Sheep and Goats

“When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.” 
(Matthew 25:31-33 NCV)

Am I a Sheep or a Goat? 

In recognizing the duality of human nature, these verses lead us into a dramatic pause where we really have no choice but to ask the question above, which am I?  As the seconds tick by, our minds may also have time to wonder which is more desirable, the Sheep or the Goat?  Then as the third second ticks on we will find ourselves wondering about Left and Right – where would I rather end up?  Are the destinations significantly different or is it simply like having an even or odd street address? 

Odd or even?  Left or right?  Sheep or Goat?  Ohhh, my aching head.  There are way too many options here.  Where will I end up? Will it be a place of comfort or discomfort?  Is there anything I can do to stack the deck?  Am I good enough to be chosen rightly?

As it turns out, Jesus plans to tell us which is which.  Over the next thirteen verses he clearly outlines on what basis the sorting is made; what can be done to affect the outcome; and what the ramifications will be after the sorting.  Here’s a small sampling of how he identifies the Goat people:

“I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.” 

(Matthew 25:42-43 MSG)

Uh-oh. I think I’m feeling a sudden kinship with goats.  Surely he doesn’t mean this in the strictest sense, right?  I mean, I’ve sent money to the Red Cross and have even volunteered in a soup kitchen once.  Isn’t that enough?

“‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed 
to do one of these things to someone 
who was being overlooked or ignored, 
that was me—you failed to do it to me.’

(Matthew 25:45 MSG)

“Whenever?”  Did he really say ‘whenever’?  Ouch.  That can’t be good.  But what about all the other stuff?  What about weekly church attendance and ushering and singing in the choir and tithing and small group attendance and Bible study and...  Am I really being sorted as a goat simply because I didn’t give that homeless guy last week any time, food or money?  Is serving those who are poor, hungry, homeless, and in prison really that important?

““Then those ‘goats’ will be herded to their eternal doom, but the ‘sheep’ to their eternal reward.” (Matt. 25: 46 MSG)

Oh.  I guess it is.

Joy in Mudville

”But in the end, does it really make a difference what anyone does? I’ve had a good look at what God has given us to do—busywork, mostly. True, God made everything beautiful in itself and in its time—but he’s left us in the dark, so we can never know what God is up to, whether he’s coming or going. I’ve decided that there’s nothing better to do than go ahead and have a good time and get the most we can out of life. That’s it—eat, drink, and make the most of your job. It’s God’s gift.”  (Ecclesiastes 3:9-13 MSG)

Eat, Drink, and be Merry!  This certainly doesn’t sound biblical, does it?

And yet, it may be entirely possible that we take life all too seriously at times.  This chapter in Ecclesiastes leading into the quote above is the well-known “for-everything-there-is-a-season” verses.

There is a time for everything,
    and everything on earth has its special season.
² There is a time to be born
    and a time to die.
There is a time to plant
    and a time to pull up plants.
³ There is a time to kill
    and a time to heal.
There is a time to destroy
    and a time to build.
⁴ There is a time to cry
    and a time to laugh.
There is a time to be sad
    and a time to dance.
⁵ There is a time to throw away stones
     and a time to gather them.

There is a time to hug
    and a time not to hug.
⁶ There is a time to look for something
    and a time to stop looking for it.
There is a time to keep things
    and a time to throw things away.
⁷ There is a time to tear apart
    and a time to sew together.
There is a time to be silent
    and a time to speak.
⁸ There is a time to love
    and a time to hate.
There is a time for war
    and a time for peace.

So why are we so darn serious all the time when it comes to our faith?  Why do we feel that when we are having fun, something must be wrong or we become overwhelmed by feelings of guilt?  Perhaps we think we are sinning in some way when we experience unbridled joy.  Should our feelings of happiness and joy be considered sinful?  Are feelings of seriousness, worry, and fear to be considered more appropriate forms of “religious” or “worshipful” attitudes?

Yes, in some churches, worship services can become a little raucous at times and in our small groups, there are usually times of laughter as we tease one another in loving ways.  But when we “get-down” to important worshiping, studying, praying, or sharing, our brows knit and our attitude becomes quiet, if not somber. 

