True, challenging, and freeing all at the same time:
"Nothing that we despise in others is entirely absent from ourselves. We often expect from others more than we are willing to do ourselves. Why have we hitherto thought so intemperately about man and his frailty and temptability? We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer. The only profitable relationship to others - and especially to weaker brethren - is one of love, and that means the will to hold fellowship with them. God himself did not despise humanity, but became man for men's sake."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer "After Ten Years: A Reckoning made at New Year 1943"
One of the books I'm reading these days is When to Speak Up and When to Shut Up, written by Dr. Michael D. Sedler and published in 2003. The title of the book intrigued me, especially since many of my problems in life have been caused by speaking up when I shouldn't have and clamming up when I should have spoken out.
Sedler has an interesting biography. A social worker who has an advanced degree in Christian ministry, he was raised in a devoutly Jewish home. He came to faith in Christ at the age of 22.
In chapter 2 of his book, titled "When Silence Isn't Golden," Sedler points out something I had never noticed in the Bible before and when, in passing, I shared it with the adult Sunday School class at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, where I serve as pastor, people were as surprised as I had been.
Sedler says that there are times when those we love would definitely benefit from our speaking up. He then points to a famous incident in Scripture to underscore that truth, Genesis 3:1-6. It contains the account of Adam's and Eve's fall into sin. Here's the entire thing, as translated in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’“ 4But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
Familiar, right? Nothing in there to teach us about speaking up, right?
Consider what Sedler writes:
This story has been recounted over and over in homes, churches, synagogues, in books, magazines, and on television. Always it is the same. The snake deceived Eve and she ate. She then urged Adam to eat. He did so and the two were condemned to a life of hardship. But was it really that simple? Was Adam "tricked" into his actions? Or was silence involved, a time when a voice should have been heard but was not?
Sedler then goes on to point out a truth that is often hidden in plain sight, that Adam was Eve throughout her entire conversation with the serpent:
...and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate...
Now, in the Lutheran circles in which I run, no one has ever suggested that Eve bore more responsibility for humanity's fall into sin than Adam. The Biblical witness is clear and anyone who's exercised the office of teacher in the Lutheran movement of which I'm a part has said simply that both Adam and Eve fell into sin and both bore responsibility for its consequences.
Nonetheless, as my wife mentioned during this past Sunday's class, "I always thought that Eve talked with the serpent and then went to Adam." Every person there either nodded in agreement with her or verbally affirmed her impression.
But, as Sedler points out, you find the same story in almost any translation you consult: Adam was standing right next to Eve during Eve's entire conversation with the serpent. Here are some other translations' renderings of Genesis 3:6:
She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (The New International Version)
...she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (New American Standard Bible)
...she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. (King James Version)
...she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. (English Standard Version)
...Her husband was there with her, so she gave some to him, and he ate it too. (Contemporary English Version)
...She also gave some of the fruit to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. (New Century Version)
So far, the only translation any member of the class has been able to find in which it wasn't pointed out that Adam was with Eve during her interview with the serpent is The Message.
Sedler says that this fact has, in some Christian circles, been ignored with more sinister results than has occurred in Lutheranism as I've experienced it:
Many Bible commentaries skim over verse six, choosing to ignore it rather than deal with it. Venerable Bible commentator Matthew Henry writes:
It is probable that he [Adam] was not with her [Eve] when she was tempted, surely if he had, he would have intervened to prevent sin.
Sedler dismisses this as an attempt to get Adam off the hook, to lay the blame on Eve, and therefore, to insinuate that women are more responsible for the fall into sin than men. But verse six says otherwise.
As Sedler points out though, there are deeper lessons to be learned from Genesis 3:6:
Adam heard the conversation, saw Eve's dilemma, but remained silent. All the while that his wife was being deceived, Adam watched and assessed the situation, but kept his thoughts to himself. He chose to be silent.
He did nothing, Sedler points out. Or did he? Sedler turns to Genesis 3:12. There, Adam responds to God, Who has just asked Adam if he had taken a bite from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil:
The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.”
Sedler writes:
Adam did what people do best when feeling defensive: He blamed another person...Could Adam have prevented [Eve from taking the fruit]? It would seem that he carries...responsibility for watching a precious helpmate make a destructive decision without intervening.
"Mind your own business" can be a good cautionary motto in many circumstances in life. But when you see people about to make errors that risk destroying them or parts of their lives, "mind your own business" is a cover-up for a failure to love. It's an excuse for personal cowardice. (I know what I'm talking about; I've been a coward so many times that it's painful to remember.)
Love must be tough enough to risk incurring the anger of those we love. If we can't tell the truth in love, we can't tell the truth at all.
