How to Give God a Good Name

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35 ESV)

Last week we saw how both Jesus and Paul condemned the religiousness of the Jews of their day. Their religion consisted of a difficult regimen of observing minute regulations in order to avoid breaking any of the 613 stipulations contained in the Mosaic Law. It was thought that by doing so they could keep the covenant and ensure God’s continued benevolence. The problem was not in their pursuit of righteousness; it was that their practice had become a pattern of empty rituals. Further, as barren as their practice was, they arrogantly assumed it set them apart from their contemporaries and gained for them God’s favor. At the same time, though they painstakingly observed the stipulations of the law, their conduct in the world was no better than those who didn’t have the law. Their moral failure was heightened by hypocrisy that in their arrogance they could not even perceive.

I think it was then successfully demonstrated that many of us who profess to be Christians have fallen into the same trap as those first century Jews. We believe our religious observances set us apart from the world and guarantee our salvation. But at the same time our lives are materially indistinguishable from our non-Christian contemporaries. We fail to fulfill the mission of the holy race we are called to be, which is to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) We are instead what our critics accuse us of being: hypocritical, judgmental, and effectively irrelevant.

These observations are more than just interesting. They are crucial to us who publicly claim to be followers of Jesus. What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? Let’s consider further the plight of the Jews of Paul’s day.

There is a common misperception that the God of the Old Testament was angry and punishing, but that the God of the New Testament is characterized by love. In fact, God is a God of love from the beginning. The Old Testament narrative is a long story of God’s passionate love for his creation, the Israelites’ disobedience, and God’s forbearance and continued love and care. It is true that the Israelites were punished over and over again in the Old Testament, but it was their willful disobedience that punished them. Even though the Israelites violated the covenant over and over, God never abandoned his love for them.

What was the nature of their disobedience? The common perception imagines a God who says in effect, “Love and obey ME or I will crush you!” The truth is that God insists on being the focus of humanity’s affection because that is the only way humans can be happy, joyous, and free. Though the distractions of this world persuade otherwise, there is no contentment apart from God. The sin of man, going all the way back to Adam, was trying to achieve fulfillment through worship of created things rather than the Creator. Yet in spite of humanity’s crazy disobedience God never ceased to love his creation or his creatures. God did not allow his beloved creatures to fall without devising a plan for restoration.

Let’s look a little closer at this dynamic. God created a perfect world that reflected his nature. It was world of life, joy, and plenty. It was a world of complete happiness and absolute justice. Through disobedience, i.e., through the worship of creation rather than the Creator, mankind marred the world, introducing suffering, injustice, and death. Though humans abandoned God, he did not abandon them. He set in motion a plan to re-create the world. His covenant with the Israelites at Sinai, where the Mosaic Law was given, was the means by which the plan was to be implemented. This was the same covenant the Jews of Paul’s time believed they had inherited, that gave them their identity and sense of being “chosen.”

But look how they had screwed it up. They were supposed to be a “light for the nations,” so that God’s “salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Is. 49:6) How were they to be that light? By demonstrating the nature of God in the world. That was the purpose of the law: to make a holy community who would bless the world. To be a people who would make God’s nature so irresistible that all would be drawn to him. But the Jews had turned God’s purpose into a list of dos and don’ts that mocked his nature and thwarted his plan of salvation. Instead of being a light for the nations they turned their covenant identity into hypocritical, judgmental religion that few who were not born into it wanted to be any part of.

Jews believed then (and many still do) that the servant referenced in Isaiah 49 is the Jewish people with whom God made the Sinai covenant. Christians believe the servant is Christ, and that through Christ a new covenant has been given that creates a new Israel consisting of all who profess him. Yet though there is a new covenant the purpose of the covenant is the same: to create a holy people who will demonstrate God’s nature in the world and draw all people to him.

God’s fervent love for his creation can be traced throughout the Old Testament and the New: from Genesis to Revelation, from the first page of the Bible to the last. It is best demonstrated by Jesus. On the night of his arrest, when he knew he would be tortured and later crucified, Jesus gave instructions to his disciples: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35) This, I believe, is the essense of the new covenant, and its stipulation is both simple and terrifying. We are to love “just as I have loved you.” How did he love us? He gave up everything for the sake of those he knew would revile and spit on him. His love was not a feeling of affection; it was an act of complete self-sacrifice. And he commands his disciples to conform to this model.

Are we his disciples? If we are, then here we have the instructions for how to give God a good name.

