Category: Theology

Communion

‘Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere’ – Psalm 84:10

Today my family and I traveled to the shops at Rancocas Woods.  It’s a lovely spot we had recently discovered.  A friend had told us about his son’s secondhand book shop, Second Time Books, and we went to check it out a couple of weeks ago.  It’s a great store, you should go sometime.  And while you are there you should check out the other shops.  There’s a store for antiques, crafts, a snack shop, and a café with an amazing courtyard.  I hope to spend many days in the months ahead writing in that courtyard with a cup of coffee at my side.  It’s perfect. 

It was in that courtyard today that I had an encounter.  As we approached the café and neighboring antique store, we were surprisingly greeted by two dogs laying in the middle of the courtyard path.  Their owner was nearby pruning trees, and they were just the picture of contentment and happiness, lounging on the cool pavement and, seemingly, eagerly waiting someone to come by.  We did, and apparently suited their fancy just fine.  They were as loveable a couple of dogs as you could ever hope to meet (I think they were German Shepherd-Lab mixes, although their owner claimed they were part Collie).  They came right up to us, to me particularly for some reason, begging to be petted.  They didn’t have to beg much.  Having lost my best canine friend Corky in recent months (a story I have not been able to write about yet; it’s been a year of losses on too many fronts), I have been seriously dog deprived.  Perhaps that was what they sensed in their desire to be near me. 

The owner stopped his pruning and chatted with us a bit.  He explained how his dogs were friendly to everyone, which is why he didn’t have them on leashes.  He was a nice fellow; almost as warm and inviting as his dogs. 

The key moment that prompts me to write came when my family and I attempted to say goodbye to our new four-legged friends.  The male dog (there was one of each gender) allowed us to pass, but the female would hear nothing of it.  She nuzzled my leg, stared at me with her lovely eyes, wagged her tail, and otherwise enticed me to stay.  I gave her what I thought was a final pat on the head and began to move away, but it was then I learned she was dead serious about keeping me.  She literally sat on my foot as if to say, ‘Oh no mister.  You’re not going anywhere!’  The little darling enjoyed my company and intended to keep me as her hostage. 

The owner tried to call her, but she would not budge.  So he told me with a smile, ‘Well, there’s only one thing to do.  Stop petting her.’  It was then I realized that I hadn’t.  I had succumbed to her wiles and had given her what she wanted.  As long as I continued to do that, she was not going to move, even when called by her master.  So I stopped rubbing her head, he called, and the little dickens finally allowed me to move on. 

I considered the encounter just a cute episode in the course of an ordinary day.  But as I thought more deeply later, it dawned on me that my encounter with those dogs, especially the female, was nothing less than a parable of life with God. 

God always waits for us, doesn’t he?  Not just on courtyard paths, but on every path we travel.  God is also happy and content.  In fact, God didn’t have to create us humans to be so.  I believe it was Dallas Willard who answered, when asked what God did before he created the universe, ‘He was enjoying themselves.’  Father, Son, and Spirit, the three persons of the Trinity are fully capable of happiness without us.  And yet.  God seems to long for our company.  He eagerly waits for one of us (or all of us) to come by, and whichever one takes a moment to sit a spell will suit His fancy just fine.  If the Bible’s story of salvation history teaches us anything, it teaches that God, in each of His persons, practically begs for our company.  You could even say he’s dying to spend time with us, maybe especially those of us who need him the most. 

In my own life, I find myself so distracted at times, so eager to move on to whatever it is I have to do or wherever it is I have to go, that even when I run into him in the middle of my paths, I don’t always linger as I should.  I’ll spend a few minutes, but then try to move on, ignoring God’s efforts, his enticements, to get me to stay.  Such is my mania that I don’t even pay attention when he sits on my foot.  Maybe I feel as if I have received what I needed from God in the first moments of the encounter, and so move on to fill other needs.  What a shame.  I should be long to stay as long as possible, not only for my sake, but for His.

In his book, Love Big, Be Well, Winn Collier writes that prayer isn’t first and foremost about having our requests met.  It is simply communion with God.  When we spend time with God, the thing that matters is that ‘we have been with God, and God has been with us.’  What a remarkable thing it is that the God of Creation longs for this: to love and receive love.  Isn’t that what we were made for?  Isn’t that what we should long for too?

The next time God sits on my foot, I think I’ll stick around his courts for a while.  There isn’t anything I have to do that’s more important than that. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

It’s Time to Abandon the Empire

‘Whenever the Spirit of God blows like a hurricane through Christian history, it is through prophets and lovers who have surrendered unconditionally to the folly of the Cross’ – Brennan Manning

It was tough living in first century Palestine, at least if you were a faithful Jew.  Herod the Great, and his sons after him, collaborated with Rome to impose Greco-Roman politics and culture upon Israel with evangelistic fervor. The way of Herod, aka the way of empire, the way of wielding power from above to impose one’s will upon those below, was having its way throughout the land. This was the world of Jesus.

