“Doubting Thomas”?

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Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.—John 20:24-31 (ESV)

Doubt’s a funny thing, sort of a grey area between belief and unbelief—between, you might say, two different kinds of certainty. It can be paralyzing, leaving people unable to act because they don’t know what to do. Sometimes, it can be liberating, freeing people to let go of a false certainty to seek a true one. It can be unhealthy, especially if it becomes obsessive; but it can also be a healthy thing, reminding us that we might not know quite as much as we think we do. Of course, doubt can be dishonest, really a mask for a determination not to believe something—or, in some cases, for a refusal to commit to any belief at all; but honest doubt, doubt which is truly open to belief and truly seeking understanding, can be an important prelude to true faith. The problem is, it’s all too easy to lose sight of that, and so you find churches that treat doubt as a sin—as if believing in Jesus and following him are supposed to be easy, which they often aren’t—that fail to see the difference between doubt that doesn’t want to believe, and doubt that does.

The story of Thomas is a corrective for us in that respect, if we actually read it. Unfortunately, this is one of those stories we already think we know; even people who’ve never knowingly been within fifty feet of a Bible know what a doubting Thomas is. Just for grins, I Googled the phrase “doubting Thomas” and found 903,000 hits, including a page on Dictionary.com which informed me that a doubting Thomas is “one who is habitually doubtful.” That’s our picture of Thomas, based entirely on this passage, as if he were the sort of guy who wouldn’t believe you if you told him the sky was blue.

Is that really fair, though? Does he really deserve to be universally known as “Doubting Thomas”—to be a cliché? He’d been off on his own, away from the other disciples, and while we don’t know for sure why that was, it seems likely that he reacted to grief and loss the same way many of us do: he pulled away from other people, shut them out, and tried to work through it by himself. The Scottish New Testament scholar William Barclay notes that England’s King George V used to say, “If I have to suffer, let me be like a well-bred animal, and let me go and suffer alone”; this seems to have been Thomas’ approach. When he got to the point that he felt he could bear to be around the other disciples, he joined them, expecting to commiserate and reminisce with them—and instead they fed him the most implausible story he had ever heard. Put yourself in his shoes—would you have believed it?

Of course, part of the reason Thomas picked up his label is his response to the other disciples, with his statement that unless he could see the wounds and put his hands in them, he would never believe that Jesus was alive again; if you read the commentaries, you’ll see that they treat his statements as if he made them calmly and rationally, as if he were matter-of-factly stating the terms which would have to be met before he would believe. Stop and think a minute, though—do you really imagine that Thomas, confronted with this ridiculous fairy tale, tugged on his beard, carefully considered the situation, and then set forth the conditions on which he would believe the story, as if he were a philosophy professor grading a blue-book exam? No! He responded the way many people would have, with anger, sarcasm, and hyperbole: “You expect me to believe that? Why, unless I see the wounds in his hands—no, unless I can touch them myself—there’s no way!” OK, so maybe it’s not an admirable response; but really, which of us would have done any better?

The fact of the matter is, Thomas was no more a doubter than any of the other disciples who didn’t believe until they saw Jesus with their own eyes, and the Bible never portrays him as such. We do know that he was something of a pessimist, and that he loved Jesus greatly; in John 11, when Jesus announced his intention to go to Jerusalem, setting his feet on the road to the cross, Thomas told his fellow disciples, “Let’s go with him, that we may die with him.” He was sure the worst was coming, but he made no excuses; better to die with Jesus than to abandon him. In the event, the worst happened and Jesus was crucified, but Thomas survived; he had seen it coming, but was still broken-hearted at Jesus’ death. If he hadn’t cared, he no doubt would have had an easier time believing in the resurrection; as it was, his grief was too great for belief to come easily.

To be sure, Thomas does come across as something of a skeptic—but there are skeptics and there are skeptics. There are certainly those who are “habitually doubtful,” who refuse to believe anything anyone tells them, whether because they’re suspicious and distrustful, because they’re contemptuous of others, or for whatever reason; but Thomas doesn’t fall into that category. Thomas doubts, yes, but he doubts because faith comes hard. How much of that is grief and how much is his natural character and temperament, we don’t know, but he just needed more, some sort of tangible proof. He was willing to believe, but he needed more than just a crazy story; he needed to see Jesus himself.

