or light is all you need.  The similarity is that I would respond to those assertions by saying that if it’s warmth you need, then an ever-renewing source of warmth is actually what you need.  If light is all you need, then an ever-renewing source of light is really what you need.  If you don’t have a dependable, lasting source for those things then you’re going to find yourself often without what you said you need, and sometimes desperately looking for another outlet of that essential resource to replace the last, now-depleted outlet.  To those who want to make a case that all you need is love, I suggest that what you really need is an ever-renewing source of love.

Does the Bible have anything to say about that?  Well of course!  The Bible says that God IS love (1 John 4:8 and 16).  It also says “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).  In other words, God is that ever-renewing source.  God is the point of origination for love.  The only reason we can even ponder the concept of love, let alone experience the beauty of it, is because God took it upon himself to share and ship a bit of it our way.

So I would like to suggest a substitution.  Rather than all you need is love, I think it more accurate and appropriate to say that all you need is God, the source from whom all blessings flow.  Or as it says in the Bible, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23). 

After All, Worship is Primarily a Preaching Event

We’re starting a new sermon series at our church this Sunday.  The series is titled, “Church: Why Bother?”  That title comes from a book by Philip Yancey by that same title.  We’re going to be looking at why the church is important, why people should “bother” with church.  Do you consider the church to be significant?  Is there a place in your life for the church?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

Sometimes people like Jesus but don’t like the church.  Sometimes people have had some kind of bad experience associated with church.  I understand.  There are plenty of reasons not to bother with church.  But are there also lots of reasons to get over it and participate in the life of a local church?

I think so, and I think a place to start is with worship.  Many times when people give church a try they start with attending a worship service.  Many times when people leave the church it’s because of something associated with the worship service.  As such, worship is often the front door and the back door of the church.  And many people consider the worship service to be primarily a preaching event.  A lot is riding on whether people get anything out of the sermon.  It’s very possible that many people, when asking why they should bother with the church, are actually asking why they should go out of their way to go listen to somebody preach a sermon. 

So I think a helpful place to start thinking about why one should bother with church is to remember worship is supposed to be exactly that; worship.  It’s intended to be a gathering of people acknowledging God is Creator and is beyond us and yet with us and is perfectly moral (holy) and is, for those and so many other reasons, worthy of reverence, respect, and response.  Worship is to be a preview of heaven in that those gathered are all focused on God, and because of the object that shared focus and orientation is a beautiful, uniting power.

If we think about ourselves personally, genuinely, from the heart, worshiping God in ways that are authentic to us we are closer to what the Bible really says about worship.  The Bible doesn’t say worship is primarily a preaching event.  The Bible says worship is primarily about God and our connection to God.  If that’s where we start our thinking about church we’ll discover it truly is worth the bother.  When it all comes down, it’s His church, and He is worth the bother.

You Came From Dirt, So Go Ahead and Treat Each Other Like Dirt

In the news last week:

      Heckling Fiona Apple in concert
      A “fan” throwing a full beer can at Azealia Banks while she was in concert
      Heckling at a performance of a play, “The Laramie Project” at Ole Miss
      Bullying in schools
      Bikers attacking a family in an SUV in NYC
      Congress… well, you know (the economy was going too well, something had to be [not] done)

Yes, there was some nice, heart-warming stuff in the news too, but why is this trend toward a lack of civility happening?  Yes, the person who threw the full can of beer onstage may have emptied a few beer cans into him- or herself prior to that, but why is this trend happening, even among the sober?

It wasn’t just last week.  It seems like every week there are reports of parents at their elementary-age kids’ sporting events physically attacking, punching coaches and referees.  On the internet every week the comments at the bottom of an article become a combative, profanity-filled exchange in nothing flat.  And it’s not just the internet or other sources of news and information.  The profanity, the violent language is more pervasive than ever.

I don’t know if they realize it, but these people are setting an example.  “This is how we act, this is how we interact.”  That example will shape other interactions, between spouses, parents and children, people at PTA meetings, citizens at town hall meetings.  It becomes accepted, even normative.  “This is the way we treat one another.  This is the way we talk to, er… yell at, er… scream in the face of one another.”  Anger, impatience, disrespect, and a disregard for life are being passed along and passed down.  This view of everybody else as “stupid people who keep getting in my way” is going mainstream.

All of that brings me to say, my greatest concern isn’t that more and more people are deviating from the standard of civil human behavior.   My greatest concern is that more and more people don’t know the standard from which they’re deviating.  As a theater department official at Ole Miss said of the apology given later by the students who were heckling, “I don’t think they knew what they were apologizing for.”

So, where’s the hope?  Perhaps there’ll be a pendulum swing and things like concern for the community and mutual respect will get the popular nod again.  But I’m afraid that fix would only be a temporary one because that pendulum does tend to keep swinging.  The greater, more substantial and lasting hope is the Kingdom of God.  You know, that Divine intervention we pray for in the Lord’s prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done.”  As you know, the title of this piece, “You came from dirt, so go ahead and treat each other like dirt,” isn’t in the Bible.  What is in the Bible is this Kingdom way of life, where we don’t have to earn one another’s respect.  We respect one another simply because we are, simply because we have life, and ultimately because the life in every one of us came from God.  As such, every life is sacred.

