Tag Archives: legalism

Worship

Right Privilege

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It’s another Sunday morning… with another service in a nice church building where sunlight streams in through the stained-glass or colored-plastic windows…

A crowd of people shuffles in, some awkwardly mingling, others choosing spots for solitude, while some popular praise song plays through the speakers.

The band has another set of songs we’re about to play, with a lot of familiar words like “amazing” and “unfailing” and references to the usual miracles, et cetera, and so on.

Another sermon is prepped, with another take on a well-known passage, with a few solid points, some clever anecdotes or cultural references, and maybe a decent invitation to respond. It’s the Good News or whatever… but more like the Good Olds, because we’ve heard it all before.

Oh, it’s Communion Sunday too, so there’s another stack of serving trays with another round of thumb-sized disposable plastic cups of grape juice and another batch of white fibrous wafers.

Another week in the house of God.

Not just any god… THAT God. You know the One… the “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life john three sixteen” God.

Yep.

The first song on the list is “This is Amazing Grace” by… well, I didn’t check, but no one’s going to care. It’s upbeat. It’s a perfect
“get the blood pumping” song. It’s familiar to the congregation. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and all that.

The second song is “Do It Again” from Elevation Worship. Some people probably don’t like it because Steven Furtick says some questionable things, and good on them, because you should test all things and throw out anything that isn’t one hundred percent of God. But it’s a song about how “Your promise still stands, great is Your faithfulness” and that sort of thing, and that’s pretty good. Reminds me of the old hymn and stuff.

The third song is “Broken Vessels (Amazing Grace)” with its pretentious two titles thing going on. Artsy songwriters know that two titles means the song has depth. As the second title implies, the John Newton refrain figures in, with only the 900th alteration to the melody, 890 of which are probably Chris Tomlin songs.

“Amazing grace how sweet the sound that I’m not going to bother typing because we both know you know the words and stopped reading already.”

Sermon is preached. Elements are distributed. Do this in remembrance of Me. Sing the closing song. The Lord bless you and keep you. You’re dismissed.

Church services as spiritual shampoo: lather, rinse, repeat a week later.

They say familiarity breeds contempt, but I think familiarity breeds complacency and presumption. It feels like we’re singing, “This is the same old grace… this is expected love…”

We might as well be, if we’re just going through the motions because ‘this is what Christians do.’

In preparing for this particular service, I thought about how ho-hum my heart can get about the Gospel. Growing up in church, being a part of worship teams for years, there’s a risk that I am so accustomed to the good news that it’s no longer good nor new. It’s just “what it is.”

In Luke 7, Jesus has dinner with some religious leaders as they’re trying to sort out who this upstart is and what is He really preaching. A woman with a bad reputation bursts into the scene, falls at His feet, weeps over her sinful state, washes His feet with her tears, and wipes His feet with her hair… and all the while, the
religious folk are like, “Dude, doesn’t He know what kind of nasty skank is touching Him?”

Jesus talks about two debtors, both of whom had their debts forgiven. One owed twenty bucks, the other five hundred. (Yeah, I’m paraphrasing. If you’re getting hung up on “well actually He said” then I implore you to stick with me and consider my point, not the particular unimportant details.)

“Which one do you think would be more grateful,” Jesus asks. Well duh, obviously the person who owed five hundred. Jesus agrees, and explains that “whoever has been forgiven much, loves much.” He also calls out the religious folk, as usual, and reaches out to the outcast, as usual.

(In fact, it strikes me that the forgiveness goes in reverse compared to what Jesus describes. He forgives the woman AFTER she expresses all this passionate brokenness and worship.)

I think on any given Sunday, I tend to come in feeling fat, dumb, and happy spiritually – if I’m feeling anything spiritual at all. Most often, I’m probably just distracted and ready to get on with the rest of the day. I’m so used to the fact that God loves us, and has a plan to prosper us, and works all things together for our good, and… yeah,
all those promises that still stand, according to the song. I don’t need to know what they are or think about them, I’ll just sing that they still stand, and that’s pretty good, right?

No.

Paul calls me out when he writes to the Ephesians (Eph 2:1-4) and says, “Hey, remember? You were DEAD in your trespasses and sins, walking or even being carried along with the current of the world,
under the power of darkness. We all lived according to the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling our desires, being in our very nature children of wrath, doomed to punishment.”

Remember?

