Kokomo in the Rockies

The Beach Boys sang about Kokomo.  John Denver lauded the Rocky Mountains.  Johnny Cash heralded the South and James Taylor sang of going to Carolina.

What do all these songs (and more along similar veins) have in common?  I realize some Luddites can only answer that question with a snarky rejoinder about the quality of the song, but let’s just ignore them.

What all these songs have in common is that they are about places that don’t exist.

“Now, wait a minute!” even those of you who liked all or some of those songs are objecting, “Kokomo, the Rocky Mountains and Carolina are all real places!”  Some of you are especially incensed and objecting declaratively, “The South is a real place even if somewhat ambiguously defined!”

Yes, I will agree that there are places on the map, globe, atlas or world wide web that have these names, but I contend that the places in the songs do not exist.

There is a place in the Florida Keys called “Kokomo” and it’s probably a fantastic place to vacation, but not everyone there is obtaining a “tropical contact high” just from being there.  There are, I would venture to guess, bodies in the sand (living, I hope), but I doubt that even they know what the hex a tropical contact high is!

The South is a wonderful place, but it has some problems. Flooding, for one (“How high is the water, Mama?” notwithstanding).  The Rocky Mountains are a beautiful place, but sometimes they are on fire and other times—lately, anyway—they smell like marijuana.

See, the thing is, maybe James Taylor said it best when he said he was “gone to Caroline in his mind”.  The place he wanted to go was/is better when imagined than when experienced.

We all know this.  We’ve watched the shows on TV about the “perfect vacation”—and we’ve had some good ones ourselves—but we also know the “joy” of being awakened at 3 in the morning from a fitful sleep on a hard hotel bed because some joker pulled the fire alarm.  We’ve gone skiing only to find the “packed powder” was more like “pounded ice” and the “lightly clouded sea” was masking a hurricane.

The Beach Boys were right: “everybody knows a little place like Kokomo”.  Not the real Kokomo (which is probably lovely, I’m not trying to denigrate any living, breathing Kokomites), but the one of the song.  You may have no interest in either a sunlit beach or a tropical contact high (in fact, if you’re like me, you’re starting to worry about the very phrase), you’ve been to Carolina once and weren’t all that impressed, and the South gives you the hives.  You’re not real keen on the Rocky Mountains, either.

But you do have a Kokomo of your own.  That one, special, place you daydream about retiring to even though you know it doesn’t really exist.  There’s a place sort of like your dream, but you know—way back in the recesses of your brain—that, even there, toilets occasionally clog up and things have to be dusted.

That’s OK.  Sometimes, it’s enough to take a moment out of the stress or boredom of today and think for a few minutes about Kokomo … or Kalamazoo or Aspen or Middle Earth.  It’s only a problem if you don’t come back.

[Note: the above was written for our local on-line "newspaper".  Below, let me add a couple things.]

None of the above-mentioned songs are "Christian" songs.  But I think they all address—however indirectly—what I believe is a Christian truth.  I think we were all designed with a built-in desire for the presence of God.  Not heaven--that's just gravy.  The real desire is for the completeness and fullness of God's presence.

We won't find that here, in this life, but we get little glimpses of it.  Moments that seem perfect.  And, sometimes, it's a place that—for just a little while—seemed perfect.  So we desire to recapture that moment, or get back to that place.  It can become a problem (if our family is going hungry because we’re spending all our money going skiing or we can’t focus on tasks at hand because we’re daydreaming of somewhere we’re not).

We were designed, as I understand Hebrews 11, to not be satisfied with here.  We can learn to be content, but I think we were designed to know that—even if we have the best house in town or a boat on the best lake—we were made for something even better.  We are aliens and strangers here.

Let’s go to Kokomo.

Is He Truly Evangelical?

Someone sent me an article last week about “6 Questions Evangelicals Are Going to Have to Answer” (or some such title).  They followed it up with another one, under a title like “50 Products Evangelicals Are Going to Have to Stop Buying.”

Note: that second article was rather sarcastic, poking fun at people who have boycotted one company because of their stance on some moral issue but continuing to patronize other companies with the same stance.

The articles were almost interesting enough to read all the way through, but they both assumed, as might be said on a lawyerly TV show, facts not in evidence.  Mainly, that I do not now and never have claimed to be an evangelical.  In fact, in 20+ years of ministry, I have only had one conversation about being evangelical.  It went something like this:

Church member: Well it just seems that if we’re going to call ourselves an evangelical church—

Me:  What?  When did we do that?

