The God Who Stays

‘If I were you, I would have labeled me a lost cause.’ – Matthew West, from his song, ‘The God Who Stays’

I’ve been thinking about Abraham lately.  Reading through his story in Genesis, I am struck, not only by his great faith, but by his more than occasional lack thereof.[1]  I am struck by how the great father of nations, the one through whom God began salvation history in earnest, was at times capable of behaving like a first-class jerk. 

That may sound shocking to Christian ears trained to handle Abraham with almost God-like reverence.  But if so, it’s because we tend to forget the downsides in his story, or, if we remember them at all, come up with excuses for his despicable behavior.  There’s the time when Abraham (then Abram) told his wife Sarah (then Sarai) to pose as his sister while sojourning in Egypt.  Well, we say, Abram was afraid that Pharaoh would find her beautiful and kill him to take Sarah as his wife, so what choice did he have?  Besides, she was in fact his half-sister (I know, yuck; things were different back then), so he wasn’t really lying.  Never mind that Abraham should have trusted God to take care of both himself and wife, or that the plan he undertook resulted in her captivity for a time in the household of Pharoah, during which all sorts of terrible things might have happened.  Sugar coat it as you will, the bottom line is that Abraham failed to trust God and threw his wife under the bus to save his own skin.  And he didn’t just do it once; a bit later in his story he threw Sarah under the bus a second time in an encounter with King Abimelech of Gerar. 

And that’s not even the worst of Abraham’s offenses.  Although God promised that he would have children as numerous as the grains of dust on the earth, his doubt grew to the point of unfaithfulness.  As the years ticked by, and his patience wore thin, he jumped at the chance offered by his wife to take matters into his own hands.  ‘Honey,’ Sarah suggested, ‘why don’t you sleep with my servant Hagar and have a child with her?’  We can rationalize that this sort of surrogacy was common in Abraham’s day, but it was still wrong.  For starters, it was wrong because he failed to wait on God.  Then there’s his eagerness to sleep with a younger woman not his wife (Sarah didn’t have to ask twice).  And finally, and this is downright horrific, there is the fact that Hagar may not have had much choice in the matter.  She was a slave for crying out loud; she had no choice but to obey her master.  Some today might consider what happened between them nothing less than rape.  I don’t personally believe it was that bad; the relationship between Hagar and Abraham seems to have been at least somewhat consensual, but the power inequities in the situation should nonetheless trouble us deeply.

And then there is the fact that when trouble arose between Hagar and Sarah (and who didn’t see that coming?) Abraham sent Hagar and his son Ishmael away into the wilderness, where, but for the grace of God, they both would have died.  And yeah, I know the Bible says God told him to do it.  Still.  If a man behaved in this fashion today, throwing his wife under the bus, impregnating his servant, then sending her along with his child into the wilderness, he would be labeled a monster, not an exalted father.  In today’s culture, there is little doubt that Abraham would be ‘canceled.’ 

And yet, God didn’t cancel Abraham.  He continued to work with him.  He proceeded, in spite of it all, to weave the beginnings of the story of salvation through the broken pieces of his life. 

Just what kind of story is this?  What kind of God sticks by a guy as bad as Abraham?

In considering such questions, my mind wandered to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  I know, just bear with me.  If I asked you what that story is about, you might tell me it’s a horror tale, or a fable about scientific hubris.  You would be right, of course, but the primary theme of that classic novel is parental irresponsibility.  Dr. Frankenstein creates life, but when it doesn’t match his expectations for it, he abandons his creation utterly.  Shelley was first and foremost writing a morality tale about parents who failed to stick by and love their children when they failed to meet parental expectations and dreams.

God is the opposite of Dr. Frankenstein.  When God created the universe, making human beings, male and female, his crowning achievement, he had great plans for us.  We were to serve as the stewards of creation, co-regents under his rule, serving, protecting, and reigning over the earth.  We didn’t exactly live up to our calling.  This was not, on the one hand, surprising; God, who exists in what C.S. Lewis termed ‘an eternal now,’ knew we would disappoint.  But on the other, it seems to have shaken him, nonetheless.  It grieved God’s heart to see his children fall short of the glory he intended for them.  It grieved his heart even more as he witnessed the wickedness of humankind spiraling out of control, spreading over the face of the earth, contaminating every aspect of creation.  Had God been like Dr. Frankenstein, dare I say, if he had been like any one of us, he would have abandoned his creation there and then.  He would have thrown us on the rubbish heap and started over. 

