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| HOLY WEEK POST 1Today is the day in the Christian year that is referred to as Palm Sunday. It is called so because as Jesus made His entry into Jerusalem for the last week of His life on earth, the people greeted Him with palm leaves. They also shouted "Hosanna to the Son of David."
Sometimes people wonder how it is that the same people who cheered and adored Jesus on Sunday could be calling for His death less than a week later. That can be explained by understanding what it was the people were actually doing. Son of David was a phrase that was used to mean the Messiah. So, the people recognized that Jesus was the Messiah. That wasn't the problem. The problem was what they were expecting the Messiah to do. Hosanna means deliverance or salvation. But, it wasn't deliverance from sin they were hoping to find, but deliverance from the Imperial Romans. The Palm Branches were a national symbol for Jews, similar to the bald eagle or Stars and Stripes in the United States. It was meant to evoke patriotism and nationalistic fervor. The people cheering for Jesus on that day were looking for a military/political Messiah, not a deliverer from their own sins.
It's worth thinking about, that many people today still want a Jesus for that same purpose. Maybe not to deliver them in a military fashion, but one who will make life easier for them. In other words, one who will deliver them from all the problems of life except their biggest one......their own sinfulness. Jesus may or may not deliver us from the problems of everyday life, and it certainly isn't wrong to ask Him to do so. What is wrong is to expect deliverance from problems (which is the result of sin) and not desire deliverance from the sin itself.
As this holy week begins, maybe we be seeking Jesus to first and primarily to free us from our own selfishness,
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| I DON'T KNOW"I don't know" is difficult for most people to say. Next to saying "I was wrong" they may the most difficult words to say. In some ways they are even more difficult to say than "I was wrong." For one has to know the truth in order to admit error, but to admit ignorance one is admitting that he does not know the truth.
Why is it so difficult for us to admit we don't know something? Perhaps because we like to everything figured out, and to confess to ignorance means that we do not. It also causes us to come face to face with our own limitations. Plus we want other people to look up to us, so being able to answer any and all questions helps keep us on that pedestal. I'm certain that there are dozens of other reasons also.
What really disturbs me though is that some Christians are so certain of things of which we perhaps should be a little more ignorant. I read an interesting statement from a commenter on another blog recently. It went something like this......"I have no trouble in believing Christianity is true, as opposed to Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Atheism, etc. What I have the problem with is knowing which version of Christianity is true." In other words, this reader had no problem believing in what C.S. Lewis called Mere Christianity. His trouble was in figuring out which church, or which theological system, had all the right answers. Reading his comment my thought was "Yeah, I know exactly what you mean." Returning to the first sentence of this paragraph, it disturbs me that some Christians have no problem answering this reader's dilemma. Their answer is simply, "We're right, how could you not figure that out?" These folks further refuse to entertain the idea that they could be wrong. Nor do they want to listen to any one who thinks differently.
Before I go any further, let me discuss some of the issues over which Christians disagree, about which some are so convinced that they are right.
1. The Calvinism/Arminianism debate. Within this whole debate arises issues of human depravity, predestination, the extent of the atonement and the security of the believer. As a former seminary student I have seen some of the biggest arguments arise over this debate. And, yes, I was often one of the instigators of those arguments.
2. Eschatology. That's a rather fancy word for the doctrine of the end times. There are those who believe whole heartedly in dispensationalism as popularized in the Left Behind series. There are others who hold to views such as postmillenialism or amillenialism. These arguments can get very heated as well.
3. Spiritual gifts. The gift of tongues is usually the one that causes the most arguments. There are those who are convinced that the gift of tongues is essential for the church today and those who believe it ended with the apostles.
That's just a few examples of the debates between Christians. There are many more on the beliefs and practices of the church. My purpose here isn't to try and resolve any of them. My purpose is to try and examine the attitudes of those who hold to one view or the other.
To repeat, it disturbs me that some Christians are so certain on these areas where perhaps we should be a little more uncertain. What may be worse is the pride that goes along with the certainty. I've seen Calvinists who absolutely refuse to admit that they might be wrong in even one area. Same with Arminians, same with Dispensationalists, same with Charismatics, same with Noncharismatics, etc. Of course, if I'm right and you are wrong, then I have no problem thinking I'm better than you. In fact, you obviously have a problem because you can't see the truth like I can. One can easily see how that attitude can quickly lead to arrogance and pride.
