I have just finished John Eldredge’s book Waking the Dead. This is a book that spoke to me in a number of ways and one I highly recommend.   The subtitle of the book says it all:  The Glory of a Heart Fully Alive.   The goal of the book is to help people reclaim the good news of the Gospel – to become fully alive in Christ.

In chapter 10 of the book John includes a prayer he and his family and fellowship pray daily.   I have copied it from his website, Ransomed Heart.  I have committed to praying this prayer every morning and I invite you to do the same.   The prayer is below with but a few minor changes from the version on John’s website.  May such a prayer life wake us from our slumber.

Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you (Eph. 5:14)

A Prayer for Freedom

My dear Lord Jesus I come to you now to be restored in you, to be renewed in you, to receive your love and your life, and all the grace and mercy I so desperately need this day. I honor you as my Sovereign, and I surrender every aspect of my life totally and completely to you. I give you my spirit, soul and body, my heart, mind, and will. I cover myself with your blood—my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind and will. I ask your Holy Spirit to restore me in you, renew me in you, and to lead me in this time of prayer. In all that I now pray, I stand in total agreement with your Spirit, and with my intercessors and allies, by your Spirit alone.

In all that I now pray, I include Amy, Sophie, Eli, Maddox and Brody.  I bring them under your authority and covering, as I come under your authority and covering. I cover Amy, Sophie, Maddox and Brody with your blood – their spirit, soul and body, their heart, mind and will. I ask your Spirit to restore them in you, renew them in you, and apply to them all that I now pray on their behalf.

Dear God, holy and victorious Trinity, you alone are worthy of all my worship, my heart’s devotion, all my praise, all my trust and all the glory of my life. I love you, I worship you, I trust you. I give myself over to you in my heart’s search for life. You alone are Life, and you have become my life. I renounce all other gods, all idols, and I give you the place in my heart and in my life that you truly deserve. I confess here and now that this is all about you, God, and not about me. You are the Hero of this story, and I belong to you. Forgive me for my every sin. Search me and know me and reveal to me where you are working in my life, and grant to me the grace of your healing and deliverance, and a deep and true repentance.

Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me and choosing me before you made the world. You are my true Father—my Creator, my Redeemer, my Sustainer, and the true end of all things, including my life. I love you, I trust you, I worship you. I give myself over to you to be one with you in all things, as Jesus is one with you. Thank you for proving your love by sending Jesus. I receive him and all his life and all his work, which you ordained for me. Thank you for including me in Christ, for forgiving me my sins, for granting me his righteousness, for making me complete in him. Thank you for making me alive with Christ, raising me with him, seating me with him at your right hand, establishing me in his authority, and anointing me with your Holy Spirit, your love and your favor. I receive it all with thanks and give it total claim to my life—my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind and will. I bring the life and the work of Jesus over Amy, Sophie, Eli, Maddox and Brody and over my home, my household, my vehicles, finances, all my kingdom and domain.

Jesus, thank you for coming to ransom me with your own life. I love you, I worship you, I trust you. I give myself over to you, to be one with you in all things. And I receive all the work and all of the triumph of your cross, death, blood and sacrifice for me, through which I am atoned for, I am ransomed and transferred to your kingdom, my sin nature is removed, my heart is circumcised unto God, and every claim made against me is disarmed this day. I now take my place in your cross and death, through which I have died with you to sin, to my flesh, to the world, and to the evil one. I take up the cross and crucify my flesh with all its pride, arrogance, unbelief, and idolatry (and anything else you are currently struggling with). I put off the old man. I ask you to apply to me the fullness of your cross, death, blood and sacrifice. I receive it with thanks and give it total claim to my spirit, soul and body, my heart, mind and will.

Jesus, I also sincerely receive you as my life, my holiness and strength, and I receive all the work and triumph of your resurrection, through which you have conquered sin and death and judgment. Death has no mastery over you, nor does any foul thing. And I have been raised with you to a new life, to live your life – dead to sin and alive to God. I now take my place in your resurrection and in your life, through which I am saved by your life. I reign in life through your life. I receive your life – your humility, love and forgiveness, your integrity in all things, your wisdom, discernment and cunning, your strength, your joy, your union with the Father. Apply to me the fullness of your resurrection. I receive it with thanks and give it total claim to my spirit, soul and body, my heart, mind and will.

Jesus, I also sincerely receive you as my authority, rule, and dominion, my everlasting victory against Satan and his kingdom, and my ability to bring your Kingdom at all times and in every way. I receive all the work and triumph of your ascension, through which you have judged Satan and cast him down, you have disarmed his kingdom. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to you, Jesus. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to you, and you are worthy to receive all glory and honor, power and dominion, now and forevermore. And I have been given fullness in you, in your authority. I now take my place in your ascension, and in your throne, through which I have been raised with you to the right hand of the Father and established in your authority. I now bring the kingdom of God, and the authority, rule and dominion of Jesus Christ over my life today, over my home, my household, my vehicles and finances, over all my kingdom and domain.

I now bring the authority, rule and dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fullness of the work of Christ, against Satan, against his kingdom, against every foul and unclean spirit come against me. (At this point you might want to name the spirits that you know have been attacking you). I bring the full work of Jesus Christ against every foul power and black art, against every human being and their warfare. I bind it all from me in the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and in his Name.

Holy Spirit, thank you for coming. I love you, I worship you, I trust you. I sincerely receive you and all the work and victory in Pentecost, through which you have come, you have clothed me with power from on high, sealed me in Christ. You have become my union with the Father and the Son, become the Spirit of truth in me, the life of God in me, my Counselor, Comforter, Strength, and Guide. I honor you as my Sovereign, and I yield every dimension of my spirit, soul and body, my heart, mind and will to you and you alone, to be filled with you, to walk in step with you in all things. Fill me afresh. Restore my union with the Father and the Son. Lead me in all truth, anoint me for all of my life and walk and calling, and lead me deeper into Jesus today. I receive you with thanks, and I give you total claim to my life.

Heavenly Father, thank you for granting to me every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. I claim the riches in Christ Jesus over my life today, my home, my kingdom and domain. I bring the blood of Christ over my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind and will. I put on the full armor of God – the belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the gospel, helmet of salvation. I take up the shield of faith and sword of the Spirit, and I choose to wield these weapons at all times in the power of God. I choose to pray at all times in the Spirit.

Thank you for your angels. I summon them in the authority of Jesus Christ and command them to destroy the kingdom of darkness throughout my kingdom and domain, destroy all that is raised against me, and to establish your Kingdom throughout my kingdom and domain. I ask you to send forth your Spirit to raise up prayer and intercession for me this day. I now call forth the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ throughout my home, my family, my kingdom and my domain, in the authority and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, with all glory and honor and thanks to him.  Amen.

