Preaching on Sex: The Cutting Room Floor (Part 1)

I’ve been preaching a marriage series at church these last three Sundays.  I’ve got one more Sunday to go.  This past Sunday I preached on the sexual relationship.  Because I don’t preach on sex very often, my sermon was longer than usual: I just sort of backed up the truck and dumped a lot of content on my poor congregation.  But even then, there were things I would have liked to have said but just couldn’t find the space or the place.  Because of the high interest in the subject matter, however, I want to share in a couple of blog posts some of the stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor of my sermon preparation.  I find it both interesting and compelling, and I hope it makes you think.  We Christians need to think better about human sexuality than does the prevailing culture.  And, of course, it wouldn't hurt for us to live better in this area too.

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In reminding us that sex is not just a body thing but a soul thing, G. K. Chesterton once said that “every man who visits a prostitute is looking for God.”

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This is from Will Willimon’s book, Why Jesus? (Nashville: Abingdon, 2010), 71:

One subject that is very, very important to most of us is sexuality—a topic of endless debate at national church assemblies and the engine that seems to drive most advertising.  Curiously, we are clueless about the sexuality of Jesus.  Although he seems to have relished the company of men and women, Jesus seems to have held little interest in sex.  Not that Jesus was prudish (John says he intervened in the execution of a woman caught in adultery, condemning her pious accusers more severely than her).  Jesus simply had little concern for the subject that seems to consume many of us.  To the thoroughly liberated, sexually unconstrained modern person for whom sexual orientation is the defining mark of humanity, Jesus’ nonchalance about sex may be his strangest quality.  We simply cannot imagine any fully human being who is not driven by genitalia.  Our preoccupation with sex is surely a testimony to the limitations of modern imagination rather than to Jesus’ undeveloped libido.  Presuming to stand at the summit of human development yet descending to “doing it” like dogs, rutting like rabbits (which is probably a bit unfair to dogs and rabbits), we surely would not impress Jesus.  So before you dismiss Jesus for his lack of interest in the endeavor that often most energizes us, consider that Jesus was working with a very different definition of a human being than those who help to sell soap, jeans, and male-enhancement medications.  Jesus appears to have held the opinion that you and I are destined for more meaningful activity than mutual orgasm.

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In his book, Surprised By Hope (p. 43), N. T. Wright shares this:  “Belief in bodily resurrection was one of the two central things that the pagan doctor Galen noted about Christians (the other being their remarkable sexual restraint).”  And in the sex-saturated, anything-goes Roman culture, Christians’ sexual restraint was truly remarkable.  It would be just as remarkable in our culture today.

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And this from Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage (New York: Dutton, 2011), 24:

Indeed, sex is perhaps the most powerful God-created way to help you give your entire self to another human being.  Sex is God’s appointed way for two people to reciprocally say to one another, “I belong completely, permanently, and exclusively to you.”  You must not use sex to say anything else.

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That should be enough to get you thinking right now.  I’ll post a little more next time.  If you want to read the sermon, you can find it here:  

http://storage.cloversites.com/firstbaptistchurchhotspringsarkansas/documents/Marriage%20-%20Sex%20Is%20Gods%20Idea.pdf

An Old Flame Flickers Once Again

“I’m done,” I said back in 1995 when major league baseball players went on yet another strike.  I pretty much always side with the owners in players’ strikes because the players are already overpaid, and the owners take all the risk and pay all the overhead.  “I’m done!”

I was done with a sport I had followed passionately since my earliest childhood, a sport I played on playgrounds, baseball fields, and even my own front yard and street.  I was the kid on the bike with the baseball glove hanging on the handlebars.  I was the kid who came to school sweaty on spring mornings after playing the bunting game with my brothers in our driveway.  I was the kid who was enamored with a boy in my class named David Faucett because he was somehow related to Mickey Mantle.  I was the kid who had the collie that got down in ready position and fielded grounders with her mouth and fearlessly went after short pop-ups too.  I was the kid who played one-on-one whiffle ball in my front yard.  A lawn chair was the strike zone allowing for walks and called strikes.  A grounder was an out.  A base hit was getting the ball to the street in the air.  A double was a line drive over the hedge at the edge of the house across the street.  And a home run was a blast over the power lines that stretched parallel above the hedge in my neighbor's yard across the street.  And if the batter got it over the highest power line it was a grand slam whether anybody was on base or not.  Hours and hours of this through my growing up years.  I was done with a sport I loved to play. 

