The other day I parked next to a Honda sedan. On the trunk was a sticker for Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
Brand loyalty, anyone?
Brand Loyalty
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Monthly Archives: October 2009
What Gives You The Right?
This Sunday, the 20th Sunday after Pentecost (Year B), I am again at Dover United Methodist Church in Dover Plains, NY (Location of church). The service starts at 11 and you are welcome to attend. The Scriptures for this Sunday are Job 38: 1 – 7; Hebrews 5: 1 – 10; and Mark 10: 35 – 35
After I posted this, I came across a reference to another song, highly appropriate for this message (I think) in the Riddell reference I cited. The song is “The Not-So-Righteous Cafe” by Lorina Harding (link added on 5 April 2015).
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One of my favorite songs from the early 70’s, if for no other reason than it very subtlety sneaks religion into a rock and roll song is “Signs” by the Five-Man Electrical Band. This band may be termed as a “one-hit wonder”, meaning that they had one song that was a hit and then nothing else.
“Signs” deals mainly with discrimination; the singer describes several situations in which he is excluded from something. The lyrics of the song were (and probably still are) a strong commentary about the social situation in the United States and Canada at that time. Each verse speaks of a particular episode in the singer’s life were there was some form of discrimination.
The first set of verses describes a sign in a window reading “Long haired freaky people” (meaning hippies) “need not apply” and the singer’s consequent confrontation with the store owner. The second set of verses describes the singer protesting being kept off of private property (by a sign reading “Anybody caught trespassing would be shot on sight”). The third set of verses has him being excluded from a restaurant (by a sign reading “You got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat”). Throughout the song, the signs posted everywhere seem to be symbols to the singer of these exclusionist ideas.
The last set of verses, my favorite verse in the song, is a little different. It has the singer being accepted in a Christian church and worship service, despite not having any money to contribute to the collection or being “presentable”, thus arriving at the main theme of the song: that everyone should be accepted, regardless of lifestyle, financial standing, etc., tolerance being a main facet of the Christian religion. (I used the Wikipedia for the discussion of the song.) I will not say anything about how this view of the church may not be exactly true today.
But in connection with the reading for Job for today, I could not help but think of the second verse of this song, in which the singer cries out “what gives you the right to put a fence to keep me out or to keep Mother Nature in. If God was here, he’d tell you to your face, man you’re some kind of sinner.”
I sensed that same sort of tone in the words of Job as he sought out God and demanded the right to face God and ask why all the misfortune had befallen him. But, in the words that we read today, I heard the same tone from God as he told Job, “What gives you the right to say anything to me? What have you done that would qualify you to speak with me?” In the end Job will say that he is just thankful to have had the opportunity to speak to God, to have his say.
We live in a world where those who speak out are often the target of ridicule and derision. It is better to let things alone and not rock the boat than to seek solutions. It was the mantra of society during the 60’s and the fight for civil rights. It is the mantra of society when change is suggested. We saw it in the early words from Job in which his friends told him early and often that he had no business seeking God or demanding an explanation for the troubles that had befallen him. His friends, if you can really call them that even went so far as to suggest the Job, identified as a righteous man, must have done something wrong to incur the wrath of God. That attitude is still present today when we hear many people tell us that we should not demand from God nor question what God has done.
The problem is that there are too many people who see the church as the authority figure, holding on to a set of views that requires complete and total obedience. Now, to follow Jesus is to follow completely, without reservation or hesitation; this was part of the theme of last week’s Gospel message (Mark 10: 17 – 31).
It wasn’t that the young man in last week’s story held to the commandments but that he had to commit his life, body and soul, to following Jesus. Unwilling to give up his secular life, his riches and his wealth, he could not make that commitment.
It isn’t our commitment to Jesus that is the problem with today’s church; it is the church itself. It would seem that from the very beginning, it has been the power and the control of the church that has been at stake.
I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the time line of the Gospel message because there is always some difference between each of them in terms of what happened when during Jesus’ ministry. But whether it occurred early on in the ministry or towards the end, we are confronted with that power issue in today’s Gospel reading.
James and John come to Jesus with the request that they be given seats of power in the new Kingdom. This, I would say, is only to be expected, if you see Jesus’ ministry and the new Kingdom as merely replacing the old power structure. And almost immediately after they make their request and Jesus points out exactly what they are asking for, the other disciples get literally bent out of shape.
How many times have we seen this in our churches today? I have seen church after church tear itself apart because of some non-theological power struggle. It may be over something trivial like how the towels for the church kitchen have to be ironed before being put away or it may be something major like who decides what music will be sung each Sunday. It may be over the nature of the worship service. It may be the ultimate in power sharing, letting some do what others have come to expect is their responsibility and their duty.
I have seen too many situations where one group’s view has been the dominant view for many years and it has driven off many people because their voice cannot be heard. And when it is heard, the new people in power moved quickly to shut off any dissent and opposition, taking the attitude that “we had to endure for a long time; now you must do the same.” And it can and has gone beyond the local church.
The Western church today is defined almost exclusively by the power and control that it demands. Throughout the history of the church and through today, the church has used its position of power and authority, to often to limit and control the people, not to set them free.
Even today, this power and authority has become abusive as many church leaders have attempted to teach the people to accept their word and their authority blindly and without question; to say that if their authority is questioned, it is an affront to God. As Michael Riddell in his book, Threshold of the Future (pages 67 – 68), points out, it is abusive for a person or persons to claim to speak the word of God and not allow that claim to be subject to the discernment of the wider community.
It is an abuse of power when decisions are made in secret by a small group who proclaim that such decisions are Christian in nature. It is an abuse of power when differences are demonized and departure from a prescribed moralistic lifestyle is portrayed as sinful or evil. It is an abuse of power when control is exercised to ensure the maintenance of the institution.
The result of these abuses has been that many people of integrity and faith have found themselves marginalized and dehumanized by the structures and the processes of the church. It is one thing to experience discrimination or contempt from the people by society’s rules (as perhaps outlined in “Signs”); it is an entirely different think when it is done in the name of God by people proclaiming themselves to be God’s people.
As Riddell states in his book, there are people who believe in a caring God, a creator but who are not interested in Jesus or the church. They express the idea that the church is designed to mess you up but setting the rules on how to live and telling you how to live. You end up repressing your real feelings and opinions simply to be accepted.
We are never going to get away from human authority but we have to recognize is that such authority has limits. The one thing the writer of Hebrews is telling us today is that those who were the high priests during the Gospel times (and those who have taken on such symbolic roles in today’s times) are no different from each one of us.
No matter what the title, any person who leads a community of believers must recognize that they are dealing with their own sins just as much as they are with others. And again, time after time, we see how this always seems to be that person’s undoing.
The writer of Hebrews will, in the coming verses, rather emphatically point out the difference between the permanent eternal nature of Jesus’ priesthood and the temporal, weak nature of the Levitical priesthood. The writer will tell us that the position of the priesthood in Jesus’ time was a matter of the law. We know from our own study of the Bible that these priests would make the law unchangeable and any threat to the law would be seen as a threat to them. That is why they always seemingly opposed what Jesus was doing in his ministry. Their disagreement with Jesus came about because they saw His ministry and His approach as a direct threat to their power and their stature. They could not imagine doing what Jesus suggested that the leaders of the new Kingdom had to do, to first be servants of the people.
Going back to the comments by Michael Riddell, we can see a situation where the future of the church will be determined by how the people, both in the establishment and outside the establishment, view their own power and authority. Do those inside the establishment have the right to decide what is best for the church? Or is it a matter for all the people to decide? One has to be careful on how one views this idea.