As we face the beginning of the New Year and, once again, develop a list of things we want to do or achieve to make our lives better, we have to remember that in God’s created meristic world, there is balance.  When there is no laughter in Mudville, there is no God.  When we remain serious at all times and never find time to dance, we grow out of balance and the lives we are called to live along with the ministries we are called to lead become less than half of what God inspired.

“Be full of joy in the Lord always. I will say again, be full of joy.”

(Philippians 4:4-7 NCV)

May you be filled with the joy and peace of Christ this New Year.

Merciful and Faithful

“¹⁷ Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. ¹⁸ Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested.” (Hebrews 2:17-18)

Within these verses in Hebrews lies a bounty of truth as it pertains to the wholeness of the Gospel.

Christ was made like us in every humanly way; “Brother and sister”.  In order to gain the whole experience of mankind and to know us completely, Jesus became fully human - male and female - and yet, he remained fully God as our “High Priest before God.”  This is an empathetic approach to understanding our struggles, worries, fears, and concerns.  It is a method of walking in our shoes, experiencing our lives, and, yet, being objective enough to understand what we need in order to provide help and direction.

In counseling circles, the difference between empathy and sympathy is illustrated by the analogy of finding a person stuck in the bottom of a well.  A sympathetic approach to the problem is to jump into the pit with the stranded person. You experience their entire problem first hand but are unable to provide any clear help as you have become immersed into the same dilemma.  An empathetic approach is to recognize the pain and struggle from outside the well and then provide clear advice as to how to resolve the issue by providing a rope or hand to assist in climbing out.

Jesus became human and retained his godliness to fully understand the situations we face in life and to provide us the help we need to live lives beyond the suffering and testing we encounter.

In his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus accepted the yolk of our sin; eliminating the gulf of separation created by it and creating a connection and access to God based on “Mercy and Faithfulness”.  God is merciful and faithful in his love for us and Christ is the bridge to that love.  This is the wonderful news of Salvation. 

The second half of the Gospel Message is the help Christ provides us every day. It is His help that lifts us from our fears, worries, suffering, and doubt.  It is His help that sanctifies or purifies us into becoming the disciples, teachers, and pastors God created us to be.  His life and death not only brought us the saving grace of total access to God, but it also brought his helping Spirit to be with us in our daily walk.  Without his help we would simply continue wallowing in our sin and struggling through the "suffering and testing” life brings.

Becoming

“¹² But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”

(John1:12-13 NRSV)

Do you know the Gospel Message?

As Christians, spreading the “Good News” (the Gospel) is our main, God-given purpose.  It is the Great Commission – “¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”  (Matthew 28:16-20 ESV)  We are called by Christ to go and tell the world about the salvation He has made available for all those who believe. 

Salvation is the “Receiving” component of our “Believing.”  It truly is Good News. It has become the linchpin of modern evangelical teaching. “Are you saved?” is the formulaic question to be asked in all conversations of faith.  It has become the only focus of Christian teaching in our modern churches (that and political agendas but we’ll skirt that topic for now.)  Nothing else is deemed as important. The saving of souls has become the only priority in our churches today.

Salvation as viewed through the Book of Revelation not only is a promise of eternal life, walking streets of gold hand-in-hand with God for eternity, but also becomes the proof that we are right in our belief.  When Christ returns it will prove to the world that our self-righteousness and strongly opinionated views were justifiable.  We win!  We are the champions of the world!

However, there is another component to the Great Commission and to most the teachings of Christ, from the Sermon on the Mount, to the 27 parables, as well as the main focus for the Epistles – Becoming.

In John 1:12-13, John writes that all who have received the gift of salvation through their belief in Christ will “become children of God.” The balancing nature of God where he meristically combines contrasting parts to express the totality of his love as seen in phrases such as “created heaven and earth” and “Adam and Eve” is evident in the Gospel Message as well: Salvation and Sanctification.

As Christians we are called to “Become” children of God. Our lives are meant to change.  It is the entire Gospel message.