“BUT GOD, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love…”

We’ve been bought out of slavery, saved from condemnation, given a new life and a new hope, all our garbage and filth and sin exchanged for the pure, clean, stainless, righteousness of Christ before God… and yet all those words sound like more of the same-old.

Without getting too political, I think of the concept of “white privilege” and discussions of race relations. I don’t come from a culture that has a strong, recent history of slavery or past prejudice
affecting my current situation. I’ve got it pretty good where I live… both culturally and spiritually.

How often do I show up to church and enjoy my “Right Privilege” as a
Christian? Am I so accustomed to the message of the Gospel that it’s no longer amazing? Just kind of accepted, just assumed? Is the grace of God expected? Is the love God shows deserved? If I’m honest with myself, is that where I’m at?

Is it even a thought in our minds that the God of the Universe made provision for us, coming down to intervene in our wayward path, redirecting us from the course of sin and death on which we walked? Is that something we consider, or something we’ve heard so many times that our reaction and reception becomes empty and hollow?

“I love you.” Yeah yeah I know.

“I love you.” Right.

“I love you.” Got it.

“I love you.” Haha, are you just going to keep saying that?

“But I love you.” I mean, as well you should.

“But I love you.” But we kind of knew that already. That’s who You
are, isn’t it? God IS love. It says so.

We act like our grace is earned and no response is required. That’s
woefully mistaken.

“I love you.”  Ugh. Thanks, but I’m busy. I’ll get back to you.

How about same time next week?

Scripture commentary, Worship

Tomatoes and Cretins

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I hate tomatoes.

I always have. I don’t know why.

They’re disgusting. They’re wet, nasty chunks of blegh. They pollute everything with their slimy seeds, so that even if you pluck them off your burger or salad, you still end up tasting them.

Farmer’s Market I, by Karl Thomas Moore, shared under Creative Commons license

Actually, tasting the flavor isn’t the problem. I love ketchup and
pizza sauce; I even like tomato soup so long as it’s smooth liquid
instead of being filled with pieces.

I used to hate peppers the same way I hate tomatoes—for as long as I
can remember. I would find diced green peppers in an omelet or larger slices in some oriental dish then set them to the side of the plate in revulsion. Tabasco sauce? How about Tabasc-NO. Peppers, I felt certain, were the worst… almost as bad as tomatoes.

Salsa was pure hell, chunky style.

Then one day I tried some Tabasco sauce on a bit of meat cooked on a campfire, and it was amazing. A few years later, I had no option but
to eat a meal with diced green peppers mixed all throughout. They
added a great flavor to one of my favorite dishes, and I had to
reconsider my ridiculous food aversions.

Sometimes the things we “know” with absolute certainty from a young age are actually false. Sometimes, we’re just reinforcing mistakes we’ve made or bad beliefs we’ve accepted as fact–to the extent that we’ll actually argue with people about them.

It’s pretty stupid, but it feels so sensible at the time.

I found myself in that position (yet again) last week when a friend
used the word, “cretin” in a way I thought didn’t quite fit. “That’s
not what that word means,” I proclaimed.

(As a writer, of course I know all manner of important things about
words and their meanings, both subjective and literal.)

Maybe from context clues, kid’s cartoons, or childhood assumptions, I took “cretin” to mean something along the lines of “villain” or
“troublemaker.”

“Is that what it means?” my friend asked. “I thought it meant ‘idiot.’”

To the Google-machines!

He was right. The answer flashed onto the screen.

Cretin. Noun. 1. (informal, offensive) a stupid person (used as a
general term of abuse).

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines our modern use of ‘cretin’ as:
“(informal) a stupid, vulgar, or insensitive person: clod, lout”

Google also showed us the Urban Dictionary definition: “A person that is: brainless, stupid, child-like, and full of pointless information
that makes no sense and appeals only to other cretins.”

Now, I won’t recommend Urban Dictionary as the go-to for defining
words—especially while at work, where your network usage might be monitored or scrutinized. That said, their definition struck home for me in an unexpected way.

How often does my faith get wrapped up in child-like arguments and
pointless information? How much do I get wrapped up in nit-pick
debates about politics and living out the Christian faith? How many
discussions quibbling over theological details have I dived into on
Facebook? How many tweets have I fired back in response to a
disagreement over something that doesn’t matter?

