"Helping" Others

"For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?
Or am I trying to please man?
If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."
- The Epistle to The Galatians 1:10 (ESV)

Today I had to speak with an engaged couple who was living together and wanted me to officiate their service. I wasn't just a "rent-a-preacher" either. These were two people who had begun their journey at my church and felt like they were at a place where God was making some inroads to their life. They believed I was a major part of it. I was humbled and yet I was burdened - burdened by the conviction that cohabitation, as popular as it is today (roughly 50% of all couples live together before getting married), is not only an unwise move for any person but clearly sinful for followers of Jesus (e.g, I Corinthians 7:2-4).

So I tried to explain to them as clearly and compassionately as I could why I would not perform their wedding ceremony. Needless to say, they weren't happy. But in their crestfallen state they still managed to be very gracious (something that not always is the case) with the impasse at which we'd arrived. As tough-minded (some read: arrogant) as I think I can be, it wasn't much fun of a discussion.

But it did give me a gut-check question: Who do I serve? Pastors only serve their people as they serve Christ. Period. That's it. No debate. (That's my either tough-mindedness or arrogance chiming in, I can't tell) Yet I think sometimes we pastor-types can answer "people" without any modifiers, without any exceptions. The thin-ice danger of that is it places the person's emotions, convictions and values over God's prerogatives. Thus when a conflict arises between them guess who loses out? God. All in the name of helping others.

But in "helping" them, all we've done is move them further from God's purpose and plan for their lives. Like spiritual Jack Kevorkians we give people what they want in the name of what's best but in the end it brings death...which is the end of all who believe their choices are supreme and God can just go his own way.

This is not our path. This should not be our practice. You can serve men or you can serve men by serving God. Don't be confused. Don't blur the lines. The difference will mark you a either a slave of man (and really yourself) or a slave of Christ.

O God, grant me the grace to be the latter. Amen.

"Christian" music

Is it just me or does it seem that the best songs about God and spirituality are the ones played on secular stations? Is it the cheesed-out triumphalism, the one (or ten)-step behind cultural "coolness" or the dripping inauthenticity that seemingly accompanies much mainstream Christian music?

Some might counter, "How can you say that? You don't know them."

You're right. I don't. I don't need to. Their music tells me everything I need to know. It tells me that, for many, it's about income more than artistry, about "catchiness" more than sound theology, about how it makes you feel more than how it makes you think. Sorry I'm painting with such a broad stroke. Yes, there are exceptions. Yes, there are those who's artistry and theology aren't compromised by selling a few CD's. Yes, you can sing a song that both moves you and makes you think. The only problem is that these guys (and girls) are exceptions to the rule - square pegs in a world full of round holes. Sadly, I find much more authenticity in the music of those who either don't affirm Jesus or at least don't do so as "Christian musicians in the Christian music industry". What they offer is much more substantive and engaging than the overwhelming pablum sold in the music section of Christian bookstores.

Who are some people that fall into either category? I'm not giving any names. That's your job to find out. Plug in Philippians 4:8 (ESV), "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things," to a keen sense of discernment and you'll do just fine.

Here's an example. Take clips from these two songs about heaven. One from Christian band Audio Adrenaline, the other from Ray LaMontagne. First AA...

Its a big big house
With lots and lots a room
A big big table
With lots and lots of food
A big big yard
Where we can play football
A big big house
Its my fathers house

Ibidibidee bop bop bow whew! yeah!

Now it's Ray's turn...

All my heroes have gone to heaven
Where all them saints wear flaming shoes
The junkies and the whores are behind them pearly doors
I guess I'm going to go to heaven too

Now all my heroes have gone to Heaven
Let all them "Righteous Joes" take to shoveling coal
The killers and the cons
The pushers and the pawns
With halos, wings just hovering over paths of gold

So mama don't you cry
When I'm dead and gone
'Cause Jesus loves his sinners
And Heaven is a honky tonk

Now all my heroes have gone to heaven
The liars and the gamblers and the fools
The drunkards and the thieves
All wearing silk upon their sleeves
And every gal is like a silver pearl in bloom

So mama don't you cry
When I'm dead and gone
'Cause Jesus loves his sinners
And Heaven is a honky tonk

Now from what you know of the Bible and the Person of Jesus, which of these songs scream CHEESE and which has some weight to it? It's not hard. At least it shouldn't be. This is a pitch right down the middle. If you don't know, find a solid church, get in a sound small group and have someone disciple you in the way of Jesus!

Of the two, AA's makes me feel like I'm at that bad part of a church camp when the kids aren't pumped up enough so the camp musician/rock star pulls out this oldie-but-goodie. The trivialization and me-centeredness of the song only reminds me of the syrupy, dishonest, shallow, consumer-driven music that makes up most of what I hear on Christian radio stations. I don't think it passes the Phil. 4:8 test. I bet there are a few campers out there who's best move would have been to gather up their "christian" music and toss it in the campfire!

LaMontagne's song on the other hand makes me question how I see the mission of God in my life. It forces me to ask: Who did Jesus run after in his ministry? Prostitutes followed him, tax collectors dined with him, and he was known as a "friend of sinners" (cf., Mt. 11:19, Lk. 7:34)...people that you might find more at a "Honky Tonk" than a country club. Jesus was quite clear in Luke 5:31, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." What's even more ironic about this song is that one of the ways you'll ever hear it is probably going to a honky tonk. RL stands well outside the camp of the Christian industry. I don't know if he is a follower of Jesus or not, but his music and the circles he runs in are very "secular".

Isn't it ironic that the more Christian song is sung by the non-Christian, secular artist?

I would hope that AA's song was just an exception of their musical output rather than the rule. I wouldn't know. But I can tell you this, this isn't an isolated incident. Just turn on the radio to your local Christian station and apply the Phil. 4:8 test yourself. I think you'll be surprised (appalled, ticked, angry, sad) as well. As for me, I'll be looking for and listening to the square pegs in the Christian music scene as well as enjoying music outside that circle which reminds me of what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellence, and worthy of praise.

Ibidibidee bop bop bow whew! yeah!


P.S. - Ray sang this song on Austin City Limits and it's definitely worth the watch!

Dependence and Maturity

“And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said,
"Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Whoever humbles himself like this child
is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

– The Gospel According to Matthew 18:2-4 (ESV)

Today someone from our children’s ministry placed a collection of prayers our church kids (Kindergarten-1st Grade) had written/drawn on sheets of red paper and posted on a wall (in somewhat the spirit of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem) this past Sunday. So during my lunch break, I thumbed through the now-taken-down pages that waited on our office kitchen table…

• “God ples help me on my speleg test.” I think he needs to pray harder ;)
• “Tank you for all of the blessings that you have gave to me.”
• “Der God, thak you fir my femlee.”

Cue the laughs. Cue the warm smiles. Cue the quick joy that these things bring with them. But they also bring something else…

• “Dear God, help my frids because some of htem are sick.”
• “Plese help me have gud frens."
• “This weekin has ben so bad, my mom and dad have been fiting and me and my brothers have ben fiting and I hope that you can fix that.”
• Indulge me with one more prayer. It was the last page and folded in half like a note you would pass along in junior high. The cover: To God. The contents: “My dog died. Please take hem and have fun with him.”

Cue the tears. Cue the sobriety of spirit. Cue the solemnity of the moment.

As I looked at these requests one of my initial responses was, “Man, these kiddos ask God about everything.” From success on school tests to the ability to play soccer (lit., “Help me to play sacr ball.”), there seemed to be nothing in their eyes that was taboo for God to address. I wonder if that’s one of the things Jesus had in mind when he said in Matthew 19:14, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." or Mark 10:15, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

Isn’t it funny how, as we get older, we’re trying to be more and more independent? Our parental mandate is to produce adults who can fend and think for themselves. That was my experience: I graduated from high school a little more independent than when I was in it; then college, where my blossoming independence expanded; then a bigger graduation and now I was “on my own”. The rule being that the more independent I am, supposedly the more mature I am. Yet in God’s economy it seems the opposite it true: the more mature we are as Followers of Jesus the more our sense of dependency on God deepens. In other words, like a child, I am to see everything in my life as in need of God’s sustaining power. My teaching ministry, leadership of my home, being a friend, parenting my three sons, loving the unlovable, strength, etc...

No wonder Jesus spent much time in prayer. No wonder I don’t.

You see, I know me. I know I trust myself too much. I do first and think (or pray) later. I’m amazed at how much I do in life that I don't connect with God about ahead of time. I’ve gotten older but I haven’t really matured. Maybe I need to take out some red sheets of paper in the morning and not leave the house until I’ve crayoned a few prayers to God for the day and turned my heart’s attention to the One in whom I must depend…for everything.

James 1:16-17, “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

How are you doing? Are you maturing or just getting older? Your dependence on God (or lack thereof) will tell you the answer.

Jesus, forgive me for my independence as it concerns following and learning from you. May I learn the life of a slave for God not one of self-assurance and pride. This for your glory and the spread of your name.

“I luv u beekus u dide on the karos.” Amen.

Ruined

Today I ran across Justin Taylor's blog (Between Two Worlds) and noticed towards the bottom a piece entitled "This is Abortion" accompanied by a video. There was no doubt what it was about when the initial image was a partially dissected fetus laying next to a quarter roughly its same size. Gulp! This wasn't your basic You Tube fodder. As a matter of fact, I didn't think it was something I wanted to view at all. But I did.

It was ruinous...for many reasons.

The legacy that abortion (specifically Roe v. Wade) in America has left us with today was graphically and explicitly hammered into my consciousness with image after image, movie after movie of torn and tattered unborn babies. Statistics have been shown that in all of America's major and minor wars since 1775, the total dead is 1,329,991 - an amount equal to just one year of Roe’s infernal tally (see Taylor's blog on Nikolas Nikas' article). That's a lot of dead children. It is staggering to think about; the video only heightened my uneasy and sickened feelings. Just eight months ago my youngest kid Beckett was in the womb of his mother...just like these kids on videotape minus the broken and rent body unnaturally exposed from a life-giving womb that my son enjoyed. Needless to say, the video weighed heavily on my heart.

I came home a mixture of anger and sadness. My wife, God bless her, let me emotionally vomit all over her. I was ruined for the day. I still am. Detached appendages, limp bodies, and the closing scene of a lifeless (and seemingly fully grown) infant being wrapped in what amounted to butcher-paper by someone with latex gloves to be disposed of in some hazardous waste bin still haunts me. It didn't help that when I opened the door to my study after arriving home I saw Beckett's sonogram pictures lovingly hung on the inside of a closet door. It only added more pounds to my already leaded heart.

And yet I wouldn't trade this feeling for anything right now. I've observed that in the regular pace and pattern of my life that I'm probably far too detached from the evil in this world. Like a superhighway suspended over a decrepit and decaying downtown, my existence can be relatively convenient emotionally due to the fact that I don't have to make too many stops in unseemly and unbecoming places - areas that show me the ugly, sinister, lethal, broken side of life. I wake up, hit the office, get home, play with the kids, hang with the wife, jump in bed.

No genocide (see Darfur). No abortion clinics around the corner (see downtown Houston). No homelessness in my city streets (also see downtown Houston). No car bombs killing innocent people indiscriminately (see Baghdad, Iraq). No pandemic case of AIDS chewing up moms, dads and all their kids with them (see Africa). No young children working in sweatshops under horrendous conditions and tiresome hours for wages we wouldn't even tip our waitress at Chili's with (see Asia).

While I'm the first to think that our culture's addiction to over-consumption (see prior blog) is just as ugly and ruinous as the next great evil on the list, I still stand back and see the gap between me and the evil that many struggle with daily. I mean, the biggest arguments in my neck of the woods centers around who is the best on American Idol? Was the last episode of LOST worth Tivo-ing? How do you feel about the price of gas? Should the Texans keep David Carr?

But the video I saw today reminded me of a very sobering truth(s): Evil is real. It is with us. It is everywhere. And until Christ returns, it is here to stay. And if I'm to be engaged in the battle it may do my soul and my ministry better to take a few darker exits in life - detours and roads that lead me closer to that darkness which, like some murderous, cowardly, defeated enemy who has a few rounds left in his weapon and sees his victors approaching, seeks to carry people away from the Kingdom of God into the hellish abyss with it.

Proverbs 24:11 (ESV), "Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter."

So I don't really know what this means for me. All I have is feeling at the present. I would hope that those feelings are only square one of a greater awareness for helping others (both born and unborn, here in my community, in my country and in my world) and seeking from God the steps that a Follower of Jesus should take in accomplishing the mission he gave us of loving him and loving man.

"For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."
-Psalm 139:13-14 (ESV)

gucci little piggies

Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God."
- The Gospel According to Matthew 19:21-24 (ESV)

Ambition makes you look pretty ugly
Kicking, squealing gucci little piggy
-"Paranoid Android", Radiohead

I am convinced that the hardest people to save are consumers. And if you haven't noticed, our culture (the good ol' USofA) is full of them. The fact that I'm "blogging" using my high-speed internet with my wireless keyboard, looking at a 20-something inch flat screen while listening to mp3's through a harmon/kardon speaker system (with woofer box, of course) makes me sweat a little as I type this. The truth, even though I don't like to admit it, is that I'm a gucci little piggy. I like stuff. I like to get stuff. Like the prodigal son, I'm eating my fill (or lack thereof) on the empty pods of prosperity and the Great American Dream. I am a consumer.

I remember reading about the "rich, young ruler" in Matthew 19 (incidentally, the chapter mentions nothing of him ruling anything; the truth is, it was what ruled over him that was more central to the issue) and never thought it would be autobiographical to a point. But, as consumers do, I tend to like my possessions - nice house, two cars, sweet subdivision, ad infinitum, ad nauseum - and more often than not, I don't realize how much of a hold they want of my heart. I don't think I'm alone. I think most of us "have great possessions."

And yet what does Jesus say of the young man (and possibly us as well)? He says, ""Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." (23-24) Does that have any implications for a culture...and even more to the point, a church who is trying to make fully devoted followers of Jesus out of consumers? I think so.

Like trying to nail a dive from the top platform, there is a higher degree of difficulty to call people to follow Jesus who see $20 in their hands as such a little amount at the mall but a huge sum when sitting in a pew. People who, as David Wells describes in his incredible book Above All Earthly Pow'rs, "have the ability to hope for what we want, shop where we want, buy what we want, study where we want, believe what we want, and treat religion as just another commodity, a product to be consumed." (p. 77) Consumers want to be at the top of the depth chart. They want to call the shots. And why shouldn't they? The pathos of the culture feeds that very appetite.

Then there is Jesus. Jesus, the One who extends his hand to every gucci little piggy saying, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Mt. 16:24) Now his words about the rich young man (i.e., consumer) having much difficultly coming into the Kingdom make even more sense. The door to salvation has always been fastened with the handle of repentance; it just seems much more slippery upon the fingers of the rich young man and all the gucci piggies behind him. And yet there is no other way. The church can't placate the piggies with the [false]gospel of better living and more of more. Yes, the crowds will grow but the disciples will diminish. And which is the church's called to produce?

Will you indulge another Wells' quote (I told you this guy's good)?

It is very easy to build churches in which seekers congregate; it is very hard to build churches in which biblical faith is maturing into genuine discipleship. It is the difficulty of this task which has been lost in many seeker churches, which are meeting places for those who are searching spiritually but are not looking for that kind of faith which is spiritually tough and countercultural in a biblical way. (Ibid, p. 119)

Now, being a part of a seeker church to which he speaks I would say we must be careful about painting too broad a stroke when speaking of "seeker churches", but that notwithstanding, Wells' words are a good salve for ears mucked up with consumerism. Move your life, your family, your church to a place where genuine discipleship is happening. Where people are actually knowing Jesus better and looking like him more. How does this happen? The same way a gucci little piggy will find the power to "deny himself and take up his cross and follow [Jesus]", and believe me, it's a huge relief...back to Jesus and his young piggy:

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, "Who then can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:25-26)

The reason I came to faith in Jesus, the reason other gucci little piggies came to Jesus, the reason anyone comes to Jesus is when God steps in. You don't have to be a Calvinist to believe this (it probably helps though), you just have to read through the New Testament and see time and time again when God must make the first move for us to do what he calls us to do (cf., I John 4:19). It takes God to love God.

That is something I need to be reminded of for at least two reasons:

First, I still struggle with being a piggy. I see the vestiges of consumerism in my life and realize how much of a stench it must be in God's nostrils. Every day is a day of repentance. I'm terrible at following Jesus more times than I'd like to admit. That's why God stepping in on my behalf and doing for me what I could never do for myself (and still can't) is a very humbling, praiseworthy thing. Jesus, kill the piggy in me!

Secondly, even if the hardest people to come to Christ are consumers they have more than a good shot if God is behind it. As a matter of fact, if God is behind it, they will come (cf., John 6:39). So that leaves me in a very thankful place - thankful that God's grace lit upon my life, gave my fingers traction and action to turn the knob and still keeps me in that room today...and he does it for other gucci little piggies. I don't know how many consumers I will see genuinely cross the line of faith in my life and in my church, but I pray that as many who come do so because the God of the Universe has done the impossible. And instead of bemoaning the fact that I live in a consumer-culture, I pray that I and my church will expend all our resources at reaching them (I live in consumer-ville) and will do so in a way that extends the call to salvation exactly as my Master would.

Calling all gucci little piggies...