It was reminiscent of another time when a man who had been visiting the church for quite a while (along with his family, his son even playing on the “worship team”) asked me to come over to his house to talk about some thing.  I did and he began to bring up a point of doctrine he had heard me express in a sermon recently that he didn’t agree with.  He gave his view, I stated mine, then he said—with something like consternation—“But I’ve been in Baptist churches all my life and even went to a Baptist college and this is how it’s always done!”

I calmly told him, “But this isn’t a Baptist church and I’m not a Baptist.”  He had no idea what I meant.  In his mind, there was only one denomination in America: Baptists; and everyone believed the same.  Surprisingly, he continued to come to church with us but I’m not sure we ever convinced him we weren’t a Baptist church.

So, anyway, I read the articles with varying degrees of interest about which prominent preachers have or have not left “evangelicalism”.  Some of them I find interesting because the salient points are interesting: is this guy preaching universalism? Has this guy denied the virgin birth?  Is this guy saying that some sins aren’t sins anymore?  How come that one guy swears during interviews?  Isn’t he smart enough to think of better words?

In my own mind, I might ask the question, “Is what this guy (or gal) is teaching sound doctrine?”  If the answer seems to me—from my understanding of Scripture—to be “no” … I don’t know that I doubt their salvation but I do start taking anything else they have said or written with a grain of salt.  Are they still “good evangelicals”, though?  I don’t care.

“Evangelical” is not a Scriptural term.  And while it might have had some value and meaning at one time, in reality it’s just another buzz word that may well have outlived its shelf life because it no longer has an agreed-upon meaning.  Like “missional” or “seeker friendly” or “GWRBI”.

If someone asks me if I think Pastor __________ (fill in the blank of the favorite pastor flavor du jour) has left the evangelical reservation, I’ll ask what specific doctrinal point has them troubled and go from there.  If they call me “evangelical” (I don’t know why they would start now as I don’t think anyone ever has), I won’t be offended.  At most, I might ask them what they mean by it.  If they say I have left evangelicalism, I’ll do my best Jerry Seinfeld imitation and ask (at the top of my lungs), “How can I be outed?  I was never in!”

What do I call myself, if not evangelical, missional, or daoist (or whatever, I don’t mean to insult any daoists out there)?  It may be a cliché, but I like the old saying: “We are not the only Christians, but we are Christians only.”

Church for Liars

Kenny has always loved church, attending with his grandmother as a child and even going on his own during his teenage years.  During college, his church attendance was sporadic, but now that he’s out on his own he’s trying to find a church to really become a part of.

The churches he’s tried so far, though, just won’t accept him.  Really.  It’s all on them.  He doesn’t care about worship style or length of service or any of that.  Couldn’t care less whether the demographic of the congregation skews old, young, rich, poor, black, white or plaid.  He’ll dress up if that’s what’s called for or wear jeans and a T if that’s the style.  He just wants a congregation who will accept him for who he is.

But they won’t.  As soon as they find out that Kenny is a liar, they immediately start to trying to change him.  They quote Old Testament Scriptures at him like “Thou shalt not bear false witness” even though they claim to be a New Testament church.  They quote NT verses to him about truthfulness and honesty, sometimes quite harshly.  Some of them are really mean about it.

Kenny has read many scholars, after all, who say that the New Testament has been mistranslated for almost two thousand years and verses like Ephesians 4:25 don’t actually mean that a person should never lie but that they shouldn’t be vicious in their lies.  And, as is obvious to anyone of a modern, enlightened, mind, John 7:18 is saying that Jesus never lies, not that any of us never do.  Of course, we all lie now and then, so it would be hypocritical to get on to someone who lies more frequently.

Kenny has also found scholars to tell him that John 8:44 was mistranslated in saying that Satan is the father of liars and of lies, though he can’t remember what those phrases actually mean in Greek.  And so what if Titus 1:2 says God never lies, it’s not like God is built in such a way to lie.  He doesn’t have the same urges or needs as we do.

So it has really galled Kenny when he’s attended church and been a part of ministry teams and taught Sunday school—and even played on the softball team side-by-side with the minister, for gosh sakes!—and then, as soon as he’s honest with them and tells them he’s a liar, they want to change him.  Some of them shout and call him names, which certainly didn’t make him want to worship with people like that!  But the worst ones are those that try to pretend they “love him in the Lord” and just want to help him overcome his sin.  Bunch of hypocrites.

The thing is, Kenny was born a liar.  When it comes to telling the truth or telling a lie, Kenny has no more control over his actions than a male dog has around a female dog in heat.  He just has to lie.  He was created that way and he is absolutely certain God wouldn’t create someone one way then tell them to be something else.  Being a liar is who he is and no one has any right at all to change him.

No, the ones who are even worse than that are the ones who have tried to reach out to him from a sense of their own brokenness.  That one church, he remembers with a wry chuckle, seemed like everyone in it was always telling him about the sins they were battling.  Lust, idolatry, covetousness, anger, you name it.  And then they’d try to tell Kenny that they would like to come alongside him in his journey and pray for the Holy Spirit to help him overcome the sin in his life.

Those people were the worst, because it was clear to Kenny that—ever since that day in college when he admitted to himself that he was a liar—such a peace had come over him that his status as a liar had to not be a sin, but a gift from God.  Why couldn’t all these Christians see that?  They claimed to want a revelation from God, but here was someone giving them a clear one and all they were doing was rebelling and clinging to their old-fashioned notions of Scriptural revelation.

Kenny’s thinking about heading into the city because he’s heard there’s a church there made up almost entirely of liars.  The preacher and his wife are self-proclaimed liars and so are all the elders and deacons.  You can walk right in, they say, and no one will think any the less of you if the way you signed in and the name you put on your nametag don’t match.  They’ll even applaud you for your boldness.

“That’s the way churches ought to be,” Kenny thinks to himself as he walks out of one more failure of a local church.  One more place where the people think they’re sinners in need of grace instead of realizing that God is nothing but love and doesn’t really care what you do so long as your heart’s in the right place.  Kenny, who lies to everyone but himself, knows this is true because his heart tells him so.

[P.S.  My apologies to everyone I know named Kenny.]

Judgment Day

I must confess: I don’t get Judgment Day.

Oh, I have read the Scriptures.  I’ve read in Matthew 25 of how all the nations of the earth (presumably past and present) will gather before Jesus’s throne and everyone will be divided into sheep and goats.  Sheep get eternal life in heaven, goats get eternal punishment.

I’ve also read about how the people of the Old Testament, especially the Psalmists, seem to view judgment day differently from the Christian mindset.  Whereas I tend to view Judgment Day as me being the defendant with Jesus as my attorney, the Psalmist’s mindset seems to be one of a plaintiff arguing before God against those who “done him wrong”.  [Note: the phrase “done him wrong” rarely appears in Scripture, I just threw it in here because it’s how I talk/think.]

I understand all that.  It makes me shudder at times, but I understand it.

What I’m confused about—and this is probably all me—is why there will be a Judgment Day at all.  And I realize that I (and others, if I read them right) may have been preaching—especially at funerals—as if there won’t be a Judgment Day.

Think about it: how many times have you been to a funeral and heard the minister (maybe even me) proclaim that the person who has passed away, because Jesus was their Lord and savior, is now happily ensconced in heaven?  I’ve heard that.  I’ve said that.

If it’s true, what happened to the Judgment Day?

Auntie Mae passes away on Wednesday.  We have the funeral on Friday, wherein we proclaim her happily rejoicing with the angels.  Was Judgment Day on Thursday and the rest of us missed it?  Is Auntie Mae rejoicing in Purgatory (not the ski area)?  Is there a purgatory?  (The ski area is called “Durango Mountain” now, which really bugs me.)

I actually have an answer to these questions—which I will get to in another blog—but my question I’m trying to address here is why there needs to be a “Judgment Day” (possibly all-caps) at all.  Couldn’t God just take me from my death bed straight into heaven?  He knows whether I’ve trusted my life to his Son or not.  Why is the (from my perspective) rigmarole of Judgment Day necessary?  To that person who hasn’t trusted in him, who has chosen to be a goat, God knows that, too.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not arguing against Judgment Day.  Scripture says there will be one, so I trust there will be.  And I am confident I won’t be confused there, or afraid of the outcome.  I just don’t get it.

Thankfully, knowing why God does what he does is not a criteria for salvation!

Putting the Fleece Out

In Judges chapter 6, Gideon isn’t entirely sure that what the angel has told him to do (throw down the false gods, upend the country) is what he’s really supposed to do.  So he asks God for a favor.

Gideon puts some fleece out on the threshing floor and says, “If I wake up and the fleece has dew on it but the ground is dry, I’ll know this is your will, God.”  God does just that.  So, the next day, Gideon makes one more deal with God, “Make the ground wet and the fleece dry.”  God does that, too, so Gideon does what God asked.

