Categories
Religious

Why?

The following meditation is from Doug Hood\’s book,

Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ.

“We can’t find goodness anywhere.”
Psalm 4:6 (Common English Bible)
It would seem that the one who wrote these words has been paying attention to our daily news. After skimming the headlines of the morning paper or turning off the nightly news these seem to be our words; “We can’t find goodness anywhere.” A plane crash that kills everyone on board, religious extremist who take innocent lives, and violence in our cities – is any of that good? There are many who are weary; many who would ask, isn’t there anything good for us to see?
The mood here is one of desperation. This is a plea for someone, anyone, to show us something good – to point to the light in the darkness. And the darkness seems vast. Yet, though we may seek a pile of ready-made answers, the Bible does not provide them. Snappy answers or smooth arguments to the agonizing question of human experience are absent. All that remains is this plea before God.  But that is something. A plea before God is an affirmation of faith that there is God. There may be darkness in the world. But God is also in the world.
We may ask, “Why God would let something like this happen?” I received that very question this week in my email box. Yet, we must know that this is not the first time this question has been seriously raised. This is a question that stretches forward to us from the beginning of human sin. And there is our best clue to our question; human sin. All of humanity participates in a rebellion against God’s good purposes. It is that rebellion – both individual and corporate – that results in brokenness and hurt to others. The cross of Jesus is the central symbol of our faith because it reminds us that much happens in our world that is outside of God’s good desire for us. But God is in the world, and through the cross, seeks to reclaim this world stained and broken by sin
The God of love is not absent in this world filled with bad news. The cross demonstrates that God is right in the middle of it. More, the cross powerfully reminds us that even in the midst of our active rebellion, even while we are sinners, God dies for us. Who does that? Who dies for someone who is hurling their worst behavior at you? This Holy Week we are given that answer once again.

Joy,
Categories
Religious

When Faith Is Difficult

The following meditation is from Doug Hood’s book,
Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ.
“We can’t find goodness anywhere.” 
Psalm 4:6 (Common English Bible)
If there remains anyone who argues that the Bible isn’t relevant for today they have demonstrated that they haven’t paid attention to the Bible – not close attention anyway. Is there anything more timeless than the agonizing cry, “We can’t find goodness anywhere?”  Each morning our minds are disturbed by the growing threat of the militant Islamic group, ISIS, the conflict between Israel and Palestine and the racial unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. Beneath these attention getting headlines is the less mentioned but continuing concern of the growing wealth gap in our country and the millions in our nation who struggle daily to simply have enough. There are no snappy answers to the painful question of human struggle.
It is well that the Bible does not offer a quick and pre-fabricated answer to this despairing cry. And it is best for us to refrain from such a temptation. First, we are not free to indulge in any cynical or dismissal attitudes such as, “Well, that’s life,” or, “Bad things just happen.” As followers of Jesus we are baptized into the common confession that our lives are in the hands of God, and that this God is a God of love. Second, we don’t occupy some place between God and the struggle of humanity. Not one of us has some special insight into the mysterious work of God in the midst of our common difficulty. Each of us must sweat it out with everyone else.
What remains is a prayer: “Lord, show us once more the light of your face.”  This is the prayer of the Psalmist and nothing new can be added. The prayer is the same today as it was yesterday, fresh and urgent. It is as new as the earthquake that shook the San Francisco Bay Area a few days ago and the agony that kept someone awake last night. It is new when we utter it personally, today. No devotional, not one inspirational book can answer the plea, the emotional depth of that prayer.
On our knees we pray. If we listen in the silences between our words the Holy Spirit reminds us that God was never absent in the horrors of human life in the Bible – nor will God be absent today. On the Via Dolorosa – the way of the cross – in Jerusalem, God was very present in the heart of human misery giving, giving and giving himself, so that after this there would be no fear, no despair and no doubt of God’s love. The cry, “We can’t find goodness anywhere,” still sounds in the streets of our communities. We live with it and we hear it echo in our souls. But the Spirit helps us recall the suffering of Christ – a suffering accepted out of Christ’s love for us. It is a love that will work for the good of all those who love him.
Joy,

Categories
Religious

Is Belief In A Personal God Possible?