 

Image Is Everything

Do they give an award for best lip sync performance?  Rumor has it that there’s more and more lip syncing going on in the world of musical entertainment these days, and it makes me wonder if the “art” of a “professional” (i.e. paid) singer pretending to actually be singing is working its way into acceptance.  I’ve read that the Grammys have a “no lip sync” policy, but if it is becoming accepted then it might not be long before it becomes competitive and then those who are best at mouthing the lyrics along with a recording would be recognized for their “accomplishments.”

Singers lip syncing on the biggest stages, in the biggest moments that come their way is a shame really.  In trying to reduce the risk of failure they lose the opportunity for something amazing, unprecedented, and unforeseen to simply happen.  Putting their performance in a manila folder and mailing it in like that will never be as stimulating as putting it all on the line for the chance that this might be the performance of a lifetime, where all past rehearsals and performances hit a new high, and a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime thing happens.  Lip syncing imposes a ceiling on any new highs.  It rules that out in order to play it safe, rest on past laurels, and take home the paycheck.

I would say that you and I don’t get to lip sync our way through, even if we want to.  You and I have to do more than stand there and look good.  You and I have to, or get to, go at it afresh each day, with all the uncertainties that involves, risking mistakes, embarrassment, and failure.  We also get to experience that which is way beyond the rewards of the paycheck, and that is the breaking of new ground, learning, growing, stretching, finding strength we didn’t know we had, and getting to bask in those moments that we can’t manufacture by our own efforts alone.  You know, those most memorable, “makes it all worthwhile” moments that just seem to happen.

 

Image isn't everything.  That's probably why that statement is nowhere to be found in the Bible.  The Bible is more interested in honesty and integrity than that.  Lord knows, real life is worth the risk.

Drop Everything You're Doing and Listen to Me!

It's not in the Bible.  Neither the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit said it.  While God has things to say that are important enough to warrant such an abrupt interruption into our lives, God doesn't operate that way.  God doesn't tend to "jump" people with a "drop everything you're doing and listen to Me" unsolicited insertion into their day.
Rather, God called to Samuel, multiple times, and simply waited for a response.  God spoke to Moses, introduced Himself to Moses through a burning bush, but only after Moses turned aside to see why the bush wasn't consumed by the flames.
Jesus didn't attack people with this "drop everything you're doing and listen to Me" approach.  He said, "Let those with ears to hear, listen."  Look across the gospels at Jesus' modus operandi and you'll see the trend.  He did good and helpful stuff and then let people come and check Him out.  And if they checked Him out and weren't interested He allowed them their space.  Remember, He let the rich young ruler just walk away.  Jesus didn't run after Him and tackle that young man.  OK, granted, the way the resurrected Jesus "arrested" Saul on the road to Damascus was pretty imposing, but that is a real outlier.  I mean, after all, what's one of the main ways Jesus' character is described across the pages of the New Testament?  Humble.  That same Saul of Tarsus, aka Paul, tells us to emulate Jesus' humility.
So what to make of that and what's the point?  When you've "got the goods" and you know it; when you're in it for the right reasons; you don't have to be nervous, anxious, defensive, obnoxious, pushy, or aggressive.  When you're offering, sharing the best thing to come along in ages and you know it, you're free to be courteous, considerate, to practice the "golden rule", to seek the interests of the other before your own.  Some of Paul's best known words are, "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way."
See what I mean?  What is in the Bible makes for really good reading!  But better yet, what is in the Bible makes for really good living.  Do good and helpful stuff and be ready to field the inquiries.

God Watches Over Drunks And...

You've no doubt heard many variations of the line, "God watches over drunks and fools."  Some of those variations include God watching over children, third basemen, and sailors.  That statement, in any of those variations, is not in the Bible.  You might not have thought it was, but I just wanted to confirm, it's not in there.  There's a lot of good stuff in the Bible, but sorry, regardless of the translation, that line isn't included.
But that doesn't mean it isn't true.  I realize you might doubt the truth of it if you think that "watch over" means "protect from all harm."  If you think "God watches over _______" (fill in the blank any way you like) means that God insulates them from anything terribly bad happening to them then yes, we have a problem.  The great, tremendous, majority of the time God isn't going to stop gravity or any of the other cause-and-effect "laws of nature" that order our life on this planet just for one individual or one instance.  Yes, miracles happen, but the big miracles we think of most when we hear that word happen rarely and from our point-of-view, randomly.  We can't rule them out, but we can't count on them to intervene and rescue us from the next blow that's coming.  If we think that God was watching a drunk, a child, a you-name-it and something terrible happened, then what's often the conclusion we reach?  For many folks it's, "What a lousy God."
What is in the Bible is a description of a world that is messed up, a God who is grieved by it and has implemented a plan for its healing.  What is in the Bible is a consistent description of a God who is aware of, and somehow personally cares for every person on the planet, whether they're drunk or sober, young or old, etc.  What is in the Bible and is bigger than the Bible is a God who makes gracious overtures to people relentlessly, regardless of past records or current circumstances.  I've known enough drunks, victims, abusers and others who've given this God the benefit of the doubt and found it to be true.  And they knew, "God was watching over me."  I hope you know it too.