In Jeremiah 22:15, God asks the king of Judah (Jehoiakim, it seems) an interesting question: "Are you king because you can compete with cedar?" To back up a bit, the king is getting railed on by Yahweh for financing the construction of his impressive building projects on the backs of the poor. In the southern Levant, the Lebanon Cedar tree was a prized building material, and it wasn't cheap. And so God asks Jehoiakim if his ability to obtain cedar is what makes him the king. Is that what it is to be the king of God's people? To have the most expensive stuff?
Then he goes on to point out to Jehoiakim that his father, Josiah, certainly enjoyed his life (literally "ate and drank"--i.e., he wasn't lacking) but yet he didn't find it necessary to oppress the poor and needy in the land in order to do so. Instead, he obeyed Yahweh and was the defender of the poor, the overlooked, the powerless. And things, God reminds Jehoiakim, "went well for him." He concludes by saying, "He [Josiah] pleaded the case of the needy and poor, and then it was well! Isn't that what it means to know me?"
I'd like to repeat that last line: "He [Josiah] pleaded the case of the needy and poor, and then it was well! Isn't that what it means to know me?"
God essentially says to Jehoiakim: "Your dad had a very comfortable life. He was definitely blessed. But, unlike you, he didn't find it necessary to exploit the powerless in order to secure his comfort and wealth. Rather, he obeyed me. He did what I told him a king should do: he defended the weak and the powerless. And so I blessed him. And isn't that what it is to have a relationship with me?"
This is just one of the many, many passages in the Bible that make it clear that knowing/loving God means to obey him (cf. John 14-15). And God, through his prophet Jeremiah here, points out that it is not a complicated thing. God is not demanding the impossible from his followers. He just expects obedience and loyalty. But apparently Jehoiakim didn't get it. Apparently he didn't take after his father in this regard. Instead, he worked hard on the backs of the poor to secure his wealth and comfort, to secure his status and social standing. He wasn't content with what God gave him, and he wasn't interested in listening to God's commands.
Of course, things would go badly for Jehoiakim--in contrast to things going well for his father, Josiah. And his story makes me wonder how much we can be like him. We have this preternatural need to want more. More stuff. More power. More authority. More money. More influence. More respect. Instead of simply obeying God, making the right decisions and treating people in the right way, we spend most of our mental energy (and sometimes physical energy) on figuring out how we can acquire more of whatever it is we think we so desperately need.
Well this week my hope is that I learn from the comparison of Josiah to his son Jehoiakim. And that when I find myself (each day) conniving a way to get more of whatever it is I think I lack, that this contrast would remind me that my purpose is actually very simple: I simply need to be obedient to God. And that God will take care of me, and what he provides for me is exactly what is best.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
I can be a very nostalgic person. Curiously, I am more often nostalgic for time periods in which I never actually lived, rather than for any previous portion of my own life. I don't really know what that says about me, but there you have it. So when I read Franny and Zooey by Salinger, I want to live in New York City in the 1950s. And when I read The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, I long to be a part of the upper-class in the 1920s (before the stock market crash, naturally). And when I read The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy, well... I just want to be as talented as Walker Percy.
In contrast, I do not often think, Man, I wish I could go back to that time in middle school when I only ever wore sweatpants and I hadn't yet discovered the positive benefits of deodorant and facewash. Or any other time of my life, for that matter. So perhaps my personality skews me away from the wishing-for-how-things-used-to-be mentality that I have found is startlingly present in the church.