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Moses is concerned that when he goes where God is sending him he will be asked to divulge the name of the one sending him.  God tells him to say to them, “I AM WHO I AM.”   I have written elsewhere about this but have some other thoughts to share today…

I can relate to Moses.   It is disconcerting to enter the fray with a message and assume that everyone is going to hear it and respond favorably.   The question, “By what authority do you say this?” is bound to arise.  Moses may very well be concerned that someone will look at him and remember his past.   He may be fearful that someone will remark about him, “Isn’t this the same guy that killed an Egyptian and fled?”    Why should any of us listen to someone with such a checkered past?   Or a checkered present?

God’s response to Moses relieves the pressure to perform.  This isn’t about Moses.  It never was and never will be.  This is all about God.    

Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’   This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.

Notice what Moses is not told to say.  He doesn’t lay claim to this God for himself.  

I have been involved in a conversation with a new friend who for good reason has trouble believing the claims made by Christians because of Christians.   It is hard to hear the gospel, the Good News, from people claiming to speak for God and yet living as though they wouldn’t know good news if it smacked them in the head.    I am guilty of this myself.   If we are honest, we are all guilty.  None of us can fully embody the grace and peace that we confess has gripped our lives.    When we open our mouths to speak we may often hear, “Wait a second.  Aren’t you the guy or girl who did…?”   

What do we say when they ask us who sent us?

Perhaps both I and my new friend can find comfort by placing our faith not in ourselves nor in the turbulent, often dichotomous lives of those around us but in the God who reveals God’s self as I AM.   We can point to a God who has revealed God’s self through history.  We can point to a God who is revealing God’s self even now, who is, and who will will always be, I AM, despite my poor articulation of that Name.  This is not a God any of us can lay claim to.   Our faith is a revealed faith.   We stand on the shoulders of so many before us but most importantly God has shown God’s self in a particular way  - a way that  stands with us.

[Read the rest of the series thus far HERE]

I am splitting chapter 3 into 2 parts…

Exodus 3:1:12

Moses leads his flock “beyond the wilderness” where he comes to the “mountain of God.”   The word “beyond” is misleading.  A more literal translation would read:  Moses led his flock to the backside of the wilderness where he came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

There is a sense where I want the word “beyond” to mean “circumvent.”   In other words, I would love nothing more than to go around, over, under and “beyond” any wilderness to reach the mountain top.    Much of my life I have been going “beyond” the pain or suffering, hoping for a quick fix, a band aid, a short cut.    But that is not the case here.   To get to the “backside” of the wilderness requires one journey from the front…through the middle…to the back.

This is to say, when we find ourselves in a wilderness; when we look around and see desert; when we feel parched and hungry ; when the wild animals seem to be biting our heels from all sides – we may be closer to God than those who have chosen the path of least resistance – those who would rather go “beyond.”

We may be at the foot of the mountain of God.

On the mountain Moses sees a burning bush.   It is “blazing” yet “not consumed.”   I have read this story a thousand times and never saw until today that Moses must convince himself to look at this bush.   The text reads:   Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”

Turn aside to look at this great sight?  Why is he looking away in the first place?

Fire is used throughout Scripture as a purifying agent.  While painful, fire is necessary in the same way as going to the backside of the wilderness is necessary.   Though the fire blazes, it does not consume.   Though the wilderness seems, and feels like, we are walking through the  ”shadow of the valley of death,” God is near.

Moses looks away because the hardest thing for any of us to do is to face our fires.  There are things in my life that burn like a raging furnace.

Shame.  Guilt. Pain.  Suffering. Heartache.  Lonliness.  Fear.  Anger.  Selfishness.

Sin.

I don’t want to look at them.   It is easier to pretend they are not there.   It is easier to not acknowledge that they burn like white heat within me.

We all have a burning bush within us.   What is yours?

And yet, here is grace:   It burns but does not consume. It will not have the last word.

And the moment Moses looks, the moment he musters the courage to look into the face of the burning blaze, God calls out of the fire and says, Moses!  HERE I AM!

God is in the fire.  God says, “I am here!  I am in this mess!  Though it burns it will not consume you!”   And God reminds us that in our looking into the midst of this blaze we are standing on holy ground.   We are on holy ground in those moments when we look into the fire and name it.

And God’s plan for those who look?   God takes those who have the courage to stop looking aside – when we stop looking aside at the pain not just in ourselves but in God’s world; when we stop looking aside at the “least of these” in our midst; when we stop looking aside at the ravages of war, the plight of the orphan or widow, the homeless on the street corner, the woman in the nursing home, the thirsty, the hungry, the oppressed and marginalized, the hurting marriage – those who will stop and look will be taken by God and not only be freed themselves but sent to free others.

And the sign that this has been God’s doing will be our return to this mountain, a return to this bush that no longer burns.    We will worship together, free from the pain, the anguish, the suffering, the chains that once burned within us.

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Moses is born and, like Jesus, the narrative of his life jumps from birth to adulthood.  Moses emerges on the scene “grown up” and sees the forced labor all around him.   Unlike Jesus, his reaction is less-than-noble.  He kills a man and flees to Midian.   Jesus, in contrast, saw the “forced labor” around him and announced good news to the captives.

Although Moses has a dubious beginning he is still to be sought by God and used as a mighty instrument of God’s.   He names his first son Gershom, for he says, “I have been an alien in a foreign land.”   

A foreign land.  A distant country.  Remember the Prodigal Son?  He fled to a “distant country.”  

I am reminded of something Henri Nouwen wrote in his book, The Return of the Prodigal Son.  

“Addiction” might be the best word to explain the lostness that so deeply permeates contemporary society.  Our addictions make us cling to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment: accumulation of wealth and power; attainment of status and admiration; lavish consumption of food and drink, and sexual gratification without distinguishing between lust and love.  These addictions create expectations that cannot but fail to satisfy our deepest needs. As long as we live within the world’s delusions, our addictions condemn us to futile quests in “the distant country,” leaving us to fade an endless series of disillusionments while our sense of self remains unfulfilled.  In these days of increasing addictions, we have wandered far away from our Father’s home.  The addicted life can aptly be designated a life lived in “a distant country.”  It is from there that our cry for deliverance rises up.

After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under the slavery, and cried out.

Why?  Why is it that after the king of Egypt dies, the one who has enslaved them and put these heavy burdens upon them, that the people then cry out and groan?   Shouldn’t they rejoice?  Shouldn’t they be free because their captor has deceased?  

Thinking from an addicts perspective this makes complete sense to me.   It is only when the “drug” is cut off, when it dies, that the real pain begins.  It is only then that the addict can face the emptiness that has for far too long depended on a “king of Egypt.”   It is only after the drug of choice for the addict is killed that the long road to freedom can begin – but it does not come without cost.  It does not come without groaning.   

