“Where is Heaven?”

From the message preached at Rock Presbyterian Church in San Diego 5/19/13. The audio can be found here: RPC Sermon Archive

Some people will argue that heaven and the kingdom of God are two different places. But this is to misunderstand what is meant by the terms heaven and the kingdom of God (or, as it is in Matthew, the kingdom of Heaven). Some people think of heaven as the faraway place where God's throne is, and the kingdom of God is what was initiated by Jesus by his life death and resurrection and will be fulfilled at his second coming. Heaven is out there somewhere, and the kingdom of God is here, but here in the future.

But doesn't that deny that God is Immanuel? God is not just Immanuel -- God with us -- in the historical Jesus who walked the earth. God was Immanuel in the Garden of Eden. And God was Immanuel in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and the Temple. God has always wanted to live with us and be our intimate friend. Why would he have placed himself out in outer space somewhere, or in the future?

So when we pray "may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," isn't that the same thing as praying, "make your kingdom and my reality one and the same"? Isn't that the same as praying, "I want you to rule in me as you do in heaven. I want to be in heaven. I want you to make heaven real for me now"? Jesus didn't say "the kingdom of heaven is coming" he said it's here. HERE.

To answer to the questions "Where is heaven?" and "Where is the kingdom of God?" are the same. It is, where God rules; where God's character is manifest. It is where God's character is real. And that is where Jesus is. If we are living the life of Christ, if Christ is living his life through us, we are already in heaven.

Do you feel like you're not in the kingdom of God? Does it feel like heaven is far away? Do you think that the circumstances of your life and the circumstances of the world are such that God couldn't possibly be in the midst of it? You might be right, but it's not because of circumstances or God but because you don't understand either heaven or the kingdom of God.

When we are baptized into Christ, we are baptized into his death, and we rise to new life in the body. The life of Christ is the life of joy. It doesn't have anything to do with outside circumstances. Peter and James rejoiced when they were beaten for proclaiming the gospel. Paul and Silas sang songs when they were beaten and thrown into prison in Philippi for preaching the Good News. Paul wrote to the Philippians from Prison in Rome, "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content." (Php. 4:11 ESV).

Do you think that we can be God's light on earth, do you think our message is "Good News," if we join with unbelievers in lamenting the sad state of the world? Do you think if you go around complaining and frowning and looking like we were baptized in lemon juice anyone will be interested in the kingdom of God?

When Jesus tells us to pray, "may your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," he's not telling us to sit around hoping for some brighter future. He's telling is to make the future brighter -- by living the life of love we were baptized into as his disciples, by proclaiming the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. WE are his body. Our work is His work. And his work is ours.

This Sunday @ RPC, “Where is Heaven?” (Mt. 6:9-10)

When Jesus tells us to pray “your kingdom come your will be done” he’s not telling to sit around waiting for a brighter future he’s telling us to make the future brighter.

“Our Father”

A community God we can address as father. The sermon from last Sunday at RPC is here.

I can have my own private culture…

As I was driving to work this morning with my son we were listening to Pandora radio and my son asked me if I had noticed the trend toward a revival of jazz. I admitted I hadn't because I am not at all in touch with popular culture any more. I don't listen to commercial radio and I turned off cable so I don't watch commercial TV anymore -- not even sports. Then it occurred to me that the trend toward individually tailored entertainment made possible by the Internet might actually be accelerating the atomization of society.

Benedict Anderson in his study of the origins of nationalism titled Imagined Communities attributes the emergence of nationalism to the rise of print capitalism in the 18th century. Anderson is a doctrinaire Marxist and I think attributing everything to the rise of capitalism is a mistake. But he was right about one thing and that is that mass exposure of a geographically separated population to the same information contributes to the homogenization of society. If everyone is accessing the same information an imagined bond is created that allows people, say, in San Diego, to feel an affinity with people in New York and elsewhere who they are never likely to meet.

For example, I believe it is entirely likely that the translation of the Bible into the vernacular was a huge contributor to the rise of the nation-state because it standardized language over large geographical areas. Where people before spoke and understood only the dialect of their local area (and maybe some Latin), with the publication of the one book everyone *read* (because, after all, it was the Protestants who wanted the Bible translated) suddenly everyone in the country was reading "French" or "English" or "German," and soon that was reflected in the spoken language. (Did you notice that people from Atlanta no longer speak with a twang?) The common language tends to engender a sense of common identity, hence the possibility of feeling a kinship through the "nation," even though the nation is actually an intellectual construction not at all rooted in historical reality.

This process accelerated with the mass media culture of the twentieth century. When I grew up in the sixties, there were three channels on the television, everyone listened to the same 10 artists or so on the same few radio stations which reflected two genres: pop and country. In the late sixties the so-called "underground" rock stations added a third alternative for us hippies, and then later the "soul" stations added even more diversity.

But in the last twenty years the Internet has made it possible to access incredibly diverse repositories of culture, to the point that now it is possible to tailor a radio station to your own personal tastes, to watch only the TV shows you are interested in watching, to essentially avoid any connection to the common culture at all. It has become possible for me to create my own cultural shell. I can have my own private culture.