Given that, it does need to be said for Thomas that at least he was honest about it. When the others told him they’d seen Jesus, he didn’t try to play along or try to humor them; he was completely honest, telling them straight out that he didn’t believe their story. What’s more, he didn’t leave, either; it must have been a little uncomfortable—they were celebrating the resurrection, he was still grieving the crucifixion—but he stuck around. Thomas doesn’t get credit for either of those things, as a rule, but both say a great deal for him.

The text doesn’t tell us, but I can only think that he stayed because his fellow disciples were his connection to Jesus; he stayed because he wasn’t giving up on them, because he wasn’t giving up on God. As for his honesty, how many of us are honest enough to admit we don’t understand, or believe, something when we don’t? Better someone like Thomas, who insisted on being sure and was open and forthright about his doubt, than someone who just plays along, mouthing the words and pretending to believe. As Barclay noted, “It is doubt like that which in the end arrives at certainty,” while those who just pretend never get anywhere at all. It also needs to be said for Thomas that he didn’t do anything by half measures; when he doubted, he doubted, and when he believed, he believed. Once he saw Jesus—and you’ll notice, for all his talk, Thomas didn’t need to touch him, just to see him—his doubts were gone, his belief total. Faith didn’t come easy for him, but once he was sure, once he had counted the cost, there were no halfway measures, and no holding back.

Perhaps that was part of the reason for his skepticism; it’s easy to make commitments, after all, if you only make them half-heartedly, but that doesn’t seem to have been an option for Thomas. We can see that in the statement he makes when he sees Jesus, which is really pretty remarkable. It’s been said that this is the key moment in the entire gospel, the key statement about Jesus, and I think that’s true, because Thomas here moves from several steps behind the other disciples—disbelieving the resurrection—to a step ahead of them; in an instant, he sees what the resurrection truly means, and from his heart he exclaims, “My Lord and my God!”

The disciples had been calling Jesus “Lord” for quite some time, but that’s a word that can cover a lot of ground; on the one hand, it was the standard Jewish substitution for the name of God, but on the other, it was a standard form of polite address, meaning roughly “Sir.” Somewhere along the line, the disciples started to mean more than that by it—they clearly realized that he deserved more than the ordinary level of respect—but how much more is impossible to say. For Thomas at this moment, however, it’s very clear exactly what he means by “Lord”: he’s giving it all the meaning it can bear. In putting “Lord” and “God” together, he’s joining the two great Old Testament names for the Creator—Elohim, which we translate as “God,” and the personal name of God, often rendered in English as “Yahweh” or “Jehovah,” but which the Jews substituted with Adonai, “Lord,” because no observant Jew would speak it. In calling Jesus “Lord” and “God,” then, Thomas is affirming Jesus as YHWH Elohim, the God of Israel, the very God of all creation, deserving of all worship and obedience. His realization is the cornerstone of our faith now, but then it was a new and radical statement; for a Jew who had been taught in no uncertain terms the vast difference and separation between God and his creation, even human beings, to come to understand that God had stooped to cross that divide by becoming human was a truly remarkable and world-expanding realization indeed.

Jesus responds by approving Thomas’ recognition, and then goes on to say, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Some people think that Jesus is rebuking Thomas here for his unbelief—that fits in with the whole “Doubting Thomas” thing, after all—but if so, it’s a very gentle rebuke, and one addressed to the others, not just to Thomas; after all, there were very few at that point who had believed without seeing Jesus with their own eyes. Jesus isn’t singling out Thomas for rebuke, and I’m not at all sure he’s rebuking anyone, since he doesn’t say “More blessed.” He simply blesses all those, both then and throughout time, who had and would come to believe without visual confirmation. He pronounces a blessing on, among others, us.

Now, if Thomas’ confession is a critical moment in this gospel, I think Jesus’ response is almost as critical. Remember that John chose to include these words for a reason—none of the other gospel writers did so—and notice that they are followed immediately by verses 30 and 31, which set out the purpose for this book: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” Jesus pronounces a blessing on those who believe without seeing, and the purpose of this gospel, the reason John chose to write it, is to bring people into that blessing, to bring people who have never seen Jesus in the flesh to believe in him anyway. In that light, I think it’s worthwhile to ask why John tells this story; and I think one reason is to show us vividly that faith didn’t come any easier for those disciples than it did, or does, for anyone else.

Modern skeptics know how hard it is for them to believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead, and they tend to assume that it must have been easier for the first disciples, or else they never would have believed such a crazy tale; but Thomas shows us otherwise. As we’ve seen, he’d expected the worst, and the worst had happened, and that was just too powerful, too real a thing for him to set aside just because the other disciples told him he should. These were his friends, the people with whom he had walked the length and breadth of Israel who knew how many times—these were the people he trusted if he trusted anyone—but his pain and loss were too real and too great for him to hear. Their testimony wasn’t enough; Thomas had to see Jesus for himself before he could believe.