Groaning is birth pains.   It is the sign of new life coming forth.

Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God.   God heard their groaning…God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.

God hears our groaning.   And God acts.  

Here is the gospel.  This is good news.

This is my sermon for August 9, 2009.    

Text: Ephesians 3:14-21

Let Us Bow To Our Father

Why do you pray?  Why do you follow God?   Why do you bow before Him?  What is the secret to a life full of God?  

Every now and again I get pulled into discussions about heaven and hell.   It’s good for the soul, I think, to ponder our ultimate destiny or the telos of all things.   Most of us, myself included, if we are honest, go through life day by day without really asking the hard questions.   We don’t ask, “Where is this action, this thought, this deed, this lifestyle, this whatever, leading?  What is the telos, or aim, of it all?”   We don’t ask this question, or at least I don’t, because it is easier not to.   Ignorance is bliss, or so it would seem.   If I don’t ask I don’t need to face the reality that what I am doing is really leading to nothing.  Perhaps even death.   If I don’t ask the question I don’t have to own up to the fact that there are several things in my life that drain life rather than give it.   If I don’t ask I don’t have to come face to face with my own sinfulness and my own desperate need for a Savior.  

So discussions about heaven and hell and the life after this can be of great benefit.  As you will recall, up until this point in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Paul has gone to great lengths to make these Gentiles realize that before Christ they were dead.  They were aliens, strangers, without hope, without God, without a telos.   They had only today to live for, for tomorrow they may die.   The good news, Paul says, is that they have now become partakers of a great inheritance and are now members of the household of God.   Just as Israel had always known that God was with them and was taking Creation towards Shalom, towards peace – they knew this even in the face of great adversity – now, also, the Gentiles can have this understanding for themselves.   They are being gathered up in Christ Jesus, just as all things are, and God’s telos for the world is now our telos.    We have not been left alone.

This brings me to the recent discussions I have had about hell.  I am always fascinated when I hear a person tell me that unless there is the consequence of a literal, eternal hell than no one will do what is right.  We will live as hedonists as though there were no God. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.    For many, many years this has been the mantra of the Church.   Many of you sitting here today may have first come to know God out of a fear of going to hell.   All the more proof that God can use any thing, even bad preaching, to wake us up to the salvation that is ours in Jesus.   

So while there is indeed a place and time to speak of hell, and make no mistake about it, all of us will face judgment before a holy and righteous God, I am not convinced that it does us any good when it comes to conforming us to the image of Jesus Christ, which ought to be the aim or telos of every Christian (Eph. 4:15).   It is not hell that motivates us to be better followers of Christ.   No, just the opposite.  It is love.  

Our text today is a prayer.  Here, in this prayer, Paul bows before the Father from whom every family in heaven and  on earth takes its name.  Did you hear that?  Every family.  Not just some.  Not just those who go to church.  Not just those who behave.   Every family on heaven and on earth.   If God is the Father of everyone than that makes everyone God’s child.   

Friends, you are a beloved child of God.   Friends, whether you know it or not, whether you have been running from it or not, whether you are even ready at this time to acknowledge it or not – you are a beloved child of God.   Nothing can change that fact about you.   No matter what the world has thrown at you you can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have a Father who loves you and longs to see you home.    

It is this Father, according to the riches of his glory, who gives us strength and power to grow in Christ as we are continually being rooted and grounded in love.   This Father does this.  No one else.  Nothing else.    This Father longs to resurrect new life in his children.  This Father has the capacity and the power to do so!   No one else.  Nothing else.    Friends, this is good news the world needs to hear again and again!  If we are not bowing our knees before this Father than we cannot and will not be rooted and grounded in love.  We cannot and will not be moving towards the Shalom, the peace, that God has in mind for us and for all of Creation.   If we bow before something else we will die.   Even those of us raised in the church all our lives need to hear this again and again – we cannot and must not bow to anything or anyone but our Father in heaven or we will die.   Some of us here today don’t need to hear about hell after death because we are already living it.   If that is you, let me ask simply:  Who or what are you bowing to?    

Paul goes on to pray that we may all comprehend, that we may all come to know with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love – a love that surpasses all knowledge, so that we may be filled with the fullness of God.    Paul does not pray that we may be filled with fear of hell or the consequences of our actions.  He does not wish to scare anyone into a life with God.  No.  Paul prays that everyone would come to know just how much God loves us in Christ Jesus because Paul knows that when we can grasp the breadth and length and height and depth of this love we will be filled with the fullness of God himself.   

We don’t need to hear more about hell because some of us, if we are honest, already taste it.   Hell comes in all shapes and sizes.   It sucks the life out of our relationships.  It inhibits us from being real with others or from knowing true joy, hope, peace and love.  It robs us of the keen sense that what we are doing and living has a telos, a goal, and that it is one God calls good.   Hell for many of us looks like addictions or sickness or suffering or greed or abandonment or isolation or hunger or homelessness or inability to love or be loved or even our own self sufficiency.   It can feel at times as though we are wallowing with the pigs, up to our necks in mud, as though we have squandered everything.   Like the prodigal son did, Paul prays that we all would wake up and return home to the Father who is the Father of every one – a Father who has been keeping the light on all this time and longs to embrace us, love us and throw a big party to celebrate our homecoming.   

We don’t need to hear more about hell.  John tells us that Jesus came to the world not to condemn but to save.   In fact, those who do not know Jesus are already condemned. Without Jesus we are already in hell.   We need to hear more about the God who has defeated hell.  We need to hear more about God’s love for us that surpasses all understanding so that we may be filled with the fullness of God – with Shalom.

This past week for your pastor has been hell.   And yet, in the midst of it I have witnessed the hand of a God who sees fit to reach into the tombs of our lives and call forth new life.   I have witnessed first hand the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love.  

I have seen grace.

I have seen love.

I have seen words of judgment and rebuke tethered by a God who wants to see a life changed for the purpose of bringing about healing, redemption, and salvation.

I have witnessed this first hand and I have seen the Spirit’s power at work in you and in others whom God has placed in my life.

Such people reminded me that the response of Christians when hell seems to be closing in us on all sides is to pray.  We, like Paul, bow our knees to our Father in heaven.  We pray not fully knowing what tomorrow may hold for us personally but convinced that tomorrow is empty and full of death if we do not draw our strength from the one who has defeated death.   And we pray also knowing that even what we ask may fall short of God’s greater plan.   We pray with confidence in the one whose power and work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or even imagine.   To him be all glory and honor to all generations, now and forever.    Amen.