Isn't that wild? How can we encourage a sense of community in the Church when each of the congregants listens only to their own iPod?

Love Covers a Multitude of Sins

As the celebration of Mother's Day approached and I saw many people on social media acknowledging and celebrating their mothers my thoughts turned to my own mother and my childhood and youth.

I don’t have very may pictures of my mom any more  She died in an alcohol related car accident in 1982. One of the few pictures I do have is of her sitting at the kitchen table smoking a cigarette with curlers in her hair. Probably not the most flattering picture.

For some reason the picture and the whole celebration this year brings a lot of sadness. I know I grieved when my mom died like I grieved for no one else. I know I loved my mom and I know she loved me. But she was a slave to the disease of alcoholism. And she was the victim of an abusive marriage. When I remember her I can’t help remembering all of the chaos and dysfunction of growing up in a household where alcoholism, spousal abuse, and probably child abuse as well, were the norm.

I emerged scarred from the wounds of childhood. I have spent my entire adult life trying to overcome those wounds. Probably some of them are so deep I will never overcome them.

But at the same time I must acknowledge that all of those experiences shape who I am today. If I am compassionate, tolerant, sensitive to the pain of others, it is because of this. Jesus suffered all of the pains of being human so that he could rescue humans. I do believe it is possible that we, his followers, must also suffer much so that we can minister to those who suffer.

And even though these memories fill me with sadness, they do not make me love my mother less. I pray that she has finally found peace in the arms of our loving savior.

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” (1 Peter 4:7-8, ESV)

This Sunday@RPC, “Our Father,” (Mt. 5:9-15)

“You Can’t Have a Personal Jesus,” (Mt. 6:9)

Now we're going to look at a deeply significant thing about Jesus telling us to address God as "Our Father" in our prayers. We just looked at what an amazing privilege it is to be able to consider the creator of the universe our intimate father. But now let's look at the way Jesus says to address him.

Notice that Jesus doesn't tell us to pray My Father. When I was a new Christian and I started to learn to spend time with God every day in prayer, it occurred to me that I ought to pray this prayer. After all, Jesus does tell us to pray it. But I thought I would change the words around a little bit. Because I was trying to cultivate a personal relationship with God. You've heard that right? I want Jesus as my personal savior. I want an intimate Jesus.

There are several popular songs about a personal Jesus by artists ranging from Johnny Cash to Depeche Mode. There's a song from the 70s by a country artist named Tom T. Hall that declares:

Me and Jesus got our own thing going.

Me and Jesus got it all worked out.

Me and Jesus got our own thing going.

We don't need anybody to tell us what it's all about.

I think the gist of the song is that we don't need religion and the Church to be "spiritual." I thought of that song as I was participating in a class on Christian community at the seminary and I did a Youtube search and I was amazed to find that this song was actually performed as worship in a number of churches! That is amazing because it is completely antithetical to the Biblical idea of church. It goes against everything that Jesus and the apostles taught about our relationship with God and each other. And it goes against everything we know from the Bible about the relationship of the people of God with God himself as revealed in the Old Testament.

So anyway there I was trying to cultivate this relationship with a personal God. And I decided to say "My Father, who art in heaven." Well, since then I've stopped trying to say the prayer in King James Version-ese. But the point is that I thought I needed to rewrite the prayer so that it could be just between me and God.

I don't know if you've ever experienced this but sometimes when I'm in meditation and prayer I get really clear messages from God. At first that wasn't true but as time passes I have more and more come to be able to hear God speaking to me in my prayers. And I'm pretty sure that this was one of the first times that God really made it loud and clear to me that I was making a big mistake. God did not want me to lift up my voice to him on my own behalf only. God does not want to hear my own selfish prayers for myself. God told me that day in no uncertain terms that he does not want me to rewrite the prayer from "us" to "me"; from "Our Father" to "My Father." Jesus told us to pray the way he said it for a reason.

And that reason is because we are not individually saved. I wouldn't be surprised if you guys were getting just sick of hearing me repeat this verse from Paul's letter to the Galatians, but he writes, "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2:20 ESV). I can only think of myself as a disciple, as a follower of Jesus, as a Christian, in terms of having the life of Christ. The life in me is the life of Christ. And Christ is not some faraway theological abstraction. Christ is the Church.

Not what we probably traditionally think of as the church. Not as the building or the doctrines or even necessarily the congregation. Christ is not Rock Presbyterian Church or the Korean American Presbyterian Church. Christ is not a congregation or a denomination or contained in any human structure of church government or doctrine. Christ is the union of all believers everywhere throughout time. And Christ is visibly present on the earth right now. Christ is physically present wherever we see self-sacrificing love leading to the building of God's kingdom of righteousness, justice, and love.