You have probably experienced this at least once. You are talking to someone one day after church, and they say something about how bad the world/country/city/rural-nowhere-landscape has become since they were a kid. And you can tell by the tone of their voice that they obviously wish things would return to the utopian society they once enjoyed; an apparently mystical land that brought nothing but smiles and goodwill to each person inhabiting it. I have heard that the 1950s in America, for example, were much "better" than today. Which always makes me raise my eyebrows. I am hard-pressed to find a political figure in recent history that broke more social, legal, and political norms than JFK. When I first read a biography that detailed his excessive womanizing, I could barely believe it. What was worse, I realized that such infidelity was, quite frankly, the norm in that period of American history. The difference between then and now simply is that we didn't talk about it then, and now it is blasted all over the Internet whenever any political candidate so much as sneezes in the direction of one of his female aides. Not to mention how much money was spent by the Kennedy family to secure JFK's numerous elections to public office. Even worse (far worse), outside of the US, Joseph Stalin was torturing and murdering untold millions and Mao Zedong was instituting the Great Leap Forward--or as I like to call it, the time when Mao Zedong starved 60 million peasants to death. Man, those were the good old days, weren't they? Don't you just wish you could go back to the time when everyone thought the world was on the brink of nuclear war on any given day of the week?
This topic most often comes up, unfortunately, when things like the Book of Revelation are being discussed. The common Christian view in America is apparently that things are going to hell-in-a-handbasket (literally, minus the handbasket part) until finally God will show up and start kicking some butt and taking names. Which sounds well and good, except I don't think it's accurate. I am well aware that my interpretation of Revelation and Daniel and other relevant passages in this regard is not in-line with the mainstream opinion, and that really influences my outlook here. Be that as it may, I would like to point out that we are on the side of history that occurs after the Cross (a marvelous fact that Easter reminds us of this week!). According to the biblical authors, Christ began the ball rolling on redemption, and he has commissioned the Church to join him in the kingdom-effort of restoring all things, setting everything right, reconciling everything in the universe back with God (cf. Colossians). That sounds fantastic, doesn't it!? It actually sounds like good news. And so, this time of year, I am reminded of why I am so optimistic about the future. Certainly, the Bible's authors are clear that things will not be perfectly reconciled until Christ returns, and looking around us we surely know that there is a lot of work to be done (a lot of which can only be done by God!), but we are in the home-stretch, relatively speaking! This is the appetizer to the great kingdom feast with God! We are offered the chance to work alongside of him to make his will be realized on earth as it is in heaven, right? And so we do! And things get better. Medical advancements are made, quality of life is increased, our knowledge about the vastness and beauty of the universe expands, our ability to communicate with one another improves every day, our opportunities to express ourselves in forms of art that people couldn't even imagine a mere fifty years ago are developed, it is really quite astounding. It would be a mistake, if you hold a so-called Christian worldview, to think that anything in the above list was achieved simply by the ingenuity of mankind. It wasn't. It was achieved by the Cross. It always has been, and it always will be.
According to the Bible, the Christian's hope is not in the past, it is in the future. It is in God, who has promised to complete the project he began by humbly becoming a human being to suffer the consequences of our sins on a wooden cross nearly 2000 years ago. He has purged the evil that we invited to this universe through our disobedience, and he has offered us the opportunity to join him in the effort. And one day, in the future, redemption will be accomplished. So why not enjoy the ride?
In contrast, I do not often think, Man, I wish I could go back to that time in middle school when I only ever wore sweatpants and I hadn't yet discovered the positive benefits of deodorant and facewash. Or any other time of my life, for that matter. So perhaps my personality skews me away from the wishing-for-how-things-used-to-be mentality that I have found is startlingly present in the church.
You have probably experienced this at least once. You are talking to someone one day after church, and they say something about how bad the world/country/city/rural-nowhere-landscape has become since they were a kid. And you can tell by the tone of their voice that they obviously wish things would return to the utopian society they once enjoyed; an apparently mystical land that brought nothing but smiles and goodwill to each person inhabiting it. I have heard that the 1950s in America, for example, were much "better" than today. Which always makes me raise my eyebrows. I am hard-pressed to find a political figure in recent history that broke more social, legal, and political norms than JFK. When I first read a biography that detailed his excessive womanizing, I could barely believe it. What was worse, I realized that such infidelity was, quite frankly, the norm in that period of American history. The difference between then and now simply is that we didn't talk about it then, and now it is blasted all over the Internet whenever any political candidate so much as sneezes in the direction of one of his female aides. Not to mention how much money was spent by the Kennedy family to secure JFK's numerous elections to public office. Even worse (far worse), outside of the US, Joseph Stalin was torturing and murdering untold millions and Mao Zedong was instituting the Great Leap Forward--or as I like to call it, the time when Mao Zedong starved 60 million peasants to death. Man, those were the good old days, weren't they? Don't you just wish you could go back to the time when everyone thought the world was on the brink of nuclear war on any given day of the week?
This topic most often comes up, unfortunately, when things like the Book of Revelation are being discussed. The common Christian view in America is apparently that things are going to hell-in-a-handbasket (literally, minus the handbasket part) until finally God will show up and start kicking some butt and taking names. Which sounds well and good, except I don't think it's accurate. I am well aware that my interpretation of Revelation and Daniel and other relevant passages in this regard is not in-line with the mainstream opinion, and that really influences my outlook here. Be that as it may, I would like to point out that we are on the side of history that occurs after the Cross (a marvelous fact that Easter reminds us of this week!). According to the biblical authors, Christ began the ball rolling on redemption, and he has commissioned the Church to join him in the kingdom-effort of restoring all things, setting everything right, reconciling everything in the universe back with God (cf. Colossians). That sounds fantastic, doesn't it!? It actually sounds like good news. And so, this time of year, I am reminded of why I am so optimistic about the future. Certainly, the Bible's authors are clear that things will not be perfectly reconciled until Christ returns, and looking around us we surely know that there is a lot of work to be done (a lot of which can only be done by God!), but we are in the home-stretch, relatively speaking! This is the appetizer to the great kingdom feast with God! We are offered the chance to work alongside of him to make his will be realized on earth as it is in heaven, right? And so we do! And things get better. Medical advancements are made, quality of life is increased, our knowledge about the vastness and beauty of the universe expands, our ability to communicate with one another improves every day, our opportunities to express ourselves in forms of art that people couldn't even imagine a mere fifty years ago are developed, it is really quite astounding. It would be a mistake, if you hold a so-called Christian worldview, to think that anything in the above list was achieved simply by the ingenuity of mankind. It wasn't. It was achieved by the Cross. It always has been, and it always will be.
According to the Bible, the Christian's hope is not in the past, it is in the future. It is in God, who has promised to complete the project he began by humbly becoming a human being to suffer the consequences of our sins on a wooden cross nearly 2000 years ago. He has purged the evil that we invited to this universe through our disobedience, and he has offered us the opportunity to join him in the effort. And one day, in the future, redemption will be accomplished. So why not enjoy the ride?
Friday, April 8, 2011
The Roadmap
If I had about 18 dollars for every time someone said to me, "I just wish I knew what God's will for me was," I would have at least 576 dollars in my pocket, right now. And if I had 18 dollars for every time I said to someone else, "I just wish I knew what God's will for me was," I would be a millionaire. Simply because that's all I would say to people all the time so as to add to my accruing wealth. You understand.
We have this thing about knowing God's will. That thing, of course, is a desire (kind of) to know it. Part of us wants to know it desperately, so that we can have some kind of validation on our lives and a sense that we're doing what God wants us to do. Another part of us kind of doesn't want to know about it, because we have this sneaking suspicion that it will entail selling our belongings and moving to a country in which the indigenous population has never heard of Tina Fey and indoor-plumbing is something that the townspeople ridicule the local shaman for claiming to have seen in a dream sent by a god who is responsible for making it rain (and not like rappers do in inappropriate places like strip clubs, but like actually rain). But despite that nagging hesitation, the majority of us would say that we would risk such a scenario if it meant getting a clear indication from God concerning what we should do with our lives.
If you are like me, that means you often second guess your decisions, wondering if they had met the approval of the Almighty, and wondering why he wasn't vocal about his opinion one way or the other--or worse, wondering if possibly you weren't listening when he was vocal about his opinion. And so you cry yourself to sleep at night listening to "Title and Registration" by Death Cab for Cutie on repeat, and then wake up in the morning wondering if God was really angry that you just spent your night doing said crying. It is a vicious cycle, as they say.
It doesn't make anything easier that most of the speakers I have heard on this topic have suggested that reading the Bible would give you all the answers you are looking for in this regard. I remember in college listening to speaker after speaker at our campus ministry group tell us that if we would just have our daily "quiet time" with God he would clearly tell us what to do (which, interestingly enough, according to these speakers usually meant working for this campus ministry organization immediately upon our graduation). Which sounds like magic, by the way. As if, somehow, simply by forcing yourself to read the genealogical account of 1 Chronicles 1-9 you would miraculously discover whether or not you should major in accounting, or if you should date Betsy, or if you shouldn't be watching Family Guy anymore because they make fun of Jesus too much. And when I think of magic, I think of crazy talk. Because that's what it is.
Well, all of that to say that I think the majority of us have been seriously misguided in our understanding of God's will. I think that God has made his will very clear to us, and that it is in fact presented in the Bible--but not in the way I've always been told to expect it to be. The view of God's will that I laid out above suggests that God has your life planned out like you would plan a game of chess against an opponent, thinking x number of moves ahead, and, if everything goes according to plan, humiliating said opponent in a swift and expedient manner. But what if that wasn't the way God's will worked? It's not that I think God doesn't know the future--if the Bible is true, then he clearly does. But it's just that I don't think that he moves us all around the board like pawns in his own cosmic game of chess with Satan (who is astoundingly good at chess, I'm guessing).
To be brief, I think that God's will for us is more general. To paraphrase one of the prophets (Micah 6:8): "God has already made clear to you what he wants: act justly, show everyone loving-kindness, and live obediently to God." I think that God's will simply doesn't get any clearer than that. Jesus told his followers to treat everyone in the way they themselves would like to be treated (Matthew 7:12). The OT Law was God's will for his people, Israel, as they were about to enter the land of Canaan. The so-called Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is a summary of that law, applied practically to the daily lives of Jesus' audience. The Bible makes it very clear what God values, and what he expects from his people, and--as the apostle Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 5:1--we are to be "imitators of God."
If we take the Bible seriously enough to respect the original intentions of its authors, and we take the time to read and understand what it tells us about God, we will in fact discover God's will. We will find, for example, that God cares deeply for the poor, the vulnerable, and the oppressed. That God is humble, and wants his people to be humble. That God doesn't ever wish harm to even his enemies, but would rather see every single person repent and find life, rather than death. If I had spent about half of the time I spent worrying in college about what God wanted me to do when I graduated or whether or not I should take summer classes--if I had spent just half of that time focused on learning about God and doing my best to imitate him in my daily, basic interactions with everyone around me, I think both the world and I would have been far better off.
Planning isn't bad, and neither is consulting God concerning major life decisions. These are clearly good things (the Bible is consistently positive about both of them). But when we start to expect that God wants to tell us where to place every next step we make, we are really starting to live like God is some kind of divine puppet-master who hasn't given his people any choice in the matter (and I hope we all know that isn't true). And one last thing: if you made a choice that you thought God wanted you to make, and then things turned out badly for you--it doesn't necessarily mean that you were "outside of God's will" (whatever that exactly means...). Sometimes, apparently, God allows bad things to happen to his most faithful followers (cf. Joseph, Job, and Jesus--just to name a few Bible characters whose names begin with J). Of course, on the other hand, sometimes we just do stupid stuff and then try to justify it by suggesting we thought God told us to do it...
God's will does exist, and he does communicate it clearly to his people, but it isn't so much a step-by-step script as much as it is an expertly designed framework.
We have this thing about knowing God's will. That thing, of course, is a desire (kind of) to know it. Part of us wants to know it desperately, so that we can have some kind of validation on our lives and a sense that we're doing what God wants us to do. Another part of us kind of doesn't want to know about it, because we have this sneaking suspicion that it will entail selling our belongings and moving to a country in which the indigenous population has never heard of Tina Fey and indoor-plumbing is something that the townspeople ridicule the local shaman for claiming to have seen in a dream sent by a god who is responsible for making it rain (and not like rappers do in inappropriate places like strip clubs, but like actually rain). But despite that nagging hesitation, the majority of us would say that we would risk such a scenario if it meant getting a clear indication from God concerning what we should do with our lives.
If you are like me, that means you often second guess your decisions, wondering if they had met the approval of the Almighty, and wondering why he wasn't vocal about his opinion one way or the other--or worse, wondering if possibly you weren't listening when he was vocal about his opinion. And so you cry yourself to sleep at night listening to "Title and Registration" by Death Cab for Cutie on repeat, and then wake up in the morning wondering if God was really angry that you just spent your night doing said crying. It is a vicious cycle, as they say.
It doesn't make anything easier that most of the speakers I have heard on this topic have suggested that reading the Bible would give you all the answers you are looking for in this regard. I remember in college listening to speaker after speaker at our campus ministry group tell us that if we would just have our daily "quiet time" with God he would clearly tell us what to do (which, interestingly enough, according to these speakers usually meant working for this campus ministry organization immediately upon our graduation). Which sounds like magic, by the way. As if, somehow, simply by forcing yourself to read the genealogical account of 1 Chronicles 1-9 you would miraculously discover whether or not you should major in accounting, or if you should date Betsy, or if you shouldn't be watching Family Guy anymore because they make fun of Jesus too much. And when I think of magic, I think of crazy talk. Because that's what it is.
Well, all of that to say that I think the majority of us have been seriously misguided in our understanding of God's will. I think that God has made his will very clear to us, and that it is in fact presented in the Bible--but not in the way I've always been told to expect it to be. The view of God's will that I laid out above suggests that God has your life planned out like you would plan a game of chess against an opponent, thinking x number of moves ahead, and, if everything goes according to plan, humiliating said opponent in a swift and expedient manner. But what if that wasn't the way God's will worked? It's not that I think God doesn't know the future--if the Bible is true, then he clearly does. But it's just that I don't think that he moves us all around the board like pawns in his own cosmic game of chess with Satan (who is astoundingly good at chess, I'm guessing).
To be brief, I think that God's will for us is more general. To paraphrase one of the prophets (Micah 6:8): "God has already made clear to you what he wants: act justly, show everyone loving-kindness, and live obediently to God." I think that God's will simply doesn't get any clearer than that. Jesus told his followers to treat everyone in the way they themselves would like to be treated (Matthew 7:12). The OT Law was God's will for his people, Israel, as they were about to enter the land of Canaan. The so-called Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is a summary of that law, applied practically to the daily lives of Jesus' audience. The Bible makes it very clear what God values, and what he expects from his people, and--as the apostle Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 5:1--we are to be "imitators of God."
If we take the Bible seriously enough to respect the original intentions of its authors, and we take the time to read and understand what it tells us about God, we will in fact discover God's will. We will find, for example, that God cares deeply for the poor, the vulnerable, and the oppressed. That God is humble, and wants his people to be humble. That God doesn't ever wish harm to even his enemies, but would rather see every single person repent and find life, rather than death. If I had spent about half of the time I spent worrying in college about what God wanted me to do when I graduated or whether or not I should take summer classes--if I had spent just half of that time focused on learning about God and doing my best to imitate him in my daily, basic interactions with everyone around me, I think both the world and I would have been far better off.
Planning isn't bad, and neither is consulting God concerning major life decisions. These are clearly good things (the Bible is consistently positive about both of them). But when we start to expect that God wants to tell us where to place every next step we make, we are really starting to live like God is some kind of divine puppet-master who hasn't given his people any choice in the matter (and I hope we all know that isn't true). And one last thing: if you made a choice that you thought God wanted you to make, and then things turned out badly for you--it doesn't necessarily mean that you were "outside of God's will" (whatever that exactly means...). Sometimes, apparently, God allows bad things to happen to his most faithful followers (cf. Joseph, Job, and Jesus--just to name a few Bible characters whose names begin with J). Of course, on the other hand, sometimes we just do stupid stuff and then try to justify it by suggesting we thought God told us to do it...
God's will does exist, and he does communicate it clearly to his people, but it isn't so much a step-by-step script as much as it is an expertly designed framework.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Choices.
We live in a culture that surrounds us with choices. It is strange, really. How many options we have at any given time. This, of course, has been well-documented by many astute observers of American capitalism and democracy. "The tyranny of choice." And I am often paralyzed by it. Particularly in the grocery store. Particularly in the cereal aisle of the grocery store. Of a grocery store. Since that in and of itself is a choice. I like so many different cereals. And they all cost about the same, which is not really that much. So how do I decide? I know--it is a melancholic despair that besets you, the reader, in this very moment.
Choices are tough. Which might be why many people like to think or suggest that human beings, when it really comes down to it, don't have a choice in the most fundamental matters of life. I am always surprised when I hear someone talking about the Bible mention how little choice we have in matters of great importance. I mean, I've heard it so many times you would think that it would cease to amaze me. But it hasn't. It hasn't ceased, that is, ceased to amaze. It continues. Probably because I can't imagine coming to that conclusion from reading the Bible. I think immediately of texts like Deuteronomy 30:11-20 (which is quoted by the apostle Paul--the supposed ring leader of this no-choice philosophy in the Bible--in Romans 10). The whole point of that passage is that the Israelites had a choice. They could choose to be obedient to God, and therefore receive the many blessings he had promised to bestow upon them, or they could choose to be disobedient. And there were consequences for being disobedient. Crappy ones. Consequences like being the victims of siege warfare (which is not fun, by the way--read anything ever written about the practice of siege warfare in the ancient Near East, and you will know... Oh, how you will know). And as far as I can tell, not much has changed for the Christian in America today. I mean, siege warfare doesn't exactly seem to be in God's chosen repertoire of curses these days. At least not here in eastern PA. But the general situation of having life and death being placed before each one of us, that hasn't changed (if the New Testament is trustworthy--see Hebrews 6, for example). Ezekiel 18 is a perfect example of the responsibility of choice facing each (capable) person who has ever lived.
Choices are tough. But that doesn't mean they don't exist.
Choices are tough. Which might be why many people like to think or suggest that human beings, when it really comes down to it, don't have a choice in the most fundamental matters of life. I am always surprised when I hear someone talking about the Bible mention how little choice we have in matters of great importance. I mean, I've heard it so many times you would think that it would cease to amaze me. But it hasn't. It hasn't ceased, that is, ceased to amaze. It continues. Probably because I can't imagine coming to that conclusion from reading the Bible. I think immediately of texts like Deuteronomy 30:11-20 (which is quoted by the apostle Paul--the supposed ring leader of this no-choice philosophy in the Bible--in Romans 10). The whole point of that passage is that the Israelites had a choice. They could choose to be obedient to God, and therefore receive the many blessings he had promised to bestow upon them, or they could choose to be disobedient. And there were consequences for being disobedient. Crappy ones. Consequences like being the victims of siege warfare (which is not fun, by the way--read anything ever written about the practice of siege warfare in the ancient Near East, and you will know... Oh, how you will know). And as far as I can tell, not much has changed for the Christian in America today. I mean, siege warfare doesn't exactly seem to be in God's chosen repertoire of curses these days. At least not here in eastern PA. But the general situation of having life and death being placed before each one of us, that hasn't changed (if the New Testament is trustworthy--see Hebrews 6, for example). Ezekiel 18 is a perfect example of the responsibility of choice facing each (capable) person who has ever lived.
Choices are tough. But that doesn't mean they don't exist.
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