The following meditation is from Doug Hood\’s book,
Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ.
“Pray like this: Our Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 6:9 (Common English Bible)
     For many, the most challenging part of faith is belief in a personal God. Membership in a local church usually requires “a profession of faith.” Often, this is little more than mental consent that there is a God. That same consent to God’s existence usually assumes that the individual intends to place themselves under God’s authority. Yet, what is often present in that “profession” is a sincere desire to know God personally, to experience a relationship with God in such a manner that in those hours of deepest need, we may personally address God and feel that we are heard and cared for. Harry Emerson Fosdick is helpful here, “No one achieves a vital, personal, Christian experience without a profound sense of need.”iBut the question presses, is belief in a personal God possible?
     One difficulty for experiencing a personal God today is the tendency of impersonal thinking and living. Anything sensory is found to be inferior to reason and intelligence. During my ministry in Texas a number of years ago, one individual criticized my preaching as too personal, too emotional. He was a medical doctor and sought sermons that would stretch his thinking, not move his heart. He was suspicious of preaching that stirred the emotions. To think of God in personal terms, he argued, was unsophisticated. I suspect that the Sunday morning pews are filled with people who are in agreement.
     But look at what Jesus does here for his disciples: Jesus takes the qualities of human parenting as a clue to understanding God; asks that we address God as father. God is not an impersonal force that moves through the universe. God is a living being that knows us, loves us and has a divine desire for our lives. Jesus draws from what is the best in our hearts to show us its higher ideal in God. Certainly, it is true that God has given us minds and expects that we should be growing in knowledge. But we cannot pursue God and fully know God without the heart. One of the basic convictions of our Christian faith is that the universe is directed by a loving purpose.
     Moments confront each of us that demand more than a mere belief in the existence of God. They are moments of such great personal need that more study – more knowledge about God – fails to satisfy. A calm strength in the midst of life’s storms is possible only as God is known personally. The Christian lives not by a higher knowledge of God. The Christian lives by faith, by prayer, by love and communion with God. When the soul cries out for a personal God, Jesus shows us the way. It is so simple we doubt its power. Get down on your knees, patiently silence all the voices in your mind, and then say, “Our Father, who is in Heaven.”

Joy,

_____________________
i Harry Emerson Fosdick, Riverside Sermons (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), 168.