Paul uses the metaphor of the body throughout his writings. In Romans chapter 12 and in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 he tells the local congregation that they are each members of the body. As body parts are members. It’s not like being a member of a social club or a political party, but like the hand is a member of the body; or the foot is a member, or the eyes, nose… everything; all members of the body. The member can't live apart from the body, and the body isn't whole without all of its members. If you cut off your hand, it will die, and the body will be maimed. Each one of you is that that important to the body of Christ on earth. No one is superfluous. No one is useless or unimportant. Each one of us has our part to play.

And Paul writes to the Ephesians about the roles of the different members of the body:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature and the fullness of Christ. (Eph. 4:11-13 ESV)

What is Paul saying here? That we ALL TOGETHER will grow up into the image of Christ. Not that we each individually will do that, but that we all together will do that. All of us together are intended to be one.

In John's gospel chapter 17 Jesus is praying for his disciples before his crucifixion. Notice that he’s not just praying for those gathered together with him in the upper room but for all who will come after and that includes us. And this is what he prays: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us." (John 17:20-21 ESV).

“That they may all be one.” All of us together are one. We cannot be in relationship with God by ourselves. There is no spiritual life apart from Christ, and Christ is literally the fellowship of all of the believers.

We cannot be in relationship with God by ourselves. There is no life apart from Christ. And Christ is literally the fellowship of all believers.

Public opinion and personal feelings are a poor moral compass.

Public opinion and personal feelings are a poor moral compass. The pages of history are littered with atrocities committed by people who were convinced by public opinion or their own sense of justice that they were doing the will of God. The only sure guide to moral action is scripture because it is God’s unchanging revelation of his will. God’s word has always been counter-cultural and unpopular. But it is timeless and unchanging, as God is, and if you understand it correctly, it leads you to self-sacrificing love for everyone you encounter.

Hocus Pocus (Mt. 6:5-8)

When we are truly able to acknowledge our emptiness without God we are in right relationship with God. Then we will live out the life that God calls us to, and our prayers will be heard by God.

Pagans believe in magic rituals and secret spells and potions and sacrifices and reading chicken entrails to influence nature or gods or spirits or whatever in their favor. But what I think is amazing is that many Christians approach prayer and really their whole lives in this same way.

It's the idea that if I'm good God will reward me. We substitute Santa Claus for the living God. We think that if we say the right prayers or if we say them in the right way God will give us what we want. That we can bargain with God. “If you get me out of this one, I'll be good, and give to the poor or whatever. We're like pagans making sacrifices to false gods, but instead of offering slaughtered animals or burnt offerings, we offer our devotion, or our promises, or our supposedly "good" behavior in the hope that God will grant us our wishes.

And why shouldn't we? Your probably all know that Jesus tells us to pray for whatever we want. In John Jesus tells his disciples "Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." (John 14:13-14 ESV). So we think that we should be able to pray for anything: new cars, material good, good luck. And of course when we pray for our wishes and we don't get them we just conclude that prayer doesn't work.

So if we pray at all we put little faith in it. It becomes at best a pious religious ritual "In Jesus' name we pray" ho-hum. Hocus pocus. Gesundheit!

I think one of the best proofs that we've got this whole prayer thing wrong is that we know that Jesus prayed. If we think prayer is just saying the right words in the right order with the right level of devotion in the hope of getting what we really want, why would Jesus have ever needed to pray? Jesus is God. He didn't lack anything. If he wanted wine: "hocus pocus!" And there's the best wine ever. What did Jesus ever need to pray about?

And yet scripture tells us he spent a lot of time in prayer. The subject of prayer is enormous and we're not going to cover the whole issue in the next few lines. But I think I can make some important observations that will get is pointed in the right direction.

We can begin to get an idea of what God is looking for in our prayers if we look at the Old Testament. In Psalm 51 the psalmist, who is in this case King David, cries out to God in repentance of his sin with Bathsheba. It is in my mind one of the most beautiful expressions of repentance in all of scripture. One of the things David observes is, "For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." (Ps. 51:16-17 ESV).

What is David saying here? I think, essentially, he is saying that we have nothing to give., and that our recognition of our poverty and emptiness opens us up to God's saving grace. "A broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart." I have nothing to give you Lord, I am entirely at your mercy. And you know this really tracks because sin is our rebellion against God, our putting ourselves in equality with God or even ahead of God. As if we had anything, apart from God. When we are truly able to acknowledge our emptiness without God we are in right relationship with God. Then we will live out the life that God calls us to, and our prayers will be heard by God.

Well what about the part I mentioned that Jesus says he will give us whatever we ask for? That's what he said right? Well, not exactly. He says, whatever you ask in my name. What does that mean?

Did you ever notice how often we end our prayers by saying "In Jesus name we pray" or something like that? Why do you think we do that? And of course the answer is that Jesus told us that if we ask anything in his name that he would give it. We’ve all tried praying for things in his name and unfortunately it doesn't seem to work, so it becomes just another empty ritual.

But before we can know what Jesus means when he says "If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." we have to know what he means by "in my name." When we think of a name, we think of it as little more than a label. My name Keith Cox distinguishes me from most other people (obviously, with so many people in the world there are others with the name Keith Cox), but it doesn't really tell you anything about me. It's just a label.

