family

Wearied, as everyone is, by endless post-election rhetoric, little of it loving or even friendly, I was struck this morning by some outstanding relational guidance from Paul to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 5:1-2 he says, “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.”

What a great concept – let’s just treat everyone we meet like family! Talk to them the same way you would your father, mother, sister or brother!

I know, a lot of us can be pretty snarky with our family, but we don’t really mean it. And as much as we might criticize them, no one else better. We defend them against all outsiders.

So what if there were no outsiders? What if we defended everyone? What if we reasoned respectfully with mature men? What if we cherished and heeded women just like we do our moms? What if young men and women were given the help and protection we give our brothers and sisters?

I can tell you what wouldn’t happen – we wouldn’t flip people off anymore, or flame them on social media. We wouldn’t think it was OK to leer at pretty women, or make those innuendo-laced comments to waitresses or barmaids. We’d head off self-destructive behavior as soon as we noticed it. Abuses of all kinds would pretty much come to an end. 

And we wouldn’t stand by while other people are treated badly because of their gender, skin-color, abilities, or even beliefs. Especially beliefs. Christians know that beliefs are important, and that getting them right is literally a matter of life and death. But we’re the ones who also know that what Jesus modeled for us is to lovingly persuade people who aren’t thinking right. 

When I was a boy divorce was unusual, and we tended to judge those who divorced quite harshly. Then all of us had it happen within our families, and we saw the reasons it happened and the anguish it caused. All of a sudden we couldn’t just turn our backs on them, and our graciousness toward a group of people was greatly increased.

We need, Paul says, to treat everyone that way. In the church, sure, but outside the church too. In the church this guidance deals with how we resolve our differences and do mission together. Outside the church, it’s great advice on how to love people who think differently. Instead of writing them off, or condemning them with harsh language, we should work with them  like we would a wayward brother or sister.

Even if they were dumb enough to vote red, or blue, or third-party, or not at all.

fruition

I’m reminded today that often-times our dreams are the wrong ones. 

In 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 Paul wrote, “With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I’m going to assume that Paul knew what he was doing, and that his prayer was in line with God’s will. If so, then it begs a couple of questions.

First, since God isn’t bringing about my every desire, does that mean the unfulfilled ones aren’t truly for goodness? Second, are my deeds that seem fruitless then prompted by something other than faith?

I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but as I and millions of others are wondering what the next four years looks like, these seem like legitimate questions. I thought what I wanted out of this election was the good of our country. I thought the things I did to engage the process and other voters were prompted by my faith. And yet it feels like rather than fruition, we are, as Jesus once said, being sifted like wheat.

One thing I know: God’s will is that his name be glorified. That’s also Paul’s purpose in this prayer. So maybe God is still in the process of bringing to fruition my good desires and faithful deeds. Probably there are things to come in this presidential term that will be blessings. 

If my worse fears are realized, and government chooses not to include all of God’s image-bearers, the church still can, and I can. That may be God’s purpose in this.

quiet lives

I wonder how many Americans aspire to a quiet life. I’d guess not many, and probably most of those skew toward the senior end of the age demographic. We tend more to think The Most Interesting Man in the World is a better role model than Mr. Rogers. We don’t want to fade into the woodwork, we want to be noticed. We want a voice, we want to be treated with respect. We want to be in the middle of things. We want others to look up to us.

Paul disagrees, which makes me suspect that God does too. Paul wrote this to the church in Thessalonica, in 1 Thessalonians 4:10-12 “. . . .  make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”

I have had a lot of ambitions in life, and there are a few left, but they tended to be either accomplishments or experiential. I have had ambitions to military rank, to command, to climbing the corporate ladder. I have had ambitions to travel, to see all the national parks, for example. But I can’t claim to have ever had a quiet life as an ambition.

Mind your own business, Paul says, but he didn’t live in the time of Facebook and Twitter. On social media, everyone else’s business is my business. In fact, memes were invented to make it easy for me to make my disdain for others known. And haven’t we all made other people’s votes our business?

Work with your hands, Paul says, but he didn’t live in the information age. We’re a first-world country. We’ve moved beyond agriculture and manufacturing as the core of our economy, and even beyond being a service economy – we’re an information economy now, where most of our economic advantage comes from our ability to amass and leverage data. Work with my hands? The essence of the American dream is to get past that.

What I hear Paul saying to me is not to be so full of myself. I shouldn’t aspire to have power or influence over people, or to out rank them. I should be happy with honest labor and a focus on my own affairs; what other people are up to is out of my lane.

There are two good reasons for that, Paul says. If I truly live in such an unusual way, people will look at me with admiration and respect, which reflects glory back to God. And also, such focus and willingness to work will ensure that I don’t have to depend on others to support me.

So, a quiet life is a God-honoring life. It’s the opposite of our “look-at-me” culture, our “don’t dis me” demand for that others treat us like we're special. But it’s perfectly in keeping with the revolutionary example of Jesus’ life. 

pleasing God

I don’t really think of myself as a control freak. I’m not OCD, or even CDO (which, as the joke goes, is OCD in alphabetical order like it should be.) I have, however, been accused of both things, and I think it’s because I am a fan of clarity and order. I like to understand why, but most of all I just want to know what to do.

That can make reading Paul hard sometimes, but at other times he shows a real gift for communicating practically about life, packing a lot into a few concise verses. I ran across a passage like that this morning, in Col 1:9-12: 

"We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light."

These verses are so straightforward: Paul continually prays for a specific thing (knowledge of God’s will) for the Colossians, with a very specific goal (that they may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him). And then, here’s the really good part. Paul gives four concrete ways that my life will please God. He lists bearing fruit, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened, and giving joyful thanks.