In his book, The Jesus Way, Eugene Peterson points out something rather remarkable about Jesus and his time: despite the virtual omnipresence of the Roman Empire and its puppet kings, Jesus pretty much went about his business as if they didn’t exist. Only once did he briefly mention the emperor (Mark 12:17), and it was the same with the house of Herod (Luke 13:32).  He called Herod Antipas a ‘fox,’ which was just enough of an insult to let everyone know what he thought of that family’s wily political ways. Not that he was unaffected by these miscreants. He certainly was. His birth in Bethlehem was brought about by imperial edict. As a toddler he fled with his refugee family to escape Herod’s mania.  As a craftsman in Nazareth he felt the financial pinch of the empire’s oppressive taxation. As an itinerant preacher he walked among centurions and soldiers who jealously eyed him with suspicion.   And at the end of his life he was deemed a political enemy of the state and crucified under orders of the Roman Governor Pilate.  Even his grave was guarded by Roman soldiers. From birth to death, Jesus life was ramed by the politics and policies of empire. 

But he never let the empire dictate the course of his life.  He simply swam in its waters (without ‘getting wet,’ i.e., being contaminated by them) as he heeded the voice of his Father.  Never once did he seek to use the empire’s power to further his message. He never petitioned it for a redress of grievances (though the Gospels show evidence of other religious leaders doing just that). He never asked Herod to implement just laws or further the Kingdom of God on earth. It is striking that during the greatest injustice ever perpetrated, his own arrest and trial, he never once asked either Herod or Pilate for mercy.  In fact, he was silent before Herod, and largely so before Pilate.  To the latter he would only say that his Kingdom didn’t operate along the lines of power politics and violence, as Pilate’s did, and that in any event his life was in his Father’s hands, not Rome’s. In other words, even when the regents of the world stood before him and asked for his input on the subject of his own death, he pretty much ignored them. 

This is not to say he never addressed the powers of his day.  On the contrary, he challenged them at every turn. His every move in life was, in a sense, a political act; a statement in word or action that decried the way of empire and violence. But he never employed the ways and means of the empire to make his case. He never sought political power or assistance. He never enmeshed himself, even to the slightest degree, in the empire’s methods. He simply went about his Father’s business, strolling about the dominion of the empire, showing everyone another way to change the world.

There are of course many reasons why he took this approach. But most crucial is that empire simply wasn’t his Father’s way. His Fathers way was (and is) the way of the Cross, which Paul described as the wisdom of God and the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:24). Jesus knew that using the ways and means of empire to make the world a better place would be useless. Might as well try to make the sun rise in the west. The empire was the empire was the empire, and always would be. There was nothing to gain by becoming entangled with it and everything to lose. Get involved in the empire, pursue its ways, and you’ll only end up talking, looking, and smelling like the empire. You might gain at least a part of the world, but in the process lose your own soul (Mark 8:36). Much better, and ultimately far more effective, to follow the way of the Cross.

Such thoughts race through my mind today in the wake of Donald Trump’s second acquittal in the Senate, supposedly the ‘greatest deliberative body on earth.’  We all knew how it would end. And we were right. If you were hoping for another outcome you were fooling yourself. You were counting on an empire to do the right thing. But an empire is an empire is an empire. It never does the right thing. Maybe once in a blue moon it makes a move in the right direction.  Even a blind pig will occasionally find a truffle.  But in the end, the forces of empire, the power players who long to impose their will on those below them, always manage to get their way. It was empire that created the system after all, and it works exactly the way empire intends. 

I’ve spent several years now lamenting and fighting the empire, or at least the version known as Trumpism.  But after everything that’s happened, Trumpism is still alive, still menacing the nation in the wake of insurrection. I will continue to stand against it, of course, but in coming days I’m going to do better at remembering the tactics of Jesus. I’m resolving to spend less time paying attention to what the empire is doing. Sure, I will vote. I will speak out about issues that matter. I will stand against racism, seek solidarity with the vulnerable, work to preserve the beauty of God’s creation, lots of things.  I may even show up at a protest or two. But I am not going to expend the best parts of myself watching and worrying about the minutiae of what the empire is doing, thinking that by doing so I can somehow will it to do the right thing. The vote today proves what I really knew all along.  It never will.   

So, instead, I’m going to follow the way of the cross. I’m going to stroll around the dominion of empire doing my best to show everyone another way to change the world. I’m going to try to be more like my Jesus (I am well aware of how far I fall short of that standard), the one who went about his business of challenging the empire and its ways without seeming to notice it. My life will still be lived in the shadow of the beast, as his was, and in some ways shaped by the beast’s designs and machinations. But I will not waste my time worrying about those designs and machinations. I will instead seek my Fathers will and place myself in his hands. I will live by the creed of another Kingdom, not the Pilatian, Herodian, or Trumpian kingdoms of the world.   

Will doing this make a difference? I have no idea.  It really isn’t any of my concern. In the inside cover of my Bible I have taped a quote from Brother Dominique, a friend and mentor of the late Brennan Manning. It reads:

‘All that is not the love of God has no meaning for me.  I can truthfully say that I have no interest in anything but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.  If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my word and witness.  If he wants it to, it will bear fruit through my prayers and sacrifices.  But the usefulness of my life is His concern, not mine.  It would be indecent of me to worry about that.’[1]

It’s time to get out of the shallow end of the pool and live that statement to the full.

Let the chips fall where they may. I will trust God and follow Jesus.  I will follow the way of the Cross.

As Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw say, ‘enough with the donkeys and elephants. It’s time for the Lamb.’

