Genesis 11:4 - Confusion

 Genesis 11:4 - "Let us make a name." To make a name implied self-direction. The struggle for humanity: to grow, to develop, to become all that being in the image of God promises without perverting that image through pridefulness and violence. The Lord gave the people a name: Babel! They aspired to the wrong goals, and the result was God's judgement. Babel means confusion. Aspiration was not bad; it is good. Building, creating--being a steward of talent and resources is good. To use talent and resources to make a name, that is, a life apart from God is not good, and such perversion of ability leads to confusion.

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Humility. I believe that almost every spiritual problem can be solved by humility. One way to understand humility is to see it as accuracy. Humility means seeing and describing yourself as you are without defensiveness or exaggeration. Humility requires self-awareness which means to recognize your strengths and to recognize your weaknesses and limitations. In this understanding pride is a subset of humility. To take pride in one's work and to be willing to offer one's abilities in service to others is good. Such pride produces a confidence that is well-founded. A humble person can be confident. So self-awareness includes this desire to be a good steward of one's strengths. At the same time humility requires the desire and commitment to improve one's deficits to the degree possible. Humility is both self-awareness and self-forgetfulness. To be self-forgetful as an expression of humility means that a person is eager to listen to others, to work at understanding others and to be helpful as wanted and needed by others. Listening is first an inclination and then a skill. People who have assertive personalities may need to work harder at wanting to listen. If they do not have the inclination to listen they can still become listeners through discipline. Listening is essential to understanding, but understanding often requires more, particularly, when cultural, racial, language, education, gender, life experiences, and parenting differences create world views that diverge. So pridefulness, unwillingness to see things as they really are is the opposite of humility, but pride is a subset of humility. In Genesis 11 the people became prideful which led to confusion and destruction. Peter reminded the church that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).

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As in all matters of virtue grace is the beginning point. Humility is a picture of salvation. Jesus told a story of two men who went to pray. One man, religious leader, prayed with gratitude that he was not like the other man who had come to pray. He was grateful not to be a sinner. The second man fell on his face and acknowledged his sin and prayed to be forgiven. Jesus asked which man left the place of prayer right with God. Sin, wrong doing, separates us from God when we do not acknowledge it. In everyone's life, except perhaps one who is mentally ill, there is an awareness of right and wrong. To refuse to accept this reality of sin is to persist in wrong doing and to separate oneself from God who is both loving and righteous. God's loved expressed in grace that offers forgiveness puts us right with God when we acknowledge and ask forgiveness for our sins.

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Grandchildren. Yesterday I showed Stone, our four-year old grandson, a picture of himself with his siblings when he was less than one year old, and I asked him if he recognized everyone in the picture. He named them all, and said, "I'm the baby!" I have enjoyed watching each one of my grandchildren grow from infant to child and now to watch our granddaughter become a teenager. Each stage is wonderful. At the dinner table last evening the youngest was crying, and the oldest was helping him with instructions: "take a deep breath, drink some water." The wonder of family humbles me. We grow into maturity and help the one behind us grow, too. It is a good picture of the church family. We have in every church different ages of faith, and those ages are not necessarily matched by years. Some are older chronologically but younger spiritually. Still, the goal in our church family is to help the ones who are younger to grow to maturity. It is a wonder of family life.

Too Small to Fail

 Zechariah 4:10 "Small Beginnings"

R. James Breiding wrote a book published in 2019 entitled “Too Small to Fail.” The title is a play on the phrase, “Too Big to Fail” which became popular in the mid-80’s to describe the theory that some corporations are so big that the government must prevent their failure for the good of the national economy. Breiding proposes in his book that smallness can be a strength, too. In fact, he shows that many small nations are achieving success in education, health care and satisfaction among citizens that larger nations find difficult to achieve.

Breiding’s book is not written from any religious perspective that I can detect although he has an appreciation for the contribution religion makes in the creation of social cohesion, and that cohesion is an important quality for a successful democracy. So “Too Small to Fail” is not a religious book, but it has implications for the church. Zechariah 4:10 written in reference to the small beginnings of the exilic Temple project reads,  “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin. . .” (NLT).  For many people bigger churches are thought to be better than smaller churches, but that operating assumption is beginning to show weakness. Two pastors of very strong (meaning larger) churches have told me this week that they see a shift coming. Partly, the Covid-19 pandemic is responsible, or better said, the pandemic is accelerating a trend which had already begun toward the recognition that smaller can be and often is better. Some church growth strategists see the next expansion of the church happening through extension or creation of new churches rather than a large church just getting larger.