I was done with a sport I watched from the early days of The Game of the Week on Saturdays to the more liberal coverage in the late 80s and early 90s.  I still remember when my dad got us our first color TV so we could watch the All-Star Game in color in 1972.  I was done with baseball.  I still played softball for a while, but after 1995 I didn’t watch a major league game for years.  The only exception was the great home run chase in 1998 between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.  I did get interested in watching them chase Roger Maris’ record.  But that was it.  I didn’t follow any team.  I didn’t watch the All-Star game or the World Series.  I was done.

And then I made the mistake of going to a game at Orioles Park at Camden Yards two years ago.  My first baseball love was the Baltimore Orioles.  I flirted with Cardinals off and on.  And I considered myself a Royals fan for many years too.  But my first love was the Orioles.  I made no bones about my devotion.  I was a catcher in Little League and my coach, Bill Nevins, called my Etchebarren because that was the name of the Orioles’ catcher.  I first fell for O’s when I saw them sweep the Dodgers in the World Series in 1966.  And then when I found out that Brooks Robinson was from Little Rock, the city I was born in and lived in till I was 8-years-old, well, I was smitten.  I knew their line up from top to bottom.  I loved Frank Robinson and that great pitching staff of Cuellar and McNally and Palmer.  Boog Powell was a stud at first base and Paul Blair made centerfield look easy.  I loved those guys, knew all their stats, checked the box score every day in the paper, and pretended to be them when I was playing in the yard.  I was some fan.  Now and then they were on the Game of the Week and whenever they played the Kansas City (first the A’s, then the Royals), I could listen to them on the radio.  And of course, I enjoyed them in their three straight World Series too.  I didn’t enjoy those stinkin’ Amazin’ Mets beating them in ’69 or the Pirates knocking them off in ’71, but I loved it when Brooks and the boys put it to the Big Red Machine in 1970.  Ah, the memories …

The first flicker of that old flame sparked when I had the privilege to meet Brooks Robinson at a golf tournament in Hot Springs a few years ago.  Meeting a childhood hero was pretty cool, even for a guy like me in his 50s.  And that little spark rekindled more brightly yet when Dayna and I went to that game at Camden Yards in 2010.  Before I knew it, I had the Orioles on my favorite teams list in my I-phone app called ESPN Scorecenter which allows me to follow every game (every pitch even) in real time.  I can also listen to them on XM radio.  I can watch the game highlights on the team’s website.  I can even tell you the names of their players (though at my age I don’t worry about memorizing any stats).  When I fell for the Orioles again, they pretty much stunk.  They haven’t even had a .500 record for years.  But here it is the end of August and they are 12 games over .500 and right in the thick of the wild card race for the playoffs.  I guess they just needed me back on board.

And I guess that’s where I am these days: back on board with the O’s.  I’ve already bought two hats and a shirt, so I guess I’m committed.  Somebody once said something to this effect: “Within the heart of every man lives a little flame that still flickers from a childhood altar he built to his baseball idol.”  That little flame flickers once again.  And you know, I’m kind of glad it does.

Let’s go O’s!    

Pastor, I've Got a Beef With You!

I don’t think I’ve ever used the blog to rant about anything.  I only rant now and then as it is, and only then for a minute or two at a time.  Using the blog to rant just isn’t my style.  So with that caveat, I’m going to rant for a minute a two.  Ministers who read this will readily relate.  And for those of you who are not ministers, this will give you a little insight into some of “the little foxes that destroy the vines” for ministers—those little joy-stealers that over time can wound a minister’s soul.