It’s time to abandon the empire. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

[1] From All is Grace, by Brennan Manning.

The Voice of the True King

The following Christmas message is excerpted and adapted from my book, Royal Mistakes: Life Lessons from Some Seriously Messed Up Judean Kings.

‘The people refused to listen to Samuel’s warning.  ‘Even so, we still want a king,’ they said.  ‘We want to be like the nations around us.  Our king will judge us and lead us into battle.’  So Samuel repeated what the people had said, and the Lord replied, ‘Do as they say, and give them a king.’ – 1 Samuel 8:19-22(a)

Back in the days before Rehoboam, before Solomon, David or even Saul, Israel was one nation under one King, and that King was God.  God appointed Judges to lead and impart guidance to the people, but these men and women were not monarchs in their own right.  They were merely representatives, ambassadors if you will, of the One True King.  God was Israel’s King.  It was as simple as that. 

At least it was supposed to be.  The people, fallen and fickle as they were, tended to forget who their king was.  Whenever they did, it got them into trouble.  The Book of Judges tells of the trouble they got themselves into in those days.  The people would forget who their king was, turn their back on him, worship idols and wind up conquered by their enemies.   Then they would cry out to God for help and God would send a Judge to help them. The people would then turn back to God for a while, but before long they would forget him again, and the whole cycle would repeat itself.  You know, lather, rinse, repeat.  It was a troubling time in which to live.  The final verse of Judges sums up the problem: ‘In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes’ (Judges 21:25). 

Now you must understand, Israel did have a king.  God was the King.  Israel just had a hard time following a king they could not see.  What they lacked, they figured, was an earthly king, someone they could see, someone who would stand tall and strong and mighty at the head of a great army carrying a sword and shield, someone who would wave a flag and rally the troops, someone who would make them great like the nations that surrounded them.  True enough, God had gone before them once in a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night (See, Exodus 13:21).  But that had been a long time ago.  And truer still, God still went before them in battle through the means of the Ark of the Covenant.  But doggone it, it just wasn’t the same thing.   What they needed was a true king!

And so, on a day that would live in infamy, the people of Israel approached the man God had chosen to be the current Judge of Israel, Samuel.  ‘Look,’ they said, ‘we want you to give us a king like the ones in all the other nations’ (See, 1 Samuel 8:5).  They felt that if they only had that, all their problems (you know, the problems they had because they refused to acknowledge God as their One True King) would be solved.  All they needed was a tangible, earthly king.  One they could see.  One they could hear.  All they needed was to hear the voice of this true king, and everything would be wonderful. 

Samuel was heartbroken.  He immediately turned to God, whom Samuel at least acknowledged as King, and asked what he should do.  God told him to go ahead and grant the request. 

‘Do everything they say to you,’ the Lord replied, ‘for they are rejecting me, not you.  They don’t want me to be their king any longer…Do as they ask, but solemnly warn them about the way a king will reign over them.’ (1 Samuel 8:7-9). 

Samuel warned the people.  He told them that if they had a king like the nations, he would take their sons off to war, turn them into slaves, confiscate their property, tax them to death and otherwise make life miserable for them (sound familiar?).  ‘If you put your trust in a human king rather than God,’ Samuel told them, ‘you will live to regret it.’  (See, 1 Samuel 8:10-18). 

But the people would not be dissuaded.  ‘Yeah, yeah, we still want a king.  We want to be like the nations around us.  We want a king who will lead us into battle.  We want a king we can see and hear.’  And so Samuel checked with God again, and God again told him to go ahead and give them their ‘ideal’ king. 

The First King of Israel

Samuel did as instructed.  He found a king for Israel.  His name was Saul, and at first glance, he seemed perfect for the job.  He had the bearing of king. Tall and handsome, he stood head and shoulders above every other man in Israel (1 Samuel 9:2).  He hailed from a wealthy and influential family (1 Samuel 9:1).  He was skilled in battle.  Early in his reign, he led Israel to many victories.  But for all that, there were problems. 

For one thing he was a bit of a fraidy-cat.  On the day Samuel went to anoint him King of Israel, he hid behind a pile of luggage (1 Samuel 10:22).  And then there was his behavior during the whole David and Goliath thing.  Goliath, the Philistine champion, taunted Israel’s army for forty days, challenging them to send out the best man to fight.  That man, of course, was Saul.  But Saul never went, ultimately leaving the task of felling the giant to a shepherd boy who may have been no more than ten years old (See, 1 Samuel 17). 

Saul was also a jealous man.  As the years rolled by, and the young shepherd boy David grew to be a man, he led Israel’s armies in battle with great distinction, winning many battles over Israel’s enemies.  But as the people began to sing David’s praises, Saul became jealous (1 Samuel 18:7-9).  In fact, before long he became a paranoid, homicidal lunatic, hurling spears at David and chasing him all over the wilderness in an attempt to kill him (See, 1 Samuel 19-26).  When all was said and done, God was so disgusted with Saul that he stripped him of his kingdom.  Saul himself met with a dreadful end, falling on his own sword in battle (1 Samuel 31:4).  It turned out that Saul had not been the king Israel had been looking for.  His voice was not the voice of the True King. 