The Love Triangle Continues The focus of the promo (below) is the Booth-Brennan-Hannah love triangle. It does begin with a clip about their case. At the crime scene, something explodes, covering them in a substance that looks mostly liquid with pieces of something mixed in. Brennan being Brennan, she tells them to make sure it all gets into evidence bags and “be careful not to swallow.” The rest of the promo for this Bones episode is all about the relationship many fans want to happen. Sweets wants to know how things are going between Hannah and Brennan, and Booth tells him the women are good friends. Sweets can’t help but channel his psychiatrist skills when he tells Booth he could still have feelings for Brennan, though the FBI agent denies it. Booth told Hannah about the conversation he and Brennan had in the car in “The Doctor in the Photo” episode. Hannah’s been avoiding Brennan, and the forensic anthropologist wants to know why. When she does get an answer, Brennan seems surprised that Booth told her. It is a good sign for their relationship that Booth isn’t hiding things. On the other hand, poor Hannah may not be around for much longer, especially considering a spoiler that Michael Ausiello recently posted. Read More: Bones' 'The Bullet in the Brain' Preview - The Love Triangle Continues
Queen Latifah hosted the 2011 People'sChoice Awards in Los Angeles last night (05.01.11). Queen Latifah hosted the 2011 People's Choice Awards last night (05.01.11). The US rapper fronted the annual ceremony at Los Angeles' Nokia Theatre, with the 'Twilight' franchise and Kristen Stewart in particular - who plays Bella Swan in the vampire love saga - being the evening's big winners. However, it would appear beating the likes of Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston to the highly-coveted Favourite Movie Actress award didn't spare Kristen from Queen Latifah's jokes. The host quipped at her: "You fell in love with a vampire. You got involved with a werewolf. Do you think you might start dating a zombie next?" Kristen wasn't the only 'Twilight' star to bear the brunt of the cheeky star's jokes, as she also launched into a cockney imitation of Robert's British accent. But it was the duo - alongside their co-star Taylor Lautner - who got the last laugh, as the latest film in the franchise 'Eclipse' picked up the awards for Favourite Movie, Favourite On-Screen Team and Favourite Drama Movie. Read More: Queen Latifah - Queen Latifah Hosts 2011 People's Choice Awards
[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]
Colossians 1:1-14 This past week brought the seventieth birthday of Ringo Starr, drummer of the Beatles. Several days before his big day, an interviewer asked him what he might like people to do to celebrate. At noon on that day, Ringo said, he wanted everybody to hold up their hands in peace signs and say, three times, “Peace and love.”
It’s absolutely silly, of course. Humanity has known for centuries that “all you need is love,” but having that knowledge and even engaging in gestures like Ringo Starr suggested in order to remind us of it will do nothing to make us all the loving people who, in our heart of hearts, we really want to be and who we often pretend to be to the outside world.
There’s a lot of hatred in the world, much of it done in the name of God, some of it done specifically in the name of Jesus Christ. That’s not only tragic and sad, it’s sinful and demonic.
When I speak of hatred, I don’t have in mind just the sort of hostility we may harbor for someone we feel has betrayed our trust or hurt us. Those Cleveland Cavaliers fans who now say, as one was quoted as saying in the Columbus Dispatch this past week, that they’ll hate LeBron James forever, harbor a deep passion (I would say a way too deep passion) about LeBron, the NBA, and sports, in general. You see, at some level, those now professing their hatred for LeBron James once passionately loved him, his sport, and the promise of a championship that he seemed to carry away with him to the South Beach of Florida.
That kind of hatred is born of love and disappointment. We see it all the time. A jilted lover can harbor a deep hatred for her or his ex, precisely because of the love they felt for that person. An assembly line worker who has thirty years on the job who suddenly finds his work shipped elsewhere or eliminated altogether, can feel hatred toward the company precisely because he loved his job, its income, its routine, and all that it brought into his life.
But there is another kind of hatred, one that is far more widespread than the hatred of overt hostility born of love and disappointment. It’s the hatred of indifference, of looking out for number one without regard to others. It isn’t hostile, mind you. It simply doesn’t consider others.
We’re rightly outraged and mystified by what we might call “passive hatred” we see, hear, and experience in our real-life world. And yet I personally have to admit my own culpability for this very sin.
A few weeks ago, Ann and I were walking across the parking lot of a Starbucks when a woman pushing a child in a stroller approached us. She said that her baby’s father was being released from jail the next day and she needed money to move to a different place where he couldn’t find her. Was she telling the truth? I don’t know. But I didn’t give her a chance to repeat her story. I dehumanized her by simply refusing her request and moving on. The image of that woman and her child has haunted me since.
This is an example of the hatred of indifference and I confess it to you, really, with shame. I should know better.
But it pleases me that I recognize it for what it is: a sin, a violation of the great commandment that we love God totally and love our neighbors—all our neighbors—as we love ourselves.