And here’s the key: that doesn’t disqualify him. His doubt doesn’t rule him out. Instead, he cries out for a reason to believe—and God gives it to him; and after all this, it’s Thomas, not any of the others, who makes the great confession which is the climax of this gospel. It’s Thomas, who spells out his inability to believe in great detail, whose doubt persists longer than any of the others, who then makes a statement of faith which goes beyond that of any of the others. It is the one who went through this period of doubt, who heard the story of the resurrection from those who had seen Jesus alive again and declared, “I don’t believe you, and I’m not going to believe until I can touch him for myself,” who then called Jesus both Lord and God. It was out of the dark soil of his doubt and grief that the bright flower of his great confession grew.

This is no accident; it’s no mere coincidence that Thomas made this statement; rather, it’s a lesson for us. We often tend to treat doubt and faith as opposed, as if doubt were the opposite of faith—but that isn’t true at all of honest doubt, like that of Thomas. Rather, doubt can be essential in working our way through to deeper faith. If we never doubt because we never ask questions about our faith, if we never doubt because we never really face the hard times in our lives, if we never doubt because we never admit to ourselves that we might have reason, then we don’t have more faith—we have less; we aren’t exercising our faith, we’re protecting it, and that means we aren’t really trusting God. Part of having real faith in God is trusting him enough to doubt him—I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. Faith doesn’t mean never doubting, it means trusting him enough to believe that if we express our doubts, as Thomas did, that God will respond and give us reason to have faith in him.

I think we sometimes tend to be afraid of our own honesty, afraid of admitting what we really think and feel, and we need to understand that God isn’t. True faith in him means trusting him enough even in our doubts to believe that God can handle our doubts just as well as he can our professions of faith—and that if we bring our doubts to him, they will be answered, and we will find that we really can trust him.

Politics in a state of grace

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(Warning: I hadn’t realized until I put this up just how long a post this is, and while it doesn’t exactly ramble, it’s something of an exploratory post. Call it variations on a theme . . . or maybe “Rhapsody in Red and Blue.”)

Anyone who’s spent any significant amount of time around this blog is no doubt aware that I have a definite political point of view; I come by it honestly. I’m the son of a decorated Navy pilot and a Navy nurse, and the nephew of a Navy doctor. I grew up around the military, in a church that was half Navy (the other half was Dutch; it was an interesting mix), in a family and community from which I absorbed the firm belief that patriotism is a virtue. I’ve been raised to be proud of this country and of all she has done for the world, her inevitable failures notwithstanding. I took my shape from an environment that was and is profoundly conservative, politically, theologically, culturally, and personally, though fortunately evangelical in form rather than fundamentalist. I was for a while a card-carrying member of the Republican National Committee, and I thought that was a good thing. I’m not the same person I was then, certainly, but I’m still conservative, politically and theologically, and a lot of people would reflexively brand my forehead with the scarlet “R” (for “religious right”) and figure they had me labeled.

Those folks would be wrong, though. Not because I’m not conservative, or because I don’t usually vote Republican; it’s not a matter of policy differences, or differing views on moral issues. I do, however, have a major problem with the whole approach to politics taken by many conservative Christians. I’ve argued before that American politics is idolatrous, in that it leads people to find their identity in a political party rather than in Christ; in that same post, I noted that patriotism can be an idol, and for many people, I think it is. Yes, our country is a wonderful gift to us, and yes, we’re richly blessed to live here—but it’s God’s blessing to us, and when we start to value the gift as much as we value the giver, that’s idolatry.

We need to understand that as Christians, our political loyalties can never properly be primary loyalties—not even our loyalty to our country is properly a primary loyalty—because our primary loyalty needs to be to God. Arguably the primary theme in Scripture, and certainly the primary political theme, is that God is the one true king over all creation; all human authorities are secondary. We as the church acknowledge him not merely as Lord over our nation, but as Lord over the church; we are directly under his rule.

When Paul says in Colossians 1:13 that we have been “transferred . . . into the kingdom of his beloved Son,” we tend to understand that in purely spiritual terms, that we have been saved and set free from death and sin, and that is certainly his main point; but it isn’t the only point. Paul has in mind here a complete transfer of allegiance, as verses 15 and following make clear, for we are now under the rule of the one who created every power and every authority, whether in heaven or on earth; thus we are no longer to understand ourselves primarily in relation to human governments, nor are we to define ourselves in human political terms. Instead, we are to understand ourselves as citizens of heaven, serving here as ambassadors to the people and nations of this world—and note the message we’ve been given to proclaim: not a message of war or hatred, but the message of reconciliation, that Jesus came to make peace between us and God through his sacrifice on the cross.