Israel’s ‘Best’ King

So Israel moved on to David, who was a much better leader.  David was no coward.  He was strong and courageous.  He was a Warrior-Poet, a man from whose heart sprang forth the beautiful songs we call the Psalms.  Best of all, he was a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14).  That is, he cared about what God cared about (at least on his best days).  But even so, he was only human, and being human, he had problems.  His biggest problem was his weakness for the ladies.  His first six sons came from six different wives.  The most infamous of his relationships was the one he had with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11).  Alone one day, walking about on his royal parapet, he looked down and noticed a beautiful woman taking a bath.  And he kept looking (it’s the second look that gets you in trouble).  He soon invited her to the palace, offered her a drink, and well, one thing led to another, and even though she was married, he slept with her.  Things became complicated when she announced she was pregnant (just imagine that conversation), and that her husband, Uriah, had been away at battle for some time, thus eliminating the possibility that he was the father.  What did David do?  He arranged the murder of her husband.  David was not only a peeping Tom, he was a murderer.  And this was but one of the moves by which David, the best earthly king Israel ever had, sowed the seeds of destruction for his own kingdom.  No, not even David was the king Israel needed.  Once again, his was not the voice of the True King.

Worldly Wisdom Personified

But third time’s a charm right?  After David came his son, Solomon.  Talk about a man who had what it takes to be king!  Solomon was the wisest man on earth.  As we noted in chapter one, people came from all over the world to listen to the pearls of wisdom that dropped from his lips (1 Kings 4:34).  He was an administrative genius who created the most efficient government Israel had ever seen, and a master builder to boot (See, generally, 1 Kings 4).  Moreover, he was amazingly wealthy; the Bible describes him as the richest king on earth (1 Kings 10:23).  But even he wasn’t the king Israel needed.  Because if David had a weakness for the ladies, Solomon was weaker still.  He had 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3), many of whom led him into idolatry and the worship of false gods.  Yes, the wisest man who ever lived turned out to be a fool and set up the scenario that would divide his kingdom during the reign of his son Rehoboam.  Not even Solomon’s was the voice of the True King. 

After Solomon

And after Solomon?  Years of royal screw-ups. A Divided Kingdom.  War. Idolatry.  Social Injustice.  Defeat and exile.  The northern kingdom of Israel defeated, her ten tribes led away by the Assyrians, erased from the pages of history.  The southern kingdom of Judah defeated by Nebuchadnezzar, her tribes taken to Babylon for 70 years before being allowed to return under Persian rule.  Then came the Greeks, a brief period of independence, and finally Rome. Eventually Rome gave Israel a king.  His name was Herod, a brutal megalomaniac who murdered members of his own family to stay in power.  No one in Israel ever made the mistake of thinking that his was the voice of the True King. 

The dream for a king like the nations had proven to be a nightmare.

The Return of the True King

But God never gave up on his people.  He never gave up on his dream of a people who would know him, and him alone, as their True King.  A people who would be his own and show the world how he wanted people to live.  And so, throughout this sordid history of earthly kings and empires, God sent the people reminders of his dream.  Perhaps the best examples of these reminders are the ones that came from the mouth of God’s prophet Isaiah.  Isaiah spoke of tough times, but also offered hope:

‘Nevertheless, that time of darkness and despair will not go on forever…there will be a time in the future when Galilee of the Gentiles, which lies along the road that runs between Jordan and the sea, will be filled with glory.  The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.  For those who live in a land of deep darkness a light will shine.  You will enlarge the nation of Israel, and its people will rejoice.  They will rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest and like warriors dividing plunder.  For you will break the yoke of their slavery and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders.  You will break the oppressor’s rod, just as you did when you destroyed the army of Midian.  The boots of the warrior and the uniforms bloodstained by war will all be burned.  They will be fuel for the fire.  For a child is born to us, a son is given to us.  The government will rest on his shoulders.  And he will be called, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  His government and its peace will never end.  He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David for all eternity.  The passionate commitment of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!’ (Isaiah 9:1-7). 

‘Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot – yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.  And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.  He will delight in obeying the Lord…He will give justice to the poor and make fair decisions for the exploited.  The earth will shake at the force of his word, and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked.  He will wear righteousness like a belt and truth like an undergarment.  In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat.  The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all…nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so the earth will be filled with people who know the Lord.  In that day the heir to David’s throne will be a banner of salvation to all the world.  The nations will rally to him, and the land where he lives will be a glorious place’ (Isaiah 11:1-10).

 In other words, God would bring beauty out of the tragedy that occurred on the day Israel asked for a king like the nations.  The God who was Israel’s True King would reveal to them and to the world what their hearts had truly been longing for all along.  It was as if God, through Isaiah, was saying: ‘Hear O Israel!  Your True King is coming, and when he comes, when you follow him, when you hail him as your True King, then you will know peace.  Then you will know joy.  Then you will know salvation.  And this peace, this joy, this salvation, will be not just for you, but for the whole world!  It is coming Israel!  You shall one day hear the voice of your True King!’