But in the Bible names meant something. Someone's name indicated a lot about that person. That's why in the Old Testament people kept changing their names. Abram changed his name to Abraham to reflect God's promise to make him the father of a great nation. Jacob changed his name to Israel to signify that he inherited the promise of Abraham through his father Isaac (Gen. 32:9). And in the New Testament Jesus changes Simon’s name to Peter because he is the “rock” upon which Jesus plans to build his church.

The name of a person in the Bible was more than a label - it represented his whole being, his whole character. So when we hear Jesus say, ask in my name, what he is saying, ask in my whole character, my whole being; ask in the way I would ask; ask for the things I want. And how can we even know what those things are if we are not living the Christ-filled life? The life that we learned about in the so-called Beatitudes: the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers? Can you really imagine Jesus praying to his Father for a new car? Or a better job? Or for his baseball team to win?

When Jesus prayed for his disciples (us) he didn't pray that we would be happy or healthy or wealthy or well fed or any of the other things that we think of as good, he prayed that we would be kept from the evil one and sanctified in the truth. (John 17:17). He prayed that we would come into the same relationship with the Father that he had. When we pray "in his name" that means that we are praying alongside Jesus for the things he desires. It really means that our prayer is Jesus' prayer.

Well what about when we pray for things that are not selfish? Every week I pray for health and healing for this church and for others, and world peace, and an end to hunger and violence and hate and injustice, and I always end my prayer by saying "in Jesus' name" or something like that but all of those things keep happening. Doesn't that mean that God isn't answering our prayers?

No, it does not mean that God is not answering our prayers. Let's think about this episode from Jesus' life:

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” [and later] ” Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” [and again] he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. (Mt. 26:39-44 ESV).

I'm sure you all recognize this as Jesus' agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, before his crucifixion, Jesus was praying that the cup would pass. He was praying that he would not have to undergo the agony he was about to experience. He must have been praying in Jesus' name, he was Jesus! And yet we know that he did suffer the agony of the cross. Did God not hear him? Did God refuse to answer his prayer?

But notice how Jesus prays. He says, "if it be possible," "not as I will, but as you will," "your will be done." It seems that even Jesus, who was fully human, had doubts about the Father's will. But he was confident that no matter how he felt or what he wanted, that the Father was trustworthy; that if he had to suffer it was because the Father's will was greater than his own desire. So he obeyed the Father's will, even though he might not have been able to see the end.

And of course we know the end. Jesus suffered trial, crucifixion, and death. But it was not the Father's will that he would remain dead, but instead he rose again to everlasting glory. And because of that we can be baptized into his death so that we can be baptized into his life. We can suffer the agony of his crucifixion, so that we can share in his everlasting glory. Jesus didn't get what he prayed for but instead he accomplished the Father's will. If Jesus had gotten what he prayed for in the Garden we would all still be lost.

This is excerpted from the sermon delivered May 5, 2013 at Rock Presbyterian Church English Ministry. The full audio can be found here: RPC Sermon Archive.

Our goal here is kingdom politics.

It must be possible to imagine a Christian community that rejects the wrong-headed alignment of the church with conservative politics without aligning with opposite sentiments. Our goal here is kingdom politics.

The Church as Irrelevant Social Club

I think the current model of the church is unsustainable, just like the current model for the family is unsustainable. I think that if churches try to hold fast to the North American industrial-era (“Modern”) model they will experience more and more the warning of MLK that they will be (already have been?) reduced to irrelevant social clubs. King talked about restoring the prophetic vision of the church in terms of the need for the church to stand for social justice, which it must, but it needs also to recapture the sense of community that made those first-century churches so attractive and led to such explosive growth in the beginning.

When I refer to sense of community here, I refer to what we would understand as the “sentimentalized” family. It’s not just a room full of individuals gathering to be mildly entertained once a week. It is a real flesh and blood body just like Paul describes in 1 Cor. 12, a real living organism in which each member plays a vital role of caring for all of the other members and as a whole, with Christ at the head, continuing Christ’s work of restoration.

The place where I see the greatest movement in this direction is in the so-called “emergent” churches. Unfortunately, I have seen many of the advocates of this more community-oriented approach to Christian community align themselves with social and political positions that I believe cannot be sustained biblically (like so-called “gay” marriage, for example). It must be possible to imagine a Christian community that rejects the wrong-headed alignment of the church with conservative politics without aligning with opposite sentiments. Our goal here is kingdom politics.

I really enjoyed reading Clapp’s take on the whole issue of family. I think that honestly facing the historical, social, and cultural reality of what we think of as the “traditional” family does make possible a re-evaluation of the whole community. In the larger picture, Clapp confirms in one aspect what I see as the failure of the “Modern” meta-narrative. It is only when we recognize that it is dead, and should be dead, that we can imagine a better meta-narrative, one that we do not have to construct, but that Jesus has already constructed for us.

From a review of Clapp, Rodney. Families at the Crossroads: Beyond Traditional & Modern Options. Downers Grove, Ill., USA.: IVP Books, 1993.

Where Was God When the Bombs Exploded?