One church I know about has gotten ahead of the “curve” in this matter. The church grows to a certain size, and then it starts a new church in its own building. The pastor issues a call to members of the congregation to walk down the hallway to the chapel where a new mission church is starting. The mission holds worship at the same time as the “mother’ congregation. The mission incubates or grows inside the “mother” church until the new congregation has the numerical and financial strength to purchase property in another neighborhood, and the mission moves out to form a new independent church. The “mother” church then grows until it fills its building again and repeats the process. Several churches have been formed in this way.

Another model is for a stronger church in partnership with a smaller church develop a strategy in which the larger church issues a call to its membership for fifty people to go on mission. Their call is to join the smaller church partner that is struggling financially and struggling in finding leadership and struggling to connect with its community. The fifty missionaries stay with the smaller church until it gains viability. At that point some return to the “mother” church and some discover a new place of ministry in the smaller but now better functioning church. Instead of growing bigger and bigger the “mother church” re-seeds smaller congregations which enables those smaller churches to flourish.

It may be that the small to medium size neighborhood church is growing more attractive as a way to gather for worship, fellowship and service. The Covid-19 crisis has helped people see the benefits of smaller groups. Also, people are discovering that even though the phenomenon of video conferencing helps the church to stay connected, it is a poor substitute for in person community. The desire for community is leading to a new appreciation for the smaller church which offers a way to know and be known, a way to experience an extended faith family. Large congregations have an important place in church life, but today people are seeing that smaller congregations, also, have an important place in church life. They are not too big to fail; they are too small to fail.

Mark 12:35-44 Watch Out for Bad Teaching

Mark 12:38   Jesus said, “Watch out . . .’”

As others have observed, the problem with religion is not that people don’t believe but that people will believe anything! Happily, much more good than bad has come to us through religion. Through the Gospel people have come to transforming faith and whole societies have moved to a more just administration of law. Charitable institutions have brought relief to multitudes of the needy. Christianity has lifted culture and government in many good ways. 

At the same time we know that In the name of religion unspeakable atrocities, fraud of the innocent, prejudicial strictures, and lots of pious foolishness have been practiced. Enemies of religion eagerly point to these problems, but honest observers of history will acknowledge that religion has brought good as well as bad.

Because religion can be bad as well as good, Jesus warned us to “watch out.” So, how do we watch out? The classic Protestant answer is to follow the teachings of the Bible for in the Scripture we have the word of God. (2 Timothy 3:15-17)

Of course, as recorded in Mark 12 Jesus demonstrated through his encounter with the Bible teachers of the first century this need to “watch out” does not go away with the simple call to Bible authority. Some people—unintentionally or mischievously—misinterpret the Bible and cause harm. So Jesus said “watch out” for the teachers. (verse 38)

In this passage from Mark 12 we find some ways that the followers of Jesus can watch out for bad Bible interpretation. One warning centers on behavior. A good Bible teacher will support the teaching with good behavior. (v. 40)

Another warning arises out of the teacher’s attitude. Lack of humility in a teacher will set off internal alarm bells for the thoughtful. (v. 39) Lack of generosity provides a warning, too. (v. 41-44)

Also, Jesus warned against intellectual flatness and lack of imagination. In humility an authentic teacher of the Bible will yield to paradox and mystery. We cannot explain everything. (v. 35-37) The only one with all the answers is God himself, and the authentic teacher will point us to our Lord. Those teachers who insist on having the answer to everything need watching and are best avoided.

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Grandchildren. For Halloween Sweetie Pie was a ghost; with her missing front teeth she was scary. (Until she gave me a big hug) Mr. Happy wore camouflage and looked like a warrior (well, as much as a four year old can). Singer (my current nickname for the youngest) had the scariest costume to me. He dressed as a surgeon—even down to the booties doctors wear in the operating room. “Give me treats or I’ll take your organs!” (His uncle Jason who is a surgeon sent that costume to Singer.) Well, it would be scary, but babies are sweet no matter how they are dressed. What fun to be a grandparent.

Travel. Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice . . . .” Judy and I traveled with friends to Nuremberg, Regensburg, Passau, Vienna and Budapest by river boat this past week. Seeing these parts of Germany, Austria and Hungary was enlightening and pleasant. I will be working through all the thoughts and impressions this travel created for me over the next year. How grateful I am to have the resources to have made this journey. I want to be a good steward of it. Hopefully, some of my prejudices will die with reflections on this travel experience. It was fun, but it was more than just fun. 

Mark 7:24-37 "Crossing Barriers with the Gospel"

Mark 7:29   " . . . such a reply . . . "

When one one of my grandchildren hops into my lap and says, "Knock, Knock," I know exactly how to respond. I say, "Who's there?" They will respond with one of the set ups they've learned, such as, "Boo." I will go along with the game and ask, "Boo Who?" To which they will gleefully respond, "Oh, I'm sorry you feel bad." Then they will giggle with delight because they have successfully effected their knock knock joke and pun.

