whitewashed

The truth can be hard, but following God requires a devotion to truth. In Ezekiel’s day, people showed a strong preference for good news, and prophets earned God’s wrath for not telling them the hard truth.

Here’s an example from Ezekiel 13:15-16 “So I will pour out my wrath against the wall and against those who covered it with whitewash. I will say to you, ‘The wall is gone and so are those who whitewashed it, those prophets of Israel who prophesied to Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for her when there was no peace, declares the Sovereign Lord."'

God called those lies whitewash, explaining that it made a flimsy structure look good. The whitewash misled God’s people into relying on a false hope for peace, when God was trying to get them to see the threat they were under. In this case, probably in most cases, whitewashing the truth earned God’s wrath.

It’s a call to me to tell the truth. Not brutally -”Yes, you look fat!” - but lovingly, meaning when and in ways that will help people live closer to God. I need to find the courage to remind people that some of what our culture accepts is sin. I need to find the courage to point out that some of what we Christians do to others is also sin. And I need to be brave enough always to remind even those who don’t want to hear it that there is hope, but only in Jesus.

It’s also a call to me to love the truth. Sometimes I don’t want to hear it. Sometimes I want to believe that the candidate for the other party has no good in them. Sometimes I want to believe that God’s grace is permission to sin. Sometimes I don’t want to hear the truth about what God wants me to do with my money.

But that’s like not wanting to know the calories in a piece of pecan pie. Those calories will still sit on my hips until I somehow work them off, whether I acknowledge the truth about them or not. In the same way God’s truth will haunt me, whether I accept it or not.

Serving God requires loving the truth, and speaking the truth in love. By God’s grace, may I do that today.

marked

It stretches my mind this morning to think that we have a God who can protect us with just a mark.

I know what it is to wear a mark. I used to put on a uniform, with a tape above the left pocket that said “U.S. Army.” I still carry a US Government ID card showing I’m retired military. But, as powerful as this country is, we still learned to ditch our ID cards if our plane was ever hijacked. And plenty of uniformed servicemen and women have been bombed, shot and knifed. 

God, with just a single mark, can protect completely, far beyond the ability of any government. He did it when he marked Cain, and he gave Ezekiel a vision of this ultimate protection in Ezekiel 9:3-6 “Then the Lord called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side and said to him, ‘Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.’ As I listened, he said to the others, ‘Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. Slaughter the old men, the young men and women, the mothers and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark.’”

I was thinking what a blessing it would be to have that mark, to be protected not only from the evil in this world but also from God’s judgment on it. Then I realized that I do. It may not be overt enough for other people to see it, but I bet the angels can. I like to think that to the angels the ones Jesus bought blaze like bonfires against the darkness of the world.

If I live right, people will see it too. They’ll see something different about me. That difference will likely draw hostility from some, but even so no one can challenge God’s providence or change my destiny. 

I guess in the end, if I want the world to see the mark of God on me, I have to show them. Why does that sometimes scare me? It’s counter-intuitive: I sometimes lack the courage to claim the protection. 

I’ll wear my country’s flag, my team’s colors, my company’s logo, but in some circumstances I’m uneasy about showing the mark of God on me. Why? Another thing to work on.

grieving God

A few days ago I wrote about the lamentation of being forgotten by God. Today I read of God being forgotten by his people, of how they grieved God. God will be remembered too late by people who would come to wish they had never forgotten the blessings of obedience.

In chapter 6 of Ezekiel is a detailed prophecy of the judgment that would come on God’s people, and one detail of the aftermath caught my eye. Verse 9 says, “Then in the nations where they have been carried captive, those who escape will remember me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts, which have turned away from me, and by their eyes, which have lusted after their idols.”

It’s a very thought provoking verse. It makes me think how many days I go through most of the day without thinking much about God. My morning and mealtime devotions can stand like brief spiritual punctuation marks in an otherwise self-centered day. Is that a step on the slippery slope toward forgetting God?