This is from the sermon delivered 4/21/13 @ Rock Presbyterian Church. The audio is here: RPC Sermon Archive.

Perfect in Love (Mt. 5:43-48)

Let me tell you that when Matthew shows Jesus commanding us to love our enemies (Mt. 5:44) he uses the word agape. In fact, in the New Testament, no one is ever commanded to love with any other word for love (not eros: physical love, nor philia: brotherly love). It may seem odd that Jesus would command us to love with agape. It seems odd enough that we are being called to love our enemies to begin with, but here we see Jesus commanding us not just to love our enemies but to love them with a divine love. How is that even possible?

And of course the short answer to this question is that it is not possible for humans. Humans are incapable of the kind of love that Jesus calls us to. But let us recall that as followers of Jesus we are new creations. The apostle Paul tells us that when are baptized into Christ we are baptized into his death first. As Jesus died on the cross, so do we die. Our bodies don't die but our lives die

What dies is our human nature without the life of Christ: that grasping, self-oriented, self-centered creature that was left after the fall. The creature that was bound to sin and corruption and death. The creature that was bound for hell. For Christ followers, all of that died with Jesus on the cross. And Paul tells us that we must die to our old selves, along with Christ, so that we can rise to new life with Christ.

The Easter story contains two events: the crucifixion and the resurrection, and both are necessary for our salvation. Both are necessary for us to enter new life. The old, sinful self must die in the crucifixion so that the new, glorified self can rise with Christ.

When we are baptized into Christ our sinful selves die so that we may rise to new life in Christ. But the new life we rise to is not our own but the life of Christ. "I have been crucified with Christ," Paul writes to the Galatian Christians, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." (Gal. 2:20 ESV). And it is with this life that we can be perfect in loving our enemies. My old self could never love at all, much less perfectly. But I surrender myself to the love of Christ, and he loves through me.

In one sense I am sure that this all sounds preposterous. Because we live a life between the old and the new. Our old life is dead. but the new one has not yet been fully realized. We continue to drag around this dead body that was our old self. We continue to sin. And we continue to find it difficult to love in the way Jesus commands us to love. And maybe that discourages us.

But God never breaks his promise. God has promised to restore all things, and we can trust that promise. So even though we struggle now to follow Jesus' commands, we can be certain of the ultimate victory. The journey of the Christ follower is a journey toward looking more and more like Christ. This doesn't happen overnight, but if we are in Christ, it is unavoidable.

And so we return to the question that we asked at the beginning: Where is God in unspeakable tragedy? If God is the God of love, how can he allow evil things like the events we witnessed this week? And the surprising answer is that he does not.

God created everything in shalom. God created everything in peace and perfection. Death and corruption and sadness entered the world through the willful disobedience of humans. If God was the God of justice only, we would have to expect nothing but more and more tragedy and more and more heartbreak; more and more evil, terror, and injustice; more and more death and destruction.

But Jesus' death on the cross is the clearest indication that God is with us. He loves us enough to suffer with us. God himself loves us enough to suffer with us. When we see Jesus on the cross, we see our own suffering, and wherever we see human suffering, we see Jesus on the cross. This is what compassion actually means: com-passion, to suffer with. God suffers with us, because he is Immanuel: God with us. God in our midst.

But although for us suffering often seems senseless, Jesus’ suffering has meaning. Jesus rises to life, and offers us a part of his new life. Jesus has overcome all suffering. Jesus has overcome death and corruption. Jesus has overcome evil and injustice and terror. "If anyone is in Christ," Paul writes to the church at Corinth, "he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." (2 Cor. 5:17-18 ESV).

And, we have the promise of a world restored. The apostle John writes,

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." (Rev. 21:1-4 ESV).

So the answer to the question, "Where was God when the bombs exploded?" is right in the middle of the tragedy. He is right in the middle of our suffering, suffering with us. Christ on the cross, in the center of our suffering

And the answer to the question, "How can God allow such evil?" is he can't. And he doesn't. God has made the ultimate sacrifice to overcome all the evil humans have created. That is the meaning of Christ’s suffering. Christ destroyed sin on the cross. Christ satisfied justice on the cross. And Christ demonstrated the fulfillment of love at the empty tomb. The empty tomb is the ultimate expression of love for enemies.

The only place in scripture where we are called to be perfect is in this passage. Jesus tells us we must be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. We must be perfect in love. Because love is the beginning and end and the entire substance of the gospel. Without love there is no gospel.

Do not be discouraged by the evil that we see on every side. Do not be discouraged when we see injustice and tragedy. Do not be discouraged when it seems that darkness has once again hidden the light. Do not fall into the trap of blind blaming and human cries for vengeance. And do not be discouraged when we seek to follow Jesus and we do fall again into temptation and sin.

Jesus did not promise an easy life here on earth. In fact he promised suffering and tribulation. But we still have joy as we rest in him, as we suffer together. (Philippians 4:11). And at the same time he assures us that the ultimate victory has already been won. He promised to wipe every tear from our eyes. "In the world you will have tribulation." he tells us, "But take heart; I have overcome the world." (Jn. 16:33 ESV).