The founding principle of any truly Christian politics must be the absolute sovereignty of God. God is king over all the earth and the source of all true political au­thority; we owe our allegiance to him first and our country second. Yes, this is our country, but only for a little while. That’s why Scripture describes us repeatedly as strangers and foreigners, wanderers and exiles on this earth. The paradigmatic verse for us in this respect is Jeremiah 29:7: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” We’re here because this is where God has planted us, which means we need to take this as our home for as long as we’re here, and to do what we can to promote the welfare of the community and country to which we belong—as God defines that, not as any earthly political group does. We must never forget that when we say “my country,” we do so not with a sense of ownership, nor indeed with a sense of true belonging, but simply because this is the country in which God has placed us to serve him. Our primary place to belong is the kingdom of God, and our primary allegiance is to him; all other allegiances must be understood in that context. We’re called to serve Christ as our one and only Lord, in every aspect of our lives, including those which our culture labels “public,” “political,” and “secular.”

This is not to say, however, that we’re free to ignore our government at will; God has established governments for a purpose, and we have to bear that in mind. Paul makes this clear in Romans 13:1-7. Note, however, that he phrases his argument very carefully. “Every person,” he declares, is to “be subject to the governing authorities.” On the one hand, this is a very strong statement—there are no ifs, ands, buts, or exceptions. This means everybody, period. On the other hand, he doesn’t say, “Every person is to obey the governing authorities.” This means everybody, but it doesn’t mean that everybody has to do everything the government orders, period. Rather, the point here is that we all must acknowledge as a general rule that the government and its officials have authority over us, for God is the source of all authority and is the one who has instituted all human authorities. This will usually require that we obey whatever our governments tell us to do, but there are exceptions; Paul’s choice of the verb “be subject” reminds us that we are called, ultimately, to be completely subject to God in every aspect of life, and that human authorities are contingent, not absolute.

When it happens that a government is bent on rewarding evil rather than good, then we must follow God rather than government. That’s part of seeking the welfare of the country to which he has sent us: any authority which is in direct conflict with the expressed will of God must be resisted in whatever manner is appropriate. Any such action must be taken with humility, not giving ourselves too much credit; and again, it must bear in mind the fact that the ends don’t justify the means, and that unjust actions corrupt just goals; but if, like Martin Luther King, Dietrich Bonhöffer, Ralph Abernathy, Martin Niemöller, and others, we find ourselves in the path of injustice, we are obligated to resist it to the best of our ability. “I was just following orders” wasn’t an acceptable defense at Nuremberg, and it isn’t anywhere else, either.

In general, however, we are to submit ourselves to the governing authorities, because God has established them to carry out his work in the world, whether that be the town council or President Bush—or, for that matter, whether the next president be Sen. McCain or Sen. Obama. (After all, neither one could possibly be as bad as Nebuchadnezzar was, and Jeremiah made it clear to the exiles that they were to submit themselves to his rule.) Certainly, while our government is imperfect, it generally strives to reward those who do good and punish those who do wrong, and thus is generally in line with God’s purpose for it; for in that way, we are encouraged to turn away from evil and do what is right. As such, we’re called, for instance, to obey the speed limit to avoid punishment—a ticket, in that case—but also, Paul says, “because of conscience”—in other words, because our laws and police are part of the structure by which God brings order to the world for our good. And of course, this means that we’re called to pay the taxes the law requires, for that is the most basic way in which we submit ourselves to the authorities over us; the power to tax is the fundamental power for any government.

Is it enough, however, to obey the laws and pay taxes? Perhaps it was in Paul’s time, or in Jeremiah’s time; but not in our time, and especially not for those of us who live in democratically-based societies. The underlying point in this passage from Romans is, I think, that we are called to be good citizens, and good citizens who remember that our government’s authority rests on the God who created it to serve his purposes, whether our government remembers that or not; and in democratic nations, being a good citizen carries a few more responsibilities than it did in the days of the Roman Empire. Similarly, if we truly believe that the command to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you” applies to us, that means we need to take those responsibilities seriously.