⁴⁵ Then Jesus opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. ⁴⁶ He said to them, “It is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day⁴⁷ and that a change of hearts and lives and forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all nations, starting at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:45-47 NCV)

The evidence is strong both in biblical writings such as Galatians 5:22 , 2 Peter 1:5-9 , and the entire book of Romans, that a change of heart or transformation must take place in addition to our belief and gift of salvation.  Sanctification, becoming a holy child of God, must also be a priority in our churches – and it is not.

“As a priest for forty years, I find that much of the spiritual and pastoral work of churches is often ineffective at the levels of real transformation, and calls forth immense passivity and even many passive-aggressive responses. As a preacher, I find that I am forced to dumb down the material in order to interest a Sunday crowd that does not expect or even want any real challenges; nor does it exhibit much spiritual or intellectual curiosity.”  (Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr, p. 14)

Perhaps you disagree.  Perhaps you are one whose life has been transformed and you feel your church is effectively leading you on a path of spiritual transformation.  If so, I applaud you and your church. However, the decline of the Christian church over the past 20-30 years speaks a different truth. But instead of disagreeing, I simply ask that you consider these questions:

Do you see a preponderance of evidence that the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5 is being exhibited in your church? 

Are you being systematically transformed as illustrated in 2 Peter 1?

Please read, once again, Acts 2 where Luke describes the life of the early church.

 

⁴³ The apostles were doing many miracles and signs, and everyone felt great respect for God. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and shared everything. ⁴⁵ They would sell their land and the things they owned and then divide the money and give it to anyone who needed it.⁴⁶ The believers met together in the Temple every day. They ate together in their homes, happy to share their food with joyful hearts. ⁴⁷ They praised God and were liked by all the people. Every day the Lord added those who were being saved to the group of believers.” (Acts 2:43-47 NSV)

Do you find evidence of an Acts 2 church in your community?  Do you find anywhere in our world today where Christians are “liked by all people?”  

A Football Life

As the 2013 football season comes to a close, there are some of us who are quite pleased with the results.  Bronco fans, like me, are bubbling with excitement at the prospect and real possibility of having a Super Bowl Champion team.  There are others who are not as giddy as their teams, having wallowed in mediocrity, have failed to make the playoffs.  In the end, there will be only one champion team leaving the fan-bases for 31 other teams feeling disappointed and even, despondent.

Now you may ask, “Who cares?”  “What does this have anything to do with Biblical teaching?”

Unfortunately, it seems that our current religious attitudes and practices are more akin to cheering for a football team than living the Christian lifestyle Jesus taught.  The prevalence of thought seems focused more on being proven right in our beliefs and forcing those beliefs on the multitude of “others” who happen to hold a different belief.  It is as though we are cheering for our team to win and if you aren’t on our team then you need to lose – at all cost.

As I mentioned in my opening blog, the meristic approach to studying this phenomena is to recognize that to be in balance with God’s plan and teaching we need to look towards extreme behaviors and see what balancing accord is missing to cause such extremism.  In our Christian churches, it seems more time is being spent defending each of our own belief systems then actually doing the kingdom work Christ called us to do.

We not only have an attitude that it is Us versus the World when trying to defend our Christianity, but we also have multitudes of differing “teams” within Christianity that do additional damage in splitting us apart.  Yes, we have denominations and non-denominations that create walls and barriers of thought, purpose and deed.  Any attempt to draw two neighboring churches to work together on a project is met with extreme separatist attitudes.  We even have multiple factions within a single church that have difficulty working together.

The single-most cause of these divisions is self-righteousness.  “I believe what I believe and I will defend that belief with fervor.”  Is there any more rationale to this behavior than in the selection process for choosing our favorite football team?  Is there any hope in overcoming these differences or are we all simply waiting for the Super Bowl of the Apocalypse to finally determine who is on the right team.  If this should occur, do you think you’ll be on the right team, riding in floats waving to the crowd with confetti filling the air?  What is the purpose of the Bible and our faith – to be proven right in the end?