That’s what I want! Tell me what obedience looks like. Tell me what I need to do. Sure, there’s a lot to talk about relating to how to do these things, but at least I have something to compare my life to.

Are there good works or behavior changes that qualify as bearing fruit? Do I know more about God as he has revealed himself in scripture? Am I being strengthened daily by living in his strength? How joyful or thankful am I?

This all seems concrete enough to live by. It’s sort of a checklist, but not really – I think of these four as different facets on the same gem of living right. Or maybe different dimensions (think height, width, depth, weight) of the same object. There’s a lot of figuring out still to do, but there’s enough here that I can know if I’m on the right track or not.

I kind of summarize a few actions points: Do (bearing fruit), read (growing in knowledge), pray (being strengthened and giving thanks) and sing (more joyful thanks.) Life and faith are both a lot more complicated than that, but sometimes I need things to be simple enough to remember.

forgetting

I have the worst kind of memory: I can remember in excruciating detail embarrassing or disappointing things I did years ago, decades even. For example, I put in 25 years in the Iowa Guard and had a reputation as a good officer; I achieved things as a part-time solder that most full-timers don’t. And yet, my strongest memories are of those times I messed up, and I wonder if my soldiers thought I was really a light-weight.

That’s why I struggle with Paul’s example, explained by him in Philippians 3:13-14: “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

How did Paul do it? How did he let go of a lifetime of being a Pharisee, and especially of the baby churches and new Christians he destroyed. What was his secret? Knowing Paul, it had something to do with his ability to make himself completely secondary to the work of Jesus.

As I said, I struggle with that, to the point that it can distract me from the second part of Paul’s actions: straining toward what is ahead. I get distracted from the future, sometimes by the past, and often by the present. I don’t even look at retirement as often as I should, much less what comes after this life.

I should. The prize, as Paul describes it, for which God has called me heavenward is the best thing imaginable; in fact, it’s so good I can’t really imagine it. But I know it’s better than anything in my past, or anything I’m doing today. So why can’t I keep my mind there?

Paul probably had his bad days too. He probably writes this because it’s true more times than not. I should think about the fact that in his human struggles he was still able to write this, because that suggests that, with all those faults and flaws that I still struggle to forget, I can live up to his example.

While I work on forgetting, I need to also work on remembering. I need to let go of my past mistakes, but I need to remember that they’ve already been accounted for by Jesus. My worst sins are forgiven. As someone once said, it takes a special kind of arrogance to refuse to forgive yourself the things that Jesus has.

no Gentiles

One of the most dramatic things about the cross is how it changed the signs in the temple. During Jesus’ time, the temple was posted with “No Gentiles” signs. In fact, these signs warned that any Gentile who tried to enter the temple would be put to death. Paul was arrested one time in Jerusalem because people thought he had taken a Gentile into the temple.

Gentile, of course, is the word Jews use to refer to non-Jews. I would be a Gentile, and so would most of you. So that part of the law was really bad news for us.

But Jesus came, he died, he rose. Eventually he sent Peter to Cornelius as the first welcome of the Gentiles into the new Christian faith. And he sent Paul as a missionary to the Gentiles.

And then we get to this, explained so well in Galatians 3:26-29: “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

The “No Gentiles” signs were changed into “there is neither Gentile or Jew.” Literally, “No Gentiles” now means there aren’t any. What a great sign for the temple – there are no longer any people who are excluded! There’s no longer a reason for Jews to have a word for non Jews. In God’s eyes we’re all the same. And slaves and freemen are equal, and so are men and women. We all are brothers and sisters in Christ, with a new descriptor: Christian.

It's good for me to be reminded that there was a time when my kind were not welcome in God’s house. It should help me be more sympathetic to those I might want to exclude. And it should motivate me to make sure that all people everywhere get the invitation.

giving

Money is one of those touchy topics, but I think Christians need to feel free to challenge each other about appropriate uses for wealth. I say that because Paul really held the early churches accountable for giving.

This morning, in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, I ready a lengthy passage Paul wrote on just this topic.  He starts out with this challenge (8:7): “But since you excel in everything —in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you —see that you also excel in this grace of giving.” 

Two things struck me right away. First, Paul seems to value giving just as highly as he does faith, speech, knowledge, earnestness and love. Second, he calls giving grace, which not only notes that it will likely go where it’s not deserved, but echoes the great gift of our salvation, the ultimate gift of grace.

Then, a little later on, he addresses one of the main points of resistance to giving, then and now. In 8:13, he writes, “Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality.” I admit, I cringe at this a little, because it smacks of things we hang negative labels on, like socialism. But it’s possible that Jesus might think more highly of socialism than I do. I’m pretty sure I think too highly of things like personal wealth and advantage.

Paul ends with this promise, which I love, in 9:11: “You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.” Isn’t that great? As an outcome of generous giving, we’ll be enriched in every way, but with a specific purpose: so that we can be generous every time there’s a chance. And there’s a good reason for wanting to do this. The result will be that all those people we give to will give thanks to God.

It’s a reminder that God blesses me not just for my good, but so that I can bless others. It makes me feel like a grumpy old curmudgeon when I critically judge people who need some of my blessing, especially when the government doesn’t give me a choice about who I give to. 

So here’s another goal to add to my list of things that will make me more Christ-like: I want to excel in the grace of giving. If I’m getting Paul right, that means that I’ll look at my wealth as something given to me to use as much for others as myself. And I’ll give it where there’s need without considering whether there’s merit. After all, isn’t that how Jesus gives to me?