You’ll notice that nowhere in this is any command to seek the welfare of one’s own political party, nor is there any defense of a spirit of polarization. Polarization as a fact appears to have its advantages, but the spirit of polarization, which brands those who disagree with us as enemies and exalts winning for one’s side ahead of the good of the whole, is another matter altogether. Our differences are real—I’m not making light of them, nor am I saying we should play them down or pretend they’re unimportant—but I am saying that we need to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. Or at least, if we’re going to see them as enemies, we need to remember that Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Either way, we need to love those with whom we disagree, not treat them with automatic hostility; we need to respect them enough to believe that in most cases, they’re trying to do the right thing as best they see it, rather than assuming that if they disagree with us, it can only be from ignoble motives. We also need to recognize that we aren’t perfect either, and that our own motives are never as pure as we’d like to think.

That means that we need to learn a hard lesson: winning isn’t the most important thing (let alone everything). You’ll notice in his prayer for the Colossians, Paul’s requests aren’t for anything we’d identify as worldly success; rather, he prays that they would know God deeply, that they would live holy lives, that they would be patient, that they would be joyful. Yes, if we’re concerned about a cause, we’re going to be concerned whether it succeeds or fails—but we need to remember that ultimately, that isn’t our responsibility, it’s God’s, because he’s the one in charge. We also need to remember that it might not be in his plan for our cause to succeed, for one reason or another; making that determination isn’t our responsibility either. Our responsibility is to “lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him,” in every aspect of life; it’s to remember that integrity and character are more important than political success, and that the ends don’t justify the means; and, dare I say, it’s to remember that integrity and character are more important in our leaders than whether or not they advance our political agendas. (If you don’t believe in the importance of character in leadership, by the way, just talk to any church that’s ever called a pastor who was high on gifts and low on integrity, and you’ll see what I mean.)

Finally, it needs to be said that if our founding political principle is the sovereignty of God, then his word must have final authority for us—which means we must seek as faithful and unfiltered an interpretation of his word as we can. Too often we seek to conform the word of God to our pre-existing biases, causes and agendas, rather than simply letting the Spirit speak; if we want it, God must want it for us, and if somebody objects, well, “God is doing a new thing.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that, or in defense of how many different agendas. That’s not the biblical model. The biblical model is that God is the judge of all the earth, he is the one who determines what is just and right, and our job is to conform, whether it suits our preferences or not. Our political efforts should be guided by what he desires and commands, whether we like it or not, whether it’s comfortable or not, whether it’s convenient or not, whether it’s easy or not. We need to resist the temptation to hear what we want to hear, and seek as best we can to hear honestly what he’s saying.

Song of the Week

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My post last Wednesday set me off on a Steve Taylor kick; this song of his seems an appropriate bit of reflection for a Sunday morning. (I do wish he’d just written “want to,” though . . .)

I Just Wanna KnowLife’s too short for small talk,
So don’t be talking trivia now;
Excess baggage fills this plane—
There’s more than we should ever allow.
There’s engines stalling and good men falling,
But I ain’t crawling away.I just wanna know—am I pulling people closer?
I just wanna be pulling them to You.
I just wanna stay angry at the evil;
I just wanna be hungry for the true.Folks play “follow the leader”—
But who’s the leader gonna obey?
Will his head get big when the toes get tapping?
I just wanna know, are they catching what I say?
I’m a little too young to introspect,
And I surely haven’t paid all my dues,
But there’s bear traps lying in those woods—
Most of ’em already been used.ChorusSearch me, Father, and know my heart,
Try me and know my mind,
And if there be any wicked way in me,
Pull me to the rock that is higher than I.ChorusWords and music: Steve Taylor
© 1985 Birdwing Music/C. A. Music
From the album On the Fritz, by Steve Taylor

Gotta Serve Somebody

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(Malachi 3:6-15; Luke 12:22-34, Luke 16:10-13)

I took the title of this sermon from Bob Dylan. “Gotta Serve Somebody” is the best song on a great album, Slow Train Coming, which unfortunately has been largely forgotten because of its explicitly Christian character; and while I think Dylan’s reputation as a poet and thinker is somewhat overinflated, his song makes a pretty important theological point: no matter who you are, how low or how high, “you’re gonna have to serve somebody. It may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” That’s a truth we don’t often want to hear. In the Bible, those closest to God are described as his servants, but it’s easy to see that as a negative thing, in part because we see it as serving God versus being free, serving no one.