You cannot preach the Gospel through democracy but your church, being a body of people, can be a democracy. You may wish to institute new forms of worship but it must be done with an understanding that such new forms are not going to take on the patina of authority themselves.
We need to hear the words from Job in a new light, not just the expressions of a bitter man. Job’s story is not a traditional telling of the relationship between man and God. The writer William Safire viewed the encounter of Job and God as a victory for Job, because Job called God to account. It was a dialogue between a powerless individual and an all-powerful authority. It was the model for the things that Gandhi, King, and Andrei Sakharov would accomplish. Safire concluded that injustice in any form need not be accepted; rather, justice must be pursued and established authority be confronted. One person can make a difference. (Adapted from http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/searchview.php?id=13244)
The words of Job are the words of the people of the church, who seek the hope and justice and righteousness that the Gospel promises. The words of Job are the words of a people who see a monolithic power structure that does not respond to the needy and the poor, the outcast and forgotten.
It is important that we see how Jesus worked against the traditional power structures of His day. Jesus respected the Scriptures, perhaps more than did those who worked against Him and those who would hold the Scriptures as inflexible and unviable today. But Jesus went far beyond the tradition that was the Scripture; He goes deep into the heart in order to show what lies behind the tradition. This is neither a liberal approach (in terms of hanging loose from Scripture) nor is it a conservative approach (justifying current religious practice through the use of Scripture). Just as Job presented an alternative view to the relationship between man and God, Jesus’ approach is a radically new approach. It seeks to return to the roots of tradition and draw attention to the intent of God concerning humanity.
The true value of the Scripture is that it provides a means or an access to the heart of faith. No matter how we may view the church community today, no matter how angry we are with the powers that be, as long as the Scripture is there, we have the opportunity to change the church and our own very being from being regulated, restrictive, and objective to generative, reforming, and life-giving.
That is why we come to the table today. Our access is not limited by who we are or what we do; no outside authority can say to us, “go away, you are not wanted here.” We cannot be denied access because someone doesn’t like the length of our hair or the color of our skin or the nature of our lifestyle. We are reminded as we gather at the table today that Jesus died for us so that we may live.
Our right to come to this table is God’s grace, not human authority. All we must do in order to sit at this table today is acknowledge Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. And when we leave this table today, when we go out into the world, we do not have the right to tell others how to live just because we say we are Christians. What we do have is the obligation and the responsibility to lead a life that shows Christ and is of Christ.
Can You?
This Sunday, the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, I am at Ridges/Roxbury UMC and the United Methodist Church of Springdale (both in the Stamford, CT) area. The service at the Ridges/Roxbury church is at 9 and the service at the Springdale church is at 10:30. You are welcome to attend.
The Scriptures for this Sunday are Job 23: 1 – 9, 16 – 17; Hebrews 4: 12 – 16; and Mark 10: 17 – 31.
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The common thought about the church today is that it is dying. But that is not necessarily the case. In many parts of the world, the church is doing quite well and it is growing beyond description. And even in the United States, there are churches which are growing and prospering, even in these economic down times.
But there are a great number of churches, because of where they are located, that should be growing and prospering but aren’t. And on the denominational level, the same is true. There are some denominations that are doing quite well and some, including the United Methodist Church, which are not doing well. Some will say that the reason for this is that the individual church and the church as an institution is getting old and old things die.
But the church is more than two thousand years old and it has survived famine and plaque, war and destruction, persecution and oppression. Why should it be dying now? It is dying, not because it is physically old but because it is mentally old.
Some twenty years ago I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Herbert C. Brown. Dr. Brown won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1979 for his work with compounds known as organoboranes. These compounds are composed of hydrogen, carbon, and boron (which coincidentally are Dr. Brown’s initials, something he quite enjoyed telling people). The nature of these compounds opened an entire new set of pathways for the synthesis of other compounds and offer low cost methods for such syntheses.
When I met Dr. Brown in 1988, he had been retired from active teaching for ten years but he was still active in research, publishing over 100 manuscripts a year. Now, as a doctoral student still two years away from graduation, to hear someone speak of 100 publications a year while I was still trying to get my first publication, was absolutely awesome. But it illustrated quite easily that being old is merely a state of mind, not a quality of the calendar.
And I say that because some four years later, I meet another individual who was some ten years younger than Dr. Brown but who was, for all intents and purposes, academically dead. And if he was not dead, he was certainly on life support, counting the time until his teaching and academic career was over. This individual, to the best of my knowledge, had not published anything since obtaining tenure at the university where we both taught and he had no interest, as far as I could tell, in learning anything new (he did not know how to operate a VCR or turn on a computer and this was in 2000). His intransigence and unwillingness to learn was a block to the younger members of the department who sought to breathe life into the department. Now, some ten years later, that department has survived and is doing quite well. But at that time, I saw a situation where the mental age of the department threatened the life and vitality of the department and its members.
The same is true in the church today. You see too many people who are not willing to try new ideas and who yet bemoan the fact that the church is dying. But they are unwilling or, at least, very reluctant to change the nature of the church.
The individual local church today is too often seen as a decaying relic of yesterday. It uses words that, while they may have meant something many years ago, are meaningless in today’s society and culture. For those who grew up in the local church, the church today is in sharp contrast to what they studied in Sunday school and confirmation class. And when those who grew up in the local church get a chance, they leave that church behind. Sometimes they find another church more attuned to their needs; often times, they just walk away from the church.
We are at a moment in time when everything that we believe, everything we have ever learned is being challenged. We are being told that to be an evangelical Christian is to be a conservative Christian. We are told that the only issues of importance for Christians are abortion and homosexuality.
But what do we do about the poor? What do we do about education or the environment? What do we do when the system that is in place ignores the little children of this country in favor of big business and greedy corporate interests? What do we do when other Christians tell the parents of gays and lesbians that their children’s sexuality is their fault, that they somehow have lived a sinful and wrongful life? How is it that we have allowed Christianity to become so judgmental when our own Savior never judged anyone? (From an interview with Tony Campolo posted on Beliefnet.com on 12 November 2004)
Now, these thoughts, while parallel to some of my own, are not mine. They belong to Tony Campolo, Baptist minister, sociology professor, and conservative evangelical Christian. But even with those credentials, he feels that the concept of evangelism has been hijacked by the political motives of the religious right. He feels that the Gospel message of reaching out to the poor, the sick, the homeless, and the oppressed, has somehow been lost in the politics of the times.
What I find interesting are his thoughts on the churches of today. One reason he feels that mainline churches are in decline is because they have been so concerned with social justice that they have forgotten to place a major emphasis on bringing people into a close, personal relationship with God through Christ. Pentecostal and evangelical churches, the churches that are growing today, are doing so because they attract people who are hungry to know God. These individuals are not interested in knowing God from a theological standpoint, as a moral teacher, or as an advocate for social justice. They want God to be a part of their lives, to strengthen them, to transform them and enable them to better deal with the problems they have, both socially and personally.
Christianity has two emphases. One is social, the other personal. It is the responsibility of Christians to impart the values of the kingdom of God in society – to relieve the suffering of the poor, to stand up for the oppressed, to be a voice for those who have no voice. But it also has the responsibility to help bring people into a personal, transforming relationship with Christ so that they can feel the joy and love of God in their lives. In today’s society, we see that fundamentalism emphasizes the latter while mainline churches emphasize the former. If we are not careful, we are going to find out that those who ignore the social ministry of the church are going to drive away those who seek God but they will have no place to go because the places that speak to the social ministry will have closed.
But where will they go? They are like Job in the Old Testament reading today. They know there is a God and they know that He is out there but they cannot find Him.