This blog post was born in Honduras of all places.  I was on mission with a team from our church.  One of the team members told me about a conversation she’d just had with her daughter who serves as an associate minister to university students in another city.  Her daughter is new to local church ministry.  What happened to her was bound to happen.  It happens to every minister sooner or later and sometimes often.  A woman in the church appointed herself to be this young minister’s critic.  She took it upon herself to tell this young minister that she was not dressing appropriately (this was not a modesty issue it was a style-preference issue).  The woman also had some distinct pointers for this young minister as to what she was doing wrong in her ministry and what she should do if she wanted to do it right.  To her credit, the lady did not raise her voice.  She spoke matter-of-factly.  But she spoke in the kind of condescending tone that wounds the spirit.  The young minister braced herself in the moment but dissolved in tears later. 

Like the old bumper sticker says, it happens.  It happens a lot in the ministry, and young ministers are the easiest targets.  Sure, many of the critics are well-meaning, but they don’t realize that the damage they do is usually greater than the potential good.  And it’s not that young ministers aren’t open to criticism.  Most are.  But they need constructive criticism, not what feels like some sneak attack they never saw coming.  Thankfully, my young friend’s wise and loving supervisor helped put her back together and give her some perspective.

While young ministers are the easier targets, seasoned ministers get sniped at plenty too.  It’s just that seasoned ministers have been at it long enough to develop some calluses on their souls.  Plus, this kind of sniping at seasoned ministers often comes “anonymously.”  Listening to the story of this young minister, I was reminded that a Sunday or two before I left for Honduras, I found a note stuck in my study door.  We have two morning worship services.  This was placed there sometime between the services.  And this is what it said:

Well — I always suspected that you didn’t care for me—you just confirmed it today.  I guess it’s always good to know where you stand—just chopped meat!  I do not know what it is about me that offends you or what I’ve done to repel you, so I have attempted to stay out of your way and out of your eyesight as much as possible.  I apologize for anything that irks you about what I’ve done or said.

This one hurt.  As a pastor who intentionally works hard to love everyone in the flock and treat everyone the same, I was taken aback by this.  But even more, this hurt because there is nothing I can do about it.  I have no idea who this is, though I’m guessing by the excellent penmanship that this is a woman.  I’m truly sorry for the hurt this woman feels.  What a joy it would be to know who this is so I could sit down with her and rebuild something I didn’t even know was broken with someone I didn’t even know I was hurting.  This person is hurting because of what she perceives is my disdain for him/her.  It would be a good thing to be able to tell her that her perceptions are false and find out how I could better serve her as a pastor and even explore why she feels so easily slighted.  It would be nice to be able to be her pastor, to tend to the one hurting lamb rather than make some blanket statement to the entire flock in hopes that she gets the message.

This woman’s anonymous criticism is not an attack; it’s more a statement of her own pain.  I’ve certainly taken far worse shots in 37 years of local church ministry.  And I’ve had it easy compared to a lot of ministers I know.  Some are under constant attack from their own flock—sniping here, criticizing there, firing up a little gossip in this corner or that.  Some ministers get it anonymously—the sniper shot from long distance.  Some get Pearl Harbored—the sneak attack they didn’t see coming that catches them off-guard and unprepared.  Others get D-Dayed—a full-blown frontal assault.  I just read an article that says 79% of pastors admit that that their critics are a major distraction in their ministry—79%, that’s almost 8 in 10—see (http://www.lifeway.com/Article/thom-rainer-two-big-distractions-for-pastors?emid=CW-PastorsToday-20120813).  We ministers certainly deserve some of the criticism we get, but I doubt if any of us comes close to deserving it all.  There’s not a Sunday that goes by when some minister somewhere doesn’t resign one church to move to another or even leaves the ministry altogether because of his/her critics.  Over time, it wounds the soul, diminishes a minister’s love for the work, and drives them to other pastures or out of the ministry completely.  Some go quietly.  Some don’t—like this pastor I heard about who on his last Sunday in a church where the critics just wore him out, preached his final sermon, and walked to the back of the church with a sprig of mistletoe pinned on the back of his sports coat just above the waist.  Now that’s a statement!

