Philosophical Poison
Many of the philosophers who laid the foundations of modern and post-modern thought were profoundly bad men. This fact seems to surprise Nigel Rodgers and Mel Thompson, authors of Philosophers Behaving Badly. They write, "From philosophers...we expect, not unreasonably, nobler, wiser behavior, demonstrating some attempt to live up to their ideals." But, they note, "philosophers, while godlike in the intellectual sphere, can be the sorriest children in the world of power and money."
"Sorriest children" is too kind a label for the eight philosophers they profile in the book. "Demon-spawn" is more like it. A few tidbits:
Martin Heidegger, a father of Existentialism, was a Nazi. He concluded his lectures with "Heil Hitler!", and actively worked to make the university at Frieburg an institution subservient to the goals of Hitler and the Nazi Party. This included persecuting Jewish students and even the Jewish professor, Edmund Husserl, who had mentored him.
Jean-Paul Sarte was an apologist for Stalin, and so vigorous in his support of the Soviet madman that he criticized Krushchev for denouncing his predecessor! Even though Sarte knew about the gulags, he simply denied them the way some deny the Holocaust. To Sarte, heroic dissidents like Solzhenitsyn were mere criminals.
Michel Foucault, darling of postmodernism, was a drug-addled Peeping Tom. From his 8th floor apartment he used to train his binoculars on men undressing. He died of AIDS, but not before probably infecting many others because (1) he hid the fact that he had AIDS and (2) he refused to take precautions. Once while debating Noam Chomsky he maintained that he was willing to dispense with any principle of justice in order to achieve total victory for the proletariat. And if the proletariat needed to preserve power by violent oppression of the vanquished, so be it. Chomsky (no angel himself) "felt that he was debating with someone who did not even inhabit the same moral universe."
Bertrand Russell was the 20th century's foremost philosophical promoter of atheism, and though he had a reputation for non-violent pacifism he was actually such a war-mongering beast that he favored genocide. He considered defensible the extermination of North American Indians because they stood in the way of the spread of Western Civilization. In October of 1945 the famed author of Why I Am Not A Christian proposed that the US launch a massive pre-emptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, saying, "I should for my part prefer all the chaos and destruction of a war conducted by means of the atomic bomb to the universal domination of a government having the evil characteristics of the Nazis." Later, Rodgers and Thompson note, "he accepted that such a war might kill 500 million people and set civilization back centuries, yet thought this a price well worth paying." It seems to me that if this influential philosopher had possessed dictatorial power in the late 1940s, then the title of "Greatest Villain in the History of the World" would no longer be contested between Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Those pipsqueak knee-biters, with their millions of victims, would be nothing compared to Bertrand Russell and his hundreds of millions.
Time would fail me to relate all the cruelty, selfishness, mendacity, mean-spiritedness and grotesque immorality of the eight philosophers in Rodger's and Thompson's book. It is worth checking out of the library and reading for yourself. And it is worth thinking about a question the authors keep raising: "How could these men think so well but behave so badly?"
For the Christian, the answer lies pretty close at hand. The premise is wrong. These men were not great thinkers. Six of them (Foucalt, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Russell, Schopenhauer and Sartre) were atheists, and the other two (Rousseau and Wittgenstein) were not Christians. If you deny God and reject his incarnate Son, the worldview you construct will necessarily be out of whack. Why expect good behavior from that?
As I've said before, atheism can search for - but can never find - a ground for moral behavior. The best thing for a society with skeptics and atheists is to hope that none of them thinks too hard. Once they get to thinking and living by the results, watch out! They'll conclude (they always do) that the morality they learned in kindergarten is simply a creation of mankind, and, as such, can be reshaped like play-doh in their capable hands. They are free (Existentialists love to talk this way!) to construct their own realities and meaning. When they do that, why should any of us be shocked, shocked, that the behavior they find most reasonable is that which aggrandizes themselves and sacrifices all others to the attainment of that one goal?
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Pastor's Page: November 4, 2008
The Cougar And The Ant
After I finish writing this I'll go vote, even though I know beyond doubt it won't matter. My individual vote is meaningless - not just in the national election, but in all the local ones too. Since no significant election I've ever heard of was decided by one vote, it is certain that the same persons will win public office tonight whether I go to the polls or stay home and drink hot chocolate.
The reason I vote then is not because I think it will matter. The reason is because I know that if lots of people are as lazy about voting as I am tempted to be, it will matter. Thousands of people, each making the unassailably correct assumption "My vote won't change anything," will in fact change everything. To avoid the political catastrophe that would result from the mass inaction of otherwise thoughtful people, I (and everyone else!) must flip a mental switch, if need be, and act in the mode of an ant-in-a-colony building a bridge rather than a lone cougar-on-a-prowl hunting for food.
There are thousands of cases where it is our obligation to be that ant-in-a-colony. Let me mention one especially dear to my heart: attending Sunday School and church.
I'll be honest: you may be in a position where going to Sunday School and church does nothing for you. You learn nothing because you've heard it before, and you may even know by heart the passage being studied. You're just one person anyway and you won't be missed - so why go? Go because when lots of people begin to think as self-centeredly as you, churches empty out and have to close their doors. The anthill collapses when all the ants start thinking like cougars.
I attend a Wednesday night Bible study at a church near my home. Two young associate pastors are leading a study of Hebrews. When a young woman found out I was pastor of another church, she said to me, "I just think that's so neat that a pastor would come to a Bible study to get fed himself!" Of course I received her gracious words without correcting her. The truth is, I'm not there to feed. I've read through Hebrews lots of times, have preached through it twice, have strong opinions about it. I'm just there as an ant lending my support. (I'm hoping, for example, that my being there will encourage an unchurched friend to come.)
A relative of mine attends a church pastored by a buffoon. I've tried to get her to leave that church a number of times, but her answer is always the same: she stays for the sake of other dear souls who go there. Not for her sake, and certainly not for the buffoon's - but for others and for the good of the whole. I can never argue with that. May her saintly (or antly?) attitude infect many others!
When you show up promptly this Sunday at 10 AM for the adult class at Faith Bible Church, I'll be aware, all too painfully aware, that it is probably not for your own sake that you do that. I'll live with that, and the pain of knowing that the severely dwindled attendance of recent months must mean I'm boring the snot out of people, as long as there are some ants who understand that their continued presence is crucial to the functioning of the whole. In both of the last two weeks we had Sunday School, two first-time guests showed up at 10 and talked to me alone for quite a while until a few others arrived. (And thank God for those later arrivals! It would have been a long hour without them.) It's like when I took lunch the other day at a newly opened Chinese restaurant where I was the only person in the place apart from the waiter and a cook. The food was great, but it would have felt more comfortable, more right, if others were there too.
Be one of those others. Sure, you have your individual needs - we all do - but while seeking to fulfill them, do not neglect to take up your assigned spot in the ant colony. You have to go to church. And Sunday School.
After I finish writing this I'll go vote, even though I know beyond doubt it won't matter. My individual vote is meaningless - not just in the national election, but in all the local ones too. Since no significant election I've ever heard of was decided by one vote, it is certain that the same persons will win public office tonight whether I go to the polls or stay home and drink hot chocolate.
The reason I vote then is not because I think it will matter. The reason is because I know that if lots of people are as lazy about voting as I am tempted to be, it will matter. Thousands of people, each making the unassailably correct assumption "My vote won't change anything," will in fact change everything. To avoid the political catastrophe that would result from the mass inaction of otherwise thoughtful people, I (and everyone else!) must flip a mental switch, if need be, and act in the mode of an ant-in-a-colony building a bridge rather than a lone cougar-on-a-prowl hunting for food.
There are thousands of cases where it is our obligation to be that ant-in-a-colony. Let me mention one especially dear to my heart: attending Sunday School and church.
I'll be honest: you may be in a position where going to Sunday School and church does nothing for you. You learn nothing because you've heard it before, and you may even know by heart the passage being studied. You're just one person anyway and you won't be missed - so why go? Go because when lots of people begin to think as self-centeredly as you, churches empty out and have to close their doors. The anthill collapses when all the ants start thinking like cougars.
I attend a Wednesday night Bible study at a church near my home. Two young associate pastors are leading a study of Hebrews. When a young woman found out I was pastor of another church, she said to me, "I just think that's so neat that a pastor would come to a Bible study to get fed himself!" Of course I received her gracious words without correcting her. The truth is, I'm not there to feed. I've read through Hebrews lots of times, have preached through it twice, have strong opinions about it. I'm just there as an ant lending my support. (I'm hoping, for example, that my being there will encourage an unchurched friend to come.)
A relative of mine attends a church pastored by a buffoon. I've tried to get her to leave that church a number of times, but her answer is always the same: she stays for the sake of other dear souls who go there. Not for her sake, and certainly not for the buffoon's - but for others and for the good of the whole. I can never argue with that. May her saintly (or antly?) attitude infect many others!
When you show up promptly this Sunday at 10 AM for the adult class at Faith Bible Church, I'll be aware, all too painfully aware, that it is probably not for your own sake that you do that. I'll live with that, and the pain of knowing that the severely dwindled attendance of recent months must mean I'm boring the snot out of people, as long as there are some ants who understand that their continued presence is crucial to the functioning of the whole. In both of the last two weeks we had Sunday School, two first-time guests showed up at 10 and talked to me alone for quite a while until a few others arrived. (And thank God for those later arrivals! It would have been a long hour without them.) It's like when I took lunch the other day at a newly opened Chinese restaurant where I was the only person in the place apart from the waiter and a cook. The food was great, but it would have felt more comfortable, more right, if others were there too.
Be one of those others. Sure, you have your individual needs - we all do - but while seeking to fulfill them, do not neglect to take up your assigned spot in the ant colony. You have to go to church. And Sunday School.
Pastor's Page: October 28, 2008
A Reason To Be Humble
One of the reasons we ought to be humble is that others have done so much better than we with far less help, far fewer resources, and far greater challenges.
A friend told me he has a spiritual fantasy: he wants to be called upon in the Final Judgment to "rise and condemn" adulterers who defend themselves by saying they were married to bad people. My friend was married to a bad person too, but did not consider that grief a justification for sexual license. Maybe at the throne of God he will rise to judge, joining the Queen of Sheba and the men of Nineveh (Matthew 12:41-42) who will condemn certain Judeans. (Sheba valued the wisdom of mere Solomon, and the Ninevites repented at the preaching of mere Jonah, while the Judeans rejected Someone Far Greater.) On the day when all souls are rendering account for deeds done in the body, and some adulterous creep cries out, "But I was married to a shrew!" God can say, "Well, concerning that, let us hear a word from my servant Doug..."
I can understand my friend's fantasy because I relate so well to it. For example, one of the reasons I find former InterVarsity President Gordon MacDonald so insufferable is because he cheated on a good and faithful wife - his partner in ministry! - while I stayed faithful to a hostile and frigid apostate. So, MacDonald, what do you suppose a guy like you has to teach a guy like me about Christian virtue?
But such fantasies receive a hard rebuke when we consider all the people who could rise up in judgment against us. The line of my just condemners would be long. Sometimes, for example, I sin by being discouraged, and in my spirit stare blankly at cinder-block walls of hindrance and captivity. Quadriplegic Joni Eareckson Tada could be called upon to rise (or in her case, sit) in judgment against me, saying, "How dare you be discouraged! At least you've got arms and legs that work - I can't even brush my own teeth!"
Or take the sin of indulgence and the virtue of generosity. If I hear one more WMBI preacher begging money one minute, and talking about his Alaskan or Caribbean cruise the next, I'm going to scream bloody judgment. At such times I feel a dark temptation to pray like the Pharisee in Luke 18:11: "God, I thank thee that I am not as other [preachers]." But then there come to mind the widow of Zarephath, who shared what she thought was her and her son's last meal with the prophet Elijah, and the widow at the temple in Jerusalem, who gave her last two pennies in the offering plate. I imagine these women rising in judgment against me, saying, "Yes, Paul, do tell us your great story of faithful stewardship of meager resources."
God sets us as examples to one another. When we are tempted to sin, and justify that sin because our situation is so tough, let us call to mind victors who have had it so much tougher. And when we do well, and because of doing well come to despise those who fail, let us call to mind the real heroes, the ones who probably would not find our moral accomplishments all that impressive.
One of the reasons we ought to be humble is that others have done so much better than we with far less help, far fewer resources, and far greater challenges.
A friend told me he has a spiritual fantasy: he wants to be called upon in the Final Judgment to "rise and condemn" adulterers who defend themselves by saying they were married to bad people. My friend was married to a bad person too, but did not consider that grief a justification for sexual license. Maybe at the throne of God he will rise to judge, joining the Queen of Sheba and the men of Nineveh (Matthew 12:41-42) who will condemn certain Judeans. (Sheba valued the wisdom of mere Solomon, and the Ninevites repented at the preaching of mere Jonah, while the Judeans rejected Someone Far Greater.) On the day when all souls are rendering account for deeds done in the body, and some adulterous creep cries out, "But I was married to a shrew!" God can say, "Well, concerning that, let us hear a word from my servant Doug..."
I can understand my friend's fantasy because I relate so well to it. For example, one of the reasons I find former InterVarsity President Gordon MacDonald so insufferable is because he cheated on a good and faithful wife - his partner in ministry! - while I stayed faithful to a hostile and frigid apostate. So, MacDonald, what do you suppose a guy like you has to teach a guy like me about Christian virtue?
But such fantasies receive a hard rebuke when we consider all the people who could rise up in judgment against us. The line of my just condemners would be long. Sometimes, for example, I sin by being discouraged, and in my spirit stare blankly at cinder-block walls of hindrance and captivity. Quadriplegic Joni Eareckson Tada could be called upon to rise (or in her case, sit) in judgment against me, saying, "How dare you be discouraged! At least you've got arms and legs that work - I can't even brush my own teeth!"
Or take the sin of indulgence and the virtue of generosity. If I hear one more WMBI preacher begging money one minute, and talking about his Alaskan or Caribbean cruise the next, I'm going to scream bloody judgment. At such times I feel a dark temptation to pray like the Pharisee in Luke 18:11: "God, I thank thee that I am not as other [preachers]." But then there come to mind the widow of Zarephath, who shared what she thought was her and her son's last meal with the prophet Elijah, and the widow at the temple in Jerusalem, who gave her last two pennies in the offering plate. I imagine these women rising in judgment against me, saying, "Yes, Paul, do tell us your great story of faithful stewardship of meager resources."
God sets us as examples to one another. When we are tempted to sin, and justify that sin because our situation is so tough, let us call to mind victors who have had it so much tougher. And when we do well, and because of doing well come to despise those who fail, let us call to mind the real heroes, the ones who probably would not find our moral accomplishments all that impressive.
Pastor's Page: October 21, 2008
My Living Will, Or, Heaven Ain't So Bad
Some years ago I wrote a Pastor's Page advising people to make out a living will. Today I thought I'd tell you what mine is. I have written (by hand) and distributed these words:
In the event of my incapacitation, I insist that no medical measures be taken other than those designed to relieve pain or that have a strong likelihood of restoring me to full, independent, unmedicated health. Hence no breathing machines, feeding tubes, dialysis, resuscitation, or anything else that medical science may invent to delay the inevitable. I mean it. See with what large letters I write with my own hand. [The last sentence is writ larger than the rest. You may recognize it from Galatians 6:11.]
I want to persuade you of the rightness of making such a statement. My case:
(1) When I die I will be received into glory, not by any merit of my own but by the same grace that Jesus promised the dying thief: "Today you will be with me in paradise." Though it is sinful to try to hasten heavenly bliss through suicide, is it not foolish to try to postpone it through grasping at straws? Is heaven so frightful that we must avoid being sucked into it until the last possible moment? Especially when those medical "lifelines" thrown to us from the shores of earth are often just flotsam that make us drown more slowly.
(2) The quicker we let go, the less we burden our children. They have jobs and families and burdens of their own. What used to be a few weeks of making grandpa comfortable have now become years and years of changing his diapers and hooking him up to tubes. I'd rather not do that to my kids if I can help it. Sure, the young have a responsibility to care for the old, and it builds character for them to do so - but don't the old also have a responsibility to make that care-giving period as short and simple and dignified as possible?
(3) The quicker we go, the less we burden the health care system. The cost of preserving (I know this is offensive, but I'll just say it) a human vegetable can run into millions of dollars, and that money is better spent on those who have a shot at productive health. The staggering costs of long-term maintenance will break Medicare someday. Our selfish clinging to earthly life makes medical costs go up for everyone, and renders insurance unaffordable. To borrow an image from global warming, I don't know if my "carbon footprint" will ever really damage the planet, but I do believe that my "medical care footprint" weighs down a system that will increasingly struggle to provide care for those who can actually benefit from it.
You may notice that I say nothing in my living will about my funeral. That is because I believe it is selfish for people to give post-death instructions about their remains. That is for the living to decide - why should we care about it if we're dead? When my soul is rejoicing before Jesus, I won't give two hoots if, for example, med school students are slicing up my dead body in order to learn how better to treat living ones. Won't bother me one bit - and if it helps them, well, glory to God.
Some years ago I wrote a Pastor's Page advising people to make out a living will. Today I thought I'd tell you what mine is. I have written (by hand) and distributed these words:
In the event of my incapacitation, I insist that no medical measures be taken other than those designed to relieve pain or that have a strong likelihood of restoring me to full, independent, unmedicated health. Hence no breathing machines, feeding tubes, dialysis, resuscitation, or anything else that medical science may invent to delay the inevitable. I mean it. See with what large letters I write with my own hand. [The last sentence is writ larger than the rest. You may recognize it from Galatians 6:11.]
I want to persuade you of the rightness of making such a statement. My case:
(1) When I die I will be received into glory, not by any merit of my own but by the same grace that Jesus promised the dying thief: "Today you will be with me in paradise." Though it is sinful to try to hasten heavenly bliss through suicide, is it not foolish to try to postpone it through grasping at straws? Is heaven so frightful that we must avoid being sucked into it until the last possible moment? Especially when those medical "lifelines" thrown to us from the shores of earth are often just flotsam that make us drown more slowly.
(2) The quicker we let go, the less we burden our children. They have jobs and families and burdens of their own. What used to be a few weeks of making grandpa comfortable have now become years and years of changing his diapers and hooking him up to tubes. I'd rather not do that to my kids if I can help it. Sure, the young have a responsibility to care for the old, and it builds character for them to do so - but don't the old also have a responsibility to make that care-giving period as short and simple and dignified as possible?
(3) The quicker we go, the less we burden the health care system. The cost of preserving (I know this is offensive, but I'll just say it) a human vegetable can run into millions of dollars, and that money is better spent on those who have a shot at productive health. The staggering costs of long-term maintenance will break Medicare someday. Our selfish clinging to earthly life makes medical costs go up for everyone, and renders insurance unaffordable. To borrow an image from global warming, I don't know if my "carbon footprint" will ever really damage the planet, but I do believe that my "medical care footprint" weighs down a system that will increasingly struggle to provide care for those who can actually benefit from it.
You may notice that I say nothing in my living will about my funeral. That is because I believe it is selfish for people to give post-death instructions about their remains. That is for the living to decide - why should we care about it if we're dead? When my soul is rejoicing before Jesus, I won't give two hoots if, for example, med school students are slicing up my dead body in order to learn how better to treat living ones. Won't bother me one bit - and if it helps them, well, glory to God.
Pastor's Page: October 14, 2008
Endorsing A Candidate
Of the four Roman emperors who reigned during the New Testament era, three (Tiberius, Caligula and Nero) raped boys. Only Claudius might not have.
I bring up this unpleasant fact for the sake of those who seem to think that the flourishing of the church depends on having good secular leaders and laws. It doesn't. The church was born, and the gospel spread, in lands ruled by murderous thug perverts like Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, Herod Agrippa I and the emperors named above. (Even the best of the lot, Herod Agrippa II, slept with his sister!) Despite demons at the helm of secular government, the gospel was preached and the kingdom grew and tens of thousands of elect saints bowed the knee to Jesus Christ.
I'm not saying it is ok therefore to leave demons at the helm. I am saying that the cause of Christ will proceed or flounder no matter who is in charge.
That is one of the reasons I strongly oppose the action of 33 ministers who, two weeks ago, deliberately endorsed political candidates from the pulpit. (It was a protest against a 54-year-old law prohibiting non-profits from endorsing candidates. These churches may now lose their tax-exempt status.) As a citizen and private individual I certainly care who gets elected, and I'm happy to banter politics with anyone who would like to engage me about it on the side. But when I get into the pulpit I am not merely a citizen but a proclaimer of the gospel of Jesus Christ endowed with the sacred trust of exalting his name and making him known. To get distracted in the pulpit by these lesser things of politics is sin. Old-school preachers used to scotch-tape to their pulpits the text John 12:21: "We would see Jesus." They knew the temptation of taking the focus off Christ and fixing it on the relatively inconsequential, like political heroes and villains.
Rather than striking a blow for free speech by the civilly disobedient act of endorsing McCain or Obama in their September 28 sermons, it would have been better if these 33 preachers had raised their right hands and sworn, "I will not allow my political convictions to veil Christ from those who need to see him." Even from their perspective, even if they knew without error that one of these candidates was good and the other evil, how could they know whether the cause of Christ would flourish more under an Obama or a McCain administration? None of us can know that. Look at the world: western Europe has freedom of religion but nobody goes to church, while China enforces policies hostile to the faith and its churches multiply.
I have preferences, but you won't hear them in the pulpit. Part of that is because I have a Bigger Name to exalt and don't want lesser names to obscure it. Part of it too is because I seek first the kingdom of God, and am fully convinced that that kingdom can advance just as easily whether the Oval Office is occupied by humble St. Francis or Attila the Hun.
Of the four Roman emperors who reigned during the New Testament era, three (Tiberius, Caligula and Nero) raped boys. Only Claudius might not have.
I bring up this unpleasant fact for the sake of those who seem to think that the flourishing of the church depends on having good secular leaders and laws. It doesn't. The church was born, and the gospel spread, in lands ruled by murderous thug perverts like Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, Herod Agrippa I and the emperors named above. (Even the best of the lot, Herod Agrippa II, slept with his sister!) Despite demons at the helm of secular government, the gospel was preached and the kingdom grew and tens of thousands of elect saints bowed the knee to Jesus Christ.
I'm not saying it is ok therefore to leave demons at the helm. I am saying that the cause of Christ will proceed or flounder no matter who is in charge.
That is one of the reasons I strongly oppose the action of 33 ministers who, two weeks ago, deliberately endorsed political candidates from the pulpit. (It was a protest against a 54-year-old law prohibiting non-profits from endorsing candidates. These churches may now lose their tax-exempt status.) As a citizen and private individual I certainly care who gets elected, and I'm happy to banter politics with anyone who would like to engage me about it on the side. But when I get into the pulpit I am not merely a citizen but a proclaimer of the gospel of Jesus Christ endowed with the sacred trust of exalting his name and making him known. To get distracted in the pulpit by these lesser things of politics is sin. Old-school preachers used to scotch-tape to their pulpits the text John 12:21: "We would see Jesus." They knew the temptation of taking the focus off Christ and fixing it on the relatively inconsequential, like political heroes and villains.
Rather than striking a blow for free speech by the civilly disobedient act of endorsing McCain or Obama in their September 28 sermons, it would have been better if these 33 preachers had raised their right hands and sworn, "I will not allow my political convictions to veil Christ from those who need to see him." Even from their perspective, even if they knew without error that one of these candidates was good and the other evil, how could they know whether the cause of Christ would flourish more under an Obama or a McCain administration? None of us can know that. Look at the world: western Europe has freedom of religion but nobody goes to church, while China enforces policies hostile to the faith and its churches multiply.
I have preferences, but you won't hear them in the pulpit. Part of that is because I have a Bigger Name to exalt and don't want lesser names to obscure it. Part of it too is because I seek first the kingdom of God, and am fully convinced that that kingdom can advance just as easily whether the Oval Office is occupied by humble St. Francis or Attila the Hun.
Pastor's Page: October 7, 2008
The Least Of These
There is a joy that smart, independent, capable people will never know: that of being rescued from befuddled predicament by a kind and resourceful person. Only a confused idiot can really experience that pleasure.
I know because I have been that confused idiot. Three years ago I invited friends and family over for Thanksgiving, which was a problem because I had no table. The fact weighed on me - not simply that I didn't have a table, but that I knew in my heart that normal people knew how to get one and I didn't. I did know enough to go to Goodwill and find a serviceable table for only 10 dollars, but now, how to get it home?
God in his grace sent me a Mexican auto mechanic. Juan saw me struggling to disassemble the table in the Goodwill parking lot, came over, and just did it for me - squeezing all the parts into my small car like a contortionist into an aquarium. What joy! I hope I was grateful enough. I found out where he worked and called his boss to laud him for the kindness he showed to me, a total (and hapless) stranger.
Haplessness is no stranger to me - it haunts me like the ghost of Hamlet's father. Like when my lawnmower stopped working a few weeks ago. I did not know how to dispose of it and get a new one at an affordable price. I last bought a lawnmower in 1998, which required some assembly, which I did myself. It broke of course, literally broke - the frame snapped in two - the first time I used it. A kind friend assembled the replacement. This time though I just let the grass grow, hoping that with fall coming I wouldn't have to worry about my lawn until May. Wrong. Warm autumn rains left my untended lawn overgrown and unsightly, and I didn't know what to do.
Then yesterday a friend said, "I have three lawnmowers. Which one do you want?" More joy! Now my troublesome lawn is clipped tidy and short, and it cost me nothing more than grass stains on my gym shoes. Glory to God, and gratitude to my friend.
It can be embarrassing and demoralizing to be the fool in need, but there is redemption in it. In Matthew 25:35-36 Jesus casts himself in the role of the needy person that capable people do nice things for: "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." It seems that when we talk about being Christlike to people, we usually mean doing good things to them with our talents and time and resources. That is true, but it can also mean just being the poor luckless schmo that other people help out. This is a good thing, because it brings joy to us, and credit to them, and glory to God.
There is a joy that smart, independent, capable people will never know: that of being rescued from befuddled predicament by a kind and resourceful person. Only a confused idiot can really experience that pleasure.
I know because I have been that confused idiot. Three years ago I invited friends and family over for Thanksgiving, which was a problem because I had no table. The fact weighed on me - not simply that I didn't have a table, but that I knew in my heart that normal people knew how to get one and I didn't. I did know enough to go to Goodwill and find a serviceable table for only 10 dollars, but now, how to get it home?
God in his grace sent me a Mexican auto mechanic. Juan saw me struggling to disassemble the table in the Goodwill parking lot, came over, and just did it for me - squeezing all the parts into my small car like a contortionist into an aquarium. What joy! I hope I was grateful enough. I found out where he worked and called his boss to laud him for the kindness he showed to me, a total (and hapless) stranger.
Haplessness is no stranger to me - it haunts me like the ghost of Hamlet's father. Like when my lawnmower stopped working a few weeks ago. I did not know how to dispose of it and get a new one at an affordable price. I last bought a lawnmower in 1998, which required some assembly, which I did myself. It broke of course, literally broke - the frame snapped in two - the first time I used it. A kind friend assembled the replacement. This time though I just let the grass grow, hoping that with fall coming I wouldn't have to worry about my lawn until May. Wrong. Warm autumn rains left my untended lawn overgrown and unsightly, and I didn't know what to do.
Then yesterday a friend said, "I have three lawnmowers. Which one do you want?" More joy! Now my troublesome lawn is clipped tidy and short, and it cost me nothing more than grass stains on my gym shoes. Glory to God, and gratitude to my friend.
It can be embarrassing and demoralizing to be the fool in need, but there is redemption in it. In Matthew 25:35-36 Jesus casts himself in the role of the needy person that capable people do nice things for: "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." It seems that when we talk about being Christlike to people, we usually mean doing good things to them with our talents and time and resources. That is true, but it can also mean just being the poor luckless schmo that other people help out. This is a good thing, because it brings joy to us, and credit to them, and glory to God.
Pastor's Page: September 30, 2008
Let Your Yes Be Yes
"I gave my word."
I found myself having to say that a lot recently as I kept getting the same advice from friends who recommended that I try to renegotiate a financial obligation I incurred a couple years ago. (Here "renegotiate" pretty much means "not pay as much as I said I would"). It is true that unforeseeable circumstances had turned a fair deal into a disastrous one for me. Everyone could see that. I was left scrambling between options that all looked bad. But the one option that kept getting placed under my nose and that I had to keep swatting away because of its stench was the one that would have made a promise-breaker of me. That is not acceptable. I would rather be poor - I would rather be unhappy! - than go back on my word.
I have righteous contempt for those who break their word. That is why I root against Bret Favre now. Favre held a tearful press conference on March 6 to announce, "I am officially retiring from the NFL and the Green Bay Packers," and then revoked his word a few months later just because he decided he felt differently. His broken promise threw the whole Packer organization into chaos (how do you plan anything when your star says one thing one day and the opposite thing the next?) and left his replacement, Aaron Rodgers, dangling on a string. Then Favre angrily blamed the Packers for not treating him with respect. He does not understand that he is not worthy of respect. Sure, he can throw a football - but as for his words, write them on water. Go Jets' opponents.
And were it not for Barak Obama's position on abortion and some other things I would certainly be saying "Go McCain's opponent." You may have heard that last week John McCain cancelled a David Letterman appearance an hour before the show was to be taped, claiming he had to get back to Washington to deal with the nation's financial crisis. Actually McCain was in no hurry to get to Washington - he had simply decided to go down the street to be interviewed by Katie Couric. Letterman rightly went nuts, and has been ripping McCain ever since with the fury of a jilted bride. Speaking of brides, McCain did not keep his word to his first one, but ditched her years ago for someone younger, prettier and richer. (Between Obama's baby-killing policies and McCain's lack of integrity, I'm glad that our Electoral-College manner of electing a president will insure that my vote this year in the state of Illinois will not matter!)
When you give your word, keep it. This is your duty as a godly man or woman. When King David asked in Psalm 15: "Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?" part of his answer was "one who keeps his oath even if it hurts." (Better in the King James: "He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not."). Of course your situation will change and make your promises hard to keep. That is to be expected. There is no virtue in keeping your word when it is easy to do so, when it costs you nothing, when it is your happiest course of action anyway. Virtue demands that you keep the promises that hurt. Especially the promises that hurt.
"I gave my word."
I found myself having to say that a lot recently as I kept getting the same advice from friends who recommended that I try to renegotiate a financial obligation I incurred a couple years ago. (Here "renegotiate" pretty much means "not pay as much as I said I would"). It is true that unforeseeable circumstances had turned a fair deal into a disastrous one for me. Everyone could see that. I was left scrambling between options that all looked bad. But the one option that kept getting placed under my nose and that I had to keep swatting away because of its stench was the one that would have made a promise-breaker of me. That is not acceptable. I would rather be poor - I would rather be unhappy! - than go back on my word.
I have righteous contempt for those who break their word. That is why I root against Bret Favre now. Favre held a tearful press conference on March 6 to announce, "I am officially retiring from the NFL and the Green Bay Packers," and then revoked his word a few months later just because he decided he felt differently. His broken promise threw the whole Packer organization into chaos (how do you plan anything when your star says one thing one day and the opposite thing the next?) and left his replacement, Aaron Rodgers, dangling on a string. Then Favre angrily blamed the Packers for not treating him with respect. He does not understand that he is not worthy of respect. Sure, he can throw a football - but as for his words, write them on water. Go Jets' opponents.
And were it not for Barak Obama's position on abortion and some other things I would certainly be saying "Go McCain's opponent." You may have heard that last week John McCain cancelled a David Letterman appearance an hour before the show was to be taped, claiming he had to get back to Washington to deal with the nation's financial crisis. Actually McCain was in no hurry to get to Washington - he had simply decided to go down the street to be interviewed by Katie Couric. Letterman rightly went nuts, and has been ripping McCain ever since with the fury of a jilted bride. Speaking of brides, McCain did not keep his word to his first one, but ditched her years ago for someone younger, prettier and richer. (Between Obama's baby-killing policies and McCain's lack of integrity, I'm glad that our Electoral-College manner of electing a president will insure that my vote this year in the state of Illinois will not matter!)
When you give your word, keep it. This is your duty as a godly man or woman. When King David asked in Psalm 15: "Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?" part of his answer was "one who keeps his oath even if it hurts." (Better in the King James: "He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not."). Of course your situation will change and make your promises hard to keep. That is to be expected. There is no virtue in keeping your word when it is easy to do so, when it costs you nothing, when it is your happiest course of action anyway. Virtue demands that you keep the promises that hurt. Especially the promises that hurt.
Pastor's Page: September 23, 2008
One Way To Test Your Goodness
"I thought I was a good person until I had Indians living in my house."
A missionary told me that around 1990. She and her husband were working with a South American indigenous group whose small villages were off limits to foreigners due to guerrilla activity. In order to have regular contact with the indigenous people and learn their language, they invited three Indians to live in their home, which was about 50 miles from the tribal area.
The indigenous guests behaved well, but the simple fact that they were around proved burdensome to the missionary. She confessed to me that her desire to be rid of them revealed a shameful fact about herself, a selfishness never previously suspected. "If you had asked me a couple years ago if I were kind and hospitable, I would have said 'Sure.' Now I know that I'm not."
That's the price, or part of the price, of trying to do a good work. You realize to your horror that you're not up to it. Your conscience had been giving you a pass only because your virtue hadn't been tested. Think you're a good person? Take three Indians into your home and get back to me in a year. Then, rather than professing "I'm a redeemed child of the King who loves me just the way I am" you might be saying, "I am a worm. God have mercy on my selfish little putrid soul."
Some time ago I ran across an essay that my son Peter wrote where he expressed how much in awe he was of his Aunt Grace, who with her husband took in dozens of difficult foster kids over the years and adopted several of them. And Peter has no idea how hard that really is! He can only guess from afar. Perhaps some day he will attempt such hospitality himself, and the effort will reveal faults that will humble him and move him to be more dependent on God.
But of course it is possible, upon being awakened to one's selfishness, to decide to love it rather than repent of it. That is what happened with the missionary eventually. Overcoming the shock of painful self-discovery, she learned to embrace her narcissism. She abandoned Christian service, renounced Christ, left her husband and neglected her children. Welcoming Indians into her home to show them the love of God is now a distant and suppressed memory.
I never tire of repeating my answer to a question asked of me in March of 2003 when I assumed the pastorate of Faith Bible Church: "What do you want from us?" - and I responded with one word: "Hospitality." Open the doors of your homes to guests. Certainly there is risk in that. A guest may track dog dirt onto your floors (I've had worse on my floors!). You may discover that you really don't like people that much, and, if you are reprobate, may eventually conclude that you don't want Jesus in your heart any more than you want a stranger in your house. But that is the worst case scenario. I choose to think better of you. Climb the high Himalayan peaks of hospitality, and some day not only will God smile on you, but, maybe, even some smart-aleck niece or nephew will hold you in awe.
"I thought I was a good person until I had Indians living in my house."
A missionary told me that around 1990. She and her husband were working with a South American indigenous group whose small villages were off limits to foreigners due to guerrilla activity. In order to have regular contact with the indigenous people and learn their language, they invited three Indians to live in their home, which was about 50 miles from the tribal area.
The indigenous guests behaved well, but the simple fact that they were around proved burdensome to the missionary. She confessed to me that her desire to be rid of them revealed a shameful fact about herself, a selfishness never previously suspected. "If you had asked me a couple years ago if I were kind and hospitable, I would have said 'Sure.' Now I know that I'm not."
That's the price, or part of the price, of trying to do a good work. You realize to your horror that you're not up to it. Your conscience had been giving you a pass only because your virtue hadn't been tested. Think you're a good person? Take three Indians into your home and get back to me in a year. Then, rather than professing "I'm a redeemed child of the King who loves me just the way I am" you might be saying, "I am a worm. God have mercy on my selfish little putrid soul."
Some time ago I ran across an essay that my son Peter wrote where he expressed how much in awe he was of his Aunt Grace, who with her husband took in dozens of difficult foster kids over the years and adopted several of them. And Peter has no idea how hard that really is! He can only guess from afar. Perhaps some day he will attempt such hospitality himself, and the effort will reveal faults that will humble him and move him to be more dependent on God.
But of course it is possible, upon being awakened to one's selfishness, to decide to love it rather than repent of it. That is what happened with the missionary eventually. Overcoming the shock of painful self-discovery, she learned to embrace her narcissism. She abandoned Christian service, renounced Christ, left her husband and neglected her children. Welcoming Indians into her home to show them the love of God is now a distant and suppressed memory.
I never tire of repeating my answer to a question asked of me in March of 2003 when I assumed the pastorate of Faith Bible Church: "What do you want from us?" - and I responded with one word: "Hospitality." Open the doors of your homes to guests. Certainly there is risk in that. A guest may track dog dirt onto your floors (I've had worse on my floors!). You may discover that you really don't like people that much, and, if you are reprobate, may eventually conclude that you don't want Jesus in your heart any more than you want a stranger in your house. But that is the worst case scenario. I choose to think better of you. Climb the high Himalayan peaks of hospitality, and some day not only will God smile on you, but, maybe, even some smart-aleck niece or nephew will hold you in awe.
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