Now, brothers and sisters, will you join me here at this altar as we bow our knees before our Father, and pray that we each may be filled with the fullness of God….

Like Old Faithful, the topic of homosexuality pops up on Christian blog sites with a regularity most of us would die for.   This week it was at Tony Jones’ blog on BeliefNet where he asked a seemingly honest question about homosexuality and sin.   While I would not have asked the question in the way Tony asked it, it nevertheless is a valid question.   It is one that any of us who take Scripture seriously (and by that I mean a life with God) should mull over, wrestle with, pray about.

For we who are Methodists this should come naturally.   Over 50 years ago we mulled over, wrestled with and prayed about the issue of women’s roles within the church.   We recognized that there were texts in Scripture that taken at face value were rather damning to any woman’s aspirations to pastoral ministry.  Even so, we came together and declared more or less that it seems good to us and the Holy Spirit that women are every bit as called and gifted for ministry by God as are men.

One of the ways I have tended to approach the topic of women in ministry is similar to the way Tony is approaching the homosexual issue.  I would often ask people, “What is it about being a woman that disqualifies them from being a pastor?   Apart from just saying, Because God said so, why?”     Most people are wise enough to know that they must step carefully at this point lest they render themselves or God a sexist.   Answers like: Because men are smarter, or, Because women are sinful, or, Because women are not gifted, do not ring true.    They also betray the sense of identity we come to know about ourselves when we have long subjected ourselves to our Master and his Word.

Tony’s question, as I read it, is trying to get at this.   Why has God called it a sin?   In my own conversations with people about this I found they were more than able to give ready answers about why God has forbidden us to lie, cheat, steal or murder.   When I ask them why God would have called such actions “sin” they are quick to say (and right to say) that these sins hurt other people who are created in the image of God.   And yet, when asked why God would call a committed, monogamous homosexual relationship “sin” the answers revert back to “Because God said so.”   On this issue, it seems,there can be no discussion, no speculation about why God would declare homosexuality an abomination.

I think there are very good reasons God called homosexuality an abomination.

This past spring I wrote a paper for my Christian Ethics class titled, “Homosexuality: God’s Gift to the Church.”   My thesis was that no matter what side you come down on this issue, this issue, like all issues, are gifts.   We need to learn to see all that comes at us as gifts rather than threats.   The question for the Church is: What do we then do with this gift?  How do we appropriate it?     I do believe God wishes to teach us something.   For some of us it may be something as radical as recognizing how far God’s grace might reach.  For others of us it may be a rebirth of how we view God’s holy and inspired word.   And for some of us it may be an opportunity to learn again the art of conversation and the virtue of humility.

As I said, I think there are good reasons God called homosexuality an abomination.   For some reason I felt drawn to throw my hat into the blogosphere on this issue, for whatever it may be worth.  If you read the comments on Tony’s blog that I linked to above you will find many people who desire to engage what are often called “The 6 Clobber Verses.”   In the paper I wrote for my ethics class I dealt with each of these 6 verses in turn.   I will not post the entire paper here (it’s long) but only the portion that pertains to those verses.    This is my answer to the question, “Why?”    I offer it prayerfully in hopes it will be received as the gift it is intended to be.    Grace and peace.

Bring up the topic of homosexuality and a real-time illustration of how scripture functions authoritatively in the lives of Christians will come to life.  Lines will soon become drawn between those who ostensibly value God’s holy word and those who, by virtue of their opinion, mock it.  Thus, any discussion about what scripture has to say on a contentious topic like homosexuality tends to warrant a short diversion into philosophical musings about what scripture is and is not.  For the record, I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume all of us who confess Jesus as our Lord are also People of the Book.  Each of us, in our own muddled way, desire to remain faithful to the witness handed down to us from the prophets and apostles.   Therefore, we come to scripture not as her master but as her servant, seeking to be led into truth by the same Holy Spirit who inspired it.  With that said, there are scant references in the Bible dealing with homosexuality although what is said is, in a sense, a lot.   We have six in total – three in the Old Testament and three in the New – that are generally used for good or ill in this debate.   I will summarize each one here while offering some brief thoughts.

Genesis 19:1-29

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is often cited as proof of God’s negative judgment towards homosexual behavior.   I say behavior here because it is important to note that all of the biblical passages that mention homosexuality seem to revolve around behavior, not orientation.  In this story Lot encounters two angelic figures, strangers, at the gate of Sodom and does what is culturally expected of him to do – he invites them into his home to rest, clean up and to eat.   The strangers, after first protesting, accept the invitation.  During their feast in Lot’s home the “men of the city” surround the house and demand Lot send the visitors out to them so that they may “know them.”  Lot refuses, offering his virginal daughters as a substitute on the grounds that these visitors “have come under the shelter of my roof.”  It is an offer that is met with anger and an attempt on the part of the city men to break down the door and “deal worse” with Lot than they intended to do with the visitors.   The angels pull Lot into safety and strike the men of the city blind.  The city is destroyed by God the following day.

It is noteworthy that this story has no direct reference to either homosexual behavior or orientation.  It is true that there is some strong sexual connotation, particularly in the verbal phrase, “to know,” as this is the same word used to describe the intimacy Adam knew with his wife, Eve, in Genesis 4:1 which bore them a son.  Therefore it seems apparent that the city men desired getting to know Lot’s visitors in more than a neighborly fashion.  Moreover, it is troubling that Lot would offer his two daughters to appease the crowd.  How could a father do such a thing?  J. Harold Ellens in his book, Sex In the Bible: A New Consideration, posits that Lot, a native of Sodom, knew the sexual exploits and perversions of the gang outside his door and offered his daughters as an ironic jibe, knowing that they would be safe in the midst of this crowd.  This reading would also account for the harsh reaction Lot gets for his suggestion, stirring the crowd to even more rage as they attempt to rape Lot in the process of barging through his door, caring nothing for the women offered them.

What is patently absent from this story is any judgment, positive or negative, on the sexual misconduct of the mob.  Lot seems to not care about this side of the matter and the story itself does not express any concern or judgment on the kind of sexual behavior intended.  Certainly it can be said that abusive homosexual behavior was the intent of the mob but this is not the focus of the story and more importantly, it is not the purpose for which Sodom is destroyed. Isaiah declares that Sodom’s sin was unapologetic lack of justice (3:9) and Jeremiah refers to Sodom as full of adultery, lying and unrepentant attitudes (23:14).  Ezekiel names the sins of Sodom as “promiscuity, pride, materialism, prosperous ease, and a failure to care for the needy, that is, to give the required hospitality to strangers.”  And when Jesus refers to Sodom’s sin there is no reference to sexuality at all, let alone homosexuality (Luke 17:28-29).  As already noted, the implication of sexual abuse forms part of Sodom’s story in Genesis 19, but as Ellens is right to point out, “sexual assault and violence, as physical and psycho-spiritual violation, is always wrong, whether it is heterosexual or homosexual.”  He further adds, “Even if homosexual assault were condemned in the Sodom story it would not, therefore, follow that homosexual behavior in other circumstances is wrong.”