What Scripture understands, and Dylan saw, and we too often don’t is that this is a false picture, because everyone is serving somebody; it’s just that some know it and some don’t. Without God, we aren’t free—we’re slaves to sin. That might look like freedom, because the desires which enslave us are in some sense our own; but just try to break a habit, just try to rein in one of those desires, and most people discover just how free we aren’t. If we vaunt our independence and our freedom to do whatever we please, it just shows that we don’t realize that “whatever we please” is really running the show—which means we’re at the devil’s mercy, because we’ve given him lots of strings to pull.

This is just as true of money as it is of anything else—and maybe truer, since money is essential to the fulfillment of most of those desires. That’s part of the reason Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6:10 that “the love of money is the root of all evil”—yes, that’s hyperbole, but still: between evil acts committed to gain money, and evil acts which require money, that’s a pretty high percentage of the evil that people do. And then you get into the rest of life, because there’s not much these days that doesn’t require money; I know they say “the best things in life are free,” but whether that’s true or not, the basic things sure aren’t. Food, clothing, shelter, gas, none of that is free. The result of all this is that most people’s lives are dominated by money; the great poet William Wordsworth wrote in 1807, “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers,” and it’s at least as true now as it was then. Too often, it’s money that drives our decisions and sets our priorities.

Over against this, God calls us to serve him with our money, and with all the other gifts he’s given us. We talked about this two weeks ago, that everything we have, we hold in trust for God, and he has instructions for us as to how we’re to use it. I suspect that a lot of the time, we don’t take that very seriously, as the Israelites didn’t; but God did, and does, and we need to remember that. It’s easy to think that what we do with our money isn’t a spiritual issue, but it is, because of what Jesus says in Luke 16:13: “You can’t serve both God and money.” In the last analysis, either following God is going to be a higher priority than having, making, spending money, or money will be a higher priority than God; and for us as Christians, it had better be the former. 

Tithing is a way of making sure that that’s the case, disciplining ourselves to make sure that we put God first in the use of our money by setting aside part of it for his use before we do anything else with it. If we don’t do that, if we don’t give at all or we just give whatever is convenient—which is to say, whatever amount doesn’t affect all the other things we want to do with our money—then we’re really putting money, getting it and spending it, ahead of obeying and serving him; which means that in the last analysis, we’re serving money, not God.

The irony in all this is that God wants to take care of us and bless us, if we would just trust him to do so and be faithful to put him first; if we aren’t willing to take the “risk” of tithing because we don’t feel we can afford it, then we don’t give him that opportunity. It’s not easy to depend on God to provide; I spent long enough making little or no money, I know how hard it is. I confess, to my shame, that I didn’t tithe then, because I was afraid of not having enough. I still believed up here that God would provide for us if I did, but I didn’t believe it down here enough to act on that. I trusted him, but not that much, and I still regret that. God provides for the ravens, who were the most despised of all birds, and he provides for the grass, which is here today and gone tomorrow; why didn’t I trust him to provide for me? Why didn’t I have the faith God gives the flowers?—they don’t conserve themselves, they simply bloom, spending their beauty extrava-gantly on all who pass, and trust him to take care of them. That’s the sort of faith God wants us to have, that we will give beyond what’s convenient, even beyond what seems safe, and trust that he will provide for us—and that we will live richer lives as a result.

It should also be said that God will not reward unfaithfulness and disobedience; if we decide to use the things he’s given us to bless ourselves, rather than being faithful to use them as he calls us to use them, he’s not going to bless that. If we remember that everything we have is God’s and use it accordingly, if we’re faithful with worldly wealth, then he’ll give us the riches of the kingdom; but if we aren’t, he won’t. This doesn’t mean we won’t be saved, but it seems clearly to mean that our reward will be less than if we had used our gifts faithfully to serve God rather than ourselves.

Now, since God calls us to tithe for the sake of the work of the church, this all places a heavy responsibility on me, on our elders, and on all those whom God has chosen to lead his people. We are accountable, not just to you but to God, for how we use your gifts. We’re responsible to pray, to seek his will, so that we use the gifts you give in ways that honor his name and build up the church—which is to say, each of you, and all of you together; and if we were to spend the money you give unwisely, or in ways which were counterproductive or dishonoring to his name, then we would be guilty of sin and accountable to God for our actions. It’s a heavy responsibility indeed; and while we aren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I’m proud of our elders for the way they carry it out. We want to do more than we’re doing, of course—there is always more to be done, and we could always do it better—and as we have more resources to work with, we will do more; but though like all people, we make mistakes, in general, to the best of our ability, I believe we’re faithful to the charge God has given us.