But so committed is God to his creation, to us, that he did not.  He stuck by us.  Even as we did terrible things.  He was willing to get his hands dirty, to carry the shame of his creation’s sin, as he worked alongside of us, meeting us where we were, down in the muck and mire of our wickedness and selfishness.  We would have run from ourselves.  God, being God, stuck by us, even as we failed to meet his parental expectations and dreams. 

So God worked with a man like Abraham, a man who would throw his wife under the bus, sleep with his slave, and send her away with his own son.  God worked with him until he was transformed into something more akin to the image he was meant to bear.  Then, when Abraham’s time passed, God continued to work with his descendants, who frankly did worse than Abraham, sinning in ways that would have caused Dr. Frankenstein to walk away a thousand times.  God stuck by them too, shaping them into an instrument he could use, biding his time until, in the fullness thereof, he himself entered the world in the person of his Son, to bear our sin and show us how to live, hoping to transform us, each and every one of us, into something more akin to the image we are meant to bear.

And so it has remained even to this very day.  When we fail to get things right, when we fall and fail and struggle like Abraham, God continues to stand by us.  For he is Emmanuel.  God with us.  That is who he is, was, and always will be.  He is, as Matthew West sings in the song noted in this post’s title and epigraph, ‘The God who stays.  The God who runs in our direction when the whole world walks away.’[2] 

Talk about a committed God. 

There is a line in the Gospels that used to confuse me.  Jesus, who obviously loves us unconditionally, cries out, ‘Oh unbelieving and perverse generation!  How long must I stay with you!  How long must I put up with you!’ (Matthew 17:17).  It sounds so un-Jesus like.  But it’s actually a cry from the very heart of God.  God grieves our sin.  It rends his heart.  Today, no less than when God wept over Abraham’s conduct.  But God, in the course of his work with Abraham, in the course of his work throughout salvation history, in the course of the Incarnation, and in the course of our lives, repeatedly answers his own question, ‘How long must I stay with you?  How long must I put up with you?’

His answer is: forever.  He really doesn’t have a choice.  Because, you see, he is by his very nature the God who stays. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

[1] Abraham’s full story can be found in Genesis 12-25.

[2] If you get a chance, listen to West’s song.  It captures wonderfully what I am trying to say here about the constancy and commitment of God.  Click here for a link to the official video. 

Bee Sense

‘Don’t just look to your own interests.  Consider the interests of others’ – Philippians 2:4

I recently spent some time in a community garden watching bees and butterflies.  Pollinators are amazing to observe, and I filmed several video clips and took even more pictures as they drank nectar from flowers.  One thing the pandemic era has taught me is to appreciate the simple things.  Enjoying God, the company of family and friends, and the beauty of the earth are pretty much all I need these days to be content, so spending an hour or so with my daughter and mother-in-law in the garden watching bees and butterflies was a kind of bliss. 

It wasn’t long after this experience that I serendipitously read an entry concerning bees in Peter Wohlleben’s, The Inner Life of Animals.  Bees are fascinating creatures, necessary for the health of our planet, but also capable of teaching lessons.  One such lessons struck me as I read Wohlleben’s discussion of how bees stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter.  In the summer months, the intense activity among bees can raise hive temperatures considerably, which could prove fatal to the colony, but bees have found ways to stay cool.  Worker bees bring water into the hive to cool things down, and the fluttering of wings produces breezes.  In such ways, the hive is climate controlled, and the bees don’t overcook. 

In the winter, warming measures are undertaken.  If it gets cold enough, the bees of a colony will huddle together in ball.  The queen, who must be protected at all costs, is of course placed in the center of the ball where it is warmest.  Moving out from the center, the temperature of course drops, placing the bees at the outer rim in peril of freezing to death, except for one thing: the bees take turns.  They take shifts on the ball’s surface, allowing each crew to take a turn closer to the center and warm up before returning to duty on the outer edge.  In this way, the colony, and each bee within it, has a chance to survive the winter. 