The primary issue in Gen. 19 is seen as breech of justice and hospitality, not just from biblical scholars today but also from the inter-textual citings given above (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Jesus).   Therefore it is a mistake for us to use this story as proof of God’s disfavor towards homosexuals, whether that be behavior or otherwise.  When we look at history I will suggest a few reasons why Sodom has become linked (mistakingly) to homosexuality.

Leviticus 18:22-24 and Leviticus 20:13

In Lev. 18:22 we have the first obvious reference to homosexual behavior which is clearly forbidden.  The entire book of Leviticus is primarily about proper liturgical worship.  Chapter 18 is a long list of commands by God against behavior that leads to ritual uncleanliness under the cultic worship codes of Israel.   The chapter concludes by warning Israel not to lose her distinctiveness as Yahweh’s people, thereby defiling themselves as well as the land, lest the land “vomit” them out like the nations before them.

Leviticus 18 is a catalog of Egyptian and Canaanite ritual practices which are considered perverse and if followed would defile the people of Yahweh and cause them to lose their distinct role in the land.  The list includes practices conducted by these pagan peoples in their worship ceremonies:  incest, sex with women during their menstrual cycle, adultery, child sacrifice, homosexual behavior and bestiality.  These practices are declared an “abomination,” or toevah in Hebrew, which is a significant word.  It is a word “derived from the sphere of the religious rituals of the cultures of the Near East.  It means to ‘abhor’ something for religious reasons.”

(emphasis mine).  Alex Markels, in his article titled “Love and Leviticus, Debating the Bible’s Stand on Homosexuality,” points out that toevah includes the rules for kosher eating, planting seeds discreetly, trimming beards and various kinds of prohibited sex.   The point of these abominations “wasn’t narrowly about condemning homosexuality but rather about not engaging in the practices of other religions, which were considered ritually unclean.”

The point of Leviticus 18 then is not to condemn homosexual behavior outright but about forming a sort of people that are distinct from the modes of worship their pagan counterparts practiced.   Sex of any kind in a worship service was something that Yahweh abhorred.  This point is reinforced by Yahweh’s forbiddance of transvestitism as well as cult prostitution (male and female) for liturgical purposes (Deut. 22:5, 23:17; 1 Kings 14:24, 15:12) and echoed in Paul’s letters to the Romans and Corinthians.  Thus, Ellens concludes, “This statement forbidding homosexuality as an abomination intends to convey the meaning that such behavior, when practiced as the Canaanites practiced it, namely by heterosexual persons in worship liturgies, was, like idolatry, a bad mode of worship, that is, an abomination.  It was bad worship liturgy.  Not Yahweh’s kind of worship service or communal behavior.”

Leviticus 20 is a near repetition of the list given in chapter 18 with two additions.  First, all of the behavior, including homosexual behavior, is described metaphorically as whoredom with Molech, the Canaanite god.  Second, a death penalty is added as the penalty for the behavior.  Lev. 20, then, serves to further illustrate the connection between homosexual behavior and worship behavior.

While these are the only Old Testament texts that speak about homosexual behavior outright, it is common to refer back to the Genesis creation stories as evidence of God’s intentions and desires for marriage.  Andrew Mein, in his essay “Threat and Promise” believes that it is these chapters, more than any overt text condemning homosexuality, provides the core of the argument for those who resist affirming gay and lesbian relationships.  From very early on in the the life of the Church women have been regarded as man’s helper, and this role was fulfilled primarily through childbirth as the natural order of things set up by God.  Augustine, in his notes on Genesis, wonders, “If the woman were not made for the man as a helper in begetting children, for what purpose was she created as helper?”

Whether Augustine ever considered that the Hebrew word to describe a woman as helper, ezer, is the same word used to describe God as God relates to humanity in the Psalms is debatable.  Mein does not go there but takes a different tact.  Citing Gerhard von Rad and Claus Westermann, two of the most influential commentators on Genesis in the 20th century, Mein shows that Genesis is a story about origins of the sexual drive and need for relationships and human community, not about the institution of marriage.   Indeed, it would be difficult to argue for some universal understanding of marriage from Genesis when the Old Testament is filled with stories of polygamy and concubinage and prostitutes.  John Gibson sees in the Genesis stories of creation a symbol of human relationships:  “It is the ideal symbol of a bond that ought to exist between all people the world over.  God intended all humankind to be ‘one flesh.’”

Finally, Gareth Moore offers a creative interpretation of the Adam and Eve story that nevertheless takes the text seriously.  He starts with God’s judgment that “it is not right for man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18).  God is prepared to experiment in finding a solution to Adam’s loneliness, starting first with animals to see if any are appropriate before offering to him a woman.  God does not impose any of these upon Adam, but accepts Adam’s judgment that the woman is the right one for him.  Moore concludes, “The fitting partner for the man, then, is the one that he, the man, receives with joy, the one whom he himself recognizes as a partner fit for him.”

Where the Old Testament speaks about homosexuality it is never about orientation but about behavior.   The behavior, however, is viewed over and against cultic practices of the Ancient Near East and how Israel’s behavior must be distinct from all others in the land.  Sex of any kind during cultic worship is wrong.  It defiles the person and the land.  Now let us consider the remaining three texts found in the New Testament.

Romans 1:26-27

Paul begins his letter to the Gentile Christians announcing his apostleship over all kinds of humans, including even these whom are “called to belong to Jesus Christ” (1:6).  The set up of chapter one is an argument against the perversion of our relationship with God that arises out of 1) denial of God’s self revelation in nature, 2) human arrogance, and out of 3) pagan forms of worship such as idolatry.  The idolatry, according to Paul, is that we have taken to worship of the creature rather than the Creator.

Just like the Levitical passages above, Paul (a good Jewish scholar), is reminding his Gentile disciples of their distinctive identity as people of Yahweh.  The ritual idolatry that was so common to them in former times, attended with ritual homosexual behavior, is no longer acceptable in the worship of the God of Israel.  At this particular time and place, there was something Paul saw in homosexual behavior that did not jibe with the lifeblood of the Church and detracted from sincere, faithful worship of Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Here Paul places homosexuality in a catalog of other sins such as greed, immorality, idolatry, adulterers, thieves, drunkards, revilers and robbers.  Three things are worth noting.  One, Paul says some of the members of the Corinthian church were once practitioners of this pagan activity (6:11).  Second, he declares them saved and sanctified by Jesus Christ.  Third, Paul emphasizes the sacral and sacred nature of our bodies and by implication, our sexuality.  Paul is butting up against what appears to be a popular slogan around Corinth:  All things are lawful for me (6:12).  Paul says, no.   Not if you are a member of the Church, part of the “body of Christ” (6:15).