When the Gospel message is boiled down into one verse, “God so loved the world…  (John 3:16) and salvation is the only message being preached, then sitting around for the end of the world to see who is right is really all that is left to do.

However, the rest of the Gospel message that provides the balance God created is a bit more complex and requires a completely, non-competitive, win-at-all-cost approach.  It requires the setting of the self aside and serving others.  It calls for loving your enemy and reaching out to those different than you.  Can you imagine a flood of Chicago Bears fans walking across the field and hugging the Green Bay Packer fans, holding their flags for them and wearing their cheese-hats?

God’s message from the beginning of time is a message of love and inclusion.  Yes, salvation is a huge part because he does not want to be separated from those he loves, however, building the kingdom of heaven with the changed lives we receive and by the acceptance of all peoples, no matter if they are Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, or non-denominational.  In fact, we are called to accept the outcast, the poor, and the downtrodden.  We are called to love and embrace everyone, including Muslims, Buddhists, terrorists, homosexuals, and even bald guys like me.

If you want to be on the winning side and participate in the postgame festivities, then Christ calls you to humbly follow him in the business of building the kingdom of heaven here on earth.

A Christian Story

A Christian Story  

"A man was being tailgated by a stressed out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection, dropping her cell phone and makeup. 

As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, finger printed, photographed, and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects. 

He said, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper sticker, the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'Follow Me to Sunday-School' bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk, Naturally... I assumed you had stolen the car." 

Have you ever had days like this lady where you get carried away in the busyness of life and forget who and WHOSE you are?  I do.  On one notable day in my life I was on the way to, yet, another church meeting where we were probably planning for a worship service, I found myself getting angry at the driver in front of me for the wrong he committed against me. I became so self-indulgent that I started screaming and erratically racing through traffic to show the world how much I had been wronged by this “idiot”.  As I sped rapidly towards a nearby highway entrance, focused entirely on leaving this guy in the dust, I saw my cross on the rear-view mirror swinging wildly…

Don’t you wish that you could always be Christ-like in your behavior?  Isn’t that what the world wants from us? Demands of us?  What do you suppose is the number one criticism of Christians…?  HYPOCRACY!

In studying what it means to be an Act 2 church I decided to read, once again, those very descriptive verses in Acts 2 – (READ Acts 2:44-47)  I can assure you that church groups for centuries have studied these verses and, I believe, have diligently attempted to follow them. Being an Acts 2 community is a lofty goal.  But I wonder if it is an achievable goal?

As I read these verses I cannot help to focus on verse 47 where it states: "They praised God and were liked by all the people." They were liked! Is “being liked” a key ingredient to being an Act 2 church?  Is it the missing ingredient?

Would you say, in general, that Christian churches are liked by others?  When non-Christians are asked what they think about Christians, is being liked a common characteristic listed?  Hypocritical, Judgmental, Intolerant, Superficial?

In addition, do we not say that a relationship with Christ transforms lives? (Read Luke 24:45-47): "and that a change of hearts and lives and forgiveness of sins would be preached.” What do transformed lives look like?  Isn’t “the Hypocrisy” really about the very basic premise that we are seen as being no different than anyone else?

•  If we are changed by our relationship in Christ then why are our divorce rates as high or higher than the rest of the population?
• Why do we still suffer Addiction, Abuse, Murder, Crime, and Suicide at the same pace as the rest of the world?
• Why do we continue to be self-righteous and judgmental?
• Why is generosity lacking and our loving empty?

Finally, I wonder what it is, exactly, that Christ is calling us to do as a church?  We can explore this in the New Testament and find dozens (43) key principles of what the "Church" is supposed to reflect to the world. One sticks out in my mind which is the responsibility to "Equip God’s people to do his work." (Eph 4:12)

Most Christians are capable of quoting the Great Commission.  I'm guessing the 8 out of 10, when asked what is our God-given purpose, they would answer:  “Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matt 28:18-20

Are we teaching the right message?  Are we changing the world?  Or, are we simply alienating the world from God through our self-righteousness and judgmental approach?

It seems to the world that Christians have forgotten the true Gospel message - To love God and to love others.