They cannot find Him in many of the local churches today. Instead, they find a church that has literally sold its soul to bring people in. They find a church that is in complete opposition to the words of today’s Gospel. Instead of a sacrifice, many churches today have adopted the mantra of today’s society that says materialism matters and it is what you have that counts. The rich young ruler in today’s Gospel reading would be gladly welcomed in many of today’s churches, for he would not have had to give up his wealth and his power in order to follow Jesus. In fact, he could have kept his wealth and power and he would have been told that Jesus will follow him. The message of many evangelists in many churches today is how God fits into your plans, not how you fit into His plans.
There is even a movement among conservatives and fundamentalists today to remove the liberal bias of the Bible and show how the Bible justifies a free-market economy (see “Editing the Bible”). But the free-market economy that these individuals want is completely counter to the words, concepts, and meaning of the Bible. I have used the example before but it is worth saying again.
Jim Wallis speaks of his experience as a seminary student with the Bible:
I was a seminary student in Chicago many years ago. We decided to try an experiment. We made a study of every single reference in the whole Bible to the poor, to God’s love for the poor, to God being the deliverer of the oppressed. We found thousands of verses on the subject. The Bible is full of the poor.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, for example, it is the second most prominent theme. The first is idolatry and the two are most often connected. In the New Testament, we find that one of every sixteen verses is about poor people; in the gospels, one of every ten; in Luke, one of every seven. We find the poor everywhere in the Bible.
One member of our group was a very zealous young seminary student and he thought he would try something just to see what might happen. He took an old Bible and a pair of scissors. He cut every single reference to the poor out of the Bible. It took him a very long time.When he was through, the Bible was very different, because when he came to Amos and read the words, "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream," he just cut it out. When he got to Isaiah and heard the prophet say, "Is not this the fast that I choose: to bring the homeless poor into your home, to break the yoke and let the oppressed go free?" he just cut it right out. All those Psalms that see God as a deliverer of the oppressed, they disappeared.
In the gospels, he came to Mary’s wonderful song where she says, "The mighty will be put down from their thrones, the lowly exalted, the poor filled with good things and the rich sent empty away." Of course, you can guess what happened to that. In Matthew 25, the section about the least of these, that was gone. Luke 4, Jesus’ very first sermon, what I call his Nazareth manifesto, where he said, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to poor people" — that was gone, too. "Blessed are the poor," that was gone.
So much of the Bible was cut out; so much so that when he was through, that old Bible literally was in shreds. It wouldn’t hold together. I held it in my hand and it was falling apart. It was a Bible full of holes. I would often take that Bible out with me to preach. I would hold it high in the air above American congregations and say, "Brothers and sister, this is the American Bible, full of holes from all we have cut out." We might as well have taken that pair of scissors and just cut out all that we have ignored for such a long time. In America the Bible that we read is full of holes.
Today’s generation of new church goers are called the “seekers”. Many of them have heard the words of redemption and sacrifice that are the message of the Bible. They know the story of the rich young ruler and the call from Jesus to put everything aside in order to follow Him. But they also see those who today live lives of greed, self-righteousness, and arrogance. They do not want to be a part of that church anymore.
They do not want to come to a church and find that the clock and calendar have been turned back some fifty or sixty years. They don’t really care that the church was chartered and a part of the local community since 1828. It doesn’t matter to them that the budget of the church is $320,000 nor that the church has had ten pastors and thirteen organists in the past 40 years.
They don’t want to be a part of a church that works on the assumption that Sunday is for church and the rest of the week is for more important matters. They want to know that the words they hear, from the congregation as much as from the pastor, mean something. They would rather meet with their friends at a Starbucks or Barnes & Noble bookstore on Sunday mornings to discuss things that are important to them than drink coffee in a styrofoam cup after the service on Sunday.
The church they find may have “modern” music or alternative worship services; it may let the pastor dress casually so that they appear to be hip. But these churches have so embraced the ways of society that it is no longer what it once was or what it can and should be. And no matter how modern the church may appear or act, it still holds to words and actions that speak of the glory days long ago. It does not matter how modern the church appears or sounds when the words of the congregation espouse exclusiveness, rejection and discrimination, not an openness or welcoming attitude.
What people are seeking today, what people actually need is the answer to such questions as “Do you know God; do you have a story?” They want to know that people actually know God personally and not just that they know a lot about God.
Ben Campbell Johnson, of Columbia Theological Seminary, suggests that you ask people outside church "When has God seemed near to you?" There is nothing judgmental about this approach; it starts with where people are and it takes their experience seriously.
If you cannot or will not share your faith with others, it may be that you are in the midst of a crisis of your own. Often times, people use aggressive tactics because they themselves are insecure about their own faith and are anxious for others to believe and behave in the manner that they do so as to make their own faith more plausible.
The question then, is whether one believes in the efficacy of the Gospel — the Gospel that justifies so that we don’t need to earn our status before God or vie for position with others. It is the Gospel that gives shape and purpose to life, making us other-directed rather than self-centered. It is the Gospel of peace that can reconcile broken relationships and build communities. It is the Gospel of justice that advocates for the poor and the marginalized. The word “Gospel” means good news and how can one keep from sharing the good news?
The writer of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus Christ, our High Priest, is not out of touch with reality as so many churches are today. He has experienced everything that we have experienced (except for sin) and he is in a position to help us in these times, if we but walk up to him. Our challenge is two-fold.
First, we must open our hearts and our minds and once again welcome Christ into our lives. And second, we must ask ourselves some very tough questions.
Is the church, our church, closed, both in spirit and mind, to those whose lives or attitudes are different from ours? Or is the church, our church, open to all who seek Christ?
Is the church, our church, a rigid and inflexible relic of days long past that refuses to change and challenges any threats to its existence? Or is the church, our church, capable of absorbing the trials of society and still remain the source of hope, justice, and righteousness that was the promise of the Gospel message some two thousand years ago?
And finally, can you, today from the very moment you walk out of this sanctuary, through your thoughts, your words, your deeds, offer a Vision of Christ for the world today? Can you tell your story to the first person you meet when you leave this place today? That’s the question; what is your answer?
John Wooden – A review of “A Game Plan for Life – the power of mentoring” by John Wooden and Don Yaeger
There are two disclosures that must be made at the beginning of this piece. First, I obtained my copy of this book with the promise that I would review the book and post it on my blog. There were no restrictions placed on me as to what my review would be, except that I presume the publisher (Bloomsbury) is expecting a good review.
The second reason, and perhaps the reason that I agreed to do the review is that I have always been fascinated by John Wooden and what he has done in basketball and life and the profound impact that faith has had on his life.
One of the first books that I ever purchased was Practical Modern Basketball. This was Coach Wooden’s book on how to coach basketball and I may have thought back in 1968 that I would one day coach basketball. At that time, the streak of championships that marked his success at UCLA was just beginning (having only won back-to-back championships in 1964 and 1965 and then in 1967 and 1968) and who John Wooden was and what he was as a person, a teacher, and a coach was not quite clear to this country.
The success of John Wooden is not measured in the basketball championships that his teams at UCLA won or his own individual success as a player and a coach (he is, I believe, the only person in the Basketball Hall of Fame because of his success as a player at Purdue and his success as a coach at Indiana State and UCLA) but because of his success as a teacher and as a mentor to his players. It is what his players did after they graduated and what he did to prepare them for that day that will be what he is best remembered for. It is what we as individuals should also hold up as the measure of success, not how much money, fame, or power that we accumulate in life, though that seems to be what society does today.
And that is what this book is really about, who helped John Wooden become the person that he is and who has been helped by John Wooden.
Now let me first start off by saying that this book should come with a warning. This is not a “how-to” book nor does it come with guidelines for being a successful mentor. Rather, it provides examples of what a mentor does and what it means to be a mentor. As Andy Hill wrote in his chapter, “You often don’t recognize your mentors at the time they’re deeply involved in your life; and mentoring often occurs even when you don’t want it to.