If we assume Paul’s thought is consistent on the matter of homosexuality (and I believe he is) and we allow the address to the Romans to be about making worship of Yahweh distinctive, set apart from the pagan practices of the day, than there is no reason to think Paul is going for anything different by writing to a “carnal” people such as those in Corinth.  All of the grievous sins which Paul lists are those most certainly enjoyed by the most “debased” or “defiled” minds mentioned in Romans.  Placing homosexuality within the catalog of the sins Paul lists (greed, adultery, idolatry, robbery, thievery, drunkards, etc.) is like a game of “Which one does not belong?”  It is difficult to imagine Paul having in mind a monogamous, faithful, devoted relationship between two people of the same sex.  Rather, it is more likely that he has in mind behavior that is destructive to self or others and ultimately robs God of glory and blurs the lines between Christian worship and pagan worship.  Furthermore, in a letter where Paul calls for Christians to actually act like them, to “be reconciled!” and to adopt certain gender roles which subverted the culture in Corinthian temple worship we can imagine the desire Paul had to distance the Christian church from homosexual practices in their cultic life (Women were often used as priestesses in Rome’s mystery religions.   By restricting women from certain roles in the church Paul was making a cultural distinction between what Christians do in worship and what the pagans do in worship).  Once again Paul has the Church in mind as he thinks about how they should act ethically.   How will they be a viable witness in their culture if they worship like everyone else?

1 Timothy 1:10

Paul’s letter to Timothy only reinforces what has already been said.  Paul lists, just like in the letter to the Corinthians, sins that the lawless and disobedient revel in.   Homosexuals, or sodomites, are mentioned among those who kill their father or mother, murderers, fornicators, slave traders, liars, and perjurers.  Again, it is hard to imagine Paul having in mind a covenant bond between two people of the same sex who are simply expressing their love to one another according to their nature.

A concluding thought about the texts in the New Testament.   Paul’s letter to the Romans states that it is unlawful to go against one’s nature.  Paul had no idea in the first century that there may be something about homosexuality that goes beyond mere perverse behavior or cultic temple worship.  That is, he would not know about sexual orientation or have the knowledge we have today about how sexuality develops (science and psychologists are agreed that homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is not a choice but inborn).  Naturally, the New Testament speaks against any perverse, destructive or abusive sexual activity whether it be heterosexual or homosexual.  Given the sorts of sins homosexual behavior is linked to throughout the Bible, particularly in the New Testament, it is reasonable to conclude that Paul sees this behavior as unnatural for those partaking of it (i.e. heterosexual men committing homosexual acts as part of their liturgical worship) or is witness to a sort of behavior that is abusive and violent towards others, much like killing one’s father or mother would be abusive and violent.

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For the next 40 days or so I will be plowing my way through Exodus, journaling my thoughts and reflections about this wonderful book.  Some of what I encounter I will keep to myself.  Things that are special between God and I.   But much I wish to share here, inviting others to journey with me.   For it is not good to be alone on any journey…

The Miracle of a Midwife

Egypt is ruthless to make sure God’s people are kept silent, still, enslaved.  It will stop at nothing to keep one oppressed and chained.  It heaves heavy burdens upon our shoulders, heavy yokes, causing us to toil in our misery thus snuffing out all hope.

Egypt will kill off (or at least try to kill off) those things, events or people in our lives which might suggest there is reason to hope.  In chapter one of Exodus the hope for a struggling people wondering if there is a future for them lied within their progeny – their boys who would soon become men.  These boys gave Israel a reason to hope that one day they might be free.  One day they might prosper.  One day they might have life.

Egypt knows this.  Egypt seeks to snuff out the boys.  Kill all hope.   Erase any chance of becoming free.

Our oppressors know that the best way to keep one in chains is to cut off these rays of hope, in whatever form they may appear.

A midwife is a person that stands between death and life.  Between hope and despair.   A midwife is one who ushers in new life.

Midwives = Grace.

Egypt, in its lust for total control of us, will even try to recruit grace.  It will try to subvert it, turn it into its own tool for oppression. It will attempt to turn what is meant to be pure gift into a serpent.

“Kill the boys,” Egypt demands.

The midwives refuse.   Grace wins.  Love wins.   They let the boys live.  They allow seeds of hope to be planted.  A new day is dawning.

Even while in bondage, even while enslaved, even while hope seems dead and our oppressor appears to have the final word, grace is manifested.  Somehow, someway, someone or something (like a midwife) enters the jail cell of our lives with a key.  Or, if not a key, a word of grace and peace that suggests there is a key.   Which, for some of us, is the greatest news of all.    Midwives in our lives open a window to the possible.  They look at Egypt and say, “No!”

And they tell me I can, too.

May we all discover a midwife today.  Perhaps where we least expect her.

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To see the entire Pastor series thus far click HERE.

Re-Thinking Pastoral Care

by Thomas Parkinson 

The recent story of pastoral care and counseling in America has been a tragic one. Every Christian tradition – Catholic, Protestant, Conservative, Liberal – has experienced the devastating consequences of pastoral care and counseling that turns into sexual and emotional abuse. Appropriate boundaries between pastors and parishioners have been crossed, pastoral authority has been used to exploit others, and lives have been broken because of misguided ventures into pastoral care and counseling.

In the midst of such an unsettling story, pastors today (including myself) struggle to grasp the primary goals and habits that should shape a ministry of pastoral care. Part of the difficulty for pastors today is coming to grips with what it means to be somebody’s pastor instead of their therapist, friend, or lover. Time and again the context of pastoral care is the intimate settings of people’s lives (living rooms, dining rooms, hospital rooms). In such settings it is easy for pastors to lose sense of what they are supposed to be doing in these places, where the deep and personal contours of people’s lives are exposed.

The seventh chapter of Will Willimon’s book Pastor provides a fitting response to the confusion that is the current state of pastoral care and counseling. According to Willimon, the primary challenge for pastors is to offer care that is distinctively Christian. Because pastoral care so often takes place with persons who have significant needs, pastors often feel that the goal of pastoral care is to help people in need – to enable them to be well. This is especially the case in light of the dominance of medical concerns faced by pastors. Since most pastors spend a lot of time visiting the sick and dying, the result is the conception that pastoral care is about enabling people to be healthy. This, Willimon argues, is a big hindrance to care that is distinctively Christian. “Perhaps” he says, “our overarching goal in our pastoral counseling ought to be contributing to our people’s maturity in Christ, rather than to their health” (183).