Let me state that I have my opinions on all the issues I listed above. Some of them I have changed over the years, some I've been fairly consistent on. But most of them I hold with a lot less certainty now than I once did.
There is an old Christian saying about areas of disagreement. It goes something like this, "In essentials Unity, in nonessentials Liberty, and in all things Charity." When it comes to essential matters such as the Trinity, the virgin birth of Christ, His sinless life, His death, burial and resurrection there must be agreement or unity of belief. In nonessential matters, like the three mentioned above and others, there is liberty, or freedom to disagree and discuss them. In all things there must be charity, or better said Love.
Someone asked me how would I handle disagreements. My answer is the three Ls, those are Love, Listen and Learn. When there is a disagreement we start off by loving the person (or persons) with whom we disagree. This is the first step. It's very difficult to look down upon someone that you really love, regardless of how much you disagree. It's also worth mentioning that Jesus said the world would know His disciples by how they loved one another, not by how orthodox their doctrine was. The second step is to listen to the other person. Listening is a lost art it seems today. Listening doesn't just mean that you don't make noise while the other person is speaking, though that might be a good first step for some of us. It means we have an open mind and realize we could be wrong, and it acknowledges that the other person might have something to say that is worth us hearing. Finally, learn from the other person. The other person may have something to say that I hadn't thought of before. It might change my whole way of thinking on a given topic.
To do those three things, the 3 Ls, may require a good dose of that Christlike quality that seems so lacking today, HUMILITY. Among other things, humility recognizes that I'm not God and hence I don't know everything. And that is a lesson I'm still trying to learn.
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| Curtain 1, 2, 3 or 4Ok, I'm going to write this post in a dialog form. With the change in color is also the change in speakers.
"Behind these four curtains you see are 4 different versions of Jesus. One of which is the Jesus of the gospels."
"Ok, well tell me about them."
"Very well, behind curtain #1 is Jesus the lottery ticket."
"Jesus the Lottery Ticket? Did I hear that right?"
"Yes you heard it loud and clear."
"Why is he called that? explain."
"Well, this Jesus is the Jesus that promises health and wealth to everyone. Now there are some different varieties to this Jesus. To some he's a self help coach, who teaches you the secrets to great success. To others he has more of a spiritual role, he is one's cosmic servant to do one's bidding in heaven and on earth, although this version has a lot in common with the Jesus you'll meet behind curtain #2."
"And, this Jesus isn't the Jesus of the gospels?"
"Oh no. Now the Jesus of the gospels did miracles, such as healing the blind and even raising the dead, but He never actually promised health to anyone and certainly never promised wealth to anyone."
"Gotcha. Well, what about Jesus behind curtain #2?"
"One more thing about Jesus #1 here. As you might guess he's very popular with Americans. He allows you to chase the American dream without feeling the least bit guilty over it."
"Yes, that makes sense."
"Now to Jesus behind curtain #2. This Jesus we call Jesus the localized deity."
"Deity means God right?"
"That's right."
"This must be the Jesus of the gospels, because I remember Him being called Emmanuel or God with us."
"That's true, but this Jesus isn't him. That's why he's called the LOCALIZED Deity."
"Could you explain?"
"You'd have to understand the ancient world a bit for this one. In the ancient world each community, or sometimes groups of communities, had their own god (or gods). And people would worship and offer sacrifices to these gods to appease them. To put in modern language, they didn't want the gods to get ticked off at them."
"I see."
"So, if you didn't want the crops to flood, you offered a sacrifice to the river or weather god. If you wanted to be safe on a journey across the sea, you offered a sacrifice to the god of the sea or ocean."
"So, what is this Jesus like?"
"Well, the localized deity Jesus is worshiped so that bad things don't happen to you. Or, as was the case with the ancient gods, people tried to manipulate them to get what they wanted, this is what I meant when I said the version of Jesus the Lottery ticket that viewed him as being in heaven to do our bidding. This Jesus can be manipulated to do what you want and to get what you want. People who advocate this call it 'name it and claim it.' Jesus is thus obligated to do what they want him to do."