In the Church, we find so many reasons to disagree and dispute, to
decide and deride and divide. We split into denominations as often as we split hairs. We say nice things about how “those believers are
pretty good and all,” but we know deep down that they’re missing out on so much (which, thankfully, God has revealed to none other than us).

I wonder at the division over politics and other issues in our
country, and then I realize how often we have the same mentality and spirit operating within the Church. At worst, we demonize the other denominations, highlighting all their faults and flaws while hiding our own. At best, we engage in lengthy dialogues about minor details – which method is best, what style is ideal, what personal subjective preference should everyone take as objectively superior, and so on.

As I considered how wrong I was—while feeling absolutely convinced I was correct–about the meaning of ‘cretin,’ I wrote the following in my journal:

Am I a cretin about the things of God? Do I focus my attention on the little details that matter nothing in the grand scheme of eternity? Do I focus on whether tongues is this or that, whether one can say or sing “Reckless Love” and be theologically sound, whether the Trinity is best described in this or that complex explanation instead of a simple albeit imperfect analogy? Do I get wrapped around these silly details while missing the point of the much greater matters?

I think of the Pharisees and their tithing of mint, cumin, rosemary, and whatever else… And Jesus looks at them like, “Yeah, ok, you do those things, and that’s great. But how about justice, mercy, compassion? Have you thought about doing THOSE things?”

Are we a bunch of religious cretins today?

Are we missing out on something God has provided for us to enjoy or called us to do?

Are we standing around debating which is the proper oil to use in our lanterns, while the Bridegroom passes by?

He sets a table for us, a wonderful feast to which we’ve been invited.
Am I in a tizzy over how the silverware is placed or the quality and
color of the tablecloth?

Am I pushing away the plate like a child, scrunching up my face
because I just KNOW that I hate tomatoes?

Culture/Politics, Scripture commentary

The MSNBC Bible

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Final Round: Fight!  (Round 2 here)

13 “I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.”

15 And the evil spirit answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” (Acts 19:13,15 NASB)

There’s this whole “Wawagate” thing going on in the news lately…

Oh, cut that out!

Well, in some news outlets, I guess.

A reporter on MSNBC showed a video of Mitt Romney giving a speech. In it, he talked about this “amazing” experience of going to a restaurant, tapping a few buttons on a touch screen, and like magic, your sandwich is being made. The video was very reminiscent of the old story of President George H. W. Bush seeming to express surprise at a checkout cashier’s scanner in a grocery store. The implication the reporter made was similar. “Mitt Romney is out of touch. He’s a wealthy politician who is far removed from the average person’s experience.”

Turns out the video was heavily edited, going from about three minutes to about 30 seconds.

In the unedited video, the candidate makes a completely different point. He’s not talking about how amazing it is to order food off a touch screen. He’s comparing the technological efficiency of the private sector to the paperwork bureaucracy and inefficiency of government.

It’s quite a different video if you don’t cut out 80 percent of it.

Some of my co-workers and friends like to discuss religion, and one of those discussions prompted a few questions that need answers.

Did Jesus really command obedience to the 613 rules found in the Law of Moses?

Did Jesus mean it when He said our righteousness had to exceed that of the Pharisees in order to get to Heaven?

Was Paul completely wrong about all he wrote concerning the Law and the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Does modern Christianity claim the writings of Paul trump the teachings of our Savior?

I’ve been addressing some of the differences and similarities between Paul and Jesus in this series, and now I’d like to answer the remaining questions from the introduction:

Are we terrible Christians who don’t even follow the faith we claim? Aren’t we failing to obey God, and thus damning ourselves to hell?

And aren’t we simply picking and choosing parts of the Bible we like while ignoring parts we don’t?

“Paul isn’t Jesus, so if Jesus says one thing and Paul another, Paul loses.”

I was not impressed by MSNBC’s video editing skills. I admit, the video looked pretty clear-cut. It was all in order, and the way it was edited, the story made sense.

But it was still a gross misrepresentation of what actually happened.

That’s why I don’t like the way these questions view Paul and Jesus.

The Apostle Paul stood before the Twelve in Acts 14 and explained what he had been teaching to the Gentiles. Paul ran his ministry by the guys who had spent three years in direct contact with Jesus Christ. He did this to ensure that his teaching lined up with the Apostles, and to make sure they knew exactly what God was doing in and through him.

No, Paul wasn’t Jesus. But using that as an excuse to ignore everything Paul wrote is the same as editing away 80 percent of a video and calling it accurate news reporting.