When I read Mark 7:24-29 I recognize a set up. Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman are sharing a learned repartee. They both know the formula for this exchange just as my grandchildren know what unfolds from the introductory statement, "Knock, Knock." Jesus and the woman both know how the exchange will conclude. One says, it is not right to toss the children's bread to the dogs. The other responds, even the dogs under the table eat the crumbs. In this passage we have a wise saying. Probably, it circulated among people who lived along the border and sought ways to connect. This wise saying describes how people with compassion are willing to cross barriers to find and help each other.

The woman came to Jesus in hope of help for her daughter. She understood the barrier between Jews and Gentiles. Many Jews referred to Gentiles as dogs while they saw themselves as the children of God. The Syrophoenician community would have seen themselves as elites and the Jews as peasants. Jesus and this unnamed Gentile woman crossed the barrier and connected through their common humanity and shared compassion for a child in distress.

Jesus opened his ministry to Gentiles. He did not allow the Jewish understanding of themselves as children of God to keep him from caring for a person who was on the other side of the ethnic and religious boundary. The Gentile woman did not allow her status as part of an elite community keep her from humbling herself before Jesus so that she could find help for her child.

This encounter between Jesus and the woman recalls the visit of a Syrian commander named Naaman to the home of the Jewish prophet Elisha. When Naaman was told to wash in the Jordan river in order to be cleansed of his disease he almost left without being healed. He thought how the rivers of Syria were larger, cleaner and more beautiful than the humble Jordan. In pride he took steps to depart, but one of his advisors pleaded with him to reconsider. Naaman humbled himself, washed in the Jordan, was healed and became a follower of the Lord (2 Kings 5:15). Elisha and Naaman crossed the ethnic, political and religious divide that separated them just as centuries later Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman would cross similar boundaries to bring relief to a desperate child and parent.

How we need wise sayings! We need words that will help us show compassion to one another across the boundaries that separate us. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is for all people. We want our thoughts, our words and our actions to bring people to Jesus. We do not want to build barriers that keep people away from him.

Jesus went to the vicinity of Tyre. He left the territory where Jews predominated. He sought a place of anonymity; perhaps, he went to rest. Yet, it was inevitable that he would encounter the needy of that place even though they were not Jews. It was the providence of God. When we have our own providential appointments with those who are different, we want to have our attitude right and our words prepared so that we can, like Jesus, cross every barrier with the Gospel.

John 6:1-15 The Feeding of the 5,000

John 6:14   “. . . the people saw the sign Jesus performed.”

All four Gospels record the feeding of the 5,000, and in John’s Gospel the account of this miraculous sign and the response of the people takes almost as many verses to record as the resurrection does. Clearly, for the early church this event in the life of Jesus was important. On the surface of the telling we see the compassion of Jesus for hungry people, and his response to their hunger gives us a model for our own ministry to the needy. However, Jesus spiritualized this event so that the miracle more importantly became a sign of salvation than an act of compassion for the physically hungry. Jesus said to the people who received the food that he had distributed, “. . .you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life.” (John 6:26-27)

Following the example of Jesus and taking a spiritual interpretation of this feeding ministry we observe that Jesus used this event in the wilderness, first, to confront his disciples with the fact of their spiritual scarcity. They did not have the ability to feed the people, physically and more importantly spiritually. Philip, exasperated with the instructions to provide food for the multitude of people, complained to Jesus that it would take eight months of wages to give everyone even a bite to eat. (v.7) Before we can see the miracle of provision the church first acknowledges its inadequacy. We cannot feed the hunger of people for God. We cannot even fill our own spiritual need for God. We look at what little insight we have, and we are like Andrew who looked at the five barley loaves and two fish, and said, “how far will they go among so many?” (v. 9)

However, it happens in John 6 and in the church again and again that we witness the power of God when we acknowledge our own limited resources. When we face our spiritual scarcity then we hear Jesus say to us as he said to his disciples, “Have the people sit down.” (v. 10) We stop looking at our empty pockets and our scarce resources and we simply follow the instruction of Jesus. When we do we discover that the people will be able to eat their fill with food left over. (v. 12) When we simply give people the Gospel of Christ, not in our own strength, but in obedience to the instructions of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, we discover a spiritual abundance that fills our deepest hunger and the hunger of those to whom we preach. 

God revealed this Gospel principle to Paul. He wanted to be strong, but he suffered an infirmity that made him weak. He pleaded with God to have his infirmity, his thorn in the flesh, removed. Then he heard God’s response, “. . .my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor. 12:9) The church receives power to feed the spiritually hungry when it recognizes its own limitations, its spiritual scarcity, and awaits the instructions of Jesus who will say at the right place and the right time, “Have the people sit down.” 