Categories
Religious

Notice

“Look here! Today I’ve set before you life and what’s good versus death and what’s wrong. If you obey the Lord your God’s commandments that I’m commanding you right now by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments, his regulations, and his case laws, then you will live and thrive, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.”
Deuteronomy 30:15, 16 (Common English Bible)
“Aren’t two sparrows sold for a small coin? But not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father knowing about it already. Even the hairs of your head are all counted. Don’t be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows.”
Matthew 10:29-31 (Common English Bible)
            Notice, written and performed by country music artist, Thomas Rhett, speaks to one of the deepest longings of our present day: that in a time when loneliness presents one of the greatest challenges affecting the mental and physical well being of adults, people question if there is anyone who is aware of them, who loves them, and maintains a watchful care for them. Simply, is there anyone who “notices” us? The opening canto nails this crippling anxiety, “You say that I don’t hear all the words you’re saying. And it makes you miss me even when you’re with me. Feels like something’s broken.”  In 2018, Cigna, a major health insurer in the United States, paid for a national study that found that loneliness has reached epidemic levels in the U.S. and ranks alongside smoking and obesity as a major threat to public health. The lyric is absolutely correct; it feels like something’s broken.
            Rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests that the very tone and texture of Deuteronomy is directed not at blind obedience to God, a common impression upon a cursory reading. Rather, to the contrary, this fifth book in the Old Testament canon is a sustained attempt to help people understand why God wants them to behave in a certain manner and make particular life choices. God does notice us and desires our well being; desires all that is good and necessary for us to thrive. God’s ways are presented to the people of Israel not for God’s sake, but for theirs.[i]Jewish law is not the arbitrary will of the Creator but identifies those places in life where the natural consequences of certain behaviors result in injury or death. God desires life for God’s people. So as someone who takes watchful notice of us, God goes before us identifying trouble spots ahead and pointing us around them.
            Jesus’ teaching, located here in Matthew’s Gospel, reminds God’s people of God’s notice and concern. Thomas Long writes that what God declares here is that there is nothing that the world can do that is able to destroy God’s loving and watchful care over the faithful.[ii]The world may forbid our witness to God’s love and concern for the world. The world may throw in jail those who ignore the world’s threats. The world can even kill those who serve the gospel. But, observes Tom Long, murderers are not to be ultimately feared. “They may have momentary power over bodily life, but they have no power over the soul.”  A God who counts the hairs on our heads and does not fail to note even the falling of a single common sparrow can be trusted to treasure those who “are worth more than many sparrows.” This promise is captured crisply in Thomas Rhett’s lyric, “You think that I don’t notice, but I do.”
            Notice is a joyful and hope-filled song that honestly acknowledges those moments when each of us feel unnoticed, “You think that I don’t notice.” What then follows are such small, nuanced observations that, not only prove to the contrary, but must bring unexpected delight, “How you brush your hair out of your green eyes. The way you blush when you drink red wine. The way you smile when you try to bend the truth. You think I don’t notice all the songs you sing underneath your breath. You still tear up at a beach sunset. And you dance just like you’re the only one in the room.” These are not the observations of a causal glance. They come from the notice of one deeply in love. And that is precisely the message of God’s word captured in the Bible, particularly in Deuteronomy and Matthew. I hear God’s voice in the closing lyric: “You think that I don’t notice, but I do. I do, yeah, I do, yeah.”
Joy,

[i]Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Covenant & Conversation: A Weekly Reading of the Jewish Bible (New Milford, CT & Jerusalem, Israel: Maggid Books, 2019), 2.
[ii]Thomas G. Long, Matthew (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Know Press, 1997), 121.

Categories
Religious

When God Laughs

The following meditation is written by Doug Hood\’s son, 
Nathanael Hood, MA, New York University.
“Immediately after he saw the vision, we prepared to leave for the province of Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.” 
(Acts 16:10 Common English Bible)
Oh, to travel to Phrygia, land of music, wine, and horsemen! Nerve center of trade and commerce since time immemorial. Mythic land of King Midas and the goddess Cybele. Oh, to preach in Galatia, birthplace of the warlike Hittites and conquered home of the Celtic Gauls! The ancient cradle of ironworking. The land of Gomer and the dwarfish god Telesphorus. To spread the Gospel of Christ in these lands would have been a boon to the newborn church, and that’s exactly where the Apostle Paul intended to go in the year 49 AD as he set out on his second missionary journey. He’d already evangelized in Athens, Corinth, and Ephesus, and now the early church father wanted to travel further east into Asia Minor. However, each time Paul and his companions tried, the Holy Spirit pushed them back. Frustrated, Paul then tried to enter Bithynia in the north of modern Anatolia. Yet once more the Holy Spirit refused. Disheartened and disappointed, Paul retreated back to Troas where one night he had an extraordinary vision: a man of Macedonia pleading for him to come and help them.
Macedonia was, of course, in the opposite direction of the lands Paul was determined to visit, especially after his disastrous previous attempts in Europe. And Paul was not a man of flimsy convictions. He was a man with the fire of Jeremiah and the recklessness of Ezekiel, willing to risk life and limb, temperament and sanity for his ministry. His letters are filled with equal parts compassion and invective, cherishing his followers as children one minute before pronouncing them idiots the next. His temper could run away from him, much as it did in First Corinthians where in a fit of pique he thanked God ignoring the Corinthian church before pausing and meekly adding that on second thought he’d actually baptized many of them. His anger could kill—did he not help lynch Saint Stephen? His outrage could cripple—did he not blind Bar-Jesus? His audacity could astonish—did he not preach to King Agrippa in chains? His was a dogged single-mindedness of purpose that could brook no delay, suffer no misstep, tolerate no foolishness.
And yet, look at the first word of verse ten: “immediately.” Without any doubt or hesitation, Paul refocused his ministry, altered his plans, and reoriented his fervor for God. He set out at once eastwards towards Macedonia and Europe. The rest, as they say, is history. Shortly afterwards he would plant the seeds of the European church, capturing not just the hearts of the people but the minds of the intelligentsia and the respect of the ruling authorities. The early church fathers would encounter the great thinkers of Greece through which they legitimized the faith in the eyes of the learned: Justin of Caesarea reconciled Christian theology with Plato while Tertullian did the same with Aristotle and Clement of Alexandria with Stoicism. And in Rome the imperialist authorities who’d invaded the ancestral home of Judaism were forced once and for all to confront the specter of this new religious movement from Palestine, one which denied their pantheon of cruel, capricious gods in favor of a single deity that preached compassion, tolerance, and love. In time this strange faith would be accepted by the same imperial household that made a martyr of Paul and so many early Christians; for better or worse, the teachings of Jesus and the authority of his church would be the law of the land that could humble kings and emperors.
How many of us have struggled in life towards goals we knew in our hearts we needed only to have them denied? There’s a saying that whenever man plans God laughs, and if the Acts of the Apostles is any indication this is not a flaw in the divine plan but an essential feature—we are simply incapable of controlling the full trajectories of our lives. One is tempted to think of Ulysses S. Grant who at 38 worked at his father’s leather goods business and at 47 was elected President of the United States. Or consider Oprah Gail Winfrey who worked her way up from desperate Mississippi poverty to becoming the first black multibillionaire and global philanthropist. Of course, very few of us are ultimately called to become presidents or multibillionaires…or era-defining evangelists. Most of us will be called to live simple, quiet lives and undistinguished toil and service. But these are no less vital and precious in the eyes of the Almighty. We all fit into the tapestry of creation with every piece in its place. If we are to find happiness and contentment in our life, perhaps we should stop asking when we’ll find our Phyrgia and Galatia and ask if we’ve already found our Macedonia.
Joy,

Categories
Religious

Knowing God\’s Will

The following is from Doug Hood’s
Nurture Faith: Five Minute Meditations to Strengthen Your Walk with Christ
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; don’t rely on your own intelligence. 
Know him in all your paths, and he will keep your ways straight.”
Proverbs 3:5-6 (Common English Bible)
How can we know God’s will? It is a real question for many people. The world is so vast, with billions of people on it, that it is occasionally incomprehensible to fathom God takes notice of us much less has a divine purpose for our life. Yet, the faith we encounter in the Bible is that all human affairs are under divine direction – that God has a design for the world and that each one is an integral part of that design. We do not live by chance or fate. Our lives are under the guiding hand of God. Sometimes that guidance is clear and unmistakable. More often, that guidance is reduced to a still, small whisper and listening is difficult. The question remains, how can we know God’s will?
Absent dramatic intervention – which was and remains one means God communicates God’s guidance – people must develop an eye for the quiet succession of apparently natural events that unfold.  Listening is also important. The unexpected impulses, sudden promptings and uncommon challenges that confront us all, hold the possibility of God’s direction of our steps. Paying attention to everyday situations can awaken us to God’s presence and activity in our lives. We shall recognize God in the little things each day – and follow – if we are in touch with God. As exercise strengthens the body and proper diet sustains energy, so the spiritual faculty within us expands through regular prayer and meditation on the Bible.
Immersion in a community of faith is also important. King David listened to Nathan, the disciples honed one another’s application of Jesus’s teaching and the apostle Paul was instructed in the faith by Ananias. Personal discernment of ordinary events in our lives is important but there are times when it is wise to listen for God’s guidance through another. Particularly those people who have developed an uncommon capacity to see God in the ordinary, they can enlarge our vision and sharpen our understanding. They see our lives from a different angle and can offer a dispassionate take on where God may be actively leading us.
What remains is the hardest – surrendering our lives to God’s will. Prayers are more often, “This is what I would like you to do, Lord,” rather than, “What would you have me to do?” What we really seek is divine approval of what we desire. The words of Gardner Taylor are wise, “It is hard for us to realize that on this uneven journey there are directions, right choices that we cannot know because we are not God.”i Perhaps the greatest challenge of the Christian faith is learning that we only have two choices in life – a choice of masters. Either we will remain in charge of our own lives or we surrender ourselves to God and trust in God with all our heart. It is in confidence of the latter that the author of Proverbs wrote.
Joy,
_______________________
i Edward L. Taylor, The Words of Gardner Taylor, Volume 2 (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 2000), 24.

Categories
Religious

Some People Do

“Love doesn’t keep a record of complaints.”
1 Corinthians 13:5 (Common English Bible)
Country music artist, Old Dominion, recently released a new song, Some People Do. Co-written with Thomas Rhett, this moody ballad explores how hard it is for most people to change, particularly abandoning unhealthy and hurtful habits. Old Dominion self-identifies this track as very emotional and personal, the story of someone accepting responsibility for behavior that has hurt someone very close to them. Considerably more raw and vulnerable than other songs in Old Dominion’s canon, Some People Do begins, “I know you’re hurt. I know it’s my fault. But I’ve kept ‘I’m sorry’ locked in a vault.” Such honesty is rare today. Perhaps that is because it is scary to admit – without reservation – that we are the one who is wrong. Many people are willing for relationships to remain broken than venture into the scary place of vulnerably; of confessing that all responsibility for the hurt falls on them.
Danya Ruttenberg shares in her spiritual autobiography, Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion, that following her parents’ divorce, she was angry with both of them. “I held on to my anger and resentment as tightly as I could, but my need for both of my parents was, it turned out, determined to emerge despite it all.”[i]That is precisely the journey taken by Old Dominion’s song, Some People Do. Love for another is so deep and determined that vulnerability is risked, “Most wouldn’t forgive what I put you through. But I’m here tonight, hoping some people do.” Hope is the dominate note that is struck by this song. Hope for forgiveness. Hope that the one who has been hurt will not keep a record of complaints. Hope for the opportunity for a new beginning.
1 Corinthians 13, often referenced as the “Love Chapter” in the Bible, is commonly read for marriage ceremonies. Certainly the author of these words, the Apostle Paul, would have no objection to his words used in this manner. What would unsettle Paul is how easily they are read and heard with apparently no grasp of the difficult terrain they cover. “Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth.” The original readers of Paul’s letter will recognize his string of negatives. They are the prevalent qualities that draw from the attitudes and behavior of the Corinthian church. We recognize them as well. Little has changed in the human heart. We find it hard to ignore a slight, indifference, or a hurtful remark. As the song repeats three times, “Most wouldn’t forgive what I put you through.”
Ultimately, Paul appeals to his readers to look away from the wider culture and its negative manner of addressing the wounds caused by another. The hope espoused by this lovely song – the hope for forgiveness – is located in the values that come from Christ, not from the wider culture: “Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things” (verse 7). Some People Do begins with an uncommon honesty of the pain that has been inflicted upon another. And the song recognizes that “words by themselves can’t right all things.” Words often are not enough. Forgiveness requires more. What is required is a new orientation in Jesus Christ by the injured one. It is an orientation that makes possible what most people won’t do – forgive those who seek forgiveness. “Most wouldn’t forgive what I put you through. But I’m here tonight, hoping some people do. I’m hoping some people do.” It is a hope located in the values of Jesus Christ.
Joy,

[i] Danya Ruttenberg, Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 2008), 18.

Categories
Religious

How To Know God Better

“That’s enough! Now know that I am God!”
Psalm 46:10

               A “thin place” is a term that is used to describe a place where the space between heaven and earth grows thin and the sacred and the secular seem to meet. That space can be as unique as one person is to another and does not necessarily need to be a physical space – there are moments in time where the space between heaven and earth seem to diminish. The term comes from Celtic spirituality and the Celtic Christians who were deeply connected to the natural world. They considered every moment of time to be infused with the rich possibility of encountering the sacred. Occasionally, some can identify a particular moment or experience that connects them to particular place in a spiritually rich and satisfying way. For others, there is simply a growing awareness that a particular place consistently envelops them with the unmistakable presence of God. That is my story. And my place is Bryant Park, New York City.

               Earlier this month I took a week of my sabbatical to study and reflect in New York City. Sitting in Bryant Park with my Bible and a collection of sermons by Harry Emerson Fosdick two young women approached me. They were college students and their approach was marked by hesitation and, it seemed, some good measure of fear. They each introduced themselves and asked if I was a resident or visiting the city. It was the requisite small talk they needed to move toward their intended purpose: they then asked, “Do you know God?” That thin veil that separated heaven from Bryant Park tore open and I felt as though I was speaking to angels. After some pleasant conversation they asked if they could pray with me – right there in a place where I have prayed for the City of New York, my church, and my family for nearly twenty years.
               Their question is a good one to ask ourselves from time to time: “Do you know God?” The question was not whether I went to church. It was wise that they didn’t ask that question. Persons who don’t know God may fill any particular church on Sunday morning. Presence in a service of worship only indicates that they know of God. The difference isn’t subtle. How can we enter more penetratingly into the unsearchable riches of a relationship with God?  Is there a pathway toward a larger knowledge of God that results in the experience of a “thin place” where God’s presence is palpable? Psalm 46 shows us the way: “That’s enough! Now know that I am God!”We use a similar variation in our common speech when we advise people to “slow down and smell the roses!” This counsel from the Psalms does not suggest the abandonment of all activity, but the relaxing of our movement from one thing to another on regular occasions to be present with God.
               Life fails to reach its highest potential if strain and stress are persistent. The same is true for increasing in the divine knowledge of God. Life demands that we settle down into a more steady rest for a fruitful relationship with another to flourish. That is true for a relationship with a spouse, our children, and meaningful friendships. It is true for God. Think of it this way. A rubber band, by design, stretches. That is what a rubber band was created to do; that is its function. But stretch a rubber band to far and it breaks. That is descriptive of too many lives among followers of Christ. We are in need of less stretch, less strain, and more rest. Psalm 46 says, “That’s enough!” The knowledge of God begins with releasing the strain of regular activity, moderating the speed of life, and easing down a little to pray, “Make me aware, this moment, of your presence, O God.”

Joy,

Categories
Religious

Ambition

“Whoever wants to be first among you will be the slave of all, for the human One didn’t come to be served but rather to serve and to give his life to liberate many people.”
Mark 10:44, 45 (Common English Bible)
            Ambition – that restless impulse that continually sets our eyes on more opportunity, more status, and more position – has been common from generation to generation. The love of self and the desire that others notice us is deep-seated in human nature. It may be one of the most elemental and voracious of all human appetites. Even among Jesus’ disciples we see the tightening grip of ambition upon the human psyche, James and John asking Jesus that he grant that they be allowed to sit, one on his right hand and the other on his left. It is careful choreography, competing for prestige and honor as though someone silently request another for a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.  It would be difficult to find a man or woman who hasn’t given yield to the desire for more.
            The impulse itself is neither good nor bad. The question is one of intention; is personal ambition driven by the desire for greater contribution or self-elevation? The young woman who works hard on a law degree so she may be useful to under-resourced people in the community has channeled her heart, energy, and intellect for the sake of others. Doctors Without Boardersis staffed with medical doctors who are driven to respond quickly to medical humanitarian emergencies without any thought of personal enrichment. Jesus speaks to a wider and deeper motive of positive contribution in the parable of the talents: those who sought to increase the value of what they have for the sake of someone else pleases God. Those who are handicapped by concern for their own welfare will lose everything.
            The disciples James and John were ambitious for the wrong reason. They were caught in the primitive craving to be seen, respected, and revered regardless of their fitness for the role they requested. They sought to look around and ask, “Who is bigger?” “Who is honored?” “Who has more?” Contribution seems to be absent in their desire to sit on either side of Jesus in God’s Kingdom. There is a convulsive struggle that their personal hunger for importance be satisfied. The problem is a moral one. The pursuit of it corrupts character. The Bible grapples with it on nearly every page. And Jesus had a great deal to say about it.
            Observe Jesus’ reply to the disciples, “Whoever wants to be first among you will be slave of all.” What a reversal of how ambition is understood! Here is a philosophy of life that has personal stature built upon the foundation of humility and contribution. For Jesus, nobody can be great until his or her life is driven by service to another. The highest ambition is not in jockeying for position in the social sphere; the highest ambition is achieved through saying “no” to self for the sake of someone else. Jesus wants the disciples to understand that what ultimately redeems life and provides the deepest meaning is not located in being recognized, served, and honored but contributing to the common good. It is a way of life that redeems from pettiness and offers something more enduring than selfish power.
Joy,

Categories
Religious

When Anger Is A Virtue

“He (Moses) looked around to make sure no one else was there. Then he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.”
Exodus 2:12 (Common English Bible)
“Looking around at them with anger, deeply grieved at their unyielding hearts, he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’”
Mark 3:5 (Common English Bible)
               Moses was born during a time of great darkness. A new king was seated in Egypt and he feared the growing strength of the Jewish people. They were a minority people in Egypt and their growing number unsettled the king. So the king resolved to “deal with them.” As a result, the Egyptians organized their military to harass the Jewish people and force them into slave labor. But the more they were oppressed, the more they grew and spread. Pharaoh’s contempt for the Jewish people grew until he looked upon them with disgust and dread. More had to be done to hold this growing, minority population in check. The first chapter of Exodus details the evil that was unleashed by the king: young children would be separated from their parents and the male children would be thrown into the Nile River and drowned.
               Born to Jewish parents, Moses was numbered among those who would suffer the cruelty of Pharaoh’s unsteady and fearful leadership. When his mother saw that Moses was “healthy and beautiful” she hid him from the Egyptian authorities for three months. When she could no longer hide him, she placed her son in a reed basket, sealed it, and placed the child among the reeds at the riverbank. Pharaoh’s daughter came to bathe in the river, found the child, and, moved with compassion, resolved to raise the child as her own. Raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses lived a life of ease and privilege in the royal court. Yet, as maturity came on, Moses began to be angry. Perhaps he fought against the anger, this disturbing indignation at the intolerable injustice he saw day after day propagated against the Jewish people – his people! Nonetheless, anger took possession of Moses.
               Pay close attention to the developing narrative here in Exodus – it is when Moses found something to be angry at that he found God. Perhaps Moses’ anger was foolish. It did explode in such grand fashion that he killed the solider that was beating a Hebrew slave. Yet, Moses could no longer watch something so unbearably wrong and not take action. We might imagine the consequences to a pastor today for speaking the truth to power. Moses knew immediately that his response might not have been wise. He sought to cover it up. But intrinsic to this story is that Moses’ anger unleashed the beginning of the real Moses – the Moses portrayed on the silver screen and proclaimed from the pulpit. A quiet Moses would have made little difference, would not have been remembered. Soon, following this explosion of anger, Moses came down from Sinai with the Ten Commandments that have shaken generations. As Henry Emerson Fosdick writes, “His indignation against evil got him somewhere.”[1]
               Each generation presents some incarnation of injustice and evil. Occasionally it is hard to see God when the suffering of the present age presses so profoundly upon our consciousness. Well, perhaps if we permit the present injustice to arouse our indignation we will see God. We will experience God’s nudge to quit our moral apathy, untether our passion for fairness and justice, and in our own response experience something of the holy ground that Moses stood on. When our Lord, Jesus Christ saw a deed of mercy being withheld by some misplaced ceremonial allegiance, he looked around with anger and took action to correct an injustice. Jesus teaches us by his response that, in the face of evil or injustice, we are not Christian if we are not angry. Martin Luther once wrote that it is when he is angry that he preaches well and prays better.
Joy,

[1]Harry Emerson Fosdick, What Is Vital In Religion: Sermons on Contemporary Christian Problems, (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955) 4.