Mentoring is about teaching and, if nothing else, John Wooden was and is a teacher first. What he provides in this book are example of those who taught him and from whom he learned life’s lessons and those who have learned from him.
Coach Wooden choose eight individuals who were his mentors. You would expect to find four of those in the book (his father, Joshua Wooden; his elementary school principle and first coach, Earl Warriner; his high school coach, Glenn Curtis; and his college coach, Ward “Piggy” Lambert). You might be surprised but only if you did not know his life that he picked his wife, Nellie, as a mentor.
But in keeping with the idea that a mentor is someone who influenced your life, John Wooden picked two individuals whom he had never met as mentors in his life, Mother Teresa and Abraham Lincoln.
Each of these individuals contributed something to John Wooden’s life and their influence can be seen in the “Pyramid of Success” that he built over the course of his life. As anyone who has played for him will tell you, the first time they hear the words in the blocks that build this pyramid, they think they are silly phrases but later in life those silly words echo in all that they say and do (just ask Bill Walton’s four sons).
The choice of those who would say that John Wooden mentored them is also a rather surprising mix. It is not surprising that Kareem Abdul-Jabber and Bill Walton are on this list. They represent what everyone thinks of UCLA basketball and its success. But that is part of the reason why those who see this book as a path to success will be disappointed.
Success, to John Wooden, is more than the number of wins one accumulates. For John Wooden “success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming”. Among those who say that John Wooden mentored them was Andy Hill. And Andy Hill is not one of those with whom success in basketball is often associated. It is true that he has three championship rings but he will tell you quite honestly that his life as a Bruin was anything but successful. And for many years following graduation, he chose to put that portion of his life in a deep and dark closet.
What Andy Hill will tell you is that his success came from the same environment as did Bill Walton’s and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s; it is just that he did not see it at first. It was only after success had come and he remembered the words and the encouragement that he had received while practicing at UCLA that he realized that John Wooden was not preparing him for success in basketball but rather success in life. That is why I say that those who look for this book to prepare them for success may be disappointed when there is no quick and easy recipe for success in the book.
The others who cite John Wooden as a mentor are Roy Williams (coach at the University of North Carolina), Dale Brown (former coach at Louisiana State University), Bob Vigars (a high school special-education teacher and coach in Canada) and Cori Nicholson (John Wooden’s oldest great grandchild).
It again is not surprising that two college level coaches consider John Wooden a mentor. In both cases, they saw what John Wooden did outside the boundaries of the basketball court as important as what he did inside the boundaries, though I felt that Dale Brown was trying to find some secret formula about winning more than perhaps Roy Williams was doing.
But Bob Vigars and Cori Nicholson offer a different perspective. For Bob Vigars, the Pyramid of Success that John Wooden built over the years was a valuable tool for working with special-needs and disadvantaged youth. That it helped him to become a better coach need not be stated; his becoming a better teacher because of the example that John Wooden made allowed him to become a better coach as well.
And I think it is rather fitting that Cori Nicholson be included in this mixture of players and coaches. To some extent, her presence shows the enduring value of mentoring, as she sought advice and counsel from her PaPa. The key to mentoring is not just rules but advice. And the advice need not always be good; it can be, as Cori will tell you, to disagree with your choices but to support you in your decision.
This is a good book because it sets the tone one must have in order to be a mentor. You must first define or understand your own core values; you must understand what it is that makes you who you are. Then and only then can you be a mentor for someone else. John Wooden showed the foundation for his life that lead to this point; others have shown how what John Wooden has done has made a difference in their own lives.
Success is not found in wins or losses or in how the game is played. It is found in the legacy you leave behind. In the movie “A Man for All Seasons”, Sir Thomas More asks Richard Rich “Why not be a teacher? You’d be a fine teacher, perhaps a great one.”
Rich replies, “If I was, who would know it?”
To which More replies, “You; your pupils; your friends; God. Not a bad public, that.”
John Wooden was and will always be a teacher and this book shows the results. For you the reader, there is a challenge in this book and that makes it worthwhile.
Serving the Lord
This is the message for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, 19 October 2003, at Tompkins Corners United Methodist Church, Putnam Valley, NY. The Scriptures are Job 38: 1- 7; Hebrews 5: 1 – 10; and Mark 10: 35 – 41.
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Today is Laity Sunday, the Sunday in the year when the work of the Laity is honored. The United Methodist Church is unique, I believe, in this celebration. Though other denominations use lay persons in their services, no other denomination puts a reliance on the laity like we do.
This is partially because of our history and the use of circuit riders to provide ordained leadership to the various churches strung along country roods. It fell to the laity of each local society or early church to provide the pastoral guidance as well as the secular leadership for the church between the visits of the circuit rider.
Today marks the twelfth anniversary of the first time I ever preached. Looking back, I can honestly say that I never anticipated that my service as a lay speaker would turn into what it has become. I still remember joking on that Sunday morning that my feelings of nervousness were such that I would make coffee nervous.
I took on the challenge of organizing Laity Sunday because it needed to be done. At the time that I came to that church, it was in decline, losing members, struggling with its finances, and just generally not doing very well. Laity Sunday at that church had been a day when the pastor took the day off. But it was not a vacation for the Lay Leader who, in that church, served as the liturgist. Laity Sunday simply meant that he, the Lay Leader, had to do the entire service rather than simply the parts before the offering.
So when I volunteered to do Laity Sunday back in 1991, I wanted all to participate. It was after all a celebration of the laity and not just one person. That year, I thought that it would be appropriate if I could get members of the congregation to do various parts of the service, from the greeting through the opening prayers and the various bible readings, leaving the last step (the message) for myself. It was a model that worked and I would hope that it continues at that church to this day.
In 1993, I sought to involve one of the other lay speakers in the church. It was a sign of the changes that were taking place in that church that others were becoming involved. I had two reasons for wanting someone else to present the message that Sunday,. Things for me were changing and I wanted to let the other speakers whom the church had sponsored and nurtured present their talents. I was also fearful that people there would think that I was hogging the spotlight, much in the manner that I disliked others in the church keeping a position when others were ready to serve.
But late on the Saturday afternoon before Laity Sunday, as I was relaxing and confident that I had achieved what I had sought out to do, I got a phone call from the scheduled speaker. He told me that he would not be able to present the message in church the next day and “Would I at the last moment do the message?” So it was that I also received my “baptism” in the role of the lay speaker who fills in at the last moment for an ailing pastor or lay speaker.
The other thing that I would note is that I have not forgotten this model of participation. I have not used that model at other churches simply because there hasn’t been a situation where it was a practical application. But I would like to use it, especially on a weekly basis where individuals serve as liturgists, reading the first scriptures and offering the opening prayers.
For me, being a lay speaker is an opportunity for service. At times, it has been the only thing that I could bring to the church. And as it came to be, the opportunities presented to me have been more than just simply filling in for a vacationing pastor, the traditional role of lay speakers in the Methodist Church.
In 1995, I was re-certified in Parsons’ District of the Kansas West Annual Conference. Shortly after my meeting with the District Council on Ministries, I received a call from the District Superintendent asking if I would provide the leadership for three churches in southeast Kansas. For five weeks, in an age of automobiles, computers, and television, I took on the role of an itinerant preacher moving between three churches on each Sunday. After that assignment I was given two more similar assignments as the District Superintendent sought a pastor for the charges. I came away with an appreciation for what those early Methodist ministers and circuit riders did.