There!  I feel a little better.  And if you’ve got an issue with your minister and want to help both your minister and you feel better, deal with it in appropriate ways.  Most ministers are open to the concerns of their congregation.  Here are some ways to approach your minister when you’ve got something a little hard to say and a little hard to hear:

Own your criticism.  Anonymous criticism is useless.  When there’s no name and no context, other than maybe making the critic feel better, the criticism will accomplish nothing.  Famous pastor, Henry Ward Beecher, once received an anonymous note inscribed with only one word: “Fool!”  Beecher said, “Usually when I receive anonymous criticism I get a note and no signature.  This is the first time I received a signature and no note.”  Own your criticism.  If you can’t own it, keep it to yourself.

Take your criticism to the minister.  Don’t take it to a staff minister.  Don’t take it to other members of the congregation.  If you’ve got a beef with your minister, take your beef to him/her.

Check your own motives and pray for discernment as to whether this is a criticism that you really need to share.

In discerning the value of your criticism, ask yourself these questions: is it truthful; is it helpful; is this criticism a matter of “iron sharpening iron” or do I just want to get something off my chest and draw a little blood; can I present it with a loving spirit?  Those are good questions.

Make an appointment and share your criticism/concern face to face.  If you don’t feel able to do that, then try a phone call or an email.  But conversation is best because it allows both parties to clear up misunderstandings immediately whether than wondering what one or the other “really” means by what they say.

Seek clarity, pray together, and leave to God whether the minister acts on your criticism or not.

If you approached your minister with a good spirit and the meeting was a disaster leaving you and the minister out of fellowship, ask a deacon to accompany you for a second meeting.  Work to restore fellowship.

So there you go—helpful ways to confront your minister when you’ve got a beef to deal with him/her.  (How ministers can be unfairly critical of their congregations is another blog for another time.)  And I can only imagine how many relationships could be restored, how improved the church’s fellowship could become, how much help a minister could receive, and how much better the ministry of the minister and the church would be if we’d just treat one another like Jesus taught us.  Now there’s a novel idea, huh?

Everybody Needs a Friend

I think it was Jay Leno who said, “A good friend will help you move; a really good friend will help you move a body.”  Everybody needs a friend—something I was reminded of these last couple of weeks.  The first weekend of July Dayna and I made a Texas trip to see some family with a couple of our best friends (who really are more like family).   Then, I spent the last part of this past week meeting up in Arlington, Virginia, with two of my best and oldest friends.

Honestly, I feel a little awkward writing about friendship.  I have never fashioned myself a very good friend.  If I’m needed I’ll be there and am glad to be there and usually even want to be there.  But it seems that most of my friends have to take the initiative in our relationship—they usually make the first call, set up some kind of get-together, make things happen.  I’m a rather passive friend, I guess.  I wish I was better at it.

And I could learn from my friends who are so very good to me.  That’s George Flanagan and Drew Hill in the picture above.  After spending his whole adult life pastoring churches in Missouri, Drew just followed the Lord to a church in Arlington, Virginia.  Drew, George, and I try to get together once a year if possible since we all live in different places.  And we determined that we weren’t going to let Virginia’s distance from Missouri and Arkansas get in our way (especially when I have frequent flyer miles to redeem).  So we met at Drew’s new digs in Arlington.  You know how it is with a friend—when you picture them in your mind, when you pray for them, you want to be able to picture them in their environment.  We can do that with Drew now.