Spiritual vs. Religious? Buddha’s Finger and the Moon

In the end I think those who decry religion in favor of spirituality are more than likely just as religious as those they criticize.

There is a really good discussion about the importance of theology in C.S. Lewis' classic apologetic Mere Christianity. There he tells of an encounter with an RAF pilot who decried the need for theology. The pilot related "I know there's a God. I've felt him out alone in the desert at night. The tremendous mystery. And that's just why I don't believe all your neat little dogmas and formulas about him."

I think this is a good place for us to start thinking about this assertion of many modern seekers: "I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious." I think if we dissected that statement what we would really find is a soul that yearns for a transcendent encounter with God that it has not been able to find inside institutionalized religion.

These are true seekers. They are not denying God. Far from it. They are seeking a true experience of God. And they rightly sense two important things. The first is that knowledge about God is not the same thing as the experience of God. The second thing is that many people who claim to have had the experience of God do not represent God very well. What they call "religion" becomes the rules and dogmas of some people imposed upon everyone else.

I'm going to respond with two observations. The first is that no one has ever been more against what they call religion than Jesus was. At the time Jesus walked the earth the message of the God of righteousness, justice, and love (who in fact Jesus is) was being completely drowned out by a judgmental, exclusive, worldly, and oppressive religious system. Jesus openly challenged this system and the system responded by demanding his death. They thought that by so doing they could silence him, but in fact it was through this death that the God of Love made a big comeback in the world.

Jesus entrusted his closest followers with the task of spreading his good news about love to the world. They did the best they could and what the people then called "The Way" spread like wildfire. There has never been a more explosive time of growth in the number of those who follow Jesus than during those first decades. The reason, as anyone who studies these things knows, is because rather than trying to impose a religious structure or understanding on their fellowship, these first followers overflowed with love and gratitude. They cared for each other and their neighbors, even those no one else would care for. They raised to dignity those the world abandoned and despised. Their self-sacrificing love was infectious. Who wouldn't want to be a part of something like that? And so the movement spread.

Now I'm sure there are many who will disagree with me on this but I will argue that the difficulty for the Jesus movement began when it made the transition from being a revolutionary movement to being an "insider" institution. It was, in fact, the very thing that Jesus himself opposed that in the end undermined his movement. What originated as a fellowship of love became an imposing structure of dogma. In the time since then there has always been a need for reform in the church because the church itself is the problem. And that is true today as well. I suspect that Jesus would be just as mad at what the modern church has done with his good news as he was at the religious authorities in first century Palestine. Institutionalized religion has a historical tendency to represent human fallenness more than Divine Love.

But the other observation I need to make is precisely the same as the one C.S. Lewis made in response to the RAF pilot. And that is that even though the church is a flawed institution and always will be (well, at least until the parousia; after that we’re not sure what the church will look like), "The Way" remains essential to a genuine experience of God. Let me again quote Lewis about what I think the critics refer to as religion: "Any man who wants to think about God at all would like to have the clearest and most accurate ideas about Him which are available."

And then Lewis goes on to describe "religion" (he actually uses the term “theology”, but I think the meaning is the same) as a map. If you stand on the beach and look at the ocean, then look at a map of that same spot, it is quite obvious that the map and the experience are not the same thing. But that doesn't mean the map is useless. The map represents the experience of people who have gone before. If you set out for a destination and you don't know how to get there, the journey becomes incredibly difficult and perhaps even impossible without the map.

The problem with what we call "religion" is that too many people have mistaken the map for the destination. Do you think this tendency is confined to people who call themselves Christians? Why do you think the Buddha pointed out the problem of mistaking the pointing finger for the moon? It is human nature to err about these things. Lucky for us, God expects us to be wrong and loves us anyway.

In the end I think those who decry religion in favor of spirituality are more than likely just as religious as those they criticize. Because religion is a roadmap to the spiritual experience, and anyone who uses any method to achieve a transcendent experience is using some kind of a map.

In sum I would like to point out that while some maps may be really visually appealing they may at the same time be completely inaccurate. And other maps that may seem more stark and technical may at the same time be the most accurate. Let us not mistake the finger for the moon.

Evil Does Not Disprove God. Quite the Opposite.

I’m sorry to have to address this again but we need to get out of the way is the idea that the existence of evil or injustice is an indication that God is either weak and powerless to prevent evil, malevolent and uncaring about evil, or that injustice shows he doesn't exist at all. The following was part of my message in this week’s sermon but it’s not original to me. Far more clever and eloquent people than I have made this point previously.

The basis for this argument against God is represented in a statement by a Greek philosopher named Epicurus, who wrote the following about three centuries before Jesus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing, then where does evil come from? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

It seems like a pretty solid argument, and I will conceded that those who wish to logically disprove God's existence, power, and goodness, are often able to make what seem on the surface powerful arguments. But my experience has been that these superficial arguments can always be countered by a deeper consideration. For example, in the case of this argument, the main proposition is that the existence of injustice proves there is no God. But let's look a little deeper. How do we know what injustice is?