If that sounded like a commercial for this church, I suppose it was; but note well, if it’s a commercial for this church, it’s a commercial for each of you—and for good reason. I believe in you. I see what you’re already doing and how much more you have the potential to do; I see what you have the ability to accomplish in your lives and in the life of this community. And if I tell you I believe in this church, it’s for exactly that reason, that I believe in you; I’m calling you, as God is calling you, to open your hearts, to take risks, to trust him enough to give freely—of your money, of your time, of your gifts, of yourself—because I believe you’ll be amazed at what will happen. You’ll be amazed, and maybe you’ll even amaze me, at what you can accomplish for the kingdom of God, and what an absolute blessing that will be; but you know what? God won’t be amazed, because he already knows what you can do, and what he can do in and through you, if you’re only willing to let him.

Of course, to take that step, you have to believe that God is going to act; that’s where the Israelites of Malachi’s day fell short. They had already made up their minds that whether they kept his commands or not, it didn’t matter, because he didn’t do anything either way. They thought his commands were irrelevant and obeying them was useless. From that perspective, it’s no wonder they didn’t tithe—why would they, if they didn’t think it would make any difference? They didn’t even understand why they were offending God, because they weren’t talking about him at all; they failed to realize that that was precisely why he was offended. God said, “Test me—bring in your tithes, and watch me bless you,” but they had already concluded that he wouldn’t. I suspect that often, when we don’t give, it’s for something of the same reason: we really don’t believe that God will keep his promises if we do. To that, he simply says, “Try me. Try me and see what I will do”; and we need to step forward and do just that.

We need to do that, because the bottom line here is simple: are you serving God with your money, or are you serving your money? Jesus tells us there are only the two choices. Are you building up treasures for yourself in heaven, where they’re eternal and you’ll enjoy them for eternity, or are you storing them up here on earth, where a flood could wash them out and you’ll have to leave them behind when you die anyway? No, there’s nothing wrong with having things; God commanded the Israelites to give 10% of their income, not 100%; but is that where your treasure is? Because if it is, then that’s where your heart is, and that’s what you’re serving. Store up treasures for yourself in heaven, in the coming kingdom of God, for it is the Father’s pleasure to give you the kingdom—the whole thing; store up an unfailing treasure in heaven, with him, by giving freely of all that you have and all that you are, by serving him freely with your earthly treasure, your time on this earth, and the talents you have been given; for where your treasure is, there is your heart.

Oh, the irony

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In my last post, I responded to my wife’s vision for the church; now, alas, I find myself commenting on a very different vision indeed, a vision in which the local church exists for the support and self-aggrandizement of the denominational hierarchy, as the property of that hierarchy. In that vision, if churches want to leave, the Powers that Be have the right to stop them by force; and if the presbytery refuses to go along with that, the synod can take them over, too. I don’t, in general, agree with those who decide to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA)—I think their actions help to bring about exactly that to which they object—but I believe they have the right to do so; they aren’t denominational property, and neither are their buildings, and for the denomination to put its own material wealth ahead of the spiritual health of its churches, even those which are seeking to leave, is little short of reprehensible. This is the sort of behavior that gives the church a bad name.

It also, incidentally, gives the lie to the argument (made by Greg Coulter of Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery in a letter to Presbyweb) that the Synod of the Sun, in establishing their administrative commission over the Presbytery of South Louisiana, had merely been “invited” into the situation “to partner with them in furthering the peace, unity, and purity of the labors of those serving Christ in South Louisiana.” Clearly, the skeptical among us were right: for the Synod, it’s property über alles—and then they have the gall to call it “one part of the church body helping another part.” For shame.

It’s a wonderful thing

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being married to somebody smarter than me. I’ve said this many times, and will no doubt say it many more. At the moment, I’m saying it again because my wonderful wife has just put words to something very important, something we both feel very strongly, and done so better than I’ve yet managed to do. I’ve been talking through some of this with our elders, and preaching about it some, about what it means to be that kind of church, and how we get there; I’ve talked about how we become a church of square holes (and triangular, and star-shaped, and rhomboid, and . . .) so that people feel it’s OK to be a square peg, and I’ve been encouraged to find people listening, and open. But there’s no question, we can’t get there on our own; to do that, we need a response from others outside ourselves. We need to find ways to earn people’s trust (which means, of course, continuing to grow ourselves to be worthy of that trust), so that we can all be the Church of the Exploded Comfort Zone together.Anyway, go read Sara’s post; she really has said it better than I can.“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain . . .”—Psalm 127:1a

Happy Happy birthday!

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Or maybe that should be “Happy birthday, Happy!”—or . . . well, the permutations go on for a while. Anyway, it’s not quite as good as an ambush from the waiters at a fine restaurant (though it is easier on the wallet), but I wanted to take this opportunity to wish a happy birthday and a wonderful year to one of the best people I know, and one of the dearest friends I ever expect to have.“May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.”May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home,
And may the hand of a friend always be near.
May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.”

Not a tame lion

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“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”—Annie DillardThat quote (from Teaching a Stone to Talk) is one of my all-time favorites; I thought I’d included it in a blog post once, but when I went looking for it, I hadn’t. So, it gets its own post (since I don’t know that anything I could say could add anything to it anyway); I encourage you to take some time to think about it, if you haven’t recently.

More things in heaven and earth, indeed

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Headline you never thought you’d see: Cat turns into woman in P/Harcourt – 5 killed as cultists clash

Nigerian Tribune learnt that three cats were crossing the busy road when the okada ran over one of them which immediately turned into a woman. This strange occurrence quickly attracted people around who descended on the animals. One of them, it was learnt, was able to escape while the third one was beaten to death, still as a cat though.According to a source who witnessed what happened, the cat-woman said she and the two other cat-fellows had travelled from Abuja to Port Harcourt to kill three people. “The woman said they came to Port Harcourt from Abuja and that they came to kill three people. She said they had succeeded in killing two people, but the third person, whom I guess might be a pastor, was difficult for them and that they were preparing to go back to Abuja,” said the source.

I have absolutely no idea what to make of this; but I’m not going to rule out a priori that it might be completely real. I’ve never heard of any such thing, but I know there are many things I don’t know; and I believe in God, I believe there is a Devil, and I’ve come up against demons before, so I have no real reason to say this sort of magic couldn’t happen, given people who believed in it and were willing to give themselves over to it. There are indeed more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in most of our philosophies, after all.Still, that’s pretty weird.

Further evidence that we’re winning the war on terror

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comes from Simon Fraser University (in Burnaby, BC, a suburb of Vancouver, across the metro area from where we used to live); as that doughty and perceptive observer Fareed Zakaria noticed (and most of the rest of the American media haven’t), if you drop the practice of counting civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan as deaths from terrorism—which is to say, if you count them as what they are, which is civilian deaths in a war zone, which aren’t counted as terrorist acts anywhere else—the international death toll from terrorist acts has gone through the floor (and that despite Israel, which has seen a rise in deaths from Palestinian terrorism since the withdrawal from Gaza). As regards the US, organized terror groups haven’t managed a successful attack on us since October 2003. There are a number of reasons for this;

the most significant, in the study’s view, is the “extraordinary drop in support for Islamist terror organizations in the Muslim world over the past five years.” These are largely self-inflicted wounds. The more people are exposed to the jihadists’ tactics and world view, the less they support them. An ABC/BBC poll in Afghanistan in 2007 showed support for the jihadist militants in the country to be 1 percent. In Pakistan’s North-West Frontier province, where Al Qaeda has bases, support for Osama bin Laden plummeted from 70 percent in August 2007 to 4 percent in January 2008. That dramatic drop was probably a reaction to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, but it points to a general trend in Pakistan over the past five years. With every new terrorist attack, public support for jihad falls. “This pattern is repeated in country after country in the Muslim world,” writes Mack. “Its strategic implications are critically important because historical evidence suggests that terrorist campaigns that lose public support will sooner or later be abandoned or defeated.”

In other words, going into Iraq and Afghanistan has been critically important to defeating al’Qaeda in that, by taking the war to them, we’ve provoked them to terrorist attacks not in the Western world but in Muslim countries, among Muslims, with Muslim victims; what their fellow Muslims could support or at least tolerate when it was out of sight, out of mind, with victims they didn’t know or particularly care about, becomes intolerable when it’s down the street and the victims are friends, neighbors, and relatives. (As a prominent Saudi cleric wrote last September, “Who benefits from turning countries like Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia into places where fear spreads and no one can feel safe?” [emphasis mine]) Which is no criticism of Muslims—that’s very human, and exactly what we see in Americans and Europeans as well. But it appears to be something that never occurred to al’Qaeda.It might be worth noting one other reason why al’Qaeda specifically has lost a great deal of support: if you publicly declare, “Iraq is the most important of these fields,” then get your butt kicked in Iraq, you’re going to have a hard time convincing people you’re worth supporting. As bin Laden himself said, “when people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.” At this point, al’Qaeda is pretty clearly the weak horse.