Monday, October 23, 2017

Three Prays-Worthy Qualities

"Three Prays-Worthy Qualities"
1 Thessalonians 1:1-3

Standing in his tower, looking out over his kingdom, the midget king of the comic, “Wizard of Id,” observed, “Thanksgiving Day again.  And as I look out over my kingdom...I must pause to give thanks.”  After thinking it over, he left muttering to himself, “Thanks for nothing.”

There are people like that--people who find nothing to be thankful for.  They go through life bitter and depressed.  That’s why one of the qualities I admire about the apostle Paul is that he could write to each church he started, and no matter how bad the situation might be in that particular congregation, he found something for which he gave thanks to God.  Even in the church at Corinth--a church that created headache after headache for Paul--he still found many reasons to give thanks.  And so it is with the church at Thessalonica.

When Paul first went to Thessalonica, he had only been there three weeks, when opposition mounted.  A few Jews converted to Christianity, as did a number of non-Jews.  But those Jews who were repulsed by the Gospel, and out of a furious jealousy of Paul, hired what Phillips translation called, “...the unprincipled loungers of the marketplace.”  These people “gathered a crowd together and set the city in an uproar” (Acts 17:5).  Those who had come to believe in Christ, whisked Paul out of the hands of the crowd and got him safely out of town.

It wasn’t too long after that experience that Paul wrote this letter to the Thessalonian church, giving thanks to God.  For what?  For such a “great” reception?  No.  For the believers and what they were having to go through in order to hold on to their new-found beliefs, in a church that was in the stages of infancy.  He told the Thessalonian believers that he was thankful for three specific qualities he saw alive in them.  Let’s go through them together.


The first trait for which Paul gives thanks concerning the Thessalonian congregation was that their “...faith has meant solid achievement.”  The word Paul used that is translated, “solid achievement” has to do with the work you do in your occupation--your chosen vocation.  But it isn’t about what you accomplish in your work--how many widgets you sell, how many computers you fixed, how many miles of road you got paved, how many student’s papers you graded, etc.  What Paul is describing has more to do with the attitude with which you work.

When we ordain an Elder or Deacon or Minister in the church, one of the questions they are asked is, “Will you serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love?”  That, I think, is what Paul was describing how the faith of the believers ignited some great qualities of how they worked, not what they did in their work.  Does your faith in Christ energize your working, rather than just sap you dry by the end of the day?  Does your work, because of your faith, use the full reaches of your mind and intellect?  Does your faith push you to stretch your imagination of what could be--of what is possible?  That’s what Paul was praising the Thessalonian believers about.

So the “solid achievements” weren’t things the believers were doing in the community--just yet.  It was what they were doing in themselves, first.  Then, as they changed as people, as individuals, they began to transform others around them.  By making individual changes, they then began to transform the culture around them.  Those are truly “solid achievements.”

During the reign of Oliver Cromwell, the British government began to run low on silver for coins.  Lord Cromwell sent his men on an investigation of the local cathedrals to see if they could find any precious metal there.  After investigating, the soldiers reported, “The only silver we could find is in the statues of the saints standing in the corners.”  To which Cromwell replied, “Good!  We’ll melt down the saints and put them into circulation!”

Our purpose as believers is not to stand in the corners of our churches and allow ourselves to be seen as only some kind of relics, who hold on to the same kind of relic faith.  Our attitude toward our faith is to one of an active energy, intelligence, imagination, and love, that gets us in circulation in order to transform the culture around us.


That leads well to the second quality that Paul gives thanks to God for in the Thessalonian congregation:  “...your love has meant hard work…”

This is a somewhat gruesome phrase in the Greek language that Paul wrote in.  Its most literal meaning of the phrase, “...has meant hard work…” is to suffer a beating and feel the bone weariness that such a beating causes.  In a more general meaning, it has the sense of the kind of exertion that brings on physical tiredness, almost to the point of collapse or exhaustion.

What Paul is praising God for, concerning the people in that congregation, is for developing the kind of love that doesn’t come easy; the kind of love which takes a beating, but is not beaten down.  As the old Timex watch commercial used to say, “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”

A church custodian was once asked how old he was.  “I’m 47,” he replied.
“But how long have you been working here at the church?” he was asked further.
“55 years,” he said in reply.
“And how could you do that?” the questioner asked.
“Overtime!” the custodian replied.

The kind of love exhibited by these Christians was “overtime” kind of love--above and beyond the call of duty.  Such love, by the nature and level of antagonism dished out by the culture in Thessalonica, had to be an overtime, extra mile kind of character.  We get the idea here that love is hard work, but also that the Christians worked hard because of their love.  The Good News translation has this phrase as, “...your love made you work so hard…”  It was for love, and out of love that the Christians kept up their work of sharing the Good News of the Gospel in the face of constant setback and abuse.  In fact, Paul went further.  To him, it was sheer joy.

Khalil Gibran, in his book, The Prophet , wrote,
Work is love made visible.  And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms from those who work with joy.

Work can only be a joy if love is the mainspring that keeps the whole thing wound and running.

If we love, it doesn’t matter what we are facing.  That is not just a romantically frilly statement either.  The kind of love Paul was being prays-worthy about to the Thessalonians was the kind that was willing to exert itself, the kind that was willing to work through exhaustion, the kind of love that was willing to roll up its sleeves and sweat.


The final prays-worthy quality for which Paul thanks God about the Thessalonian congregation was that, “...the hope that you have in our Lord Jesus Christ means sheer dogged endurance in the life that you live before God.”

This kind of endurance Paul is talking about is characterized by the ability to stand fast, while at the same time waiting, and being full of expectation.  It’s not just an anemic kind of perseverance.  It’s more an energetic (there’s that word again, like in the first quality--see how these are all tied together?)--it’s more an energetic kind of endurance.

Timothy Walker, in his book, The Stained Glass Gospel, told the story about a man who lives in Maine.  The man used to live in a little town named Flagstaff, which was flooded as part of a large dam and lake project carried out by the Army Corp of Engineers.  The man said the most painful part of the experience, besides relocation, was watching his hometown die.  He said all improvements and repairs ceased.  What was the use of painting a house which would be covered with water?  Why repair a building when the whole town would be wiped out?  Why worry about rubbish and potholes in the streets or graffiti on the walls?  So week after week, the whole town became more and more bedraggled and desolate.  Then he added this comment:  “When there is no hope in the future, there is no power in the present.”

Hope does focus itself on the future, but it must be lived out in the here and now.  That is what patience and endurance is all about.  What Paul is praising the Christians for is that he knows they have hope, because they are energetically resisting and enduring RIGHT NOW!  If, in the way they were living in the present was not demonstrated by such endurance, he would have known they had given up their hope.

A chaplain was talking with one of the soldiers of the army of the Potomac, who took part in the battle of Gettysburg.  He belonged to the Sixth Corps, the corps that made the famous march from Manchester to Gettysburg.  The soldier told the chaplain, that march, with the clouds of dust, the perspiration, the blood of wounded limbs trickling down into his boots, was the hardest experience of his whole long war service.

It is, often harder to march than it is to fight.  We know what to do with ourselves in tight skirmishes with the enemy.  We know what to do during the heat of the battle.  But the test of endurance in life is the long march of faith.  It is a march that all Christians have set out upon.  You will meet many others who have gone part of the way and turned aside.  You will have by your side many others who are ready to quit.  But always there are some who are going steadily forward, and who have no idea of anything but enduring to the end.  Of using every bit of their energy, intelligence, imagination and love to keep going.

And why is it that we are able to endure?  Here is how these three prays-worthy qualities intertwine.  We endure because of our faith in Jesus Christ—a faith that works, and achieves.  But it isn’t our faith as much as it is Whom our faith is in:  our Lord Jesus Christ.

When I lived in California, I discovered that it is one of the states that consistently rates toward the top in the country in terms of its percentage of suicides.  The reason sociologists and psychologists think that is so is because many people have gone to California with what has been a last hope scenario, either as to health or for personal fortune.  When that hope in a dream or hope in themselves failed them, life no longer held anything for them.

What Paul is saying is that we can be hopeful and endure because of who our faith is in—not some last gasp grasp at straws, either in California or anywhere else.  Instead it is an unashamed faith in Jesus Christ and our hard-working love for Him as Lord and Savior will be the only thing that keeps us enduring.

Monday, October 16, 2017

Syzygus, Syntche & Euodia

"Syzygus, Syntyche & Euodia"
Philippians 4:1-3

Syzygus was nervous.  He paced back and forth, biting his lower lip as he thought about the task that lay before him.  In a little less than an hour he would be meeting with a group of believers in his home.  Two women would be there.  One was Euodia, who had been one of the first converts in Philippi.  She had graciously opened her home, so the followers of Christ would have some place to meet for worship and for teaching.  Syzygus had admired her courage and leadership from the first.  He was the leader of this group of Christians.  He’d been put in charge by Paul himself.  But Euodia was the backbone of this little congregation.

A problem had arisen, and Syzygus wasn’t sure how he was going to handle it.  It was time for him to step forward and take charge of the situation.  Syzygus thought through how it had all began, hoping he would find a way to bring the situation under control.

Two months ago, a younger woman was brought to church by Euodia.  Syntyche was her name.  Euodia had been talking to Syntyche about Jesus and the group of believers who met in her home.  It seemed to be an ideal situation--the older, wiser Euodia, gently bringing this young woman into the fold.  Even though Syntyche lived on the other side of the city, Euodia was going out of her way to make almost daily contact with her young friend.

Syzygus remembered back to the night that Syntyche gave her life to Christ.  There were a number of people who had come to Euodia’s house wanting to find out more about Jesus.  Syzygus had preached about how Jesus had changed his life.  Many of the two dozen believers shared how Jesus had touched their lives also, and how they had come to believe.  Stories of dramatic turn-arounds were shared.  Questions about Jesus were asked and answered.  Several times that night the group stopped their story-sharing for prayer.  The Holy Spirit was moving amongst that little collection of believers and seekers.

Then it happened.  Syntyche stood up, weeping and holding herself, and cried out, “I want to have Jesus in my life!  I want the salvation of Jesus!  I want to be free of my sin and my past.  I want to live!  I want to live with Jesus!”  Euodia quickly moved to her side.  Syzygus asked two of the other believers to bring a bucket of water from the well.  Euodia was leading the people in prayer, saying a line, and then all would repeat it.  The others who were still not sure about these Christians, watched everything that was happening with expressions that were a mixture of fear and wonder.

Those with the water bucket came hurriedly into the home, spilling water as they came.  Syzygus asked everyone to step outside, where they all gathered around him, Euodia and Syntyche.  Syzygus reached out and held Syntyche by the shoulders and said, “Syntyche, you have expressed your faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord of your life.  Do you now wish to be baptized in his name?”
Through a tear streaked face, she shook her head, “Yes.”
Syzygus then said, “Under this water you will be with Jesus in his death.  When you rise up from this water, you will rise up with Jesus in his miraculous Resurrection.  The person you once were, you will be no longer.  The person you are and are to become in Jesus is now who you will be.  Sin and the past will no longer be the master of your life.  Only Jesus will be your Master.  Is this what you want?”
“Yes!” Syntyche burst out.  “With all of my heart!”

Syzygus motioned for the bucket of water.  Euodia had Syntyche kneel, then backed away a step.  Syzygus held the bucket over Syntyche’s head and began to pour.  The water cascaded down upon the kneeling and praying form of Syntyche while Syzygus spoke, “Syntyche, I baptize you in the name of Jesus our Savior.  Receive the Holy Spirit.”  When all the water had been poured out upon her, he reached down his hand, and said, “Arise, Syntyche; arise in Christ our Resurrected Lord.”  She stood, a beaming smile upon her face.  Euodia led everyone in a responsive hymn, and then they all congratulated Syntyche, welcoming her into the faith and their little body of believers.


Syzygus stopped his pacing, closed his eyes and paused his remembering so he could say a quick prayer of thanks to God for that wonderful night.  But then other memories interrupted his praying.  Memories of how a rift had grown between those once close women.  Soon the two women would be gathering with other believers Syzygus had asked to come and be part of the healing.  He began pacing again, wondering how it would go.


Syzygus had asked everyone to come to his home.  He had received a letter from Paul, and everyone should come hear it, was the word Syzygus had put out.  No one would want to miss hearing Paul’s letter read, including the two feuding women.  They had both come, but they were sitting in opposite sides of the room, surrounded by their supporters, as if they were two wrestlers ready to come out of their corners when the gong sounded.

Syzygus knew what was in the letter.  He had read it earlier.  He had sent word to Paul about the situation between the two women, and had been anxiously awaiting a reply.  He held the papyrus scroll in his hands.  It was not as much as he had hoped, but he realized the little Paul had written was full of wisdom.  Would the women hear it?  Better yet, would they listen to it?


The room was silent as Syzygus opened the scroll and began to read Paul’s flawless handwriting.  Slowly, Syzygus read his way through the letter, getting nods of approval and thoughtful expressions on the faces of those gathered.  Syzygus felt like he had a live bird in his belly and it had grown in size as he neared the place in the letter.  He took a deep breath, swallowed the bird down out of his throat, and continued reading:
My dear, dear friends! I love you so much. I do want the very best for you. You make me feel such joy, fill me with such pride. Don’t waver. Stay on track, steady in God.
I urge Euodia and Syntyche to iron out their differences and make up. God doesn’t want his children holding grudges.

And, oh, yes, Syzygus, since you’re right there to help them work things out, do your best with them. These women worked for the Message hand in hand with Clement and me, and with the other veterans—worked as hard as any of us. Remember, their names are also in the Book of Life.

Syzygus stopped reading, but kept staring at the words on the scroll, afraid to look up, and really afraid to look in each of the corners of the room where the women sat.

“How did Paul find out,” a voice asked.  Syzygus knew it was Syntyche’s.
“I wrote to him,” Syzygus confessed
“I did, too.”  Syzygus’ head snapped up to see who had spoken.  It was Cletus, one of the original converts who had first heard the gospel from Paul.
“And so did I,” said another.  Three others raised their hands pointing to themselves, signaling that they also had brought the situation to Paul’s attention.  Syzygus’ shoulders relaxed quickly as he pleasantly realized he was not carrying this burden alone.  Others were bothered by it as well.  Syzygus would have much welcome support in the process he was about to lead.

Syzygus took advantage of this revelation.  “Do you see what this means?” he spoke to the two women.  They both quickly avoided his looking at them and did not speak.  “It means,” he continued, “that your arguing and divisiveness affects us all.  It isn’t just between you two--it is about us all.”  Still they would not meet his look, nor would they speak.  “Your feuding defines us all.  We are no longer concerned about growing in our faith, but instead whose side we are on.  Jesus no longer occupies our thinking.  You two, and your gossipy bickering have taken over that spot.  I believe, as your leader, given my authority by Paul, that this fight can not be resolved simply by you two alone, but must involve all of us.  This is not just your problem; this is our problem.”  Syzygus paused to let his words sink in to all those listening.

“And what’s worse,” Syzygus started in again, “is that it took Paul to remind you two, to remind us all, to whom we belong.  We belong to the Lord Jesus.  We think that Jesus is only part of our worship and our praise, and forget that Jesus is a part of our everyday lives also.  And that includes our arguing and bickering and behind the back gossiping.  Do you understand that?”  Syzygus had rehearsed this speech over and over in his head ever since he got Paul’s letter, but now in the moment, he wasn’t sure it was coming out like he intended.

“Euodia,” he said looking her straight in the face.  Then turning his head to the other side of the room, “Syntyche,” he said.  “Listen to Paul’s words.  ‘You belong to the Lord.’  Do you believe that?”  They both nodded, “Yes.”  “Do you know what that means?” he asked.  No response from either woman.

Then Euodia spoke.  “I believe it means we are not our own.  I believe it means that we don’t get to do how our inclinations lead, but instead we are to move in the direction that our Lord leads.  I believe,” she said slowly, “it means we involve Jesus in everything we do, both the good and the bad.  I believe,” and now everyone gathered was repeating after her as if she were leading them in a unison reading, “that what we have as our common unity is Jesus the Lord.  I believe, that every time we argue, we are not just tearing the fabric of our relationship with each other, we are tearing Christ.  That is what I believe.”  And there she stopped talking.

Syzygus allowed the silence to do its work.

When the silence crossed the line and became uneasy, Syzygus cleared his throat and said, “You know what I was remembering this morning?  I was remembering the night of your baptism, Syntyche.  It was one of the most moving experiences of faith that I have witnessed.  I was remembering who was standing by your side the whole time--the same person who first told you about Jesus.  As I remembered, I wished that the two of you could be like that again.  I wished that that memory of the night of your baptism wouldn’t be smeared by the sight of you both in opposition to each other now.  With our dear friend, Paul, I add my weight to his pleading, knowing I can’t force you two to reconcile.  I can only beg of you to see clearly in this.  For our sake as your brothers and sisters in Christ.  For your own sake.  And for the sake of the Lord Jesus to whom you both belong and binds you together.”

And then he stopped talking.  He simply stood waiting and watching for any movement from either corner of the room.

Monday, October 9, 2017

Scoop The Poop

"Scoop The Poop"
Philippians 3:1-11

One of my best friends in high school and into college was Tim Allen.  Not Tim Allen the comedian.  This was a different Tim Allen.  Tim was one of those kinds of athletes who was endowed with natural ability but built on that natural ability with hard work.  He could master any sport, and he did.  In the Seattle area where we grew up, Tim was an all-conference and all state flanker in football.  He was all-conference honorable mention in basketball.  And he was an all-state low and high hurdler in track.

He went on to Montana State University on a football scholarship and attracted a lot of attention with his speed, agility and ability to catch any pass thrown in his direction.  It was like his hands were made out of rubber cement.  Tom Landry, then head coach of the Dallas Cowboys was personally checking in on Tim.

In terms of Tim's faith, he was a leader in Young Life, a non-denominational senior high Christian fellowship.  He went to weekly Bible Studies.  He was in church every Sunday.  He had plans to enter some kind of Christian vocation.

One of my treasured memories with Tim was at our Senior Party that followed our high school graduation ceremonies.  Tim wanted to talk, and I know this is going to sound really weird, but we found this really large janitor's closet, so we went in there and he talked about his faith and where he felt God was leading him.  And I talked about the same for me.  All the rock music, and dancing, and hubbub of our graduation party that was going on outside the door of that janitor's closet faded away in the quietness of our praying together for each other.

Tim was dating, and eventually became engaged to one of the popular cheerleaders at our high school.  She was also active in Young Life, a straight A student, and had a perky, outgoing, but not overbearing personality that contrasted nicely with Tim's shyness.

After a year at a community college in the Seattle area, I transferred over to Whitworth College in Spokane.  It is a small Presbyterian college, much like Hastings College in Nebraska, but Whitworth was better.  Tim was becoming increasingly disgruntled with Montana State because of a huge lack of Christian fellowship.  He knew I was going to a Christian college, knew a little about it, looked into it further and decided to transfer over.  I couldn't believe it.

We arranged to be roommates in the same dorm and had a blast together.  He was grinding up opposing football teams almost single handily.  And we were growing in our faith and friendship.

But something happened halfway through our sophomore year.  Once he moved to Spokane, Tim started going to a little, charismatic kind of church.  It was a church that started in China, and somehow moved into the United States.  It bordered on being a Christian cult, with a lot of weird kind of programming going on.  I went to one of what they called their "Bible studies," and it was more a shouting match.  One person was the leader; he would shout out a piece of a Bible verse and everyone else shouted it back.  They would go on like this for hours, adding a little piece of the verse until they had shouted the whole thing.  Tim would come out of those sessions totally hoarse and unable to speak.

After the Fall semester was over, Tim moved out of the dorm and into the communal living house owned by that church.  A few weeks later he moved out of my life.  And everyone else's, as a matter of fact.  He was going to get married that summer to his high school sweetheart.  But he broke that engagement off, almost unfeelingly, quickly, and coldly.  He quit football.  Then he quit school.  Then he quit his family.  And lastly he quit his friends.

The heart of his justification for his actions was the verses just read from the third chapter of the letter to the Philippians.  I can't tell you how many times he told me that everything in his past was nothing but garbage and death.  That the only thing of value to him was Christ and Christ alone.  "It's like a drink of fresh, cold, pure water," he'd tell me, trying to describe the change that had come over him and the Christian awakening he had experienced.

He saw in my eyes that I didn't really understand.  That I didn't understand anything about it.  I tried to pretend that I did, but I didn't really.

He moved back east for a time; was elevated to the position of "prophet" in that church—whatever that meant.  And then I lost track of him.  I got his address from his mom a time or two, wrote a couple of letters, but his responses were along the lines of, "You just don't understand."  I gave up trying.  I gave up trying to understand why, in my estimation, he had thrown his life away, and all the promise it represented, all in the name of his new-found religious fervor.

That whole experience gave me an inside look into what must have happened with Paul and his peers, when Paul gave up his life to become a follower of Christ.  Paul dropped his past like a rock thrown into the sea.  And it appeared he couldn't wait until it had sunk far enough as to be out of sight.

He called his past "garbage."  The King James Version uses the word, "dung," which is actually as close to the true meaning as you can get.  It was a vulgar word Paul used, equivalent to our "s" word.  He used such a crass word because he wanted to emphasize the lengths to which he had gone in terms of renouncing his past, and contrasting the total valuelessness of his past compared to his present relationship with Christ.  Likening his past to worthless sewage, Paul flushed it all away.  As did Tim.

Some people give something up for Lent.  It was like Paul, and Tim, gave everything up for Lent.

It is important that we see what Paul was calling "poop."  The opening verses of this 3rd chapter give us the picture:

I was circumcised when I was a week old.  I am an Israelite by birth, of the tribe of Benjamin, a pure-blooded Hebrew.  As far as keeping the Jewish Law is concerned, I was a Pharisee, and I was so zealous that I persecuted the church.  As far as a person can be righteous by obeying the commands of the Law, I was without fault.  But all those things I might count as profit I now reckon as loss for Christ's sake.

Now, when we think of someone trashing some aspect of their lives we can imagine all the immoral, lowlife, back alley kinds of characteristics.  Those kinds of things should be pooper scooped out of our lives.

In a little devotional book titled, My Heart, Christ's Home, Robert Munger likens his heart to a house with many different rooms.  When he invites Christ into his home, Christ begins to walk through each room transforming it.  This cleaning is almost complete except for one room:  the hall closet.  Here is how Munger tells it:
One day I found Him waiting for me at the door.  There was an arresting look in His eyes.  He said to me, "There is a peculiar odor in the house.  There is something dead around here.  It's upstairs.  I think it is in the hall closet"  As soon as He said the words, I knew what He was talking about…In that closet, behind lock and key, I had one or two little things that I did not want anybody to know about and certainly I did not want Christ to see.  I knew they were dead and rotting things.  And yet I loved them, and I wanted them so for myself that I was afraid to admit they were there.

Munger went on to explain how, after choking back anger and fear at the demands of Christ, he handed over the key to the closet door and allowed Christ in to clean it out.  "I haven't the strength to do it," Munger wrote.

We all have locked closets, don't we, with a few or many things that need cleaning out?  They are full of dung heaped things that are better scooped out by Christ for Him to cleanse from our lives.

But, that is NOT what Paul was describing when he was talking about scooping the poop out of his life.  Alarmingly, Paul was talking about scooping some fairly fine qualities.  He was retelling the flushing away not of a sordid past but a past decorated with accomplishment.  His was not a life that people wagged their heads and shook their fingers at.  Instead it was a life that brought Paul admiration and respectability from community and peers alike.

Paul's past was not one of a destitute, skid row bum.  Nor did it resemble anything close to a mafia racketeer boss, nor was he in any way, shape or form an immoral scoundrel.  Instead, Paul was an up and coming Jewish yuppie wonderkid, who advanced quickly through the ranks of religious stardom!

It was that kind of admirable past that Paul was calling poop.  Here is where the roads of St. Paul and my friend Tim converge.  Tim's early life was a string of success stories that seemed to be leading him to a bright future.  It was something you'd read in a storybook.  And then he gave it all up.

This trashing of life is even more puzzling when we see what it was that Paul really wanted for himself.  At verse 10 he states:
All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of His Resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like Him in His death, in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life.

Put those two lists side-by-side.  That is what he was in the past, and this is what he is trying to attain in the future.  Which would you choose?  Really.  Wouldn't we go for the Paul who was full of growing power and influence rather than be like the Paul who was emptying himself towards a weakness and vulnerability that is epitomized by a man suffering, crucified and dying on a cross?  Wouldn't we?

Wouldn't we be standing with all of Paul's friends shaking our heads in disgust down at the Toga Kosher Bar, wondering what's come over our old friend Paul?  How he's gone off the deep end?  Wouldn't you, likeI did, just stand more than a little baffled about a best friend who just told you his total past was death and poop, knowing that you were a big part of that past?

This is difficult stuff, because that kind of total sacrifice and expulsion is certainly scary and maybe it is just beyond most of our abilities to comprehend.  But let me attempt to bring this all home for you.

It's about the long road of faith we are on, and how to get on that road, how to stay on that road, and what it means to be on that road.

The on-the-road advice Paul is giving us for our journey, by retelling some of his story, is that we need to travel light.  If we don't, we will be forced to.  Or, at least we will be forced to decide if we want to go on in the journey scooping out the poop; or, never go any further with Christ because we would rather carry around the poop we think is so important.

There is the story of a hiker who came too close to the edge of a cliff.  He lost his footing and fell over the side.  Clawing and scratching to stop his deadly slide towards a vertical drop, he caught a shrub with both hands and held on for dear life.  Filled with terror he called out heavenward, "Is anyone up there?"
A calm, powerful voice came out of the sky and said, "Yes there is."
The hiker pleaded, "Can you help me?"
The calm voice replied, "Yes, I can.  What is your problem?"
"I fell off a cliff and am dangling in space, holding on to a bush that is about to rip out of the ground.  Please help me!"
The voice from above said, "I will.  Do you believe?"
"Yes, yes, I believe!
"Do you have faith?"
"Yes, yes, I have a strong faith!"
The calm voice said, "Well, in that case, simply let go of the bush and you will be saved."
There was a tense pause; then the hiker yelled, "Is there anyone else up there?"

In order to have Christ, in order to go through the Cross as we journey, we must be willing to scoop not only the things that really are poop in our lives, but also those things that may represent our security and respectability.

Paul realized, as maybe did my friend Tim, that there comes a time in one's life, if you are on the road of faith, journeying "in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life," when you come to that Cross, getting past it always means that we gain by scooping the poop, we attain by relinquishing all, and we take hold by letting go.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

An Attitude Adjustment

"An Attitude Adjustment"
Philippians 2:5-11

Here are different kinds of attitudes toward life that you can have that might be beneficial.

Go for all the gusto in life that you can.
Fill up your life with all kinds of experiences—it does not matter what, just go out and experience everything.
If it feels good, do it.
Don't hold back.
Do it your way.
Let it all hang out.
Gain as much as you can in terms of wealth, possessions, and especially power.
Get as much leverage as you can over other people and use it to your advantage.
Take care of yourself first, because, hey, who is going to look out for number one if you don't.
Do not be in debt to anyone, but make as many people in debt to you as possible.
Pull your own strings.
Become so powerful that you can make the rules rather than have to cow to someone else's game.
Do not give an inch.
Live life according to your agenda rather than someone else's.
Take command.
Do not march to anyone else's drum beat but your own.
Defer to someone only when it will be to your advantage to do so.
You only go around once in life, so get yours while you can.
Do not worry about consequences; they will take care of themselves.
Do not do anything unless it is personally profitable.
Press your every advantage.
Gain the upper hand.
Crack the whip.
Climb the ladder of upward mobility.
Get on the inside track.
Throw your weight around.
Be assertive.
Do not be a nobody.
Be one of the movers and shakers rather than being moved and shook.
Remember that nice guys finish last.
Do not get mad, get even.
Do not be a follower, be a leader.
The world is a jungle out there, so remember it is the survival of the fittest.
Do unto others before they do unto you.
You have to get it while the goings good.
Do not miss out on your piece of the pie.
It is the early bird that catches the worm.
Nobody remembers second place.

If you have these kinds of attitudes toward life, and if these are the values upon which you base your relationships, then you will probably go very far.  You will probably be envied, and you most likely will be some kind of celebrity.  Your opinion will be sought after.  You will not only be famous, you will be rich.  Somebody might even write a book about you, or produce a movie about your life.  With these kinds of attitudes I have listed, you could have all that and more!


But you would not be like Christ.  You would not be letting your attitude to life be  that of Christ Jesus.  You would not be letting your actions towards others rise out of your life in Christ Jesus.  In fact, you would be the exact opposite.

Paul wrote at this point in the letter to the Philippians:  "As you deal with one another, you should think and act as Jesus did" (2:5).  Then, Paul went on to describe what Jesus' actions were:
He made himself nothing.
He did this by taking on the nature of a servant.
He was made just like human beings.
He appeared as a man.
He was humble and obeyed God completely.
He did this even though it led to his death.
Even worse, he died on a cross!

Paul told us a lot about who Jesus was in this short hymn or poem here in the letter to the Philippians.  If you want to know who Jesus was, and what Jesus' life was about, what Jesus based his character on, this is one of the best places to go to find that out.

We find out that Jesus was God and one with God.  But that Jesus gave all that up in order to become a human being.
"In his very nature he was God,
Instead he made himself nothing."
It is as if you were a four star general but you gave that up to become a corporal.
It is like you were the king, but you gave that up to become a homeless beggar.
It is like you were a lion and you gave that up to become a mouse.
It is like you were a nuclear power plant, but you gave that up to become a lump of coal.
It is like you were Denali, but you gave that up to be a prairie dog mound.
It is like… (you get the idea).

If you were going to chose the kind of attitude you would want for life, what Paul wrote about Jesus probably would not be it.  We would probably be more comfortable with some of the ones I rattled off at the start.  We are more comfortable with them, because they are the prevailing attitudes of our culture, and they impact us whether we admit it or not.  To go against such deeply intrenched societal attitudes, to totally empty ourselves as Christ did, takes a decision on our part, a force of will once that decision has been made, and the grace of God when we go back on our decisions.

But I want you to notice how Paul started out this section of his letter:  "As you deal with one another, you should think and act as Jesus did."  This whole part of Paul's letter is not primarily to tell us about Jesus—although it does that very well.  No, the main purpose is to tell us, as Christians, how to "think and act" in our dealing with each other!

Don't get me wrong.  As I said, we learn a ton about the nature and person of Jesus.  We learn a lot about who Jesus was and what Jesus' relationship to God was.  But instead, just as I also said, the primary reason Paul is writing this about Jesus is to make the point that we all have to find some way to relate to each other in the church.  For Paul, the best way to do that is look at Jesus, who he was before and after he came into the world, and what Jesus gave up just to come into the world, to us and for us.  And once we have figured that out, to act that way towards each other.

One of the most important words in Paul's Christ poem is the word, "humble," in verse 8.  In the Greek language Paul was writing, the word literally meant, "to be leveled," or, "be reduced to a plain."  The word then morphed into some more particular meanings that have to do with humility.  Some of those included, "to erase all pride from your soul."  Or, "to be empty of all haughtiness."

John Ruskin, the English art critic and social thinker of the 1800's once wrote:
I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own power, or hesitation in speaking his opinion. But really great men have a ... feeling that the greatness is not in them but through them; that they could not do or be anything else than God made them."

So, one way to put all that together is to think of a conduit.  Humility is not about who you are, but how much of a conduit you are.  Humility is not about you being the conduit.  It is about that which flows through you as the conduit.  Or, in the case of Paul's meaning, whom you allow to flow through you.  Thus, Paul described Jesus as the one who had the widest, most open flow of God through himself.

How can we be such a conduit, such a pipe for the flow of God through us to each other?  For Paul, it was in a word:  Humility.

In the summer of 1986, two ships collided in the Black Sea off the coast of Russia. Hundreds of passengers died as they were hurled into the icy waters below. News of the disaster was further darkened when an investigation revealed the cause of the accident. It wasn't a technology problem like radar malfunction--or even thick fog. The cause was human stubbornness. Each captain was aware of the other ship's presence nearby. Both could have steered clear, but according to news reports, neither captain wanted to give way to the other. Each was too proud to yield first. By the time they came to their senses, it was too late.

In our relationships with each other, that's what pride does—it forces us to run into each other in an awful collision.  Instead of being a conduit for God for each other, we end up banging on each other, rather than letting God flow through us.  Instead of being humble, and erasing all pride from our souls, or being empty of all our haughtiness, we push and posture ourselves into a terrible catastrophe.  And it all could have been avoided if we changed the way we act and think to how Jesus did.

Pride makes us become less than what God created us to be.  Humility brings out the best of what God created us to be, because it brings out God, not us.  And that is all up to you.