Consider the skeptic’s proposition. Their argument seems to be that the world and everything in it was not created but just happened. At some point there was a causeless "big bang" and everything that came into existence just did so by a huge cosmic accident. There is no creator, it's all just natural.

If this was true, then we would have to assume that humans were just another species in the natural order of things; that humans evolved essentially accidentally to be what we are today, but that aside from certain unique biological characteristics humans are essentially no different than any other phenomenon of nature. Humans are not existentially unique. Humans are just animals, like any other animals.

If that were true, you would expect that humans would exist as other creatures exist. I'm not saying that humans might not use their unique characteristics to their advantage in the fight for survival that nature seems always to be engaged in. Of course all organisms are endowed with characteristics that tend to aid in the continued survival of the species. But we would not expect that humans would experience life in a fundamentally different way than other creatures.

But that is not what we see when we look at humans and nature. When we look at nature, when we look at the natural order of things, we see that might makes right, that the organism that is more clever, more powerful, or faster than the others has a definite advantage, that the weaker and slower become naturally the victims of the more powerful. And we see that nature has to work this way. Otherwise, species could not survive. The natural order of things, as pointed out by the Social Darwinists and later adopted by Darwin himself, is "survival of the fittest."

You would think that if humans were a part of this natural order and not unique, that humans would define justice as exactly what we see in nature. Again: the strong exploiting the weak for their own gain and everyone out for themselves. But that is not what humans do.

Every group of humans, at whatever time in history, from wherever on the planet, has demonstrated a sense of justice that runs counter to what we see in nature. And, interestingly, people define justice across time and culture in a remarkably similar fashion. C.S. Lewis writes in his classic Mere Christianity:

If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and their own.

Where does this sense of justice come from? It cannot be natural, because it runs counter to what we see in nature. And so we must conclude that it is "super" natural. It must come from something that is beyond nature. Now if you’re not a Christian I don’t know how you can explain this, but if you are a Christian it's not like you have to strain to figure out what it is that makes humans unique because the Bible tells us in the very first pages that humans are created in the image of God.

Unsurprisingly, our sense of justice reflects God's sense of justice. So, far from proving the non-existence or powerlessness or malevolence of God, the existence of injustice in fact tends to indicate the opposite. Without God's image imprinted on human nature, we would not be able to recognize justice from injustice. Whatever happened would be in keeping with the natural order of things, and humans would have neither cause nor inclination to complain about it.

Undeserved Forgiveness

Please watch the following short video and then read the closing remarks below. There is a prayer that we might find the grace to forgive at the end.

 

 

Do you remember that one of the writers in the video referred to the Amish attitude as "undeserved forgiveness"? I think if we're trying to understand the amazing grace that these people demonstrated we will find the key in that phrase, undeserved forgiveness. Because, my friends, all forgiveness is undeserved.

When we look at the things in this passage that Jesus is calling us to do he is at the same time describing to us what he did do. Without the provision of God we have nothing. He has given us everything we need to live. Jesus devoted himself tirelessly while walking among us to bring healing and comfort to those who needed it most, and continues to give us comfort and guidance through his Spirit.

Above all, when we offended, he turned the other cheek and took the hit. See him nailed to the cross to pay the price for our transgressions. And when he rose to new life he offered that life to us. The things that Jesus calls us to do in today's reading, this radical surrender of our own rights and our own possessions for those who don't deserve it, would be impossible for us to accomplish on our own.

Did you hear the Amish gentleman in the video? When he was asked how it was possible to forgive, he said, "with God's help." He didn't say, "I sucked it up and willed myself to forgive." He surrendered to the life of Jesus in him, and he found the grace to forgive there.

One last thing. Are you drawn to this story about the Amish people? Do you hold them in great admiration? I know I do. And did you notice how the people in the video, the ones who were commenting on the event, were so shocked and surprised by the Amish, but at the same time seemed to be wholeheartedly supportive? Can you guess why?

Because what they were seeing was Jesus in action. This is what Jesus did for us. And this is how God plans to use us, his disciples, to bring all people back to relationship with him. This is the plan that God has always had. This is how the Israelites were supposed to have lived, drawing all people to Zion. And this is how we, the new Israel, are intended to live.

The gospel that these Amish people preached was not a judgmental, condemning gospel. It was the gospel of love in action. Their suffering is bound to Jesus' suffering on the cross to demonstrate the love that can only be found in Christ. We read in 1 John 4:12 "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." No one sees God face to face, but when they see love like this, they see God.

We can do this. We can demonstrate this kind of love if we have the life if Christ in us. In fact if we are disciples of Jesus we must do this. Let us pray that we can be so identified with Jesus that the world is astonished by our grace and love. And let us commit ourselves to living this unnatural love in the world, to the everlasting glory of God's kingdom. Amen.

Let us pray.

Lord, we don't know how to make forgiveness happen. We can't cleanse our hearts or change our feelings. We don't know how to trust, and we're afraid to hold our hearts open. But today we're making a choice to forgive. Please God, give us the willingness and strength to persevere until forgiveness is accomplished in us by Your power.

Father, we let go of all resentments and bitterness stored up in our hearts. Wash us clean. Forgive us for all the condemning judgments we have made. Give us a new and right spirit that will help enable us to hate sin but look with Your compassion and love upon sinners. Heal the wounded heart of the child within us. Pour Your love in. Bless those who have wounded us.

Lord, we pray by this practice of radical forgiveness that the world will recognize you in us, and be drawn back into relationship with you, to the everlasting glory of your kingdom. And we pray all of this in the name of your son and our savior Jesus, who is our teacher and model for forgiveness. Amen.

Justice and mercy meet at the cross.

A lot of times when we think about the Bible we will say something like "The Old Testament God is a God of justice, of retribution, of fire and brimstone, and the New Testament God is a God of love and mercy." It is a great sentiment but it is completely inaccurate. The Old Testament God is as much a God of love and mercy as the New Testament God and the New Testament God is as much a God of justice as the Old Testament God because God is unchanging.

In the Old Testament, at the very time when man needed mercy the most, at the time of the rebellion of Adam and Eve, God demonstrated his mercy by promising a savior who would rescue them from death (Gen. 3:15). And in the New Testament God satisfied the need for justice by sacrificing himself on the cross to rescue humanity from death. Justice and mercy meet at the cross.

We Only Recognize Jesus in Brokenness (Lk. 24:13-35)

The Easter Sermon is located here:

RPC Sermon Archive

It is in brokenness that we recognize Jesus

In Luke's Gospel we read the story of two disciples who meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus. (Lk. 24:13-35). It is the day of resurrection. The two must have been crushed by the events of the past few days. The story records that as the two were discussing these things Jesus opened their eyes to the reality of the whole Passion Week event. Everything that had happened was foretold in scripture. Every thing that had happened was necessary to inaugurate the coming kingdom.

For them this had been an educational experience. I hope someday you will acquire an interest to learn the kinds of things that Jesus told to these disciples. I have been studying the Bible carefully for years and one of the things I find to be the most astonishing is how the whole thing fits together. The Bible seems so disconnected and sometimes distant, because it was written over such a long period of time by so many different authors in so many different styles - poetry, and narrative, and prophecy, and what we call wisdom literature, and so much more - that it seems there could hardly be anything to hold it all together. But the more you look at it the more you see that the entire Bible from the first page to the last is about the gospel of Jesus Christ. About how God so loved the world that he sent his only son to bear our burdens, to bear our punishment, so that we could have the fullness of life with him. In my estimation there is absolutely nothing more astonishing than this.

And yet even for all that Jesus told, they still did not recognize him. It was, in the end, no matter how inspirational, just knowledge. It wasn't until later, at dinner, when Jesus blessed and broke the bread, that they suddenly recognized Jesus. What changed? What made these two disciples go from despair to knowing that the kingdom was upon them? What made them transition from experiencing Jesus as an inspired teacher to recognizing Jesus as the Risen Lord?

In some ways it is impossible for us to fully answer this question. We just know that when Jesus accepted their invitation to hospitality, and he broke the bread, the disciples suddenly recognized him.

What do you think it was about the breaking of the bread that opened their eyes? I'll tell you what I think it was. Spiritual writer Henri Nouwen writes about the breaking of the bread as a New Testament pattern for the life of Jesus. When Jesus fed the five thousand, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the people. When Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples. Jesus identifies himself as the bread of life (Jn. 6:35). The Father chose him, blessed him, broke him on the cross, and gave him to the world. Likewise we, his disciples, are taken out of the world, blessed, broken, and given to the world, to build his kingdom of love.

It is in that brokenness that we recognize Jesus. It is in that brokenness that God identifies with his creatures. It is in that brokenness that Jesus bore the penalty for our sins. And it is in our own brokenness our that our eyes are opened to the depth of our sin and the magnitude of our salvation.

This story ought to give us a sense of humility when it comes to our understanding of the scriptures. I think it is instructive that the disciples and indeed probably almost everyone in the Jewish world at the time Jesus was on earth knew the scriptures about the Messiah. It was very common for Jews, then and now, to be very familiar with scripture. Yet, even though God had made it very plain what had to happened for the Messiah to inaugurate his kingdom, when it happened, everyone missed it. How can we think that we know any better than they did? Can we think that at all?

Of course I am not suggesting that we should abandon scripture because we don't rightly understand it. On the contrary I am saying that we should prayerfully approach the scripture with the attitude that what God is saying in scripture may not be what we want to hear. A proper understanding of scripture might not prop up our culturally conditioned beliefs. A proper understanding of scripture might not fulfill our worldly desires. It might make our lives more difficult, not less. It might make undeniable the true cost of our discipleship.

The other thing that we can take from this story is that no amount of knowledge, even correct knowledge, can substitute for a personal encounter with Jesus. We can only experience that encounter in brokenness. God's grace and our need come together at the cross. We become one with Jesus in his brokenness and our brokenness. And when Jesus rises to life, we rise with him, to live forever.