Mark 6:1-13 Jesus in His Hometown

Mark 6:5 "He could not do any miracles there." (NIV)

In his hometown Jesus was met by suspicion and ridicule. These people with whom Jesus had grown up from childhood were sure that they knew everything about him, and they were not open to the possibility that anything new and important could have arisen in his life or in their relationship to him. They knew his family and background, and they took offense when Jesus taught in the synagogue because his words came with an authority that his old friends found shocking and unacceptable. Jesus quoted a saying from that day, "Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor." (v. 4)

Actually, Mark recorded some miracles. Verse five reads in full, "He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them." Jesus could have and would have done more. The reason he did not is explained in verse six. Jesus was "amazed at their lack of faith."

Quantity of faith was not the issue. Jesus could have taken a mustard seed of faith and moved a mountain. The problem was lack of faith. Most people in Jesus' hometown did not have the faith that would draw them to him to ask for help. Their pride prevented them from even asking. One could use a common saying sometimes quoted today to describe these folks: "Familiarity breeds contempt." They were so sure that they knew everything about Jesus that they would not entertain the possibility that God's supernatural power was present and available to them through him.

Amazingly, people fall into this same prideful disdain for the Gospel today just as the folks in Jesus' hometown rejected his ministry. For many of those who live in what are described as Christian lands, the Gospel seems too familiar. For them the stories of Jesus and the church and the call to Christian disciplines of prayer, Bible study, worship, giving and service are just too pedestrian, too familiar, too boring. Consequently, people with "itching ears" as Paul described them, listen for some new source of authority, some new approach, some novel interpretation. Their confidence that they have heard everything that Jesus has said and know everything that the church has to offer, makes them spurn the message that God would use to transform their lives if they had enough faith to ask.

So, Jesus left his hometown to teach in the villages that were responsive. He sent his disciples throughout the land to call people to repentance. Those who rejected the message received a symbolic witness. Jesus told his disciples, "And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them." (v. 11)

People who welcome the authority of Jesus and the message that he has entrusted to the church will be transformed. If they have the humility to repent and the faith to ask for help, they will find that the power of the resurrection and the strength of the living Christ will dwell within them, and with Paul the apostle they will say, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:13)

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The Supreme Court Decision. In a very helpful article published in the Washington Post Russell Moore has stated his exception to the decision for same sex marriage and in a gentle but firm spirit written a challenge to the church to stand for truth and speak and minister in love. He made the observation that the church has always been on the wrong side of history; always the church is given the charge to stand as a countersign and witness to a culture gone wrong. Read his article.

John 10:11-18 A Reflection on Jesus the Good Shepherd

John 10:11   "I am the good shepherd."

One of the challenges of people who want to go to church today comes in finding a good pastor. This challenge has always existed. The prophet Jeremiah declared God's judgement upon the religious leaders of his time who failed to attend to the people God had entrusted to their care. Instead of gathering and protecting them they scattered the flock and put them at risk. (Jeremiah 23:1-4)

Although it is easy to enumerate the failures of pastors--and as a retired pastor I have a long list of my shortcomings--it is better to spend our time in thinking about how to find a good pastor. The way to find a good pastor is actually straightforward. There is only one good shepherd. He is the one who has laid down his life for the people, the one who had the power to lay down his life and the power to take his life up again. (John 10:18) Jesus, the good shepherd, is the only one who can fulfill the needs of the flock. He is the one and only Son of God who came to take away our sins through his death on the cross. He is the one and only one who has risen from the dead never to die again so that he may be with us now and forever to give us the strength to live life as God created it to be.

The right minister is the one who points away from his or her own ministry to the ministry of Jesus. Someone has said you never make yourself and Jesus look good at the same time. As John the Baptist said, "He must increase, but I must decrease." (John 3:30) The same is true of every local church. We do not want people to talk about the great choir or the great worship team or the great educational program or the great youth organization or the great panoply of ministries to the poor we perform. When people think of our church and our ministers we want them to say, what a great Savior is Jesus. The best pastors and the best churches point to him and they make sure that he receives the credit for the ministry given. No ministry will last that is not offered under his guidance, and no one seeking a pastor will be satisfied until Jesus is recognized as the one and only good shepherd.

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Safety? Judy found a story on one of her news feeds that reminds me that we are never safe or we are only safe in the hands of God. A man in Georgia decided to shoot an armadillo, a creature with a very armor like covering. He fired a 9mm pistol at the armadillo and hit him, but the bullet ricocheted and went through a fence post nearby, kept going a hundred yards more and pierced the side of a mobile home, kept going and pierced a recliner in which his mother-in-law was sitting. She was struck by the bullet! Although she needed to be taken to the hospital, she made a full recovery. I'm sure this story will be retold in their family much to the chagrin of the son-in-law for the rest of his life. For me it is a reminder that one can be sitting in a recliner inside one's home and still be in danger. The only safe place is in the providence of God.