The reason it pleases me that I recognize this indifference as sin is that it shows that, despite my imperfections and flaws, a powerful seed has been planted within me. It’s the seed of the gospel—the good news of new and everlasting life that belongs to all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ. The messiah Jesus brings those who trust in Him forgiveness of sins and ushers us into His kingdom here and now. I don’t think that I would recognize the subtle hatred of indifference as a sin of mine if Jesus weren’t working within me, working in spite of my faults and frailties to make me part of His new creation.
Today we begin a short sermon series on the New Testament book of Colossians. Colossians is a letter written jointly by the apostle Paul and his assistant, the young pastor Timothy, to a church in western Asia Minor, what is today western Turkey, in the town of Colossae. Paul was imprisoned, probably under house arrest, at the time of the letter’s writing. Some think that he was imprisoned in Rome; others say he was held in the nearby town of Ephesus. Whatever the case, the letter was probably written in the early-60sAD, several years before Colossae was destroyed by an earthquake.
By the time Paul and Timothy sent this letter, Colossae had fallen on hard economic times. Its major industry, the production of dark red dyed wool, had nearly died out. Colossae sat in the Lycus Valley, near the Meander River, and was largely forgotten by the greater Roman Empire beyond it.
But Colossae and the Lycus Valley weren’t forgotten by God! (Anymore than any of us are ever forgotten by God. God is never more than a prayer away, something I have learned again beyond all doubt in recent weeks.) Paul had sent a member of his ministry team, a Colossian named Epaphras to start a congregation in Colossae. There, under the daily pastoral leadership of Epaphras, a congregation composed of Jews and non-Jews (Gentiles, like us) had taken root and grown. But it wasn’t just an organization that had taken root and grown. Paul says that the very word of God’s truth, the gospel, had born fruit in them and was displaying itself in their love: in love among believers, in love of the believers toward others.
In the original Greek in which Colossians, like the rest of the New Testament, was written, the word that Paul and Timothy use for love is agape. In secular Greek writing, the word agape for love was rarely used until the second and third centuries. When the early Christians used it, they had a very specific understanding of love in mind.
Agape love is self-giving love.
Agape love is also in-spite-of love, given and acted upon in spite of how one may feel about the person to whom they’re loving at the time.
Agape love is about actively looking out for others, even when you don’t know them or when you don't approve of their behavior or know that God doesn't approve of their behavior.
The ultimate expression of agape love, of course, is Jesus Christ. On the cross, Jesus gave His life to wipe out the power of sin and death over our lives and He did so in spite of the fact that at that moment the world’s hatred—our hatred—in the forms of both hostility and indifference—were the very things that pounded the nails into His flesh and forced the crown of thorns down on His head.
But Jesus is more than an example of agape love. Seeing representations of His death on a cross—while it may build up our faith—won’t necessarily have any more power to turn us from the hatred of indifference to agape love than will holding up peace signs and saying, “Peace and love” three times.
It’s only when we trust—when we have faith--in Jesus and give Him access to our hearts, minds, and wills each day that He can plant the seeds of His love in us and make us and every part of the world we touch different, better, more human, more divine.
In the opening verses of Colossians, our second lesson for today, Paul exults and thanks God that Jesus’ word is growing in the Colossian Christians and showing in their lives of tough agape love! That's what happens when the Good News of Jesus takes hold in people's lives.
A few years back in our former community, a strip joint opened. Some churches got together and demonstrated, protesting the existence of the place. They were concerned that it would breed prostitution, drug and alcohol abuse. But they did more than demonstrate. Demonstrators befriended the dancers, found out about their lives, and set up schedules so that while the women were working at night, volunteers from the churches babysat their kids. Why? Christ’s agape love lived within those Christians. They refused to be indifferent or hostile to people who, just like them, needed Jesus Christ living within them.
And this is no isolated incident. Tony Campolo is a Baptist pastor and a sociologist. I tease that he's so cool, he could be a Lutheran and Campolo, in fact, often speaks at our Lutheran gatherings. One evening before a presentation in Hawaii, he and a colleague walked into a diner that turned out to be the gathering place of prostitutes before and after they went out onto the streets. Campolo struck up a conversation with these women. When it was clear that he wasn’t interested in buying what they were selling, they asked questions about him and his work. He explained that he was a Christian and a pastor.
As they talked, Campolo learned that it was the birthday of one of the prostitutes. No one would send her a card or give her a cake and she would spend the evening in her humiliating trade. Campolo found out that this woman and the other prostitutes all would return to the diner at 3:00 in the morning. So, he and his friend went to a bakery to buy a cake. They bought streamers and hung them in the diner. When the prostitutes returned, they were stunned, especially the one whose birthday it was. "What kind of God do you believe in?" she asked. Campolo answered: “The kind of God Who throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:00 in the morning.” The God we know in Jesus Christ is the One Who fills us with His tough, self-giving, in-spite-of agape love to share with the world!