In April of 1997, I met with Memphis District Superintendent to discuss my candidacy for the ministry. As our meeting concluded, he asked if I could stay a little longer and be part of another meeting he had scheduled. In that meeting, I became the fourth of four to join in a project to provide pastoral leadership to two rural churches just outside Memphis. Both met at the same time on Sunday and shared the same pastor; since he could not preach at both, he alternated Sundays between the two churches. This meant that every other Sunday one of the two had no church service; the Tennessee conference was getting ready to close or combine the churches because of the waste of resources. The four of us provided a solution that provided pastoral leadership to the two communities.
I moved to Kentucky in 1998 thinking that I would not find opportunities like I had in Kansas or Tennessee. But in October of 1998, the District Superintendent for that part of Kentucky called me and asked if I would help the church in Neon, much as I had done before. The pastor had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and was no longer able to serve and the church needed someone to lead them.
And when the plans were being made for me to move here to New York in 1999, I simply let the District Superintendent for this area (a fine young preacher from western Missouri named Dennis Winkleblack) know that I would be available if there was the opportunity. And he let me know that he might just have a place for me. That brought me to Walker Valley, and of course, ultimately to here.
I mentioned all of this because it has been the hallmark of my lay speaking career. I have been called to service in ways that I could never explain nor understand. I have never conscientiously sought rewards for what I have done; in all honesty, I don’t know that I could ever be rewarded. And if I should start looking at this role that I have chosen in terms of glory or honor, I need only remember those circuit riders of the past. The Methodist Church’s first Bishop, Francis Asbury made it clear when he recruited those early pastors that it was not a glorious job and that the rewards on this earth were limited. Peter Cartwright became a member of the early Methodist Episcopal Church in 1801 and quickly became one of this church’s early circuit riders. In a life that spanned eighty-seven years, he served as a circuit rider for twenty and an elder for some fifty years. In his autobiography, he wrote,
A Methodist preacher… when he felt that God had called him to preach, instead of hunting up a college or Biblical institute, hunted up a hardy pony of a horse, and some traveling apparatus, and with his library always at hand, namely, Bible, Hymn Book, and Discipline, he started, and with a test that never wore out nor grew stale, he cried, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.’ In this way he went through storm of wind, hail, snow, and rain; climbed hills and mountains, traversed valleys, plunged through swamps, swam swollen streams, lay out all night, wet, weary, and hungry, held his horse by the bridle all night, or tied him to a limb, slept with his saddle blanket for a bed, his saddle or saddle-bags for his pillow, and his old big coat or blanket, if he had any, for a covering. Often he slept in dirty cabins, on earthen floors, before the fire; ate roasting ears for bread, drank butter-milk for coffee, or sage tea for imperial (tea and cream); too, with a hearty zest, deer or bear meat, or wild turkey, for breakfast, dinner, and supper, if he could get it. His text was always ready, ‘Behold the Lamb of God.’ (From The Heritage of American Methodism, Kentucky Annual Conference Edition)
For Peter Cartwright, being a circuit rider and enduring the trail through Ohio, Kentucky and Illinois in the early 19th century was more about service to God than rewards or power. It was a call from God to preach the word where no one had heard it or where people wanted to hear it.
But it was clearly not service that must have been going through the minds of James and John, the “sons of thunder”, who either by themselves or with the encouragement of their mother (as described in Matthew’s account) when they sought out Jesus. They wanted and sought positions of honor and glory in God’s kingdom. The one seated at the right hand of the king said without speaking that he or she was the second most powerful person in the kingdom; the person on the left was just below in rank, honor, and glory.
It is noted in both Mark’s account and Matthew’s that the other disciples were displeased with the actions of James and John. It could only be because they themselves were thinking of the same thing. They wanted to share in the earthly power that they believed awaited Jesus. Clearly, they were either not listening to Jesus or understanding what He was saying about His life ending in shame and not glory. None of the disciples could conceive that what Jesus was offering was offering something other than political or religious power. They saw His preaching through the scope of their own needs. (Adapted from “Sharing in the Glory”, from “Living the Word” by Michaela Bruzzese, Sojourner, September/October 2003.)
Society teaches us to see our role in life in terms of the power it offers and the power it brings. Power is where it is at and if you do not have power, you are not there. We see that in so many ways in society and that includes the Christian church. Especially in today’s Third World, people see the Christian Church in much the same way the early Christian Church saw the Roman Empire, imperialistic, domineering, and arrogant. Others want the church to have a role of power and domination, attempting to control lives instead of allowing lives to develop to the fullest. But Jesus pointed out that the Kingdom that he would bring forth was not a kingdom of this world and the rules that applied to this world would not necessarily apply to the New Kingdom of heaven. Power for power’s sake would not apply.
We have equated power with leadership and leadership with power. If we are not powerful, we cannot lead. If we do not lead, we cannot be powerful. Yet, Jesus said that those who would serve would be last, a complete reversal of what we seek in this world.
Let us put ourselves with our desires for power in the place of Job. Job is asking God many great questions about suffering and divine justice. But God chooses not to answer those questions. But He also humiliates nor condemns Job for his actions. Rather, he asks if Job has sufficient knowledge about the world. In doing so, God vindicates Job, a vindication that will be later affirmed. But this discourse also shows Job that his role is that of a servant and not that of a king.
God essentially has challenged Job to teach him; and since Job cannot, he should be aware of what the consequences are. Job must be willing to be the servant of God since he can never be God’s equal.
The consequences are the same for each of us; they have been the same since the time mankind sought to build the Tower of Babel. We have a responsibility to learn but our knowledge will never surpass that of God’s, we should not expect to be at that level. It does not mean that we should not learn more about this world but that our ability to match the knowledge of God can never be reached.
That is where it is critical that we understand the difference between leadership defined by power and leadership defined by servanthood. Those who seek power (such as James or John might have wanted) care nothing about the institution that they seek to lead. All they are interested in is their own well being. But those who seek to lead by servanthood empower those around them. As the writer of Hebrews points out, we do not need a priest to lead us as the Israelites needed Aaron. For we have Jesus. And in Jesus we are able to transcend the differences between power and powerlessness, leader and follower, agent and victim. Jesus had the power to heal, to transform and to influence others. But He also suffered at the hands of the state, organized religion, and even His closest friends and allies. Jesus had the ultimate power, yet He gave it away.
In this world where power has mostly negative connotations, should we seek it? Not if it takes us away from what we should be doing. Is it the task of the church to adjust to the world or to change it? If we seek to stand in the faithful line of those who would change the world, then we need to reclaim the positive potential of power as well as the gospel’s capacity to influence, to change lives, and to renew communities.
It will begin with us. That is what today is about. Laity Sunday is a reminder that is we who serve, without the rewards that society has taught to expect even when what we do is what we are supposed to do. How shall we serve? That should be the question we are asking. There should be no limit to the number of volunteers seeking to serve the Lord. But, because others have sought power through their service, the volunteers are limited.
“Who shall serve?” is now the question. And for this church it is an important question. At this point, we need a chair for the administrative council, someone to serve as lay member to the Annual Conference (a job that has more to it that was first thought, as recent events have shown), and if not a financial secretary, at least an assistant financial secretary. I hope we have the person to fill the three-year term on the board of trustees. But we could always use a couple more individuals just to give some depth to the board. I hope I have the nominations for the church treasurer’s position, the chair for stewardship and finance, and the PPRC chair. At last year’s Church Conference, we stated that we wanted more people involved. At this year’s conference, the question is whether more people will attend. If more people do not attend, then it is very difficult to get more people to serve. If more people do not serve, then we have to hope that the same individuals serve again. Somehow, it doesn’t seem like things will have changed.