The centuries slipped by in the wake of Isaiah’s words, and the people longed to hear that voice.  They longed for the arrival of its owner.  And for a long time, it must have seemed as if it would never happen.  But then, at the dawn of what we now call the first century, an angel named Gabriel showed up.  And he told an old man named Zechariah that the True King was coming.  And he told a young girl named Mary that she would conceive by the Holy Spirit, and that her child would be the True King.  And he told her carpenter fiancé Joseph, a descendant of David, that he should go ahead and marry her and raise the child as his own.  And in the fullness of time, the angels broke forth in glorious song outside the little town of Bethlehem, the birthplace of David, as they announced that the True King had come.  The King Israel should have wanted all along.  God himself.  God in the flesh.  God as one of us.  God as our king. 

And so it came to pass that as Mary brought forth her child into the world on that still, not so silent night, a newborn baby’s cry pierced the darkness of the Judean countryside, and Israel finally heard the voice of the True King. 

The True King’s Kingdom

The voice, of course, belonged to Jesus, whose kingdom was and is unlike anything else the world has ever seen.  Jesus never had a kingdom like Saul, David, Solomon, or any of the nincompoops we’ve studied in this book.  He never wielded a sword.  Never carried a shield.  Never waved a flag.  Never exercised power in the conventional sense.  Never had a palace.  No, Jesus’ kingdom was different.  It was a peaceful kingdom, a kingdom whose power was based on the idea of just coming alongside of people and loving them.  Even if they were enemies.  He traveled up and down the land of Israel, teaching about the Kingdom of God, showing the world his way, revealing to the world the way of the True King. 

Jesus died on a Roman cross for the sins of the world, and I suppose when that happened, it must have seemed as if once again, Israel had not found her True King.  But then came Easter, and the glorious news that Jesus had risen from the dead!  And then, forty days later, he ascended to heaven, from whence he rules and reigns now and forever, and from whence he shall one day come again to make earth and heaven one.

Until that day, his Kingdom expands.  It expands one life at a time.  It expands through those who dedicate themselves to living and loving in his name.  It expands, as through the words and deeds of his followers, the world continues to hear the voice of its True King.

And, as Isaiah said so long ago, it will never stop expanding.  The kings and kingdoms of the world will always fall.  But the Kingdom of God and the Christ will endure forever.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Deleting Jesus – Free Starting Today

Hey folks, just a quick reminder that the countdown deal for a free Kindle copy of Deleting Jesus starts today! Here’s a little blurb from the back cover:

Deleting Jesus is an examination of both who Jesus is and what he asked his followers to be. Through a study of the words and actions of Jesus, the witness of the New Testament, and the writings of early Christians, pastor and author Brent David Miller contrasts the Christianity of the early Church with the counterfeit version so prevalent today, and issues a call to follow the radical and loving way of Christ. In this book you will discover the teachings of Jesus and the early Church on such topics as power, politics, enemy love, war, the proper use of wealth, the treatment of refugees and immigrants, racism, and the life of discipleship. Whether you are a believer stuck in the trenches of American pop Christianity, or a non-believer who is turned off by the antics of the so-called Christians around you, prepare to have your perspective rocked. Prepare to discover the real Jesus.

You can download your free copy on Kindle through Monday October 12th.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Deleting Jesus Giveaway

Then the devil took him up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. ‘I will give you the glory of these kingdoms and authority over them,’ the devil said, ‘because they are mine to give to anyone I please. I will give it all to you if you will worship me.’ – Luke 4:5-6

This is just a quick post to announce that my book, Deleting Jesus, will be FREE in the Kindle store from this Thursday, October 8th, through Monday, October 12th.

Deleting Jesus laments the mistake Christians make when they accept the devil’s bargain of Luke 4:5-6, trading fidelity to Jesus for the promise of political power. It was written in the wake of the 2016 election but remains relevant as once again, Christians approach another presidential election and wrestle with the intersection of faith and politics.

I am offering this free at this time as my way of helping folks navigate a world where large segments of the Church have traded the way of the Cross for the way of the dragon and its beasts. My hope is that it will be a blessing to you. My only request is that if you like it, take a moment to write a review on Amazon. Positive reviews help the messages of my books reach a wider audience.

Feel free to share this with others! May God bless you as you follow the Lamb in this crazy and stressful time.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

We Are Not as Strong as We Think We Are

‘And with these hells and our heavens so few inches apart, we must be awfully small, and not as strong as we think we are’ – Rich Mullins

I was just a kid when Mount St. Helens, located in Washington State, erupted with the force of a 24-megaton blast, 1600 times the power of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.  So much ash and dust were thrown into the atmosphere that for days it floated above my head in Brick NJ.  Yes, it had traveled all the way across the country. 

My Dad waxed theological.  He thought the eruption was God’s way of telling us proud and boastful humans that we weren’t as powerful as we thought we were.  ‘Oh, you have nuclear bombs, huh?  Well look what I can do.’  I wasn’t so sure that was what God was trying to say, but I had to admit my Dad had a point.  At the very least, the eruption was a reminder that we are not the most powerful force on the planet, let alone the universe. 

In recent days, as the reality of a pandemic hits the United States, I have been thinking about my Dad’s comment.  It’s not that I think God is inflicting us with the corona virus to show us who is boss, or worse, that he has sent it to us as some sort of divine punishment. But it strikes me that there is a message here not very different from my Dad’s view of the Mount St. Helens eruption. 