From that event, many people even today will use the phrase “putting the fleece out”, meaning (usually) that they are taking some time to determine what God wants for them to do in some given situation.  The guy with the middlin’ job tells the headhunter he might be interested in entertaining offers, the woman in the small apartment submits a bargain-basement bid on a house to see if the door to it opens for her.

While some people use the phrase “putting the fleece out” without being aware that it has a Biblical background, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that most people have a vague idea of the Sunday School edition of the story.  I’m also going to go out on another limb here and surmise that most Christians who use the phrase are also accompanying their fleece with prayers.  I know I have done that before, offering prayers along the lines of, “God, please clearly open the door you want me to go through and clearly close the ones I shouldn’t go through.”  I think God has answered that prayer on more than one occasion.

But I have never actually put out fleece.  I could blame it on being allergic to wool, but the reality is probably doubt.  Not a doubt that God could still work in that way, but a doubt that he does.  I mean really, Gideon was being called to turn his whole culture on its head … and not only that, God approached Gideon first.  That’s a little different than me asking God whether I should go for the car with the low price or the one with the low payments.

Still, I was recently at a long-building decision point in my life.  Literally, years and years of praying for something to happen that had not happened (and showed no signs of happening) in my life.  I knew—and know—I cannot control God.  And, to tell the truth, I don’t want to.  That wouldn’t be the “blind leading the blind”, that would be the “blind, deaf and dumb leading the person with all his faculties completely intact”!

Approaching the target of my prayers honestly, I had to admit that there was the possibility that God’s answer to my prayer was “no”.  It obviously hadn’t been “yes” and there was no indication that it might be “wait”.  That left “no”.

So, in the month of March (2014) I determined to put the fleece out.  While I didn’t use actual fleece, I—like Gideon—asked God for a sign.  Not just any sign, but a specific sign.  And I prayed and prayed, even more than I had been for the previous 30+ years, about the matter.  I spelled out not only my desire, but also my vow that, should the answer be “no”, I would accept that answer with thanksgiving.

I am convinced God answered me and that the answer was no.  I am keeping my word and praising God for slamming that door shut.  And you know what?  It’s not “grudging praise”.  I prayed and God answered.  How wonderful is that?  Did I get the answer I wanted?  Before March 31 I would have looked at an answer of “no” and said, “That’s not what I want.”  Now, I am grateful for it and realize it is the answer I wanted because it is God’s answer.  Not only that, but the time previously spent in pursuing my desire can be better applied to pursuing the things of God.

[If you keep watching this blog, maybe I’ll eventually tell those of you who haven’t already figured out what I’m talking about what I was praying about.]

Do All Things Really Work Together for Good?

I had gone to the hospital to pray with a couple I knew whose young child was facing serious medical problems.  As we stood around the bed after praying, the child’s mother said, “I know the Bible says all things work together for good and that’s what I’m holding on to.”

Politely, I asked if I could read the passage to her and the child’s father and they nodded appreciatively.  So I read Romans 8:28 to them, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

That’s really quite different from what she quoted to me.  It is also quite different from what she wanted.  She wanted God to work things out according to her conception of “good” on her conception of “when” with no responsibility for either herself or the child’s father.

Can God do that?  Sure.  Has God worked miracles for people who weren’t following him?  Yes, he has.

I’m not here to argue that.  This blog just concerns things that are on my mind and something I have been thinking about in relation to this event—and others like it before and since—is when people try to “claim” only the portion of God’s promise they want to claim.

Look at the verse (and, better yet, go back and look at the whole passage).  For whom does it say God works everything together for good?  Is it a blanket statement for all mankind?  No.  It is for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

The woman in question was not married to the baby’s father, nor did she have any intention of marrying him.  She didn’t have—as far I could tell—any sort of formal relationship with God.  I had known them for quite a while, had been in their home, and had learned that they owned a Bible but didn’t know where it was, “prayed, but not regularly” and yet here they wanted to claim a promise of God’s that seemed convenient to them.

Remember cereal box top offers?  “Send in 8 box tops and get the Captain Midnight decoder ring!”  What did they send you if you sent in 7 box tops and a good intention?  (Hint: not the ring!)

I’m not saying God works like the promotions department of a breakfast cereal corporation, but I am wondering why we expect the cereal company to live up to their stated bargain but expect less from God.

“Well, God knows my heart!”  Yes, he does.  He knows you invoke his name but don’t pursue him.  He knows you have his word in your possession but take no effort to read it.  He knows you claim love and fidelity but aren’t committed enough to the idea to call up the Justice of the Peace.  If God were the cereal company, don’t you think he’d be saying, “Um, you only have four of the eight box tops and two of them are from the wrong cereal”?