Then I think how easy it is to grieve him. That kind of thoughtlessness alone would do it, but that will soon lead to bad choices which will grieve him even more.

Do I have an adulterous heart? Yes I do - I can be as passionate about political power or as greedy about hoarding my wealth or as proud of my own accomplishments as anyone, all things that can tug at my heart more strongly than love of God.

Do I have lustful eyes? Yes, that too - I look enviously at the passengers in first class, at the revelers surrounded by laughing friends, at the beautiful people whose physiques and glistening smiles give them a special sort of power, at the independently wealthy who no longer work, and those things can seem far better than the quiet life of enough where God’s blessings are found.

The prophesied fate of God’s people cautions me this morning that if my adulterous heart and lustful eyes pull my attention too much from God, he’ll take steps as drastic as necessary to get my attention back.

Because I made him feel bad? I don’t think so. I think a large part of God’s grief is at what he sees me, the beloved child bought by Jesus’ blood, doing to myself.

riverside visions

My imagination was captured this morning by the first few verses of the book of Ezekiel. Chapter 1:1-3 tell of the start of his days as a prophet: “In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth of the month—it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin — the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians. There the hand of the Lord was on him.”

I tried to put myself in Ezekiel’s shoes. Thirty years old, five years in exile. Nothing so far, at least nothing noted, to make him different than any other Jew. Just an ordinary guy, one of many Jews living along the Kebar River. Just another day, the fifth of the month - it says the fourth month so was it spring? Did the Jewish calendar correspond to ours? - when Ezekiel was going about his business, whenever that was.

And then, bam! The heavens opened - what does that mean? Did the clouds part? Was there bright light? Did anyone else notice anything? - and suddenly Ezekiel was seeing visions of God. God laid his hand on him, and he was at that moment a prophet of God.

What did that feel like? Was Ezekiel exhilarated? Terrified? Dismayed? Overawed? I try to imagine this young man, the age of my kids, and the disruption that struck his life like lightning out of a blue sky. And the great wonder and privilege of seeing and hearing God.

I’m reminded that God calls in many different ways. Some people, like me, get a lot of choice on how we work through questions of obedience and service. Some don’t. Ezekiel by the river and Saul on the road to Damascus come to mind. So does Richard Stearns, current director of World Vision, who tells how he resisted a call away from a successful career as a business executive to lead that agency, but how persistently God laid the call on him.

But I think, as I reflect on it, that in God’s eyes there are no lesser calls. I don’t think Ezekiel’s obedience was prized by God more highly than mine. In some ways, he had it harder because he had very specific instructions to follow. In some ways, I have a greater challenge because I’m not always sure what obedience looks like. In either case, provided we do our best to discern God’s will and follow it, I think God is pleased.

Today, God finds me in the middle of my ordinary life, just as he did Ezekiel. And today, he calls me to obedient witness. If I look, he’ll reveal something of himself to me. If I listen, he’ll call me to specific acts of service. What will that look like? I’m going to have to figure that out. But I want to, because for today, that’s my call. Tomorrow could be different.

forgotten?

There’s something that I’m still waiting for.

For all my adult life, I’ve tried to be an obedient servant to God. I’ve had my own ideas of what that should look like, but none of those have panned out. Instead, God put in front of me a lay preaching ministry, local church leadership, and this blog. As near as I can tell, in addition to the general call to a relationship with him and service to his people, this is God’s call for me. At a minimum, it’s my best attempt to faithfully answer his call.

What I’m waiting for still is the joy. I’m waiting for the thing I see in my missionary brother and some of my pastor and teacher friends, that sense of eagerness to get at it because of the exhilaration of doing God’s work with him. So far, I mostly feel drained, trying to keep it all going along with a busy work and family life. Often it feels like a lot of work and little reward.