I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia.  Suburban people, whether we realize it or not, have it pretty good.  Oh sure, we have our struggles and problems, but our lives are, for the most part, extremely comfortable when compared with the lives of many in the world.  In fact, many of us act as if we have it all figured out.  We work hard to build carefully manicured lives.  We strive for perfect homes and perfect lawns.  We build safe communities for our families.  We seek material success and financial security.  Most of us have decent health insurance and safety nets in case something goes wrong.  Sometimes, such a life leads to complacency, the idea that it will go on forever.  We feel indestructible, as if nothing could ever disturb our well-crafted lives.  We become self-sufficient, dependent upon no one, and darn proud of it. 

In such environments, God is often forgotten.  I mean, who needs God when you have all that?  Even Christians, who should know better, fall into the trap.  We go to church on Sunday but then take care of everything else on our own throughout the week.  We begin to believe the lie of our self-sufficiency.  We become like Bart Simpson, who once offered this simple grace: ‘Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing.’  When you are comfortable and well cared for, when you have proudly provided for your family and become the captain of your own life, when everything is coming up roses, when you have planned well for the future, and when it seems as if you have nothing to worry about, you tend to get a bit lax with your faith. 

Until catastrophe hits. 

It can hit in any number of ways, and when it does, everything changes.  Right now, the catastrophe is a pandemic.  We stand at the precipice of something most of us have never experienced, and we are acting accordingly.  Suddenly, our well-manicured lives have been upended, and we don’t know what to do.  We race to stores in a desperate attempt to obtain what we need, only to find the shelves bare.  We have confronted the limits of our self-sufficiency; that some things are beyond our control.  We see the gap between our nightmares and dreams, our hells and our heavens, narrowing.  We see that despite all our efforts, we cannot save ourselves from the worst that could happen. 

We thought we were so strong, but now know the truth: we are not as strong as we think we are. 

And that’s a good thing. 

If there is a silver lining in the corona virus scare, or any scare for that matter, it might be that.  That we might realize our finiteness. That we might see that we are mere creatures, dependent upon our Creator. That we might realize that our self-sufficiency is a delusion, and that we are, in fact, hopelessly dependent upon the One who is so much stronger than we. 

No friends, we are not as strong as we think we are. 

But there is One with the strength we need. 

I pray that in the days ahead, we all find our rest in Him.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Pastor Brent

Holy Fear

‘A great wind, a great calm, a great fear. An unspeakable power is here.  Far beyond the darkness and the waves, there is a very real reason to be afraid’ – Michael Card, from his song, A Great Wind, A Great Calm, a Great Fear

This past week I was thinking about the tragedy that some people are literally afraid to come to church.  It was brought home to me when I heard that someone in our community in need of assistance had been afraid to contact the church I serve because, well, we are a church.  That anyone would think that way breaks my heart, and so I spent some time considering how the local church I serve, which is already pretty darn loving and welcoming, could overcome such thinking.  Unfortunately, the Church at large has made that a difficult task.  Many professing Christians have practically erected signs to make certain people or groups of people feel as though they are not wanted in churches.  There is much work to do in order to undo this damage.  That it needs to be done at all is a tragedy.  Jesus knew how to make people feel invited, welcome, safe, and loved.  Too many Christians have made people feel otherwise.  

In the course of thinking about this, I realized something though – the fact that some people are afraid of churches is indicative of not one, but two problems: first, that Christians have made certain people fear going to church; and second that Christians have made certain other people feel as if they have no reason to fear at all.  It is the latter of those two problems that I would like to concentrate on in this post (although I’ll deal with the first a bit too).  

As I’ve written in a previous post, church isn’t a building.  It’s a community of people who follow Jesus, a people gathered in the presence of one another and God.  In other words, wherever God’s people gather, wherever two or three gather in Jesus’ name, God is there (Matthew 18:20).  That God is present makes church, wherever it gathers, be it in a stone building or a local coffee shop, sacred space.  Holy ground.  When someone ‘goes to church’ they go to a place where they can expect to encounter the presence of the Holy. 

And encounters with the presence of the Holy always involve an element of fear.  

Take for example the giving of the Ten Commandments.  God descended upon Mount Sinai in smoke and fire.  When the people heard the thunder and the blast of the shofar, and saw the lightning and the smoke, they cowered at a distance and cried out to Moses, ‘Don’t let God speak to us directly.  If he does we will die!’  Moses told them not to be afraid, but still, the people were terrified by the presence of God (See, Exodus 20:18-21). 

When Isaiah stood in the Temple and beheld the glorious sight of the Lord, with seraphim singing ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Angel Armies – the whole earth is filled with his glory!’ the prophet to be cried out, ‘It’s all over!  I’m doomed!  I am a man of unclean lips who lives among people with unclean lips – and I have seen the King, the Lord of Angel Armies!’  It was only when one of the seraphim pressed a hot coal to Isaiah’s ‘unclean lips’ that he was able to stand more surely, and respond to the call of God with his famous, ‘Here I am Lord, send me!’  (See, Isaiah 6:1-8). 

Or how about the time Jesus came walking to his disciples on the sea? When the disciples saw him coming, Matthew describes their fear by telling us, in the Greek, that they were, ‘lian ek perissou en heautois existanto.’ James Martin literally translates this as being, ‘very much exceedingly in themselves standing outside,’ or as we might say, beside themselves with fear (See, Matthew 14:22-26). 

I could go on.  Think of all the times God or his angels have to tell people not to be afraid.  It happens several times in the Christmas story alone.  Heck, the initial reaction to the Resurrection of Jesus, the most glorious news ever received, was one of fear.  Mark writes, ‘the women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were terrified’ (Mark 16:8).  

The point is that encounters with the Holy are always, at least initially, terrifying.  They always have been and they always will be, because as the Rich Mullins song goes, ‘God is an awesome God.’  He is Holy.  When we encounter Him, we, like Isaiah, come face to face with the fact that God is God and we are not.  That He is Holy and we are not.  We are confronted by our sinfulness, our un-holiness, our ‘fallen-shortness,’ as Paul put it in Romans 3:23.  People who encounter the Divine are always overcome by the Holy.  

Michael Card is right.  When we encounter God, there is very good reason to be afraid.  

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that God is mean.  He is no terrifying monster.  That’s not the issue.  The issue is that God is love (1 John 4:16).  Not the wishy-washy nonsense people often call love.  REAL LOVE.  Pure, undefiled, undiluted, purifying, redeeming, furious love. And encountering love like that is a terrifying thing.  It is to encounter a love that desires what is best for us, a love that will settle for nothing less, and what is actually best for us is seldom in simpatico with what we think is best for us.  God loves us so furiously that he is not content to leave us as we are.  He desires that we be transformed by his holiness, and he has the power to bring about the transformation.

Churches haven’t always spoken truthfully about this.  Heck, I haven’t.  In our desire to make people feel comfortable and unafraid, we have spoken of the love and holiness of God as if we were talking about Santa Claus.  He’s such a nice guy that even though in theory he keeps a naughty and nice list, in practice everyone gets everything they want.  Because that, we think, is what love does.  It affirms us as we are and tells us that everything is fine the way it is.  

But that isn’t true.  If it were we wouldn’t live in a world with so many problems.  

The Church cannot be so obsessed with making people feel welcome that it pretends that an encounter with God is anything other than what it is – an encounter with confrontational love, an encounter that reminds us of who God is and who we are and who He desires us to be.  For it is only when we encounter God in this way that we can be transformed by his redeeming love.  Like Isaiah, we all need to feel the fire on our lips before we can be made new.  

So getting back to the problem of some people being afraid to come to church: the real problem is that some churches have been selective in deciding to whom they will honestly communicate the holiness and awesomeness of God.  Some professing Christians, for example, have little trouble pointing fingers and shouting at people who struggle with sexual issues.  They’ve had no problem making those people feel uncomfortable and afraid (when what they really need is mercy and space, not another psychological thrashing).  But they have also had no problem making other kinds of sinners feel comfortable and unafraid.  Tell me, why should a racist feel any more comfortable in church than a person who struggles sexually? Why should someone who supports the separation of children from their parents, as so many ‘Christians’ do these days, feel safe and unafraid at church?  Why should people who support violence committed under the banner of an American flag feel at ease when gathering to worship the Prince of Peace?  Why should crass materialists and consumerists feel warm and fuzzy under the luxurious glow of candles and stained glass while their neighbors struggle to put food on their tables?  Should abortionists feel unafraid at church?  White Nationalists?  People who cheer the hateful words of hateful politicians?

Honestly, should anyone ever be totally at ease in the presence of God? 

It is absolutely true that EVERYONE is loved by God (See, John 3:16).  And it is absolutely true that the invitation of Jesus is ALWAYS to come closer and not be afraid (see, e.g., Revelation 1:17). But that doesn’t mean God doesn’t have standards.  Truth be told, if we spoke about God truthfully, no one would ever blithely walk into a church gathering and think they were about to spend the most comfortable hour of their lives. Everyone would understand that they had come to experience an encounter with the Holy God who is a consuming fire – an awesome God of Love who will not be content until he has remade us in the image of his Son.  

Yes, He will do that lovingly (and often gently).  But make no mistake: one way or another He will do it.  

Church is not supposed to be a loosey-goosey ‘feel-good-about-yourself-athon.’  While we need to be compassionate and loving toward everyone, showing special mercy to those who have been knocked around by life (and the Church), we cannot forget who we are dealing with when we invoke the name of God.  There comes a point at which we all need to feel a touch of holy fear.  Because, as the wise man once said, ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding’ (Proverbs 9:10). 

Here’s the bottom line.  In the Church of Jesus, everyone is welcome and should be made to feel invited, welcome, safe, and loved.  The message we must convey to everyone is that whoever you are, wherever you have been, and whatever you have done, God loves you, and you never have any reason to fear that he will harm you or do anything against your best interests.  But if you come to church expecting Him to affirm everything about you, you’re mistaken.  If you come intending to hold on to your own desires and way of living, I give you fair warning: if the church gathering you walk into, be it behind stained glass or in Starbucks, is at all truthful about who God is and what He desires, you will find love and mercy.  But because it is the love and mercy of a Holy God – well, you may find a very real reason to be afraid.  

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Pastor Brent

Providence (Video)

Hey folks – trying something different with this one. You can still check out the blog as usual below, but you can also watch it here on video! Let me know what you think!

Providence

‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord.  ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope’ – Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT)

Back in 2016, at about the time Donald Trump was about to wrap up the Republican Nomination for President, I remember thinking, ‘If this man becomes President, how will I explain it to my children?’  I thought so much about this that I ran a web search looking for answers.  I found an article that I thought was pure gold (I’d provide you with a link, but unfortunately it is no longer available).  The author suggested that Trump’s rise presented the perfect opportunity to teach our children that the words of scripture are true.  Specifically, she quoted Proverbs 16:18: ‘pride goes before the fall,’ and posited that it would only be a matter of time before a blustering narcissist like Trump would crash and burn.  This struck a chord in me.  Having written a book on the pride of Old Testament kings, I had thought long and hard about the truth of Proverbs 16:18, both in Bible times and ever since. I was convinced.  And so I talked to my children about the proverb.  I told them that somehow, in the story that was unfolding, the truth of scripture would once again be affirmed. 

It’s been over three years since I read that article.    My children and I are still waiting for the author’s prediction to come to pass.  Every time I think that it might, it doesn’t.  I have to admit that at times, I am deeply frustrated.  I find myself echoing the classic lament, ‘How long O Lord?’  Waiting, you see, has always been as hard for me as it was for the Psalmist. 

But just the other day, while wallowing in the worry of the wait, I remembered a word I have too often forgotten. 

Providence. 

When theologians speak of Providence, they refer to the guiding hand of God in all things; the fact that whatever happens, God remains in control.  Romans 8:28 makes the point in classic fashion: ‘in all things, God is working for the good of those who love him, for those called according to his purposes.’  That is, in the midst of all things, both the beautiful and the tragic (and everything in between), God is working to bring about His divine purposes. (Please note: this does not mean that God causes tragic circumstances, just that he works in the midst of them).

It’s a beautiful concept, the notion that no matter what, God has the whole world in his hands.  I think of the story of Joseph in the Old Testament (my personal favorite), the history of a man destined for great things, thrown into a pit and sold into slavery by his brothers, winding up in a fetid prison, seemingly experiencing the death of his dreams.  But in every circumstance, at every turn, God was with Joseph, shaping and molding him into the man he was meant to be.  When he became that man, God raised him from the prison to prominence in Egypt, from which position he was able to feed the world.  Or I think of Ruth and her tragic history, of how the death of her husband was the death of her dreams, yet God, in His amazing providential care, created beauty from her ashes, fueled her with new life, and through her, brought hope and redemption to both Israel and the world.  In each of these stories, and in so many others, we see the guiding hand of providence, working in the soil of bitterness to bring forth an abundant harvest of joy. 

Such stories bring me great hope.  They remind me that God is at work in history.  He always has been, and always will be (even in circumstances far worse than the ones we are passing through now).   I confess that for the most part I can’t make heads or tails out of what God is up to in these Trumpian days.  I can’t understand what good can come from separating families.  Or how things will get better amidst the rise of racist rhetoric and action.  I can’t fathom how the current effort to ‘Make America White Again’ will improve things in the long run.  I can’t comprehend how Christianity will prosper given its identification with this rancid political movement.  Quite frankly, most of the time I’m at a total loss as to how God has been working all things together for good over the past few years. 

But I know He has been.  I know that His providential care is working in the midst of it all.  And so, sometimes of late, when the news cycle is bouncing around in my head at night and I am having trouble falling asleep, I simply affirm, along with Alistair Begg, that ‘providence is a soft pillow and we may lie down in safety knowing that God is in control.’

Whew.

Yes, God is in control, even in the midst of this reality show we call the Trump Presidency.  God is working.  And perhaps, if we look hard enough, we can see some of what He is up to.  Perhaps God is, among other things, preparing and purifying His Church for a new day of service and witness.  He may well be using this time to reveal the hypocrisy that has long existed in His church – the fact that so many who claim to follow the crucified Christ have in fact been following a god who bears little resemblance to him.  Already we can see God calling forth resisters who, in the spirit of the prophets, are speaking truth to power.  He is revealing the vicious racism that is America’s original and undealt with sin, a sin that has always been present, hiding in plain sight, but can hide no more.  He is calling forth a new generation of Jesus followers to raise their voices for a more just world.  He is, we can hope, doing all of this and more, as he leads his Church to a new day when the children of God will live and walk in the way of the Messiah who brought Good News to the poor, announced liberation to the captives, set the oppressed free, and declared the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke 4:18-19).

Just how God will play all of this out, I don’t know.  Just how God will heal the wounds of this era, I don’t know.  But I trust that He will – that He will weave his tapestry of grace even in the midst of all the nonsense, hurt, and pain.  I trust that in the end, His tapestry will be beautiful. 

Until we see that tapestry in all is beauty, it falls to us to trust.  To stand for truth and justice.  To point to what is right.  To love at all costs.  To speak.  To act.  To share solidarity with the suffering and to wait for the day of redemption that is to come.  To do all of this, knowing, in the words of the Apostle Paul, that nothing we ever do in the name of Jesus will ever be in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Because in the end, God will have His way. 

In the end, the prideful will fall, and the glory of God will shine from sea to shining sea. 

Providence is indeed a great comfort in times like these.  It reminds us that, though the sorrow may last for the night, and the night may last longer than we would prefer, the joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5).

Take heart my friends.  Morning is on its way. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent