Blessed to be a Blessing

“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.” (Ps. 67:1-2 ESV)

Most of the people I know including myself are incredibly well off in material terms. We are not worried about where our next meal will come from or how we are going to protect ourselves from the elements. We are surrounded by an incredible assortment of gadgets and gizmos that move us from place to place and keep us connected, informed, and entertained. Almost every single one of us has at our fingertips access to power the vast majority of our ancestors, including the most powerful of them, could not have even dreamed. Here in the United States even the poorest are wealthy by world standards. And yet, blessed as we are with such bounty, we are anxious and afraid.

Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. once remarked that modern man “suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast to his scientific and technological abundance.” The focus and direction of material advancement has been to make our lives more secure and more comfortable. And, as witnessed by the affluence around us, mankind has accomplished remarkable things in the material world. But I will argue that these endeavors have not been able to address the greatest human needs because humanity’s deficiency is not material but spiritual.

I am not against material achievement. I do believe science and technology can and should be harnessed to alleviate suffering and hardship wherever and to the maximum extent they can be. The problem as I see it is that rather than channeling our efforts to uplift our brothers and sisters the fruits of our achievements are largely employed in a vain attempt to temporarily fill a vast experiential emptiness. We allow ourselves to be programmed to believe the best use of our material wealth is to satisfy our own craving for relevance. Watch broadcast television for one evening and notice the number and appeal of skillful advertisements for material goods promising to bring meaning and fulfillment to what we are told is an otherwise dreary and unsatisfying life. Dreary and unsatisfying! In the midst of such unparalleled prosperity!

Our material well-being is a modern day Tower of Babel. In Genesis 11 humans united to build a tower that reached to heaven. The implication of that story is that humans sought to place themselves on equal footing with God, even to replace Him. And God responded by confounding their efforts. The sin of Adam and Eve was essentially the same. Whenever mankind denies and attempts to usurp God’s sovereignty disaster follows. The destruction resulting from the misapplication of science and technology should be readily apparent to any student of twentieth century history: from the killing fields of the Western Front to the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The less apparent but no less devastating tragedy lies in the soul of modern man who, spoiled and pampered beyond imagining, feels emptier than ever before.

The problem is not the blessing; it is what we do not do with it. In the passage cited above the psalmist petitions God for blessing, but notice what he does not pray for. He does not write “bless us… that we may have more fun, buy a nicer car, live in a bigger house, go on a more decadent vacation, have more material security, or just in some way feel less profoundly empty inside.” His focus is on making God real in the earth. He is saying the very act of God blessing us will be a blessing to others. It was for this that God chose Israel – to be a light to the nations. And it is to this that we Christians, the new Israel, with the incomparable blessing of the Cross, have also been called. The truth that all of our scientific and technological cleverness has not been able to grasp is that a blessing to ourselves is only really a blessing when it is freely shared.

Our Father

[Y]our Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven…” (Mt. 6:8-9 ESV)

Jesus taught the people how to pray. There are a number of very good works considering the Lord’s Prayer as a unity, among them a classic by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship and a more contemporary one by Shane Claiborne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove in a recent book on prayer entitled Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers, both of which I recommend highly. But here I want to consider only one aspect of the prayer, the earth shattering assertion by Jesus that God is the father of us all.

Jesus spoke these words during his earthly ministry and they were spoken to Jewish listeners. I imagine few if any of those in his audience would have thought of the phrase “Our Father” as including anyone outside of the Jewish fold. Yet we know it was his intention to be inclusive by his commission in Mt. 28:19 to “make disciples of all nations.” This was such a revolutionary idea that many of the first followers of Christ, Jews who believed that Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s promises only to the nation of Israel, could not imagine including Gentiles into their midst. But in fact Jesus did intend that. Jesus established a kingdom for people of all nations.

The first century Jews Jesus ministered to were possessed of an almost unbelievable exclusivity. Had not God chosen them from all the nations of the world to be his holy people? So ingrained was this sense of election among them that they felt defiled even by touching foreign ground. The custom of shaking the dust from one’s feet was practiced by Jews returning from Gentile regions as a symbol of ridding oneself of the corruption of the foreign world. A Gentile could become a proselyte but only by subscribing to the practice of the entire Mosaic Law as it was then understood, which included circumcision. To Jewish Christians, Gentiles who claimed God’s promise outside of the law remained unwelcome strangers. They were, in effect, illegal aliens.

But Jesus threw the gates of God’s kingdom wide open! And, as it was later revealed by the Holy Spirit through Phillip, Peter, and Paul, it seemed the price of admission had just gotten a lot lower. The former condition for inclusion in the kingdom by strict adherence to the law was replaced by a single requirement: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” (John 13:34). This is a mandate we inherit, and it is not to be a romantic or sentimental attachment. Jesus means for us to love each other “just as I have loved you.” How did he love us? He gave everything, and then he died so those who despised him could enter his kingdom.

The first thing Jesus tells us to pray for in the Lord’s Prayer is that God’s kingdom be established “on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus’ heavenly kingdom is one that includes people of all nations, and we are commanded to pray for that kind of kingdom here and now. God established Jesus’ kingdom through his death and resurrection but the work is not yet finished. It is not yet done on earth as it is in heaven. But I am convinced that this prayer does not let me off the hook to go about living in the fallen world as if nothing had changed, expecting God at some point to step in and finally make everything right. In fact, if I claim to be a follower of Christ, this prayer is a call to action: to work to make his kingdom a reality.

Throughout the Bible God demonstrates concern for the poor, the sick, and the oppressed both Jew and Gentile. That concern was epitomized in the crucifixion. I cannot claim to be a follower of Jesus if I will not follow him to the cross.

Broken Beyond Repair

For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. (2 Cor. 1:8-10 ESV)

Paul has identified here a spiritual circumstance that is essential to spiritual growth: the condition of brokenness. The specific occasion of this writing was as part of the introduction to a letter reestablishing Paul’s relationship with the church at Corinth after a painful falling out. The purpose of highlighting his afflictions was to defend his authority as an apostle. Certain detractors had used Paul’s misfortunes as a basis for calling his legitimacy as an apostle into question. Here Paul turns the tables on them and declares that his suffering was necessary. The attacks were so severe he was left with no alternative but to cast his fate upon God. The fact that God had brought him safely through demonstrated that he was indeed called.

The implication is that Paul could not have survived if God had not willed it. He had been pushed to the end of his resources and was left with no alternative other than to submit to God’s unaided strength. Paul tells us God saved him to preserve and promote the gospel Paul preached, and the apostle was at pains to communicate this truth to the Corinthians. Paul suffered and overcame insurmountable difficulties not only to cement his apostolic authority but to demonstrate that God alone delivers.

There are a number of passages in the Bible where God clearly demonstrates His power by bringing about otherwise impossible rescue from distress. But this kind of suffering is not reserved for Bible stories. I think we must all reach a point of powerlessness in the face of circumstance before we can truly place our reliance on God.

If we wonder at the practical skepticism and lack of commitment inherent in our Christian walk, we might remember that our age is characterized by an underlying belief that suffering can be mitigated by purely human measures. We are privileged. How many of us find ourselves at the point where we do not know where our next meal will come from, or how we are going to feed our kids with no job and no resources? How many of our lives are threatened by human enemies or a disease the cure to which is beyond the claims of modern medicine? There are some, but in our comfortable society these are exceptions. Affluence and technology shield us from complete despair.

But I would argue that what keeps us from suffering at the same time keeps us from experiencing the full power of God. The pain we experience that leaves us with no alternative but to cry out to God for deliverance opens the door to liberation in Him. Unless we are left with nothing but God to rely on, we do not call upon Him. We rely on human measures, and God remains peripheral. God is able to transform the most difficult circumstance into unimaginable blessing, but we must trust in Him rather than ourselves.

I am not suggesting we should go out looking for calamity. It will no doubt find us. But we must recognize that when it occurs it may be more than unfortunate happenstance or unmerited (or even deserved) punishment. It may be the key to our emancipation, if we trust in Him.

From Arizona to Morgan Hill

I don’t know enough about Arizona’s immigration law to be able to write about it intelligently, but I do know that it has inflamed volatile nationalistic passions. It is possible that these passions prompted a number of students in Morgan Hill, Ca. to arrive at Live Oak High School on May 5 wearing patriotic clothes. Whatever the motivation, that act prompted a moronic decision by the school’s administrators to order the students to remove or hide the patriotic markings or go home. It has become a national sensation, and I fear the basic issue here has been lost.

Let’s start off by pointing out that I am not a big flag waver. I believe that nationalism is a pernicious evil that divides people and has been at the root of some of the most monstrous cruelty ever perpetrated in the world. Further, God’s Kingdom transcends national boundaries. Christ came to save the lost of all nations, and God’s plan of salvation has always included people from all races. So if the intent of the immigration law is to reserve blessings for some who by accident of birth were born on one side of an arbitrary line and deny it to others who were not, in principle I oppose that.

But the incident at Live Oak High School, though perhaps linked emotionally to the immigration law, in the end turns on a different issue altogether. The students who wore American flags to school were exercising a right that is guaranteed and protected by the U.S. Constitution. The right to free expression is sacred because so many have sacrificed and died to preserve it. Even if the intent of wearing the patriotic attire was to offend, the right to do so is still inviolate. The constitution does not protect you from being offended, but it does protect your right to free expression.

It has been said but bears repeating that 5 May is not a widely celebrated holiday in Mexico. It is a patriotic holiday observed in much the same way D-Day might be observed in the United States. The great national celebration of independence takes place on September 16. In recent years 5 May has become popular in the United States because any excuse for a party, it would seem, will do. But in the United States it has become a perverted and commercialized event, not substantially different from drinking green beer on St. Patrick’s Day.

Nevertheless, if one wants to use the celebration as a basis for expressing pride in one’s heritage, why not? Mexico has a rich heritage and Americans of Mexican descent have much to be proud of. Why is it not possible to celebrate that heritage without at the same time acknowledging the blessings of freedom inherent in U.S. citizenship? If the students of Mexican descent are U.S. citizens, why are they offended by the display of the U.S. flag? This is where multi-culturalism is taken to a ridiculous extreme, where instead of celebrating the strength of unity to be found in diversity, it divides and makes our differences a source of discord and weakness. Rather than being offended by the display of heritage symbols, we should all rejoice at the liberty that allows each of us freedom of expression.