I thank God for the strong agape love I see and experience in the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church.
I thank God that I am privileged to be your pastor.
I thank God that I'm given a front row seat on the kingdom of Jesus I see growing in you each day.
And, I thank God that He has made me a grateful beneficiary of your agape love for me, imperfections and all.
My message for you today is as simple and as direct as the one we find Paul sharing with the Colossians in our lesson this morning: Keep trusting in Jesus and keep allowing Him to grow His self-giving, in-spite-of love for all, not just in your sentiments and attitudes, but in everything you do, in every decision you make, and in every word you speak.
All the world needs is love. And that love is found only in Christ Jesus. Amen!
"Love is the law of Christ. To love means to wish another person good from the heart. It means to seek what is best for the other person." (Martin Luther)
A high school classmate just posted this quote from writer G.K. Chesterton over on Facebook:
Tolerance is the virtue of a man [sic] without convictions.
It was great seeing Chesterton's words. I love him anyway! He was a big joyous man who was loved even by the atheists with whom he debated.
But these particular words of Chesterton's relate to issues I've been thinking about a lot lately.
These days, we--Christians and non-Christians in the West--have elevated "tolerance" to the highest human virtue. So much so, in fact, that a member of one of my former parishes told me once that, so far as he could tell, the gospel message was, "Live and let live." I wondered what Bible he had been reading.
Christians should have no desire--any more than Jesus Himself did--to coerce people into repentance for sin or faith in Christ, of course. (That's why I oppose political involvement by the Church or by pastors.) No one comes to faith in Christ and no one places themselves under the pull of God's Holy Spirit toward holy living by coercion.
But a "live and let live" attitude is usually just another way of saying, "Live and let die." Or, "Live and ignore." For believers in Christ, when tolerance comes up against God's revealed truth, tolerance must give way to truth. It must also give way to love.
If a child has the notion that sticking her or his finger into an electrical outlet would be fun, the last thing a responsible parent would do is tolerate this impulse. The parent would do everything conceivable to prevent the child from harming himself or herself. Love and truth would trump parental tolerance.
Just so, the Church has a God-given responsibility to militate against a lazy, indifferent tolerance, to instead, opt for love and truth in warning people who ask us for an account for the hope that is in us through Christ, to make them aware of the destructive consequences of flouting God's will, whether it's expressed in materialism, injustice, egotism, lovelessness, covetousness, or sex outside of marriage.
If we claim to love family or friends, then to tolerate rationalizations for sin is to conspire in the deaths of those Christ calls us to love and with whom Christ commissions us to share the gospel.
Tolerance becomes hate when we refuse to speak the truth in love, when we fail to share the good news of new life for all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ.
Anyone who has been to a Christian wedding has likely heard a reading from what's known as the Bible's "love chapter." Actually, the words usually read at weddings encompass the final verse of one chapter and all thirteen verses of the next one, 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13. This passage, which should be seen as a unit, is probably most famous for its final line: "And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love"
There's nothing wrong with the love chapter being read at weddings. Its portrait of love as self-giving, forgiving, and forbearing is a good reminder for people in all their relationships.
But the original situation to which the apostle Paul sent these words in about 55AD, had nothing to do with wedding days. The first-century church in the Greek city of Corinth was, to put it mildly, deeply dysfunctional. I'll skip the bill of particulars for now. But one favorite dysfunctionality among them was the prideful elevation of some spiritual gifts over others. The "in crowd" among the Corinthian Christians insisted, for example, that the gift of tongues, that special prayer and praise language which God's Holy Spirit still gives to some people today, was the ultimate sign of God's approval and presence. Absent that, these "tongue snobs" said, Corinthians church members were only playacting at being Christians.
That's where the love chapter comes in. Paul himself possessed the gift of tongues.* But it is just one spiritual gift, he told the Corinthians. It's better, Paul said, to "strive for the higher gifts." The greatest gift of all, as Paul tells it, is love, not the mushy, indulgent, spineless stuff that passes for love in today's world, but love that comes straight from the Holy Spirit to all who believe in Jesus. It's love like that of Jesus, a love that we can't muster on our own, but which God will supply to those who truly trust in Jesus: love so great that is willing to die for the other.
And "the other" for whom such love is willing to die isn't just a family member or a friend. It may even be a stranger. It could be those who hate us.
This is the kind of love we need to make our relationships and lives work. Yet if we try to manufacture that sort of love on our own, we will always come up short. That's why Paul names it not only as one of the greater gifts (1 Corinthians 12:31), but also as the greatest of gifts (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Gifts cannot be earned. They come from God to those who open themselves to trust--or faith--in Jesus. "And the greatest of these is love."
*Later, in 1 Corinthians 14:18-19, Paul says, "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you; nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with my mind, in order to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue" 19