"And this Jesus isn't the one of the gospels either?"
"No he isn't. The Jesus of the gospels is the Son of God and He can't be manipulated, appeased or tricked into doing something. He did His Father's will, if people asked for something according to His Father's will He granted it, if not He didn't. Two of His disciples found this out, they would be the brothers James and John."
"OK, what about curtain #3?"
"This Jesus is Jesus the roofer."
"Roofer? Explain that to me."
"Whenever you have a leak in your roof you call the roofer right?"
"Yes."
"OK, well that is what people do with this Jesus. Whenever they have a problem they call on him to fix them. Sometimes these people are so impressed with the work that he does that they try to get other people to call on him as well."
"Well, now that sounds more like the Jesus of the gospels."
"Well, he's a lot closer to it than the other two, but not quite it."
"Why is that?"
"Two reasons. One the Jesus of the gospels never promised to fix all the problems his followers faced, at least not in this lifetime. In fact, he flat out told them to expect problems in this world."
"I remember reading that now."
"But there is one bigger difference between this Jesus and the Jesus of the gospels."
"And that is........."
"Well, when the roofer is finished fixing your roof, even if you praise his work, think he is a genius and go tell other people about how great a work he does, you expect the roofer to go home."
"Well, yeah, it would be kind of strange for him to hang around my house after he was done."
"You are right. And that is how the believers in Jesus the roofer see Jesus. They call on him to fix their problems but they don't want him hanging around afterwords. And they certainly don't expect him to try and take over the house, you'd probably call the police on your roofer if he did that regardless of how good he was."
"Yeah, I sure would."
"Well, you see the Jesus of the gospels called on people to follow Him. He wasn't just a fix it man, or fix it God for that matter. He wasn't around just to solve the problems in their lives. He was there to take over their lives."
"Now, I see what you mean."
"OK, ready to lift curtain #4?"
"Yeah."
"Behind this curtain we have the Jesus of the gospels. This Jesus told people to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him as just mentioned. He told people their lives did not consist in the amount of money and possessions that they acquired. He said they couldn't serve both God and Wealth. He told them to love their enemies. He told them to forgive others. He told them to seek God's Kingdom and Justice first. He told them that greed, hatred, lust and pride were not the values of His Kingdom. He told them those who humbled themselves before God, God would exalt......as well as the other way around. He told them to love people who were different from them. And He told them He was God's promised Messiah. The people of His day didn't care for that too much, to put it mildly, so they had him killed. But, little did they know that was part of God's plan all along, and even though they had Him killed. God brought Him back to life."
"Yes, that is the Jesus of the gospels."
"You've probably noted that this Jesus isn't very popular today either. Many people claim to believe and worship this Jesus, but in reality they have him mixed up with one of the Jesus' behind the first 3 curtains."
"Yes, I see that."
"So, there you have it. The four curtains have been lifted. We have Jesus the lottery ticket, Jesus the localized deity, Jesus the roofer and the the Jesus of the gospels. WHICH JESUS DO YOU WANT?"
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| The American Crisis - GREED"The advertisers use many additional strategies - visual stimulation and sexual innuendo are but two of the more prominent - yet all these are methods. What we really need to understand is the message. My point is, the message we are given is that we need something. That we really do not need much at all is viewed by advertisers as an obstacle to overcome. They must manufacture need."
Richard A. Swenson, M.D. in his book Margin
"Affluence is the god of twenty-first-century North Americans, and the adman is his prophet."
Ronald J. Sider in his book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger
The news and events of recent days inform us that America is in a crisis. A financial crisis the like of which most of us have never seen in our lifetimes. That is of course if one believes the hype, which in the interest of being open with my readers I do not believe. But many Americans do have a financial problem, a problem that in many ways has led to the current "crisis" that we face. That financial problem is in all reality a spiritual problem. And that spiritual problem is called greed.
In fairness, greed is not just an American problem. It affects all of mankind, and always has. It was at least one of the problems our original parents succumbed to. They had the ideal environment in Eden, but wanted more. And in the words of a country song from the 1980s we are just carrying on an old family tradition.
Greed is the enemy of at least three virtues commanded by God in scripture.
The first of these is contentment. You can pretty much make a mathematical formula from this. The level of your contentment is inversely proportional to the extent of your greed. The more you desire the less content you are, and the more content you are the less you desire. The above quote from Swenson tells us that advertisers must manufacture need. What they actually manufacture is the sense of need. There is of course no need there at all in most cases. We have no need of a new car, new clothes or whatever the latest fast food craze is. We certainly do not need the newest CD or DVD collection. What the advertisers do is to appeal to that sleeping monster inside of us called greed (or discontent), and sometimes of course it is fully awake anyway. Note that I said they awake the monster, they do not create it for it already exists. Contentment may be their biggest enemy. If I'm content with what I already have, their efforts will fail. This is the problem many Americans have, they are not content with what they have. This is why so many Americans are head over heels in debt. Some of this debt is legitimate, such as medical debts and mortgages (though some of that is excessive also). But much of it has been acquired because of greed. People want more and more stuff so that they will be happy or to impress their friends and neighbors. How far are we removed from the command of Paul in First Timothy 6:8 that if we have food and clothes to be content with that. Paul goes on in that passage to say that the "love of money" is the source (or root) of all sorts of evil and that many because of that (love of money) have wondered away from the faith. In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer quotes this verse, but translates "love of money" simply as greed. In these verses love of money/greed is viewed as opposite of contentment and incompatible with the gospel.
The second virtue greed fights against is compassion. Perhaps compassion doesn't really capture the full sense of what I'm trying to say. Loving your neighbor as yourself is the thought I'm aiming at. Jesus best described this virtue in His parable of the Good Samaritan. This lack of compassion can be active, such as exploiting others in order to make a dollar. But more often than not it is passive. Bible teachers have often said that there are two kinds of sin, sins of commission (doing what one isn't supposed to do) and sins of omission (not doing what one is supposed to do), and sins of commission are generally easier to recognize than sins of omission. Let's look at the parable of the Good Samaritan for an example of this. The thieves committed a sin of commission, the priest and levite committed a sin of omission. Only the Samaritan showed compassion (or love). In the parable of the sheep and goats, the sin of the goats is also a sin of omission. Jesus doesn't accuse them of causing Him (or the least of these) to be hungry, naked, sick or homeless. He says they neglected Him when He was hungry, naked, sick and homeless. Many factors lead us to neglect our neighbors in need, but greed and his twin brother selfishness are among the worst. Consider this - every 5 seconds a child in the world dies either directly or indirectly from hunger (and some estimates have it more frequently than every 5 seconds). I was reading on World Vision's website that in some places owning a goat is cause for rejoicing, because it provides milk, its offspring can be sold and it can provide fertilizer for crops. Imagine being excited because you own a goat or two. In some parts of Africa people walk up to 6 miles a day just to get drinking water. I think very few Americans look at these facts and think about how they can get richer by exploiting these people more. But, most simply don't care. We are more concerned about chasing the American dream than we are about those living a third world nightmare. That we may not be able to buy a new car, have to pay a little more for gas for the one we already have, not be able to eat at high priced restaurants as much, or buy any of the luxury items we so enjoy near as much, we consider that to be a "crisis" in America. The fact that in the third world 12 children will die because of hunger in the next 60 seconds, a goat is a prized possession and people may have to walk 6 miles for clean water, well......we just really don't want to think about that. We are too busy thinking about ourselves and that as well is contrary to following Jesus Christ.
There is a third virtue that greed is an enemy of also, and that is humility. I won't expound on this point as I have with the previous two, but let me offer a definition of humility I once heard that I think is accurate. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.
Contentment, Love and Humility. If we could fill our proverbial houses with these qualities, there wouldn't be much room for greed and selfishness. May God forgive us for not doing so, and may He enable us to walk in them just as His Son did.
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| Good Post to ReadI highly recommend everyone to read THIS POST from the InternetMonk.
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