And as always, we picked up right where we left off last year.  I’ve known George since 1981.  We worked together two different times on the same church staff.  I’ve always considered him my pastoral therapist.  He’s counseled with me concerning life and marriage on more occasions than he probably wanted to.  But he’s a friend, so he always listens.  I’ve known Drew since the mid-80s.  He’s a brother pastor.  I know much of his family as well.  We hit it off from the first.  Like me, Drew shares the spiritual gift of sarcasm.  He has a rich sense of humor.  And yet he knows when to be serious too.  We share other gifts and passions.  We can talk shop or sports or family or our own junk or anything else.  The same goes for George.  We laugh a lot (a whole lot) when we’re together.  We laugh with each other and at each other.  We can pick at each other and tease each other and encourage and bless each other too.  We’ve all three been friends together since 1992 when we entered the doctoral program.  We were in the same doctoral peer group.  We did several seminars together.  We sweated our doctoral projects together.  And we graduated together.  We’ve been tight ever since.

Now, I suppose you could say that we all sort of choose our friends in life.  There’s much truth to that.  But don’t you think there’s some divine mystery behind it too.  C. S. Lewis once wrote this about friendship:

In friendship, we think we have chosen our peers.  In reality, a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more hundred miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another … any of these chances might have kept us apart. But for the Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of Ceremonies has been at work.

I’m thankful the secret Master of Ceremonies saw fit to bring George and Drew into my life.  I treasure their friendship.  I learn from them.  I’m a better Christian because of them.  And I can’t wait to get together with them again.  Do you have some friends like this?  I hope so … because everybody needs a friend.

In 1961, near the end of his life, baseball legend Ty Cobb confessed, “If I had a chance to live my life over, I’d do things a little different … I’d have more friends.”  I think I would too—especially if they are friends like George and Drew.   

A Prayer for America

As we approach our nation's 236th birthday, we talked about Christian citizenship in worship on Sunday.  But for some reason, the element of the service that spoke to hearts was my pastoral prayer.  It was a prayer for America.  No matter what one's politics maybe, all followers of Jesus recognize our nation's and our leaders' need for prayer.  Maybe that's why this prayer meant something to some folks on Sunday, I don't know.  Anyway,  I've been asked to post it, so here it is.

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We praise you, our Father, that you are Lord of the universe and Lord of these United States.  You are the God who puts rulers in their places, who ordains the powers that be.  That’s not easy for us to understand sometimes.  We forget that you see the big picture.  We forget that you work in these ways both to bless and to judge.  You sit high above the heavens.  Nothing happens on this earth that you don’t know or that doesn’t pass your counsel.  Teach us to trust you even when we just don’t get it.  Remind us that you are the God who works and wills according to your good pleasure and that you are the God who will one day destroy evil and establish your kingdom forever.

In the meantime, we pray for our own nation as we prepare to celebrate yet another birthday.  We thank you for the good this nation has done in the world.  We thank you for the sacrifice of many who have sought to make it so.  We thank you for the myriad of ways you have blessed this nation throughout our history.  We thank you for our Founders and for every generation since.  And yet it seems that in this relay through time, we have dropped the baton.  We have forgotten our roots and lost our way as a nation.

Rather than acknowledging that you are God and that in God we trust, we have become ashamed to own your name and follow your ways.  In a time when we need you most, we have distanced ourselves from you and become ashamed of the gospel.  Forgive us for our sins.

Rather than continuing to guarantee the pursuit of life, we have made a mother’s womb a dangerous place to be, snuffing out life before a baby gets to see the light of day.  We don’t call the baby “life” anymore; we call the baby “choice.”  Many women who have made that choice are broken today.  Please help these women, and forgive us for our sins.

Rather than honoring marriage as the institution you created as a means to demonstrate your faithfulness to the world, as a way to give children the best environment in which to grow, as a means of building a society on a solid foundation, we have raced to divorce court, we have been adulterers, we have blessed homosexual behavior and called it normal.  Forgive us for our sins.

Rather than disciplining our children we have allowed disrespect and misbehavior and anything goes, and we are reaping what we’ve sown.  Forgive us for our sins.

Rather than seek the greater good and unity of our nation, we have become a nation of hyphenated-Americans, of special interests and self-interests with little regard for the common good or what’s best for us all.  Forgive us for our sins.

Rather than being stewards of our resources to help others, personally and corporately we’ve become greedy and miserly and stingy, thinking only of self to the neglect of others.  Forgive us for our sins.

Rather than discovering the truly needy and providing for them, we have encouraged a sense of entitlement and a lack of personal responsibility on the part of so many of our citizens so that a good system of care for those in genuine need has been corrupted and nearly bankrupted, making harder the help those who need it most.  Forgive us for our sins.

Rather than speaking truth and letting the chips fall where they may, we have become a nation of lies and spin and slander.  Forgive us for our sins.

And rather than being salt and light in this country, your church has become so compromised by the culture that nobody takes us seriously anymore.  Forgive us for our sins.

We pray for our President and leaders on every level of government.  Please make them wise, help them to seek your will, purge them of self-interest, and teach them to look out for the good of the whole rather than the few.  We pray for our soldiers on faraway battlefields, please bring peace quickly and bring them home.  And would you help these poor war-torn countries rebuild and get on with their lives without war?  We pray for relief from the fires and the storms and the natural disasters that have rocked our nation in unprecedented ways for several years now.  Have mercy on us, O God.

In spite of record deficits and downgraded credit ratings, we are still considered the most prosperous nation on the earth.  You have blessed us in so many ways.  And yet we are a most needy nation in other ways.  We are in need of rain, in need of revival, in need of humility, in need of repentance, in need of forgiveness, in need of unity, in need of peace in our wars and peace in our homes, in need of your great mercy.  Father, without you, we’re sunk, we’re hopeless.  Without you, our economic and military power isn’t worth a hill of beans.  Please humble us, forgive our sins, and heal our land.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Why Churches Count People

Back in the day when I went to Baptist conventions, this was the big pastor-to-pastor question, “So, how many do you run in Sunday School?”  You can tell it’s been a long time since I went to a convention because nowadays Baptists put more focus on the worship count than their Sunday School count.  But either way, we’re still counting.

Some are put off by it: “Church is a spiritual enterprise; counting seems so earthly, so superficial, so secular.”  Some are all for it: "Now did you count that family that came in late and that dog that crossed the parking lot?"  Others don’t much care one way or the other.  Pastors have mixed emotions about counting—when the numbers are trending upward we like it; when they’re trending downward we don’t like it.  But whether a church’s numbers are up or down, there’s nothing wrong with counting.  It’s certainly no sin.  If, as Jesus says, God keeps track of even the number of hairs on our heads, counting the people who show up on Sunday doesn't seem so ungodly. 

In fact, counting people serves a purpose.  That purpose was driven home to me in a note I received from our Sunday School Director, Steve Jackson.  Seems not all of our Sunday School classes were getting their records turned in.  So to encourage everyone to get their records in, Steve put together a note for our Sunday School Department Directors and Secretaries.  He gave me permission to share it with you and here it is:

Christ didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to numbers.  Counting was not His mission.  That became our mission.  The number of interest to Christ was all.

When he fed the multitudes with just a few fish and a couple of loaves, the head count was of no particular concern.  It could have 5,000 or 50,000.  The point was that all who were hungry were well fed.  One was the important number; each one.

In Sunday School and Church it may appear that we give an inordinate amount of attention to the number.  Sometimes perhaps we do, but out of an appreciation for the hard work that went into getting them here.  However, we don’t count to keep up with a prideful number.  Counting is not the goal but rather accounting is.  We count to account for each one.

We don’t count so much to see who’s here; but to see who’s not here.  To us their absence may be as important as their presence.  When a family member misses a regular family dinner or get-together, we don’t dismiss it with an “Oh well” attitude.  We find out if there is a problem.  We do that with church and Sunday School too.  Counting, no big deal; knowing who they are and where they are … Priceless.  Record keeping is a very important job for the overall effectiveness of our Church.