Service is never just loving humanity or simply caring about the masses. Service proceeds slowly, one person at a time. And ultimately service is about community. Often, when we are engaged in charity, there is no real community. The poor remain segregated from those who dole out some goodness for a few brief moments and then return to their own comfortable lives. Service brings people together in one community. Service means that we pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.,” and then work to make the reality of heaven here on earth.
Today is the day we recognize the work of the Laity in serving the church throughout the history of the church. It has been and will also be service for the Lord. As we look to the coming year, one must ask how you will serve the Lord?
Ask Not What Your Church Can Do
This is the message for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, 22 October 2000, at Walker Valley United Methodist Church, Walker Valley, NY. The Scriptures are Job 38: 1- 7; Hebrews 5: 1 – 10; and Mark 10: 35 – 41.
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If one reads the commentary for the passage from Job that was read this morning one gets an entirely different perception of the situation Job is in. In verse 2, God asks who it is that would challenge His plan or design for the universe. God also challenges Job to teach Him. In doing so, God alerts Job to the consequences of his actions and complaints against God. The commentary notes that in making these challenges and complaints, Job seeks an equal footing with God and is making a claim to the throne of God.
But, as I see it, and it should be noted that this is only my view of what Job is about, and in connection with the readings from Hebrews and Mark, I don’t think that Job every intended to challenge God or did he ever seek equality with God. All Job was asking for was the chance to come before God and ask God what was going on.
Job felt that nothing he had done warranted such distress and turmoil as what he had gone through. Of course, it was of little help that all of his so-called friends and comforters, who knew Job to be an upright and righteous man, insisted that he must have done something wrong. In the conventional wisdom, remember, sin is a consequence of your action and when bad comes to you, it is because of some sin that you have done. But we know that all that has come to Job came as a result of a test. Satan was testing Job with every sort of evil short of his own death to see if Job would renounce God; something that Job would never do and, in fact, never did.
All Job wanted to was a chance to ask God why things were happening, and in doing so, he challenged the very notion of who God was and is today.
The God of Israelite at that time was seen as a large and omnipotent being, capable of great wrath and anger, someone whose immense power commanded great respect. But at times, this respect came from fear; if you challenged God, you paid a price. This lead to a God who could never approached. No Israelite would ever think of writing God’s name or even saying it; the term “Yahweh” is our attempt to make sense of the manner in which this was done. The power of God was so great that to see the face of God meant almost certain death. When God first came to Moses, it was in the form of the burning bush and God told Moses to take off his shoes for he was standing on holy ground.
When Jacob wrested with God at Peniel and won, he asked to know whom he was wrestling. In Genesis 32:30, Jacob called the place Peniel because “I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved.” The very experience of meeting God face to face also changed Jacob in a number of ways. First, as noted in verse 31, God touched Jacob on the hip and caused him to limp. He also changed Jacob’s name to Israel, which meant “for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Both of these changes would have a lasting impact on life of Jacob.
To see God face to face had a special meaning in the terms of the Old Testament. In Exodus 33: 10, it noted that that the people of Israel could not approach God in the manner that Moses did. Moses saw and spoke with the Lord as one would with a friend. During the exodus, the presence of God was seen as a pillar of cloud. The Israelites saw this pillar and recognized that it was the presence of God so they always stayed some distance away. Only Moses could come near the pillar, God’s Presence.
When God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, he commanded the Israelites to build the Ark of the Covenant to carry those stone tablets. God also created the priesthood in order to care for the Ark and to provide a link between God and the people.
It was the priest’s duty to serve the people. The reading from Hebrews talks about what it takes and means to be a priest. A high priest was someone called by God to represent the people before God and to represent God before the people. Since the priest represented God before the people, it was important God called him or her to this task. All through Jesus’ ministry, he constantly emphasized that service was the most important thing. To be a disciple of Jesus meant that you were going to be a servant.
In the Gospel reading for today, James and John come to Jesus, perhaps in anticipation of the coming Kingdom of God and ask to be seated at the right hand and left hand of the throne. Verse 41 points out that the other ten disciples were not too happy about this request. And one could understand their displeasure when you know that the seat on the right hand of the king was the place of most prominent in the court and the seat on the left hand ranked just below that. Jesus found it necessary to remind them that such places of power and respect came with a great price.
The writer points out that it was God who called Jesus to be a high priest, not something that Jesus did voluntarily.
And so Jesus could fully represent us before God, he first had to experience everything that a person on earth goes through. Jesus had to know for Himself how difficult it is to obey God and how attractive the temptations of life can be. The author of Hebrews also points out that Jesus successfully carried out God’s plan. He endured the suffering and temptations so that He could truly function as our High Priest, understanding our weaknesses and frustrations, and interceding before God for us.
Jesus own obedience to God, the Father, led to Calvary and His own death on the cross. But by that singular sacrifice, Jesus, who was without sin, died for our sins and became our source of salvation. Now we know longer have to have someone do anything for us, prepare anything, or offer anything in our name as the priest of Israel did, provided of course that we have accepted Christ as our Savior. Because Christ died for us, because we allow Jesus to be our Savior we have a better relationship with God. And God no longer is someone to be feared but one whom we know truly loves us.
Now, if we were of any faith other than United Methodists, that would be the end of the sermon. But I am on page 11 of a 9-page sermon, so we have awhile to go.
It is very simple for us to realize that through Jesus that we can come to God; that we have a way to find God, just as Job did. But what about those who have not yet come to know Christ? How will they come to the same path of life, how will they be able to ask God the questions that faced them as they faced Job? If for no other reason than to answer those questions, that is what the church is for.
What is the church, be it United Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic, or any other denomination supposed to do?
I think there is always some time in our lives where we are like Job, where we want to talk to God directly. There has been perhaps one time in your own life where being told that it is God’s will that was done just doesn’t wash and until we hear it from Himself directly, we are not going to accept any answer.
My sophomore year in college was one such time. Spring break was coming up, and while I would be going home to Memphis and I would celebrate Easter with my family, I felt the need to take communion at the church that I attended in college since that was where I was a member.
Reverend Fortel was more than a little surprised by this request but he agreed to it anyway. No other student had ever made such a request (in part, I think, because most of the students at Kirksville at that time could go home on weekends and worship at their home church). So he agreed to meet with me the day before the break. Instead of a formal observance of the communion ritual, we sat down together and discussed what the words of the ritual meant. I don’t recall just how I felt when we read the prayer on page 30 of our current hymnal.
We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table.
But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy.
Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to partake of this Sacrament of thy Son Jesus Christ, that we may walk in newness of life, may grow into his likeness, and may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen. (The United Methodist Hymnal, page 30)
I remember questioning the statement “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table” because I felt that, as a Christian, our worth was such that we could sit at God’s table as his equal. It seemed to me, with all the wisdom of a college sophomore, that it wasn’t fair. Didn’t Christ’s sacrifice on the cross mean that we could sit at God’s table? How can we, who were saved by the grace of God, not be allowed to sit at God’s table? Wasn’t that why Jesus died for us? Wasn’t admission to God’s kingdom granted to us because Jesus died for us? Reverend Fortel pointed out that because of sin we had lost our place at God’s table, but because of His grace, God has restored our position.
The important thing to realize is that I could not have had that conversation unless the church had been there. That school year had not been a good one for me and I struggled with many questions.
But the one light in my life that year was the presence of Jesus. Now I grew up going to church on Sunday. So, going away to college meant that I could sleep late on Sunday morning. But I quickly found out that I couldn’t do that. It was important to me that on Sunday morning that I go to church, to a place where I had a home and security. First United Methodist Church in Kirksville offered me a home and a place of security at a time when it was most needed.