Now, that in no way is a problem compared to the long march into exile that prompted God’s people to write Lamentations. But it did make Lamentations 5:19-22 resonate. “You, Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation. Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long?”

Not to sound whiny - I have a really easy life - but my best chance of understanding Lamentations is to think about my role in ministry. Sometimes I feel like God has forgotten I’m  still waiting.  I know not only that that isn’t true, but also that it’s a self-pitying, self-indulgent way to think.

But how else can I try to imagine what might make someone feel abandoned by God? I don’t have another, better frame of reference. God has been with me in dangerous times, and times when I’ve been close to evil. He’s walked close by through poor health, not enough money, and spiritual isolation. In all those times I could feel him there. What did it feel like to feel forgotten by God? Even at my most self-indulgent whiniest I never really think God took his eye off me.

It’s a chilling thought. What would happen if he really did? I can't imagine; God is too good.

worthless visions

I remember an early criticism of my preaching. “You can’t confront people with their sin like that,” this pastor said. “You teach them doctrine and let God convict them. Let them make the connection to their own lives.”

I tried to take that advice to heart, but I just can’t do it. Taken out of the context of my life, the Bible is a dry historical document. Taken out of the context of the Bible, my life is anything I want it to be.

But I could never really articulate my visceral negative reaction to this pastor’s view until I read Lamentations 2:14: “The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The prophecies they gave you were false and misleading.”

Now I know what I was feeling back then: so then what’s the point! How does preaching help people if it doesn’t confront sin? The prophets of Judah did the people a huge disservice. They gave the people permission to continue in their sin, and the Babylonian exile was the result.

Any gospel that doesn’t start with my sin is a false gospel, because without sin I don’t need a savior. Any vision of an obedient life that doesn’t hold me accountable is as false and worthless as the prophecies that led Judah to destruction.

I think that pastor was trying to make more room for grace and saw my preaching as condemnation. But grace isn’t grace if there’s nothing to forgive; grace isn’t good news if there’s no sense of guilt.

Since that time I try always to preach about grace, but I refuse to bring a message that cheapens grace. Maybe I’m wrong about that, but it doesn’t feel wrong.

naked

I was shocked to learn, a couple of years ago, how many people not only have naked pictures of themselves, but also have them stored somewhere online. This unpalatable factoid came to light as part of news reporting on a hack of celebrity cell phones and the subsequent release of their salacious snaps.

Is modesty truly dead in this country? I wonder. There’s a small Christian liberal arts college in my town; modesty doesn’t seem to be a concern for many of those students. Or for a lot of other people who are old enough to know better.

I know I sound like a prude, but my reading this morning in the book of Lamentations made me consider the question. Lamentations 1:8 reads “Jerusalem has sinned greatly and so has become unclean. All who honored her despise her, for they have all seen her naked; she herself groans and turns away.”

This is metaphor, of course, for spiritual unfaithfulness. But I wondered if readers today would understand the shame. Why should being seen naked give anyone the right to despise anyone else? Why should the naked person groan in embarrassment and be unable to look people in the eye? Go to the beach, and you’ll see all the unabashed near-nudity you can stomach.

It’s an important question, because shame is a key part of recognizing sin. To lose my sense of shame means I no longer see my sin for the horror that it is. Oh, I’m still ashamed of literal nudity, but do I still feel mortified at spiritual nakedness? Those times when my lifestyle doesn’t look any different from the world, when I compromise God’s standards to go enjoy our current culture - does it bother me when others know?

I can’t remember the last time I felt embarrassment, let alone shame. Is that because I don’t do shameful things anymore? I’d like to think so. But I do a lot of things now that I would never have done in the past - things like travel or visit the grocery store on Sunday, skip church on vacation, or watch violent movies. Is that because I was wrong before?

Those things don’t bother me much now, but  I’m afraid if I search my soul I’m going to find out I’m just a lot more comfortable showing a little metaphorical skin than I used to be. And I’m afraid I’ll find more serious standards are being compromised too.