Paul’s epistles have been a part of Christianity ever since the first century. His teaching was foundational in the early church. His opinions and doctrine were evaluated by those who knew best what sounded like Jesus and what didn’t measure up.

And if you have faith, Paul’s understanding came from revelation given directly by God.

What sort of Christians would we be if we blew all of that off simply because Paul wasn’t Jesus?

As best as we understand it, Jesus didn’t write down His teaching in a neat and tidy Gospel for us. (Well, again, unless you have faith to believe that the Bible is the Word of God, Jesus didn’t do this.)

So what we have in the Gospels are accounts written by witnesses or by writers interviewing witnesses. I suppose since Luke and John aren’t Jesus, we should also throw out anything they have to say, by the same logic as what’s been presented to me.

I find that faulty.

Throwing Paul out is unnecessary. As I’ve tried to point out in the previous posts, it’s better to understand how his teachings and the words of Jesus align. They’re saying essentially the same core message. It’s just that the timing and audiences require two vastly different approaches.

Despite what my friends might think, we are not horrible Christians as a result of our adherence to the whole Bible and our willingness to reconcile the different messages. On the contrary, we would be horrible Christians if we ignored what Paul wrote. His teachings are central to the Christian faith, tying the Old Testament promises to the New Testament fulfillment and making all of the work of Christ abundantly clear.

And since it is also clear that Jesus didn’t really mean for us to follow the example of the Pharisees, or to follow a Law that He came to fulfill, we are not damning ourselves to hell by supposedly ignoring our Savior’s words on the subject.

And neither do we pick and choose which words of Jesus apply, whether they come from one of the Gospel writers or from Paul’s letters.

Jesus says a lot that we would do well to pay attention to.

We do not have license to sin wherever, however, whenever we want. Jesus reminds those to whom He ministers, “Go and sin no more.” More than that, His parables show us how we ought to live. He tells us that we’ll be known by what we do, no matter how much we say “Lord, Lord!” And He reminds us that what matters most is how we treat “the least of these,” those who most need love and care.

Paul likewise argues with those who would claim we have freedom to do whatever we please. He wrote that we should use our freedom to go do good, and not to return to a bondage to sin. Paul encourages us to set aside all the best the world has to offer and to ignore the worst the world throws at us, all for the purpose of knowing Christ. “Everything is permissible, but I will not be mastered by anything. Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial.”

You can have recording and editing software. Just be sure to use it in support of the truth, not to cut something up and make it what it was never intended to be.

Paul vs. Jesus is a contrived conflict; it’s the edited video missing most of the important parts. It sells well to a particular crowd, sure. You can watch and believe it, if that’s the reality if you want.

Just don’t call it accurate.

Culture/Politics, Scripture commentary

You Must Be This Tall

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Jesus v. Paul: Round 2 (Round 1 here)

Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. — Jesus Christ (Matt 5:20 NASB)

Justin, my seven-year-old son, is often frustrated by the freedom his older siblings enjoy. Being the middle child is notoriously difficult. He wants to know why Deborah (13) and Jonathan (11) get to go outside by themselves, or stay home by themselves. He wants to know why Deborah can have a cell-phone.  Why does she get to go to a special weekly church activity for girls her age, but he has to stay home? (That one’s easy. There’s no activity for his age group that night.)

No ride for you!

He’s like the kid at the carnival who’s too short for the biggest ride. It’s easy to look at that roller coaster you can’t ride and forget all the other activities you’re free to enjoy.

I try to remind him that he has far more freedom than Judah (1.5 years old). Judah has to be watched constantly. Judah needs a car seat. Judah has to hold our hands while walking just about anywhere. Judah doesn’t get to go play outside with his friends unless we go with him.

The rules change depending on the both the situation and the child in said situation.

The question was raised: Do Paul’s statements about the Law conflict with Jesus’ teachings?

The verse at the top is early on in the most famous sermon Jesus ever preached, the “Sermon on the Mount” found in Matthew 5-7.

Jesus is preaching to His disciples, but there are multitudes of listeners present, and these listeners are Jews. They’ve been brought up to follow the Law of Moses. They’ve been instructed in the Law by the scribes and the Pharisees. Their entire culture was based on their status as God’s special chosen people, and part of that deal was that they were given 613 commandments to follow. These ranged from the common no-brainers we often hear today:

(Do not murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery)

to some stranger rules for obscure situations that seem like nit-picking to modern eyes:

(Do not sew clothes with two kinds of fabrics, do not mix crops in your field, do not permit people with a wide range of physical conditions into the place of worship)

Remember that the Law was given to Moses, thousands of years prior to Christ’s birth. People were to be cast out from the community or even killed for breaking a variety of commandments. This was serious business, and the rest of the Old Testament shows a people who go back and forth, straying from God’s commandments, then repenting and returning to obedience, lather, rinse, repeat.

Along the way, the religious leaders developed interpretations of exactly how the Law applied. They turned these into traditions and created additional standards that weren’t “God’s Word” per se, but were treated as authoritative. The traditions as taught by the religious leaders became a sort of cushion… as long as you didn’t break the tradition, you weren’t breaking the Law, and you’d be considered “righteous” or right with God.

The Pharisees and scribes were quite good at “righteous” living, and they didn’t mind letting you know where you were going wrong.

They set up a sign: “You must be this obedient to be righteous.”

So along comes Jesus, and He tells this audience that He’s not getting rid of the Law. Instead, He’s there to fulfill it. And not one tiny letter will change in the Law until the end of the world. Oh, and by the way, you need to do better than those Pharisees, or you’re screwed.

Yet the Old Testament makes it clear that “no one is righteous, not even one.”  The Prophets remind us that “we all have gone astray like sheep, each of us going our own way.” Even the good deeds we do are considered like “filthy rags” compared to the righteous standard God expects.

But by the time Jesus was preaching, the people were being told that yes, you actually COULD be righteous, and not everyone goes astray, and some people’s good deeds were good enough to earn them God’s acceptance. If you followed the strict tradition and the standards of the scribes and Pharisees, then you’re deemed pure and righteous… at least by the scribes and Pharisees.

Paul says this about his early life as a Pharisee.

4 If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh (in the good deeds he or she has done), I far more: 5 circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.  (Philippians 3:4-6 NASB)

By all religious accounts, Paul had it all together.

But he says he equates all of that to poop compared to knowing Christ and being found ” in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.” (v. 9)

The religious righteousness of the Pharisees, the right-standing with God based on following the Law–that meant nothing. It was of no value.

So, wait, is Jesus wrong?

No, not at all. Jesus said pretty much the same thing Himself.

How did Jesus define the righteousness of the Pharisees?

In Matthew 23, Jesus points out that “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; 3 therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them.” (v.2-3 NASB)

They’ve taken a position of authority, so they have to be obeyed. But Jesus hardly points to them as an example of righteousness. Note what He says about them immediately after this:

They do not enter the kingdom of God, and they keep others out.

They make new converts “sons of hell” just like they are themselves.

They make traditions more important than the sacred.

They focus on the letter of the law (tithing even their herbs and spices) instead of the spirit (justice, mercy, faithfulness) –straining a gnat and swallowing a camel.

They are clean on the outside and full of selfishness on the inside.

On the outside they look righteous. On the inside they are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

He ends by saying to them that they are serpents, a brood of vipers, and He asks how they think they will escape judgment.

Hardly the picture of “perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Jesus confronted the religious leaders before, and challenged their understanding and passion for the Law. He told them they missed the point. “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; 40 and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40 NASB)

Life and righteousness don’t come from following the Law. That wasn’t the point of the Law. The point of it was to testify about Christ.

Paul agrees with this and expounds on it. “For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law…  24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.” (Galatians 3:21, 24-25 NASB)

Jesus, speaking to a Jewish audience under the authority of the Law of Moses, told His listeners that no part of the Law was going away. He also told them that He had come to fulfill or complete that Law.

When He died on the cross, His final cry was “tetelestai” in Greek — “It is finished!”

“The debt is paid.”

“It is fulfilled.”

Paul, with the benefit of hindsight, looks at what Christ accomplished and thus is able to explain more clearly the point of the Law. The Law was not given as a system by which we could attain righteousness. It was given to point us to our inability, so that we would be willing to come to Christ and find life.

Our righteousness is not based on the deeds we do. Our righteousness is Christ’s righteousness imparted to us. Paul explains to us that Jesus doesn’t hold up a new sign with a much higher arrow for us to measure up to. “No really, you must be THIS obedient to be righteous.”

That’s what the Law did. That’s what the Pharisees tried to do.

That’s not what Jesus does.

He smashes the sign and extends the offer to “whosoever will come.”

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