The challenge for us this day is the same. I noted with some interest a comment in Time magazine last week about an on-line church. It only seems logical that with the advent of new technology, someone would find a way to put a church on-line. Now it is one thing to put information about a church or resources for a church on-line but it is an entirely different thing to try and have a church that way. When you remove the human element, you take away that which is the very essence of a church, the people. As one of the songs that we sing points out, we are the church. Even with a strong one-to-relationship with Jesus in our hearts, it is still important that we, as well as other, have a place that we can go in times of strife.
A church is also a community of believers who share. Over the past few weeks, I have spoken about rebuilding the prayer chain. The present outline has sixteen people on it. Is your name one of them?
Last week and this week, we have placed an ad in the bulletin asking for a Sunday school teacher. We have a possible candidate for that most awesome of tasks. But one person is not enough; there needs to be at least two to give us some flexibility and allow for unforeseen circumstances.
There is a need to have a confirmation class for which I will take the primary responsibility. But I would like someone to be my assistant and I would like the students in the junior high and high school to help pick the materials that are needed for this most important class.
You will note in the bulletin that we are beginning planning for the Advent season. You have two ways to help. I will try to have the Advent materials p
John Kennedy spoke of service to the country at his inauguration in 1961. He spoke in terms of what people could do for their country. That phrase has, over the years since, become one of the most overused phrases in America and one has to be careful when using it. But I think that it is most important that we use it today. The church is here for you but it cannot do a lot without you.
I have always said that as Methodists the challenge is what we are to do after having coming to Christ. The challenge today for each us is to serve this church in such a way that the next time somebody comes looking for God, there will be someone around to help him or her find Him. That is what you can do.
A New Set of Rules
Here are my thoughts for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost. The Scriptures for this Sunday are Job 1: 1, 2: 1 – 10; Hebrews 1: 1 – 4, 2: 5 – 12; and Mark 10: 2 – 16.
As I have mentioned before, my favorite book in the Bible is probably Ecclesiastes. I came to know the verses from this book from sources outside the Bible, namely “Turn, Turn, Turn” by the Byrds. I suppose that one could say that you are supposed to find your interests in something from a devoted study of the subject but I think that when you can see something you have studied from another view, it offers a deeper meaning.
I did study the Bible when I was young and while in conformation class but it was just another class with more things that had to be memorized for the moment and such things just don’t carry much weight with me. But when I can see something outside its context and I have the opportunity to think about it, then it does have some meaning.
By the same token, my least favorite book in the Bible is probably the “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” I have always had a hard time hearing people speaking of this book with a finality that has no option. Perhaps these are the “End Times” but if we see them coming, shouldn’t we be working to stop them? To presume that war and violence are necessary for Christ to come again on this earth seems to be a rather distorted view of the Gospel message first given in the Nazareth synagogue some two thousand years ago. War, death, destruction, and violence have no place in the Gospel message but those who preach the “End Times” seem to think just that; that war, death, destruction, and violence are what Jesus meant when He proclaimed that he was bringing health, hope, and freedom. I have studied Revelations and I find a message that echoes those same words of Jesus, not the words that John Darby found. But Revelations will never be one of my favorites.
And then there is the Book of Job. There have been times in my life when I thought that I was reliving the life of Job, of having my life and possessions stripped away and suffering for no apparent reason. But as is the case with any of the books in the Bible, further study showed a different story. And it is a story that echoes throughout the ages, of people holding onto their faith even in the toughest of times.
Job is one of the books in the Bible that offers an alternative wisdom, of a different view from the mainstream. The writer William Safire viewed the story of Job and his encounter with God as a victory for Job because Job called the Lord of the universe to account. It was a dialogue between a powerless individual and an all-powerful authority. It is a model for the miraculous thing that individuals such as Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Andrei Sakharov accomplished. Safire concluded that injustice in all forms need not be accepted; on the contrary, justice must be pursued and established authority confronted. One person can make a difference. (Adapted from http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/searchview.php?id=13244)
But the rules by which society operated in Job’s time and by which we still operate today say that bad things do not happen to good people. If something has befallen you, it is because you have done something wrong. The rich are rich because God has blessed them; the poor are poor because they have lost God’s blessing. Clearly, to many in this story, Job’s losses of health and wealth are a clear sign that he had displeased God and that he should blame God for his troubles. That was the thinking two thousand years ago and it is the thinking even today. How can God claim to be a loving God when there is war, death and destruction in this world and young children die for no apparent reason?
It is difficult for some to accept the words of Job in this day and age when there are no explanations for what is happening. All Job wants is to meet with God and get an explanation for what has transpired. In the end, he will meet God and he will hear God and he will accept what God says. But we are not willing to persevere as Job did; we expect an answer right now. We speak of our right to take an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth, without realizing that in demanding such “justice” we are doing exactly the opposite of what we are asked to do.
The rules of society, the rules that we expect the church to follow and teach, demand revenge, not justice. The rules of society, the rules that we expect the church to follow and teach, say escalating war and striking first are the answer to threats by our enemies. Society’s rules say that one’s status in society determines one’s power, yet Jesus would put a child in His lap and say those who were not like children would never enter the Kingdom.
We put a great emphasis on power, fame, and riches. And we have allowed our society to be ruled by those who would only enrich themselves. I have been reading one of Bill Moyers’ books (Moyers on Democracy) lately. His life continues to be one of faith and hope, even when those who would take hope away have done the best they could to silence him. He is an unabashed liberal who saw the hypocrisy in a political system that taught that all are created equal but which would suppress the rights of minorities and women in the name of justice. He has taken to task many of those who have led this country the past few years for their greed, their lust for power, and their absolute dislike for openness and honesty.
To some extent, he has taken on the role of a 21st century Amos. Amos lived in Israel some three thousand years ago during a time of tremendous prosperity. It was a time of immense wealth for some but not for all. The rich were getting richer but the poor were getting poorer.
In Amos 2: 6 – 8 we read that the rich would sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. They would trample the head of the poor into the dust and push the afflicted out of the way. Translations are often a tricky thing but in essence Amos is telling us that the rich and powerful are selling the poor and the needy into slavery and they were doing it through legal methods. And all the while, the rich and powerful were in the synagogue and the temple every Sabbath praising God. Yet, as Amos will say later in Chapter 5 (verses 21 – 27), despite all that the people of Israel were doing, the singing of songs of praises, the offerings, the festivals, they might as well have been worshiping some astral deities because there was no justice in the land for the poor and the disenfranchised. (adapted from The Phoenix Affirmation by Eric Elnes)
It isn’t much different today. We put great credence in the law and we allow the law to take away peoples’ homes. Our legislators write laws that favor to the rich and the powerful and give them tax breaks that the poor and middle class must pay for. We are arguing for laws that would deny health insurance to many people because we are more interested in the god of mammon than we are in making sure that all the children of God are healthy. We have created laws that create injustice and call it right. We believe in the law and the rules that are set by such laws.
The Pharisees and scribes constantly sought to trap Jesus in the law, the laws they had strived so hard to keep in place so as to keep them in power. If it was not divorce, it was marriage; if it wasn’t healing the sick, it was working on the Sabbath. But the writer of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus did not hold his position as God’s Son over us, as many of might have done or have tried to do.
And in placing Himself on the same level as us, Jesus changed the rules. He gave us a new set of rules. He gave us a chance to seek hope and justice, not condemnation. All Job asked for was the opportunity to meet with God and discuss what was happening. For us, that is exactly what Jesus did; He changed the rules that society operated under.
We have allowed the scribes and Pharisees of today to again rule us by laws that limit life and keep them in power. It is time we operate under a new set of rules, rules that say that all are welcome into God’s Kingdom and that the sick will be made well, the lame shall walk, the deaf shall hear, the blind shall see, and the oppressed shall be set free. It is time for a new set of rules and those rules begin with the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Savior.
