Our Failure to See God

            There are countless situations in the Four Gospels that amaze me. People sat in synagogue with Jesus, ate food he created by the basketsful from a boy’s sack lunch, and saw him heal people who had been blind from birth. Then those same people either said he was crazy or that he must be demon-possessed.

            He made outrageous claims that would have indicated mental illness – apart from proof consistent with the claim. He also went to enough unsavory places and spent time with sufficient less-than-respectable people that you could have believed he was possessed by a devil – unless you take into account that every one of those people and places was changed for the better by his being there.

            This is the same sort of reasoning Jesus himself used with people. For example, he put this question to a group of people hostile toward him: “Why do you call it blasphemy when I say, ‘I am the Son of God’?” (John 10:36 NLT).

            Don’t get the wrong idea from his question. He never once asked anyone to believe his shocking claim to be God on a rescue mission to Planet Earth simply because he made the claim. He always and only asked for belief on the basis of good evidence. “Don’t believe me unless I carry out my Father’s work,” he told them. “But if I do his work, believe in the evidence of the miraculous works I have done, even if you don’t believe me” (John 10:37-38 NLT).

            Do you hear his logic? Do you get the point? There are two things that should have confirmed his identity to them: (1) doing the loving, life-redeeming, forever-transforming things of his Father in the lives of people and (2) performing the miraculous acts of healing and other wondrous deeds for which we know him.

            Here are some of the things that counted against Jesus’ claims and kept people from faith: Some of his healings took place on the Sabbath. He didn’t wash his hands by the rules of the orthodox. He didn’t accept everything the clergy said at face value. He thought some religious traditions were shameful.

            Things haven’t changed a lot. It’s still easy to miss God — to be blind to his presence, deaf to his voice, and oblivious to him when he tries to reveal himself. And what could be so powerfully blinding, deafening, and desensitizing that it could have that effect? The trivial and petty squabbles of our religious traditions.

            Atheism is dead wrong as to its claims, but its honest forms are likely more palatable to God than many of the things we know as religion.

Rubel’s latest book is I Knew Jesus before He Was a Christian . . . and I Liked Him Better Then and should be available for iBooks and Kindle in July.  Or you can purchase it now from Amazon by clicking here.

He Didn’t Save It for Us

 

            It was an ethics class I was teaching several years ago. I read a newspaper story to the class about two pre-teen girls who returned a purse they found on the street to its owner. They opened it, found the owner’s name on a driver’s license, and looked her up in the phone book. Oh, yes. They returned the $4,000 cash they saw inside the purse as they were searching for the owner’s identification.

            I asked the class to comment on what the girls had done. As most of the class affirmed what they had done, one female spoke to up tell of a similar event in her life. She had found a purse, discovered the owner’s ID, and mailed it back to her – minus the $162 cash that was in the wallet. “I did her a favor by getting her papers and credit cards back to her,” she said, “and I deserved a reward!”

            Another found-what-somebody-lost situation could have been tempting to Josh Ferrin last month. Josh and Tara Ferrin, with their two young sons, were moving into their first house in Bountiful, Utah. Within an hour of getting the keys to their new place, the Ferrins had a decision to make. Josh noticed a scrap of carpet sticking out of a trap door in the garage ceiling. He opened the door, climbed into the small space, and found several metal boxes – filled with stamps, bond certificates, and cash. The total stash hoarded away in the attic by the recently deceased former owner was worth about $45,000.

            Ferrin, an artist with the Deseret News, probably could have used the money. But need or want or self-determined reward wasn’t his issue. It was integrity. The only “right” thing was to give the money to the former owner’s family, he said. “He [the deceased man] didn’t save that money for us. He saved it for his family.”

            While one of the family’s sons asked about keeping “just one” of the bundles of rolled-up bills, Josh and Tara gave him something more important. They gave him a lesson about being honest by respecting the property of others.

            “[My father] grew up in hard times and people who survived that era didn’t have anything when they came out of it unless they saved it themselves,” said the former owner’s son. “He was a saver, not a spender.”

            With all the ambiguities we seem to be able to find in human behavior, it is encouraging to hear of someone who saw the situation as it really was. Who made no excuses for greed. And who did the right thing.

            “Better to have little, with godliness, than to be rich and dishonest” (Proverbs 16:18 NLT).

            Note: Rubel's latest book I Knew Jesus before He Was a Christian . . . and I Liked Him Better Then may be found by clicking here 

“We Thank Him for Our Food”

              It’s among the very simplest of childhood prayers. Maybe you taught your children to say it at the dinner table. Perhaps your parents taught it to you as your first prayer. “God is great; God is good. We thank Him for our food.”

            I stumbled onto a piece recently that was written by a self-described “secular” person. She was writing about the positive difference it had made both in her life and in that of her family when they began saying a blessing at mealtimes. It was clear that her notion of prayer and blessing wasn’t quite the same as mine, but that isn’t really the point here. She wrote very candidly and movingly about the positive impact on her busy, noisy life to pause and to be grateful for good things.

            She’s right, you know. When that sense of appreciation for all the positives in your life is coupled with praise to the One who has provided them, you have meaningful prayer. A clearer sense of self. A moment of appreciation to the Deity who is the giver of every good gift. An affirmation that God’s grace is real to you.

            Our son was about four years old, and it was his turn to say a prayer of thanksgiving over our lunch. With open-face sandwiches on our plates, he folded his hands and began. “Deah God, we fank fee . . .” (Note: He wasn’t doing well with his r- and th-words at four! But back to the prayer . . .) “Deah God, we fank fee foh de bwead and de tomato . . .” (Another Note: Yes, he was peeking! But back to the prayer . . .) “And we fank fee foh de meat and foh . . . and foh . . .” (Final Note: He knew what lettuce was, but it just wouldn’t come to him at that critical moment. So he pointed his still-folded hands toward it and continued to pray . . .) “And foh dis stuff. Amen.” And I’ve been telling the story ever since.

            A mealtime grace or blessing or prayer – whatever you choose to call it – is such a tiny little piece of the spiritual life. And they don’t even have to be spoken aloud. Why, when I’m with friends in a restaurant and there is an awkward pause as the food arrives, I usually say “Thank you, God!” in the direction of the group. “Restaurant prayer,” I explain. No need to call the noisy house to order or to make a production of it. But being thankful is good. And honoring God as giver.

            So let a woman of what may be marginal faith remind all of us this week about food and air, friends and work, sunshine and rain. All are blessings we did not create. It is good to recognize them as gifts and to be thankful. It makes it even more natural in stressful times to go to that same God to name life’s hurts and pains and to ask for aid – without feeling guilty as a thankless beggar.

            “Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done” (Phil. 4:6 NLT).

Does the Bible Really Say That?

 

            You’re probably a Bible-reader. So you are familiar with such quotes as . . .

·       Everything happens for a purpose.

·       Out of the mouths of babes.

·       Money is the root of all evil.

·       Sow the wind; reap the whirlwind.

·       To err is human; to forgive is divine.

·       All men are created equal.

            In case you were tricked, less than half of the proverbial lines above are from the Bible. Only the second (Psalm 8:2) and fourth (Hosea 8:7) are found in Scripture, although the third may have fooled you because it is close. Actually, Paul says “the love of money” drives all sorts of evil actions among humankind – not money itself. The other quotes are famous all right – just not from the Bible.

            Want to give it a second shot? So which of these are from the Holy Book?

·       Jesus loves me, this I know.

·       God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform.

·       A penny saved is a penny earned.

·       An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.

            Oops! Not one of those is a citation of the Bible. So what’s the point?

            A CNN blog by John Blake (“Actually, that’s not in the Bible” / June 5, 2011) jumped out at me and got me to thinking along these lines. The blog in question was interesting and made the point that politicians, motivational speakers, and coaches are notorious for taking well-known sayings and assigning them to the Bible. I agree with Blake’s point that people are hardly so biblically literate as many think. I’m not sure I agree with his apparent emphasis on the importance of leaving Bible citation to the true Bible scholars. Maybe I missed his point on that. I surely hope so; scholars can be more outrageous than Average Jane or Joe!

            What occurs to me in itemizing these not-in-the-Bible quotes (i.e., “chimney-corner Scriptures” I’ve heard them called) is less the biblical illiteracy of some or the occasional heretical idea one of them may seem to support than the fearful tendency of some believers to read our “common-sense wisdom” as theology.

            So we live by a “dog-eat-dog philosophy” in a “hostile world where only the strong survive.” We assume “what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her” because “it’s my life and I’ll do as I please.” Yikes! Next thing you know, the Golden Rule becomes Iron to let us “do unto others before they do unto you.” By the way, none of the quotes in this paragraph is biblical. Just wanted to be sure you knew.

            Don’t read the Bible for pithy quotes but to learn who you are meant to be.

And Faith Survives!

            One of the great strengths of the Christian faith has been its ability to endure, accommodate, and use the cultural shifts across the centuries without losing its essence. Even in its most misguided forms, the Christian religion has continued to pass around its central message about Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection.

            People in the most abysmal of churches in the most corrupt of cultures still have been counted among the redeemed. They are people in a church Jesus can pronounce “dead” and still promise them their names are in the Book of Life (cf. Revelation 3:1-6). They have been granted divine favor on account of God’s great love and in spite of church inadequacies or personal failures.

            Some who have been kicked out of churches became more vitally engaged in the Kingdom of God for their sufferings - whether Luther or Tyndale or myriad individuals and groups whose names are unknown to us but precious to Christ.

            Over the past 500 years, a type of institutional church has functioned variously as a club, nation-state, forensic society, and irrelevance - all too frequently obscuring the presence and activity of God in the world. It taught the gospel as laws and steps, creedal statements and confessions. There was little tolerance for leaving anything unexplained and even less tolerance for persons who did not hail the explanation offered - contrived as it might have been - as conclusive. The Christian faith was termed a “system,” and one’s place within that system was determined by an all-or-nothing attitude toward it.

            When agreement on some fine point of doctrine was not forthcoming, individuals and groups felt free to break off and further fragment the body for the sake of maintaining doctrinal purity. Thus came the formation of literally hundreds of denominations and non-denominations, with each group believing there could be unity only when others renounced their error and embraced its interpretation.

            Catholics have done it, and Protestants have too. Baptists have been bad at it, and so have Churches of Christ and Pentecostals. It’s everywhere! And the marvel of it all is that God has been working through those flawed forms and incoherent formulas to reach people, save people, and transform people.

            That is another good feature of the Good News. Christianity hasn’t killed what Jesus started. If we can cut through the forms and failings of church history and look past our own bungling, Jesus is still visible. And faith can still survive.

            Note: Rubel’s latest book I Knew Jesus before He Was a Christian . . . and I Liked Him Better Then explores the theme of this week’s “FAX” in great detail.

             

To purchase the book click here.