One wonders what motivates bees to look out for one another in this fashion.  Perhaps it is too much to suggest they care for one another (then again, perhaps they do).  It seems more likely that they simply understand that the success of the hive depends on the success of each bee.  If they lose even a single member of the colony, the ability to stay warm collectively is diminished.  Essentially, bees know that they need each other.  Each individual bee therefore considers the interests of the others along with their own.  Each bee knows that unless they look out for the other members of the colony, no one will make it. It is of course natural for bees to feel this way; they are inherently collectivists, not individualists.  They don’t live their lives in terms of ‘me’ and ‘I’ but ‘we’ and ‘us.’  They value one another’s contributions to the collective, and are willing to sacrifice, in this case, a little bit of warmth, for the sake of saving the whole. 

I could run in a thousand directions on this, most of which would produce controversy.  This would only prove the point of this post, but honestly, I’m just too tired to deal with it at the moment (I’m on vacation).  Suffice it to say that we humans could learn from bees.  It breaks my heart, and makes me more than a little frustrated, that some people (I won’t say most, although I confess, I’m tempted these days) can’t seem to understand that we need to look out for each other.  They can’t seem to understand that each one of us has value, and that we need to look, not just to our own interests but to the interests of others.  They can’t seem to understand that if we don’t look out for one another, say, by taking a shot in the arm or wearing a mask (okay, I just went in one of those potentially controversial directions), we will all be impacted detrimentally.  They can’t seem to understand that we should be willing to make sacrifices, for the sake of saving both the vulnerable among us and our society as a whole. 

Perhaps bees are just programmed to act the way they do.  Perhaps they don’t think nearly as much about their behavior as I have suggested.  But to my way of thinking, that only makes things worse.  We human beings have been gifted with the ultimate grace: we have been made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).  We have the ability to reason, to think things through, to feel compassion for others, to experience community, to love.  Those of us who claim to be Christian claim not only these extraordinary graces, but the power of God to activate them fully.  How sad then, when we neglect our birthright and ignore the gifts we have been given, when we, instead of considering the needs of others, choose to only, and shortsightedly, consider our own. 

I leave it to you, reader, to consider the myriad of circumstances to which this lesson may apply.  Like I said, I could take this in a thousand directions.  All I choose to say in closing is this: its time we started acting a little more like the bees.

It’s time we all got a little bee sense. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

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

One Year Later…

White Supremacy is sin, and anyone who does not work for its abolition, is guilty of sin – paraphrase of Samuel Simon Schmucker, American Preacher and Abolitionist

Today is the anniversary of George Floyd’s death. The officer directly responsible has been convicted, but justice has in no way yet been achieved. Despite all the promises and BLM signs on people’s lawns, there has been no significant progress toward police or justice reform. The forces of hate and supremacy are well entrenched and positioned to thrive for decades to come. Unarmed African Americans continue to die at the hands of law enforcement. White supremacy is on the move. Efforts to silence Black voices and suppress the Black vote continue apace throughout the country. There seems little hope for a breakthrough to better days.

As the father to an African American son, and as a follower of Jesus, I will, of course, continue to speak and work for a better world. How can I do otherwise? But the sad reality I face each day is that my primary job in terms of race is to teach my own son how to stay alive in a white supremacist nation where many do not believe black lives such as his matter, and many more only become mildly interested for short periods of time after each report of another black life snuffed out on the street.

At the 1965 funeral of Jimmie Lee Jackson, who had been murdered by an Alabama State Trooper in a cafe where he and other peaceful protestors had taken refuge from southern stormtroopers, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. noted that there had in fact been many fingers on the trigger that killed Jackson. Similarly, there were many knees on the neck of George Floyd. If, by your actions, political choices, or apathy, you are contributing to the problem of white supremacy in America, you might be surprised to learn that yours is one of them.

For the love of God, and for the sake of millions, speak out, vote, and advocate to change this culture of white supremacy, hate, and death.

End the silence.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Truth and Consequences

‘I’m not upset that you lied to me.  I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you’ – Friedrich Nietzsche

It’s a disturbing truth, but it seems, more and more, as if Christians are liars.  Now before anyone gets upset, let me remind you, first, that I am a Christian, and second, that I didn’t say all Christians are liars.  I don’t lie, and neither do many (I’d like to say most) followers of Jesus.  Nonetheless, the sad truth is that in popular discourse, we are often lumped together as if we all had one mind and acted of one accord, and, tragically, many of the Christians who act as if that were true, who claim to speak for all ‘true believers,’ have wholeheartedly embraced what is frequently dubbed, ‘The Big Lie.’ 

The Big Lie, of course, is that somehow, the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.  I won’t belabor the details.  They are well known, and if you really want to rehash them, you can visit just about any legitimate news source and read all about it.  That there is no evidence to support The Big Lie (everyone who has examined it, including Trump’s own Attorney General, the Supreme Court, and countless lower courts have all rejected it as patently false), means nothing to its proponents.  No matter what the evidence, no matter how ridiculous it is proven to be, those who hope to gain from The Big Lie keep shouting it from the rooftops as if it were the God’s honest truth. 

This was on display this week in the United States Capitol as the Republican Conference in the House of Representatives voted to remove Liz Cheney from her position of leadership.  Her offense?  Speaking the truth about The Big Lie.   She dared to say, repeatedly, that Trump lost, and that her party was wrong to say otherwise.  For this, she has been banished from leadership, and, most likely, will eventually lose her congressional seat. 

I really don’t have much to say about the ethics of the Republicans who did this to Representative Cheney.  My purpose in this post is neither to elevate nor denigrate either of the two major political parties.  As I have written often, political parties follow the path of empire, and lies in the service of empire are sadly par for the course.  I expect politicians to embrace lies.  Politicians and lies go together like peanut butter and jelly. 

But it is my purpose today to warn Christians about embracing either The Big Lie or any political party or movement that embraces it.  Brother or sister, if this is you, you are reaping the whirlwind.  You are embracing, not just a man who is a power-hungry white supremacist (which is bad enough); you are embracing a lie and a liar. 

The Bible says a lot about liars.  None of it is good.  Proverbs 12:22 says that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.  The prophet Jeremiah spoke ill of those who shoot lies from their tongues like arrows from a bow (9:3).  I could go on.  On the basis of such verses alone, Christians should flee from both lies and liars, not perpetuate them or sing their praises. 

But on top of that, consider Nietzsche’s words.   There is a terrible consequence to telling lies.  Once you tell one, there is a rather good chance that no one will ever believe another word you say about anything. 

And anything includes Jesus. 

Brothers and sisters, we have a truth that needs to be told.  A story to tell to the nations, as the old song goes.  Telling it is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.  Our message is already suspect.  The world has its reasons to dismiss our claims.  If we become known, and we are becoming known, as a bunch of flat-out liars, we will lose the last shred of our credibility.  We will have little chance of convincing people of what matters most. 

Be careful Christian.  If you choose to wave around the banner of The Big Lie, don’t be surprised when no one believes you when you tell them that Jesus rose from the dead.  Or that he is the Son of God.  Or that he has changed your life (changed you into what, a big fat liar?).  Or that he alone is ‘the way, the truth, and the life.’ 

It’s decision time.  Do you want to follow a liar and make it impossible for others to believe the truth about Jesus?  Or do you value Jesus, the living embodiment of truth, enough to call out both The Big Lie and The Big Liar?  You don’t have to become a Democrat to do that.  You just have to tell the truth and reject the lies. 

It’s time for Christians everywhere to stop playing this foolish, yes, even evil, political game. 

It’s time to face the truth.

If we do not, we will surely face the consequences. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Loss

‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle’ – attributed, variously, to Socrates or Plato

‘When Jesus saw the crowd, he was filled with compassion’ – Matthew 14:14

All week long I felt it coming.  I had no idea what ‘it’ was.  Not because I had no way of knowing, but because my mind blocked it.  But I felt it: a dark, looming remembrance waiting to catch me unawares and take me down.  I went to bed last night in one of those funks that you can’t explain but makes the world feel like a hopeless, compassionless place.  Somehow, I fell asleep, and this morning, I woke to the realization of what ‘it’ was. 

Today is Friday.  One year ago, four months after losing my Mom to cancer, my family and I learned that my Dad had tested positive for Covid.  Less than three days later, in the early hours of Monday morning, he was gone too. 

I wrote a tribute to my Dad that week.  It was the only way to process the loss.  We could not have a funeral.  A short time later, in the midst of hissy fits over mask-wearing, the insanity of a ‘plandemic’ conspiracy theory, and comments about how Covid was no big deal because old people died all the time anyway, I penned and posted The Great Divide, wherein I noted that the pandemic was bound to produce two different groups of people in our society: those who lost loved ones to Covid and those who did not.  The latter group, I feared, would simply never understand what the former was going through. 

A year later, with nearly 570,000 deaths in the United States alone that former group is millions strong.  I am thankful for the emergence of a third group, people who have not lost loved ones, but whose compassionate hearts have responded with sensitivity, grace, and a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the vulnerable.  If you belong to that group, I thank you. 

But I have to be honest.  Most days, I don’t feel thankful.  Most days, and maybe especially this week, as I wrestle with my loss and watch a world that is mostly just excited to move on, I feel only sadness and pain.  Most days, I feel as if most people don’t and never will understand.  If I am really being honest, most days, I feel as if most people don’t and never will care. 

The fact that some will be mad at me for being honest about my feelings only proves my point.  Am I not allowed to grieve?  Must those of us who have lost loved ones keep to ourselves and remain quiet?  Must we suffer silently so as not to ruin anyone else’s good time? 

A couple of weeks ago, I urged the people in the church I serve to be kind to one another as we (hopefully) emerge from the pandemic.  Many are struggling, for all sorts of reasons, not just the loss of loved ones.  Many have suffered loss.  And for many, those losses have been far greater than the ‘loss of freedom’ due to the restrictions designed to save lives, or the inability to get their hair done at the salon, or having to forego a weekly gathering at the local watering hole.  Many are emerging with emotional, psychological, and spiritual scars.  And many have had to endure the loss of people they love, whether to Covid or something else, while the world around them hasn’t seemed to care one bit. 

So today, I urge again that people be kind.  As you make decisions and interact with people in the coming weeks and months, let mercy lead you.  Be sensitive and compassionate in your encounters with others, especially with those who have suffered loss.  Kindness is what the folks on the dark side of the Great Divide need right now. 

One more thing.  If you haven’t done so already, please, get vaccinated.  Maybe you think it won’t make much difference for you, but for the vulnerable, like my Dad was in late April of 2020, it could mean the difference between life and death. 

And for those of us who grieve, your demonstration of compassion will mean the world. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

Photo from a memorial to Covid victims in Belmar, NJ, taken by my sister Kate MacDonald.

No Other Foundation

‘For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ’ – 1 Corinthians 3:11

Last night I read the news that Jim Caviezel, the actor and professed disciple most famous for playing Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, has added his name to the Christian Hall of Shame.  Promoting an upcoming movie at a far-right conspiracy conference (what in God’s name was he even doing there?) he pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory that an international cabal (made up of rich Jews, liberal Democrats, and Hollywood elites, among others) take drugs procured through the harvesting of children’s blood.  Seriously.  You can’t make this stuff up.

My immediate thought was: not again. 

In recent years, we have seen many famous Christians fall from grace.  I won’t list the names here, first because there are tragically too many, second because what would be the point?  Many of these folks have been stars of the Christian culture I was raised to believe in, folks who had inspired me significantly in my own faith journey.  I suppose one lesson I might glean from that is that God can use anyone, and often works through broken vessels to advance his purposes.[1]  But right now, what I feel for the most part is embarrassment.  Embarrassment that, once again, in icon from Christian culture whom I have pointed to time and again as an example of faith has proven to be a first-class moron. 

Actually, I feel more than just embarrassment.  To tell the truth, moments like these shake my faith a little.  It would be surprising if they didn’t.  Like I said, many of these fallen Christians have been part of my own faith journey.  Their example has propelled me along at crucial moments.  If they are frauds (or worse) what does that say about my faith? Is that fraudulent too?  

Before I shock some of you too much, let me assure you that my faith is not fraudulent.  But the fact that such a thought would enter my head even for a moment, even in jest, concerns me.  It causes me to wonder if others might think it too, and not just for a moment.  Let’s face it, each of these fallen Christian celebrities, not to mention their aggregate influence, has done considerable damage to the faith of many believers.  In some cases, the damage may last a lifetime.

And that, reader, is something to write about.

That the fall of Christian celebrities can damage a person’s faith, reveals the folly of ‘Christian celebrity.’  Throughout Christian history, there have been notable followers of Jesus, men and women who, through their ‘long obedience in the same direction,’ to use Eugene Peterson’s phrase, have demonstrated what the life of discipleship looks like.  Such men and women deserve to be read about, studied, and respected as examples to emulate.  As Paul once said, ‘imitate me, as I imitate Christ’ (1 Corinthians 11:1).  But today, and for some time, we have raised up models for emulation who have not, at least not for a long time in the same direction, modeled Christlikeness.  Rather, we have made idols of those who, say, star in a movie, or build a large following using principles drawn more from the world of business than the Bible, or have nice hair, or a silver tongue, or look good in a pair of skinny jeans.  Charisma, biblically speaking, refers to a person having a gift of the Spirit; today it means having the right look, the right words, and the ability to make people (supposedly spiritually) swoon.  These are not the Christian saints of old.  These are Christian Celebrities.  And there is a ginormous difference between a saint and a celebrity. 

But more to the point, Paul’s words about imitation remind us that even as we read and study those who have exhibited lifelong faithfulness and Christlikeness, we really shouldn’t imitate them.  The only sense in which we should is to the extent that they imitated Christ.  He, and he alone, is the one we have been called to follow.  He, and he alone, is the one we are called to imitate.[2]  We cannot build our faith on the cult of Christian celebrity, or even Christian sainthood, for there is no other foundation than the one that has already been laid, and that foundation is Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11).

I was hurt (that’s not too strong a word) last night when I read about Jim Caviezel.  I suspect that many others will be too.  As they (you?) have been, time and again, as the idols of Christian celebrity have fallen like so many poorly stacked dominoes.  

And so, if your faith has been shaken, let me urge you to take this opportunity to re-center your faith where it belongs.  We should not believe because Christian celebrities inspire us.  We should believe because Jesus does. 

As I thought of these things this morning, I coincidentally (not!) heard the stirring words The Good Confession by Andrew Peterson, words that remind me why I believe:

All I know is that I was blind
But now I see that
Though I kick and scream,
Love is leading me.

And every step of the way
His grace is making me
With every breath I breathe
He is saving me.

And I believe.

Yes.  That’s why I believe.  Jesus is my foundation.  There is no other.  No not one. 

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent

[1] For this I am thankful, being a broken vessel myself. 

[2] By the way, on more than one occasion, Jesus explicitly rejected the chance to be a celebrity (see, Matthew 4:5-7; John 6:14-15).

Who are these gods?

A Poem for Holy Week inspired by Isaiah 46

Who are these gods?

Who neither move nor speak,

And yet they do.

Hoisted high by men,

Lugged on carts of wood and iron.

Bel, Nebo,

Plutus, Mars,

Aphrodite,

Narcissus, Phobos,

Bacchus, hundreds more –

These we fashion, with steel,

Celluloid, nightmares, selfishness.

We heed the voices of our creation,

And follow, though we carry them.

Encumbrances all.  So heavy!

The gods crash to earth, as we

Fall beneath.  Crushed.  Ruined.

These gods we could not carry,

But they –

Carried us into captivity. 

Who is this God?

Who moves and speaks,

All on His own.

Hoisted high by men,

Nailed to a cross of wood with iron.

Bel, Nebo,

Plutus, Mars,

Aphrodite,

Narcissus, Phobos,

Bacchus, hundreds more –

These are unmade, with love,

Compassion, dreams, sacrifice.

We heed the voice of our Creator,

And follow, as He carries us.

Encumbrances gone.  So buoyant!

The gods crash to earth, as we

Are lifted.  Raised.  Renewed.

Those gods we could not carry,

But He –

Carried us into eternity. 

The Bird and the Weasel

A parable, inspired by a photograph taken by Brian Le-May. 

Once upon a time there was a Bird who lived in a forest with his wife and a nest full of eggs.   

One bright morning Bird said good-bye to his wife, who was sitting on their eggs, keeping them safe and warm, and set off in search of food. Bird was a good provider for the ones he loved.

Bird flew to a clearing and began to look about. He was careful, for the forest was full of wily predators. He swiveled his head from side to side and pirouetted from time to time to make sure no one snuck up from behind. But he became distracted for just a moment.  And in the forest, even one moment is enough for a wily predator to strike.

Weasel was one of the wily predators in the forest. He too had a family to provide for, and he too was a good provider for the ones he loved. Weasel saw Bird dancing in the field and stealthily crept toward him. He waited patiently for his moment, and with a mighty lurch, leapt onto Bird’s back. 

Bird’s instincts shouted, ‘Fly!’  He thrust out his wings and took to the air. He was of course terrified to have Weasel on his back. But no more terrified than Weasel as he soared into the sky on the back of Bird.

After the initial fright, Weasel spoke into Bird’s ear. ‘That was a smart move Bird. But you are nonetheless through. I have you right where I want you. My jaws are near your neck. I can bite at any moment. Land now and let me go, or I shall bite you now and you will die.’

Bird thought quickly.  ‘You dare not Weasel.  You know, or at least you should, that the moment you bite, I shall fall. Then you will die too.’

Weasel, having never flown before, had not considered this. He thought a moment. ‘Well then Bird. It comes to this. You can’t fly forever. You will eventually have to land. And when you do, I will bite you then and you will die.’

This flummoxed Bird for half a second. But he was a wise bird and found an appropriate response. ‘If that is your plan Weasel, then I will fly higher and higher until I can fly no more. Then I shall fall, and you will fall with me. You will die as well.’

Weasel grunted, ‘Drat!’  He felt trapped. And indeed he was. What would he do? He was a wily creature, but this seemed beyond him. He looked over Bird’s wing to the earth far below and considered his dilemma anew. He nearly passed out.  The situation seemed hopeless.

Bird, sensing Weasel’s distress, spoke into the silence. ‘I suggest we make a deal. For good or for ill, our lives are now bound together. Neither of us can live without the other.  We can no longer think in terms of ‘me,’ Weasel.  We must think in terms of ‘we.’’   

Weasel wondered what Bird meant and asked, ‘What sort of deal do you propose?’

Bird answered, ‘This: I will promise to land us safely, and you will promise not to bite me. Then we will go back to our respective places in the forest and continue our lives.’

Weasel was doubtful. ‘How do I know you won’t try a trick move as you land and throw me off?’

Bird told it straight. ‘You don’t. Just as I don’t know you won’t bite me when we land. We will have to trust each other.’

Weasel thought of this. Birds and weasels had never trusted each other before.  Could they trust each other now?

Bird, who was growing tired (it is hard to fly with a weasel on one’s back) hastened the conversation along. ‘Time is ticking Weasel. What do you say?’

Weasel realized he had no choice. ‘Okay Bird. I will take the deal. If you will promise to land us safely, I will promise not to bite you.’

‘I so promise,’ replied Bird.

‘And I as well,’ answered Weasel.

Bird circled around and headed back to the clearing. He knew he could not fly much further. As he came in for the landing, he feared Weasel would not keep his promise. He was after all, a weasel.

Weasel was also frightened. Would Bird keep his promise and land safely? But he knew Bird was right. Their lives were bound together. There was no choice but to trust Bird.

His trust was well founded. Bird landed in almost the precise place where Weasel had jumped on. Weasel jumped off just as quickly.

Bird and Weasel looked intently at one another. Both were exhausted. Bird from flying with a Weasel on his back, Weasel from, well, flying at all.

Bird was the first to speak. ‘Well Weasel, I have kept my promise. Will you now keep yours?’

‘Yes Bird,’ replied Weasel.  ‘A promise is a promise. Our lives were bound together, and perhaps they still are.’  Weasel smiled. ‘See you around Bird,’ he said, and with a sociable wink, scampered merrily away.

Bird took to the air. He was still tired, but flying was easier without Weasel on his back. He went home to his nest and wife, who was still sitting on their eggs, keeping them safe and warm.

Photo by Kevin Jansen courtesy of Unsplash. To see Brian Le-May’s original photo, click here.

Future Generations

‘One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts – Psalm 145:4’ (NIV)

David states a simple principle in this verse.  Each generation is responsible to pass to the next the evidence of God’s mighty works.  Typically, we think of this in terms of telling the stories of what God has done.  We find people doing this throughout scripture, recounting stories of God’s great acts in Israel’s history in their writings, festivals (Passover being one example), and songs.  In all of this we perceive the responsibility to preserve the stories of God’s great acts and to pass them along to the next generation. 

But the works of God are found in more than stories.  In another Psalm David wrote, ‘the heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the skies display the works of his hands’ (19:1).  This sentiment is expressed throughout the Bible, that the works of God are manifest in creation (see, e.g., Romans 1:20).  Indeed, you might say God tells the story of his existence and glory in the things he has made.  Consider the words of Augustine:

‘Some people, in order to discover God, read books.  But there is a great book, the very appearance of created things.  Look above you!  Look below you!  Read it.  God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink.  Instead, he set before your eyes the things he has made.  Can you ask for a louder voice than that?’

The Church Father Irenaeus agrees: ‘the initial step for a soul to come to knowledge of God is contemplation of nature.’  Who can doubt it?  A starry sky, the expanse of the ocean, the forest primeval, the mountains in their Autumn hues, the remarkable complexity and diversity of life – it all bears witness to the mighty works of God.  In all this, we perceive another facet of our responsibility: we must preserve God’s mighty works in nature and pass them along to future generations. 

But we aren’t.    

I have been reading David Wallace-Wells’ remarkably comprehensive and terrifying book, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming.  It is a scientifically informed exploration of climate change, both the evidence for it (which is overwhelming) and the consequences that we can expect to experience in both this century and the next.  I commend the book to your reading list.  But if I may bottom line things, we are in deep trouble.  No matter what we do from this point forward, the damage we have inflicted on God’s creation over the past 75 years or so is almost certain to raise global temperatures two degrees Celsius by 2100.  The Paris Climate Accords, which the United States recently rejoined after an insane hiatus, are designed to keep warming below that threshold.  A two-degree rise will invoke drastic consequences, most of which are at this point unavoidable.  But even worse is that if we do not do something equally drastic to curtail our rising carbon emissions, the rise will be even higher, anywhere from three to six degrees according to conservative estimates, perhaps as high as eight.  The consequences along that continuum are not just drastic, they are catastrophic.  And we are headed for them.  As of today, very few countries have met their goals under the Paris Climate Accords.  Most, including the worst offenders, are increasing their carbon emissions as we speak.  We are, by our actions, racing through a century during which the temperature will surely rise significantly more than two degrees. 

Which means that in the coming decades, and certainly by 2100, we can expect the following:

  • Rising temperatures that will make life near the equator impossible
  • Massive crop failure and farmland loss across multiple continents
  • Flooding of Biblical proportions along coastal areas throughout the world
  • A surge in wildfires and consequent property damage and loss of life
  • Massive hurricanes, typhoons, and tornadoes
  • Water shortages (this is already a problem.  Wallace-Wells notes that ‘as soon as 2030, global water demand is expected to outstrip demand by 40%’).
  • Dying Oceans (rising acidity, eco-system destruction, and species loss including the loss of oxygen producing diatoms that are responsible for much of the oxygen we breathe)
  • Widespread loss of animal habitats
  • Mass extinctions
  • Biodiversity loss
  • Toxic air
  • Plagues (viral and bacterial)
  • Economic collapse
  • Climate Refugees, as many as one billion
  • War (depleted resources will ignite them; it should be noted that the United States military takes climate change very seriously.  They are well aware of the instability it brings).

This is NOT hysteria or alarmism.  This is verifiable scientific fact.  There is more than mere consensus in the scientific community about this.  There is near unanimity of opinion (the outliers are the sort who put Galileo under house arrest for claiming the sun was the center of our solar system).  My God, if only ¼ of the items on that list come to pass, and I should note the list is far from exhaustive, we will be, by century’s end, in a world of hurt. 

This is the world we are passing on to our children and grandchildren.  This is the manner in which we are commending God’s wonderful works to future generations.  If we don’t pull our heads from the sand quickly, we will have failed to do what David – what the whole Bible – commands. 

It’s time to educate ourselves, change the way we live, and demand that our leaders take dramatic action to stave off the worst that climate change will bring. 

I end with a story.   

In the Babylonian Talmud, we read of the sage, Honi, who was walking along the road.  He saw a man planting a carob tree.  Honi asked him, ‘How long will it take for this tree to bear fruit?’

‘Seventy years,’ the man replied.

‘Honi then asked, ‘Are you so healthy a man that you expect to live that length of time and eat its fruit?’

The man answered, ‘I found a fruitful world because my ancestors planted it for me.  Likewise, I am planting for my children.’

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent