FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture Reference: Isaiah 11:1-9; Ephesians 3:1-13

In spite of our verbal commitment to reach out to others in Jesus’ name, Christians have spent a good deal of our evangelistic and missionary energy trying to get persons not just to come to God in Christ, but to fit in with our system. We could reach out to people on the foreign mission or home mission field. We have not done much for people of different cultures who might get seriously interested in joining our churches and seeking the same kinds of leadership opportunities the rest of us want. You see, Paul wasn’t proclaiming a Christian community in which people have their places and have churches built for them in their part of town. Paul didn’t preach a “they-have-their-place” gospel; he preached a “come-in-and-sit-with-me” gospel.

Much of Christendom has yet to deal fairly with the issue of the equality of women and men before God. They don’t always have to be on one side or another of a husband to have status and a voice in the church. They don’t always have to be on the front side of the pulpit either. We haven’t fully believed or accepted it yet, but someone once summed up the whole matter: “At the foot of the cross, all are equal.” When the church decides to move away from the foot of the cross of Jesus, it may be a great organization, but it is no longer the church of Jesus Christ.

The message of inclusiveness burned deeply within Paul, and it colored all he said and did. He was bold enough to preach it. He was God’s spokesperson for that hour. Notice that his place in God’s plan didn’t make him peerless or entitle him to any position of exclusivity.

If, in any way, our nation, church, or families have been blessed of God, this has not come because we have earned it or God likes us better than anyone else; it is for the purpose of greater service. That’s the way things work in God’s system. Any blessing or talent or special calling is not for the recipient’s personal acclaim, to set her or him apart; it is for use in ministry to God’s people, either those in the church or still outside the church. This means that if God has brought you through some dark valley like depression, alcoholism, or bereavement, your job is only half done when you rejoice and praise God for His gift. You haven’t done what you need to do until you make yourself available to others who need help out of the same bondage from which you’ve been freed. All this implies that we refuse to see those groping in darkness (for whatever reason) as God-forsaken. No human being is or ever has been God-forsaken. We have repeatedly forsaken God, and God has repeatedly given us the freedom of our choices. God is not in the business of forsaking people, no matter what their plight, because of a divine and eternal love beyond our understanding.

The Jews and most of the early Jewish Christians thought the Gentiles were God-forsaken. Here were God’s people busily involved in leaving people out and often saying that there simply could be no place for them in the churches.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture Reference: Isaiah 11:1-9; Ephesians 3:1-13

When we organize a club or church, we act as if we want everybody to be a part of what we’re going to do; it can be that important to us. In reality, though, we spend our greatest amount of energy dealing with those whom we do not regard as suited for our clique. We deal with our elitism by saying that barriers to participation can be overcome by any outsider who will agree with our point of view, denounce what we denounce, get a wardrobe up to par, and understand that people of color still have their place.

Strangely enough, and we almost never remember this, the earliest Christians were Jews like Jesus. The early Jewish Christians, too, misunderstood their position in relation to God. Jesus and Christianity ultimately were not only for the Jews; the early Jewish Christians didn’t have exclusive rights either to God or this new revelation of God through Jesus. They were to take the benefits of their relationship with the Lord and become witnesses to all persons. They were to point others to Jesus Christ as Lord.

However, most often it didn’t work that way. Generally, they became possessive, proud, and selfish as they imagined that Jesus was only for them. Anybody who wanted to become a Christian, they believed, had to become a Jew first. Well, of course! Anybody who doesn’t do it our way is suspect.

Because of the brief earthly ministry of our Lord, this issue became more focused in Paul’s ministry than in Jesus’ ministry. When Paul wrote this Letter to the Ephesians, he was in jail. He was in jail when he wrote Ephesians for an unbelievable reason.

Paul, too, was a Jew. He had maintained his contact with the Jewish traditions and practices as long as there was no conflict with the implications of his faith in Jesus Christ. He had gone to the temple one day with two Gentile men; he had taken a couple of friends to worship with him, and he was accused of taking them further into the temple than they were supposed to go. The temple was set up in sections. Animals, Gentiles, and lepers could only go in a little way into a court called “The Court of the Gentiles.” Jewish women could go a little further. Jewish men could go a little further still. Priests could go up to the holy of holies, but only the high priest could go all the way into the center of the temple. The holy of holies was where the presence of the living God was thought to dwell, and a high priest could go to the center only one time a year. Paul was accused of taking Gentiles beyond their rightful place, and he was put in jail for it.

Now, Paul stood in a unique relationship with God, no doubt. It was in his ministry that a place for Gentiles in the church was first proclaimed. That was no easy position to take. Anytime the church makes some expansive choice to include, at any level, those who have not been freely accepted the status quo is threatened.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture Reference: Isaiah 11:1-9; Ephesians 3:1-13

It’s rather flattering, isn’t it, to be in some group which seems to receive God’s special favor? Correct or not, many people imagine that this is true of them. Some people say our nation is so favored. They measure “divine favor” by material prosperity and progress. We are a wealthy nation. We are a free nation. We are a strong nation in many respects. We call ourselves a “Christian nation” which is problematic, since a large number of our citizens are, by conviction, non-Christian and, technically, only individuals and not institutions can be Christian. Nonetheless, we claim to be a Christian nation. In our pledge of allegiance, we refer to ourselves as “one nation under God.” Our currency testifies that: “In God we trust.” This should be adequate proof, shouldn’t it, that God surely favors us over all the rest?

Some families who have a rather “smooth” life think God is bestowing special favor on them. They have money and jobs and believe that God helps those who help themselves. The children have never given their parents any real trouble, and the parents have never embarrassed the children through irresponsible behavior. Everyone gets along. They’ve experienced no tragedies, and they think, We know how to please God.

Some individuals think they have the corner on God’s favor. Not long ago, an entertainer who sang songs about adultery received an award for her singing. As she tearfully accepted, she said, “God is so good.” A Christian woman who believed that faith healing and the right kind of prayers were just the things said to an acquaintance who was dying from cancer, “The reason you can’t get well is because there is unforgiven sin in your life which you ought to confess to God.” To top it off, many believe if you aren’t as favored, it is because you have little to know faith.

Now, who really is “in good” with God? Who are God’s “special children”? Americans? Families for whom life is smooth? People who receive widely publicized honors and awards? Christians who are physically healthy? What about non-Americans? What about families with tons of pressures and problems and people who never get any fame, honor, or even a pat on the back? Aren’t people who suffer illness and disease tenderly loved by God, too?

The earliest people with whom God had a “special relationship” were the Israelites. They were the “chosen” people of God. But, they misunderstood their “chosen-ness.” Their status wasn’t a position of favoritism. It was a position of service. The Jews didn’t have exclusive rights to God. They were to take the benefits of their relationship with God and become a light to the nations. They were to point others to God. But, most often, it didn’t work that way. Generally, as is true of most groups who have become proud of their chosen-ness, they became possessive and imagined that God was interested in them alone, working for them and not for other groups of people. In fact, the circle of who is regarded as “chosen ones” becomes smaller and smaller over time.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture Reference: John 16:20-22

To some degree, Christianity agrees with philosophies which assert that human beings have limited freedom and externally determined destinies. In the world as it is, of course, there is no genuine freedom, and wise is the person who admits that such freedom is a childish dream. Childhood is left behind, the celebration ends, and all that remains are the deaf walls of day-to-day reality. But Christianity claims that this freedom still exists, that celebration is possible and has already started, and that “your sorrow will be turned into joy” (John 16:20). For by its very presence, this sorrow testifies of God, of the world of joy, love and freedom, of the world human beings were created to inhabit, and for which, often unknown even to themselves, they have always longed. “Our hearts are restless . . .”

This restlessness which nothing can relieve and nothing can satisfy is, for Christians, the primary evidence of God’s presence. But it is not for lack of trying that the restlessness goes unrelieved. Not a century has passed without someone’s trumpeting the latest solution to all problems, to all of humanity’s searching. Here’s the truth! Get complete peace and satisfaction! But in reality, nowhere outside of Christ Jesus, did anything ever deliver this peace. Today we still hear the claim: we’ve found the truth, here it is in this theory, in this doctrine. “You’ll see; a few years will go by and then we’ll have a new world, a new society, a new system that will give human beings total happiness.” But the decades go by and all we see are ruins. Who still believes in this dead doctrine? No one.