Why?
This was written for another publication but didn’t make the “cut”.
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Every child will ask “why?” And every parent will answer “because!” And someone will ask me “why are you, a trained chemist and perhaps philosopher, a Christian?” And I will reply with the same tone of voice that a parent will use, though without the same metaphysical meaning, “because!”
But why should I proclaim a belief in a God when others do the same but advocate violence, hatred, and exclusion? Why should I believe in a man some say is a myth or the creation of some power structure two thousand years ago? Why do I believe in God through Christ instead of God alone as do the Jews and the Muslims? Why do I not believe in some other supreme being that perhaps only exists as some sort of force field in the universe?
You see things as they are and ask why; I see things that never were and ask why not? – Robert Kennedy (from George Bernard Shaw)
I cannot offer you a proof based on empirical evidence simply because the evidence exists in the realm of faith and belief, not in matter or time. Any proof that I should offer cannot be viewed from the traditional or standard form of thought; for Christ offered a new vision of the world and to see it, you must be open to seeing a new vision.
"In every age there comes a time when leadership suddenly comes forth to meet the needs of the hour. And so there is no man who does not find his time, and there is no hour that does not have its leader." (The Talmud)
I am a Christian because that is how I was raised and because it is what I have come to believe on my own through reason and experience. I have never had the experience of Paul on the road to Damascus but I have had the clear knowledge that my life has changed because I have chosen to walk the road with Jesus.
I have come to this conclusion through a reading of the Scriptures, of listening to the dialogue, and through my own reasoning that there is a God and He sent His Son because He loved us and it was His desire that we would have a life that was whole and complete, one with soul and meaning as well as physical evidence. I have come to this understanding as much on my own as I have from my decision to join the Evangelical United Brethren Church in 1965 and my membership in the United Methodist Church since the merger of the EUB church with the Methodist Church in 1968. My understanding can be expressed by what is called the “Methodist Quadrilateral.
“Seek the truth and the truth shall set you free” – John 8: 32
My acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Savior and God as His Father means that I accept all that comes with it. I cannot arbitrarily select what I like from each religion that humankind has created and cobble them together in some sort of religious smorgasbord. Rather, I recognize that humankind has been involved in the whole process of identifying who God is and what God has done. The search for God, in all and whatever forms He may have, is a search for the truth; it is a search that will continue until and beyond death. It is a search made through thought and with an understanding that God created us to question the world and to work towards the fulfillment of His plans on this planet.
In essence, this is a search for one’s own identity and I don’t believe that you can find that identity without finding and knowing Christ. For the decision to accept Christ is as much a decision about one’s own identity. A person who seeks their identity outside Christ can never truly discover who they are. (Adapted from Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
I cannot make you accept my version; I can only offer you some thoughts and ideas and let you make your own decision. So what evidence can I offer that will help you to see that there is a God and that He did in fact send His Son to be our Savior?
“When I was a child, I talked liked a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.” (1 Corinthians 13: 11 – Today’s New International Version)
No matter how old you think the world may be, we are still children of this planet and it is only reasonable that we should ask “why?” But Our Father does not answer “because!” Rather He has elected to give us the wherewithal and ability to seek out the answers to our questions.
For a long time we thought the earth was flat but there were signs that it was curved. Eventually, we determined the size of the earth and began exploring it. For a long time, we thought the earth was the center of the solar system and that the sun, the moon, and the planets orbited the earth. But then other discoveries and other evidence began to suggest another explanation.
Each question brought forth more questions and we gained more and more knowledge about the world around us. Now we are on the verge of perhaps the greatest cosmological discovery of all time, the recreation of the Big Bang, and with it we will have reduced an exceedingly complex but simple thing, the atom, to its basic parts.
But nowhere in these discoveries, as we work our way back in time to the moment of creation itself, will we answer the question, “why was the universe and humankind created?” Nowhere in these discoveries do we find examples ofgood and evil. Nowhere in these discoveries do we find an explanation for why other cultures have similar stories about the creation. At some point, we have to go beyond the desire for empirical data and explore the murky area of faith and belief.
A number of years ago I wrote about Stonehenge and other megalithic stone structures found on the northern plains of the western United States and the southern plains of western Canada (see “Knowing God”) and how there was a similarity between those various stone circles. That humankind would look to the sun, the moon, and the stars in order to answer basic questions of life is understandable; to have widely separated cultures develop similar solutions suggests to me a higher being; one that I have chosen to call God.
And this world that God created is a world of good and evil. Are we people in which good and evil are part and parcel of our physical being? Or are good and evil forces in the universe that we somehow interact with?
Rather, good and evil are forces in the universe rather than some part of our bodies. If we are born with good and evil in us and we somehow can identify who is good and who is evil, we have the potential of opening a box that even Pandora would not want to look into. If we are created with good and evil as a physical part of us, then we are faced with decisions that challenge the very notion of human existence. And while I cannot construct a specific philosophical argument, it seems to me such a concept defeats itself. The very presence of good and/or evil in each of us suggests a being outside our realm of thought and existence. And if that is the case, then good and evil exist not as parts of our physical bodies but are part of what has become known as our soul.
Good and evil are forces in the universe, each with a power of their own, each with the power to create and destroy. We cannot measure these forces but we can see their affects, the ability to create and the ability to destroy. Each person is born with the capability to do good and to do evil; it all depends on what happens in their lifetimes.
As one example, when humankind developed nuclear weapons, we saw both the awesome destructive power within the atom and the awesome creative power within the atom. Sadly, we have seemingly chosen the destructive power and forsaken the creative power, just as we have done so with so many other discoveries.
It is clear that this mysterious force that we have come to call “evil” takes on many forms. Perhaps the early church with its seven deadly sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride) had it right. But then again, perhaps so did Mohandas Gandhi with his listing of the seven modern deadly sins: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principle.
Our challenge as a Christian in this world is to work against evil, to offer a vision of change and then work to make the vision reality. It cannot be done by describing Christ as a man who offered good ideas and lead a good life, or one who was a political and social rebel who threatened to overturn the status quo but rather an individual who through His Divine Power offered a change in the world, a change that could only be accomplished through the efforts of His followers. It cannot be met by forcing others to believe as we do.
We cannot do as some have done and twist the words spoken two thousand years ago and actions that changed the world for their own personal purposes.
Rather, the challenge is to show that words spoken some two thousand years ago still have meaning in today’s world. The challenge is to show, through our thoughts, words, and deeds, that the words spoken and actions taken some two thousand years ago still offer hope today. The words spoken two thousand years ago spoke of a new life and a new vision; they are still true today and those who truly believe in Christ are empowered to bring those words and vision to the world, to offer the world a new vision for tomorrow.
Evangelical Technology
This has been around but seeing how the lectionary readings for the next weeks are coming from Job, I thought it was appropriate.
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Jesus and Satan have an argument as to who is the better programmer. This goes on for a few hours until they agree to hold a contest with God as the judge.
They set themselves before their computers and begin. They type furiously for several lines of code streaming up the screen. Seconds before the end of the competition, a bolt of lightning strikes, taking out the electricity.
Moments later, the power is restored, and God announces that the contest is over. He asks Satan to show what he had come up with. Satan is visibly upset, and cries, "I have nothing! I lost it all when the power went out."
"Very well, then." said God, "Let us see it Jesus fared any better."
Jesus entered a command, and the screen came to life in vivid display, the voices of an angelic choir poured forth from the speakers.
Satan was astonished and stuttered, "But how? I lost everything, yet Jesus’ program is intact! How did he do it?"
God chuckled and replied, "Jesus saves."
Thoughts From The Heart On The Left 