For Willimon this means that pastors will need to resist the temptation to do all that they can to make people comfortable in moments of pastoral care and counseling. Sure, pastors should make parishioners feel welcome and should create spaces where people can feel free to share their feelings, but that doesn’t mean that pastors should simply avoid speaking a hard word.

 Instead, Willimon says, Pastors should be spiritual guides, encouraging (not coercing) people to see their lives in the light of God’s grace and to live accordingly. Providing comfort is not the only means of guiding people. “Pastoral counsel is more than merely tending the wounded, lifting up the brokenhearted. It is also a matter of teaching, guiding, and admonishing the well and well fixed, the satisfied and the content” (185). Care that is Christian challenges people in all circumstances of life to live lives that are faithful to Jesus. This means that pastoral care entails both comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

So, then, how exactly do pastors cultivate a ministry of pastoral care that guides people into faithful living? While there is no one right way to do this, Willimon is clear that it will first and foremost require pastors who listen discerningly (180). Listening is a skill that some pastors (including myself) struggle with. In reflecting on Willimon’s call for pastoral listening, it occurs to me that there are at least three ways that pastors must listen if they are to be faithful Christian care-givers. First, pastors must listen to God. And while this seems obvious enough, I’m willing to bet that it is one of the most glaring miscues in pastoral care relationships that go bad. If pastors are to guide people into godly living, then they must have some sense of what God is calling people to do. Listening to God is the only way that this can happen. Prayer, scripture reading, and other spiritual disciplines are the tools God has given to enable pastors (and all people for that matter) to hear God’s voice. The pastor who has not spent time listening to God before the moment of pastoral care cannot possibly have anything to offer the parishioner that is distinctively Christian.

Second, pastoral care requires pastors to listen to those for whom they care. This kind of listening involves more than listening to what people say in a counseling session (though this is important), but it also entails listening to their lives. By observing how people live, and what their lives say about their faith, pastors are most prepared to offer godly guidance.

Finally, pastoral care requires pastors to listen to themselves. This kind of listening requires pastors to reflect on how their ministry of caring is affecting their own lives. Is the ministry of pastoral care draining the pastor of energy, harming her own sense of faithfulness, making her feel uncomfortable? By listening to the self, pastors are able to detect particular problems, boundary issues, and selfish motives before they turn into the kind of exploitative pastoral relationships that have dominated headlines in recent years.

Pastoral care and counseling is one of the most sacred and vital gifts of pastoral ministry. With it comes great responsibility. When done well, pastoral care can be life-giving and can be nothing short of a means of God’s grace. But, as is all too evident, when done poorly pastoral care can do more harm than good.

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The Pastor as Guide

by Chad Holtz

A few years ago I was in London and did what visitors to London do – board a double-decker bus and take a tour of the city.  Our tour guide seemed trustworthy (he had the accent) and truly interested in our having a good time.  He was also very inquisitive.   The entire tour he asked nothing but questions such as, “What do you think about this building over here?” or “How does the antiquity of this building make you feel?”    He was also very gracious for allowing me to wax eloquent about my favorite attraction, Big Ben, as it is named after one of my favorite football players.   He seemed fascinated by my knowledge of clocks, towers, history and football.   It was the sort of tour that left me feeling very good about myself.  It was worth every penny.

And I knew no more of London after the tour than I did before.

The above story is true only in that I have been to London.  The rest is a modern day parable summarizing what I think to be Willimon’s major critique of pastoral care.  After a brief tour of pastoral care as it was rendered from the early church forward, Willimon writes,

A major difference between the pastoral care of previous ages of the church and that of our modern era is the switch from care that utilized mostly corporate, priestly, liturgical actions to care that has increasingly limited itself to individualistic, psychologically oriented techniques heavily influenced by prevailing secular therapies (175).

Willimon laments the ways in which pastoral care has in many ways mirrored the secular ways of caring for the soul.   He writes that “Counseling is in service to the modern fiction that our lives are what we do and decide, the result of our humane technique, a story that we are telling ourselves” (186).   In other words, counseling is the tourist on the bus above, directing the way things go, setting the parameters of the trip.   

This is not the Christian way.  Christians believe that our lives are not our own but are also a story told by God.  We are not the authors of our lives, God is.  As such, the pastor is called to be a guide, someone who knows something (not everything, but something) about helping people imagine their lives in light of the gospel.   “A skilled pastor,” Willimon writes, “is able to see Christ within the life of a pained parishioner” (185).

This is a valuable insight for all of us who are pastors to keep in mind.  We must always remember that our main goal in offering pastoral care is not better health (although that may be a by-product) but helping people grow in their maturity in Christ.  

Pastors are guides.  Hopefully we can say after time spent with a parishioner that he or she knows more about the story God is writing than they knew before their visit.

This is a rough draft from one of the chapters of my book FundaMergent. This is one of the 5 fundamentals I am arguing are true for Emergent Christians (to get the full list see Why I Am a FundaMergent). One of the differences between these fundamentals and those of “fundamentalists” is that these 5 fundamentals result in an ethic – a way of life. They develop a Christian in such a way that the way of Christ is lived experientially, and as such, truthfully. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this short sample: 

There is a sandwich deli in Durham called Jimmy John’s.  I love Jimmy John’s.  I am somewhat a creature of habit which means every time I eat there I get the same sandwich – the Pepe – and sit in the same booth.  The sandwich is great but the booth is better.   On the wall next to me is a placard with a story that I read each time I am here.  It pulls me in like a fish caught in a net. The story goes like this…

An American tourist was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.

Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The tourist complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, “Only a little while.”

The tourist then asked, “Why didn’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?”

The Mexican said, “With this I have more than enough to support my family’s needs.”

The tourist then asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life.”

The tourist scoffed, ” I can help you. You should spend more time fishing; and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat: With the proceeds from the bigger boat you could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor; eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles and eventually New York where you could run your ever-expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

The tourist replied, “15 to 20 years.”

“But what then?” asked the Mexican.

The tourist laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions.”

“Millions?…Then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

I love this parable because I find it liberating.  It calls into question the things we so often get caught up into making lords of our lives.  The Mexican fisherman is not tangled in the net the tourist seems hung up in.  He is free.  Just like another group of fishermen discovered, this fisherman seems to know the truth – truth that is freeing.

The question facing all of us is not whether something or someone will be our lord but rather, what or who will?  

Christians have from the beginning confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord.  We might say that fundamental to being a Christian is the rejection of all other claims upon our allegiance and worship apart from Christ.   Christians are people in the business of actively snuffing out and excluding pseudo-lords – lords that often promise salvation but really serve only to undermine our wholeness, our peace, our freedom .

As the church was dawning and waking up to the realization that Jesus Christ is Lord they began to see that the old lords would not and could not give life.  In the book of Acts, shortly after Pentecost, Peter and John make their way to the temple to pray.   Laying around one of the temple gates, a gate called Beautiful, was a man crippled from birth.  Luke, the author of Acts, tells us that people would lay him at this gate daily so that he could ask for alms, or offerings, from people as they entered the temple to pray.  

Stop for a moment and consider the irony at play within this story.  A lame man from birth begging for money outside the house of God at a gate called, of all things, Beautiful.  There is nothing beautiful about this picture.  It’s rather tragic.  I think Luke is reminding us, the church, that we often call beautiful what is in actuality sucking the life out of us.  Far too often we accept the reality around us and dress it up rather than living into the reality that Jesus has inaugurated and empowered us to proclaim.   Consider the rest of the story…

Peter and John come upon this lame man at the “Beautiful Gate” where they are solicited for money.    Just a few coins, the man requests.   Won’t you show compassion on me by giving me some of your silver and gold?  He is hoping for anything to maintain his present reality if not make it just a bit more cozy.  What more is there?  Daily he has been lying outside this place of prayer, asking for one of the world’s most seductive lords – money.   He cannot imagine any other way to live.  Each person that drops a coin in his needy hand gives him one more day to live and one more reason for everyone to look around and say, “Beautiful.”   

But not Peter and John.  They tell the crippled man that they do not have any silver or gold.  They do not have any of the old ways and means of salvation to offer.  They will not placate him with pseudo-lords and in the process conceal the hope found in the one true Lord.  So while they will not give him the lords he requests they give him something far better, something they have the freedom to give – salvation in the name of Jesus Christ.   

“In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk.”  

Peter and John tell the man the truth about himself. They tell him that Jesus is the Lord of life, that he no longer has to live this way, to get up and walk. They tell him he is saved.  Now walk. 

In a flash the man’s identity is changed. He is no longer a cripple. It has nothing to do with who he is or what he is willing to acknowledge at the moment.  It has everything to do with Jesus and what he has done on his behalf. The command to get up and walk is our command as well. Peter and John look at us and tell us to get up and walk. Why? Because we are saved.  Because Jesus Christ is Lord and we no longer have to sit under gates we name as beautiful but are really barring us from true fellowship with God and others. 

Being a FundaMergent is to be a person who, like Peter and John, looks intently into the face of oppressive systems, powers and idols and insists they are not beautiful but crippling.   We insist that Jesus Christ is Lord and that the abundant life Jesus promised is available when we walk in such a way that dismantles the gods that would keep us lying on a mat, outside the house of prayer.

But the gospel is not just about freedom.  It is also about slavery.  As we confess Jesus Christ as Lord we are also confessing our allegiance to a person who had a particular, and peculiar, Way about him.   To this we now turn…

I have been listening to some of the arguments by those who are opposed to universal health care.   To be fair, most of them are not opposed to everyone having health care like they themselves have.  Rather, they are opposed to the proposed plan to bring it about.  I get that.  However, what I don’t get is the sheer lack of theological reflection in any of the arguments.

More or less the arguments sound like these (actual comments)…

You say that now but it would be a different story if you were waiting to get a root canal for weeks or having your chemo delayed

Chad how long will you keep your job if the company you work for doesn’t make a profit?

The destruction of the profit model will provide a dis-incentive for the best and brightest to become doctors, nurses, and researchers. The country with the best healthcare in the world (US), will quickly sink into mediocrity.

But how long will pharmaceutical companies stay in business and invest billions in research and development for new treatments if their profit margin evaporates? How many hospitals will keep their doors open if they don’t make a profit? The only problem with socialism is that at some point you run out of other people’s money to spend…..

For all of its inefficiencies, the US healthcare system drives almost ALL of the medical innovation for the rest of the world – and most of the inefficiencies are driven by the current regulation and lack of reasonable malpractice law (with caps, etc.). Putting the government in charge of 1/6th of the economy (healthcare) will do little to improve care of the currently uninsured, will drive down the quality of cares, drive up wait times for all but acute lifesaving procedures, and will kill off small businesses (which provide 75% of jobs in America).

Long waits, no choices, and inferior care. Nearly all medical innovation takes place in the United States today, so the consequences of this lil experiment would be much greater than when this mistake is made in other countries.

“health care in the hands of suits and ties” breeds competition. its the free market. competition = better product.

These are just a few of the arguments posed to me in a recent discussion on Facebook about the problems of universal healthcare and the plan on the table that seeks to do something about it.

One thing that should be patently obvious from the above arguments is that none of them are thinking from inside a life of faith.   Rather, they all are thinking from a business/corporate model which is based foremost on a model of scarcity.   It is a model that suggests the world has only so many resources and we must grab what we can when we can and at what cost we can so that I am not left out in the cold.   It’s a model that is thinking from within the autonomous self, the I who must secure his or her “rights” at all costs.  It first considers how this could potentially affect me, and if that affect is less than desirable it must be abandoned.   It’s a model devoid of Jesus.

Now it must be said that no system is nor will ever be perfect.  As such it would be a mistake to place our hope and trust in any plan devised by any one.   I am under no illusion that the plan being debated right now will fix all the problems or that it will not create new ones.  I get that.

What I also get is that millions are without health care of any kind and have no hopes for getting it.  The poor, the unemployed, the sick, the “alien and stranger” among us (all the people Lou Dobb’s can’t stand), etc.  They are also the people without a voice.   Who will speak up for them?  Who will be their advocate?

My hope is that the Church will rise up and speak for the least of these who cannot speak for themselves.   My hope is that the Church, despite the prospect of having to make sacrifices, some even costly in more ways than one, will stand up and say, “This is the way of Jesus.”

I would like to see less of Christians demanding their “rights” and more of demanding justice for all.

I would like to see less of the Church arguing out of a corporate/business model and more from a theological one.  If you disagree with the proposed plan at least do so rooted in the way of Jesus rather than rooted in an individualistic, capitalistic, nationalistic posture.

Health care is no more a “right” than life is.  It’s all gift.  We Americans sometimes have a hard time recognizing this.  We are accustomed to thinking we are entitled to certain things (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, for instance).   As Christians, however, we proclaim a different story – one that surrenders our rights, picks up a cross and serves the other, even if that means death.   While it is true that most of us will never have to endure what our Lord did, we still balk at the thought of even dying to ourselves.  We refuse to lay down our “rights” for others.

And the world watches on, waiting to see how the people that confess Jesus as their Lord will respond.   I’m sad to see us sounding more like just another talking head in a suit and tie than a dirty Jew with a basin and towel.

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