With no exaggeration, it can safely be said that nothing except faith, and no one except God, has ever succeeded in giving not just happiness, but a truly deep response to humanity’s persistent longing for genuine, authentic life; that’s where joy comes in . . . it is the fruit of the Spirit. God and faith have responded and continue to do so. When someone finds God, when the inner flame of faith is lit, then childhood’s lost celebration and wholeness are simultaneously returned and restored. This is what Christ was speaking about when he said, “Become as little children” (Matthew 18:3) and “Whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will by no means enter it” (Mark 10:15). To be like children simply and precisely means to return to life as joy and freedom that was once lived in that innocence.

Look at the saints. What is so striking about them is their joy, their complete peace in this joy, and their freedom: they have that inner freedom which comes only from assurance and confidence in the truth they have found. That is why the Church always celebrates. That is why the believer’s entire life is defined by a rhythm of inner preparation, approach of feast, and feast itself. Our sadness remains, but now it is the sadness that comes from being unable to give ourselves wholly to freedom and joy: We are still too bound-up with ourselves, with triviality, with pettiness, with the circumstances in the world that surround us, and with evil. Now, sadness leads the way into feast and celebration instead of suppressing it. Now, there is no evil or anything else capable of conquering and stripping away that mysterious light burning within our souls, that joy no one can take away. Therefore, in the end, it is through this joy and freedom of celebration that faith will overcome a system empty of celebration, whose uninspired, colorless ideology has nothing to offer humanity.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture Reference: John 16:20-22

All celebrations, and religious celebrations especially, begin with a feeling of freedom. Starting with freedom, celebrations at the same time also manifest, embody, and express the deep human thirst for freedom. However, understand that I am not speaking merely of external or political freedom, or the freedom to work, but about life itself as freedom. In reality, of course, everything ties us down to one degree or another and subjects us to somebody or something. This is one of humanity’s most basic experiences. Human beings are slaves to time, to their geography and environment, to their genetic inheritance, to their physical constitution, to climate, to the circumstances in which they live. Finally, they are slaves to life’s unpredictable circumstances and to its inescapable conclusion. The longer humans live and the further they move away from childhood, the more clearly they see how hemmed-in they are on all sides. Of course, within the limits of these boundaries, within the narrow plot of ground and time allotted to them, they assume they are somehow free. But as a person’s spirit becomes deeper and more sensitive, he or she sees more clearly how illusive and limited their freedom really is. Their sadness and longing for genuine freedom becomes deeper and deeper. “Living always in darkness and always in strife, how dark is the darkness, how narrow the strife,” wrote one poet to describe human life. The deep truth of these words is felt by all but the most coarse and vulgar, those who live for the moment and keep themselves entertained with cheap thrills and chemical escapes.

All human culture, art, and poetry is permeated with a sadness which seems to be the most human and authentic of emotions, and this sadness concerns precisely the sense of imprisonment and limitation in life, the mortality and fragility of everything in this world. Only in childhood are we unaware of this, which is why even the most impoverished childhood seems to be one continuous celebration. Life is seen as lighthearted and joyful, like an open window on a glorious spring morning, full of limitless possibilities. A person becomes an adult when this inner spirit of celebration shrinks, and in its place the perception grows that life is like a prison. Sadness and gloom suddenly enters in. Thus, no matter how a person tries to numb that sadness, if they are honest with themselves, it never goes away. The Christian experience of faith can only be understood in relation to this sadness, for this is precisely where faith takes shape, within the depths of that primal, subtle, and exalted sadness, without which a person is not a person, but an animal. In fundamental Christianity this sadness is known as “godly sorrow” (2 Corinthians 7:10), for if in spite of all their experience of restriction, fragility, and mortality human beings are still thirsting for something more, if they are never willing to accept imprisonment as the totality of human life, then we have to ask why. Why don’t they accept it? Why are they still sad, and where does that sadness come from? No other creature on earth experiences this type of sadness. Yet human beings, no matter how often experience should convince them otherwise, continue to hold onto words like immortality, eternity, spirit, freedom, joy; they continue to use them as if they were words of exorcism. Thus art, which reflects human sadness, becomes the expression of the impossible dream of breaking through to that “something more,” which earthly experience cannot even begin to imagine. “Our hearts are restless,” wrote St Augustine, “until they rest in You [God].” Godly sorrow is this sadness and longing for freedom.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.