On the other hand, I firmly believe the promise is still valid.  If we love him and accept his calling on our lives, he really will work all things together for our good.

(Does this mean I'll never get sick again, no more flat tires, no leaky roofs?  No.  We live in a broken world.  But we don't have to stay in a broken world.  We have the promise held out of an eternal, good world.)

To Judge or Not to Judge, that is the Question

Ever had this happen to you?  You see a brother who appears to be engaged in some sort of sinful activity.  You approach them with concern, only to be told, “Judge not, lest ye be judged!”

Never mind the fact that this person would never use the words “lest” or “ye” in any other context, and that they only partially quoted a Scripture and couldn’t narrow down it’s location to anything more than “somewhere in the Bible”, it shut you up, didn’t it?  Because you know, whether the person quoting knew it or not, that Jesus really did say that.

Look at the actual passage.  I’m sure you know where it is, but just in case, it’s at Matthew 7:1-2, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

That seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?  Unless … we read these verses from Paul: 1 Corinthians 6:1-3, “When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?  Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?  Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!”

Wait a minute, did Paul just contradict Jesus?  Are we supposed to judge or not?  Or, maybe it’s OK to judge angels but not people?

Before we answer that question, let’s look back at what Jesus said next back there in Matthew 7:3-5, “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Now, if I see a speck of sawdust in my brother’s eye, I’m just supposed to ignore it, right?  No, that’s not what it says, is it?  What I’m supposed to do is take the plank out of my own eye, and then I’m supposed to remove the speck in my brother’s eye.  (i.e., my problem is bigger than his!)

Go back to my first paragraph.  This brother (or sister) I have seen engaged in sin, how did I approach them?  With a purity of heart or self-righteousness?  Years ago, Joe Martin drew a cartoon depicting the “lowest level of authority”.  A guy in a jail cell is looking out a window and shouting at someone (we can’t see), “Hey, you!  Get away from there!”  Is my approach to my brother the same?  Is he going to look at me and see the log in my eye (or the jail of my sins surrounding me) and think, “Who’s this guy to tell me anything?”

Or, will he—or she—see someone who, as Paul admonishes elsewhere, speaks the truth in love?

See, what our world wants to object to—and we Christians have let them set the standard here—is to eliminate both judging and judgment.  What’s the difference?  It’s a poor illustration, but maybe I know from previous conversations that you are a recovering alcoholic and I see you going into the liquor store.  Judgment, informed by a heart that is given over to God, sees that and reaches out in love to give you a hand.  To give you a friendly and helpful reminder to stay on the wagon.

Judging, on the other hand (and this is what’s condemned), sees you entering that liquor store and pronounces, “Well, that guy’s lost!  He’s off the wagon and drinking again.  No point in wasting any more time on him!”  The self-righteous log in my own eye has made this pronouncement because I am seeing myself as God’s judge, jury and executioner.

Judgment, which is encouraged, combined with love, means I approach you.  Maybe I find out you’re not off the wagon, you’re just needing a lot of boxes to help a friend move and everyone knows the best place for boxes is a liquor store.  Or, maybe you were just about to jump off the wagon.  If I have approached in love, as a brother, you might be a little embarrassed or even chagrined, but you’re eventually thankful.

And see, within this, is another element that is often left out of this equation: brother.  (Or sister.)  Both Jesus and Paul are talking about our relationships with people who are in the kingdom of God with us.  You know, elsewhere, Paul says the first piece of godly armor we are to put on is the “belt of truth”.  I am convinced this is not just the belt of “telling the truth” but of also “hearing the truth”.  I don’t like having my faults and sins pointed out to me, but then again, I know it needs to be done.  Sometimes, I don’t take the correction too well at first, but if I’m letting the Holy Spirit work on me, I come to see its value.

The world (or Satan, who’s leading this charge) doesn’t want us to think this way.  If I see a brother or sister in Christ doing something questionable, I’m just supposed to shut up and not say anything because “who am I to judge?”  Where does that attitude get us, though?  “Little” sins that grow into big problems because they were never addressed.  I’m not saying we take after the Enemy and prowl around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour, but in our dealings with our brothers and sisters in Christ, let’s hold each other up to a loving, Godly standard.  Use the judgment he has given us.  And when the logs are out of our own eyes, he says we’ll be able to see the speck in our brother’s eye better.