How to Give God a Bad Name

You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Romans 2:23-24 ESV)

With what seems to me an amazing degree of chutzpah the Apostle Paul wrote to a church he had never visited and cut directly to the chase by laying out a case for God’s righteous condemnation of all humanity. It goes something like this: “Dear Church at Rome, You don’t know me. My name is Paul and I’m writing to introduce myself and seek support for evangelizing the western part of the Roman Empire. To begin with, let me just point out that you are all sinners and deserve eternal damnation.” In our day we would hardly consider this an effective way to “win friends and influence people,” even if our accusations were true.

In the first three chapters of the letter to the Romans Paul lays out the basic tenets of Christianity. In chapter one he describes the spiritual condition of the Gentiles. They act as if God does not exist. Though they do not have the law or the covenant (more on this in a minute), God has revealed himself and his character to them through nature, and therefore they are without excuse in refusing to acknowledge God’s sovereignty. They deserve God’s wrath. In chapter two Paul takes aim at the Jews. They have the law and the covenant but do not keep it and therefore they, too, are without excuse.

The beginning of chapter three summarizes the arguments of the first two and famously concludes “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Rom. 3:23) There is good news here as Paul goes on to show that our salvation is a free gift and not merited by any action on our part. But at this point in the argument, if we divide the world into two groups as Paul does: Gentile and Jew, then we can see that by rights everyone is pretty much toast.

Curiously Paul’s seems to imply that the sins of the Jews are worse than those of the Gentiles. In the passage Romans 2:17-24 Paul chastens the Jews for “boasting” about their special relationship with God while at the same time not living up to the requirements of the law and the covenant. One of the most fundamental aspects of Jewish self-identification at that time was knowledge that as Jews they were specially chosen by God. God had delivered them out of bondage in Egypt and turned them exclusively into “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Ex. 19:6) I think the audacity of publically affirming this belief alone was enough to sow the seeds of the anti-Semitism that was rampant in the Roman world.

But what made it worse was what Paul alludes to here. The covenant entered into by Yahweh with the Jewish people is summarized in the previous verse in Exodus: “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples.” (Ex. 19:5) Paul tells us in Romans 2:17-24 that the Jews loved the last part of the covenant (“treasured possession and holy people”) but weren’t too keen about the first part (“obey my voice and keep my covenant”). In all of their long history the Jews had never obeyed the law or kept the covenant. They had always denied God’s sovereignty and chased after idols. And though in Paul’s day the Jews generally adhered more strictly to the Mosaic Law than they ever had before, both Jesus and Paul condemn their religious practice. Why?

The answer is obvious: they were hypocrites. One can picture a Jewish Christian reading Paul’s condemnation of the Gentiles in chapter one with a smug sense of satisfaction. Secure in the knowledge of their covenant relationship they cast scorn upon the unrighteous pagans and their filthy habits. They could not imagine that they were equally guilty. They trusted in the law and thought it made them safe from condemnation, but because they could not fulfill the requirements of the law their trust was misplaced. And, going even further, the misplaced self-satisfied confidence that allowed them to condemn their pagan neighbors produced an affront to God because they too were guilty. So God was blasphemed by their hypocrisy.

One of the reasons I think this concept would have been difficult to grasp by Jews of Paul’s time is that many of them really were very pious. Paul himself was a member of the Pharisees, the most devout and respected Jewish religious group of the time. They kept the letter of the law meticulously, and because of this they were absolutely certain of God’s favor. But in chapter 23 of Matthew Jesus demolishes their illusions and calls them “blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!” (Mt 23:24) The allusion here is of punctiliousness in the letter of the law but blindness to the spirit of the law.

Thank God we are not like them! Oh, but we are! How many of us rely on “election” as our ticket to righteousness? How many of us believe that by going to church and writing checks, and watching the right TV shows and movies and listening to the right music and supporting and condemning the right politicians and causes we are somehow set apart from our neighbors who are not “chosen” like us? But at the same time we pursue with zeal the idols of our age: material prosperity, emotional security, and sensual pleasure, all with full knowledge that our brothers and sisters throughout the world and right in our midst are crying out; suffering and dying from hunger, poverty, oppression, violence, and persecution.

It’s not that the way Christians act is fundamentally different or worse than the way non-Christians do. But because we profess to be followers of Jesus we bring ourselves greater condemnation. For as the Apostle Peter tells us we have inherited the covenant and therefore the stipulation of the covenant to be a light to the nations: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

We have allowed ourselves to be defined by things we are against but we are not able to articulate let alone demonstrate what we are for. In fact, many of us lead lives indistinguishable from our non-Christian neighbors, except perhaps in our religious fastidiousness. This is exactly the sin of the Jews that both Paul and Jesus condemn. Jesus pointed out to his listeners that they had “neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.” (Mt. 23:23) And so have we. And that, Paul tells us, gives God a bad name.

Next week we will consider what gives God a good name.

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.