You have done well accounting for each one.  It’s important you know it doesn’t go unnoticed.  Thanks.

I wish I had said that.  I’m very glad Steve said it and said it so well.  Counting serves a purpose in any organization, including church.  And as long as a church keeps its focus on who the numbers represent rather than upon the numbers themselves, much good can come of it.

Reading Steve’s piece, I was reminded of a story Fred Craddock tells about his father.  He was a man who started in church but who didn’t finish there.  Craddock’s dad was an alcoholic and I guess he wasn’t sure he’d fit in.  The people in the church reached out to him, pastors came by to see him pretty often, but all he’d say is “I know what the church wants: another name, another pledge; another name, another pledge.”  The man never went back to church.

Craddock writes of going to see his now 73-pound father in the hospital as he lay dying of throat cancer.  Craddock found the room full of flowers, and next to his father’s bed was a 20-inch stack of cards and notes.  And every card and every blossom came from people in Craddock’s home church in Humboldt, Tennessee—the church his father scorned.  As Craddock stood by his father’s bedside, he motioned for him to lean down.  And his father, a lover of Shakespeare, whispered into Fred’s ear a line from Hamlet: “In this harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story.”

“And what is your story, daddy?”

“I was wrong.”

Craddock’s father didn’t realize it until his deathbed, but the church was concerned about a lot more than “another name, another pledge.”  The church loved him, prayed for him, and longed to be there for him in his suffering.

I hope that if you think all the church cares about is nickels and noses and numbers, you’ll discover you are wrong long before you are ever on your deathbed.  Perhaps then you’ll get into the life of the church, enjoy the blessings, join hands with others in service, and consider it a privilege to be counted among the faithful.   

• As a postscript, if you're interested in this idea of counting, check out an older post I wrote concerning the 2010 U.S. Census.  You can find it here:  http://johnmccallum.blogspot.com/2010/03/you-count.html

God on Trial

In 1970, Eerdmans published a C. S. Lewis book edited by Walter Hooper.  The book is a collection of Lewis essays collected in published form for the first time in this Lewis book called God in the Dock.  The title doesn’t mean that God is hanging out by the water getting ready for a boat ride.  It means, in British terms, “God on trial.”  Hooper points out in his preface that we live in “an age in which one sees in most bookshops and Sunday papers the controversial—and, oftentimes, apostate—works of clergy who ‘unsettle’ every article of the Faith they are ordained and paid to uphold.” 

If that was true in 1970 it’s only gotten worse in the last forty years.  And it’s not only clergy-types that try to unsettle the faith; it now includes everyone from the talk show host to the social studies teacher to the grocery clerk to the housewife across the street.  These days pretty much anybody and everybody puts God on trial.  The Bible clearly teaches that God is the judge and we are on trial.  We’ve cleverly reversed that in our day: we are the judge and God is on trial.  We are quick to pass judgments on his word and his character and his attributes. 

With the Olympics just a couple of months away, think of it in terms of the gymnastic judges.  You know how that works.  The athlete dismounts the balance beam and the judges grade her performance: 9.2, 8.8, 9.4, 8.2, and inevitably one judge gives her only a 7.6.  Isn’t that what too many of us do with God?  We sit in judgment on him—us on the judge’s bench, God in the dock.  Think about it: 

• God splits the Red Sea for the Israelites to pass through, we give him a 10.  He drowns the pursuing Egyptians in the same sea and we give him a 5.  “Why kill them, God?  Wasn’t saving Israel enough?” 

• God provides Israel manna from heaven to a hungry people, we give him a 10.  God drops the hammer on Israel and wipes out some of them for their disobedience, we give him a 6.  “Good grief, God, can’t you be a little more patient?”

• Jesus heals a blind man, we give him a 10.  He runs out the merchants and the money-changers from the temple, we give him a 6.2, thinking, “Temper, temper, temper.”

• Jesus feeds 5000, we give him a 9.6 instead of a 10 because surely he could have added some dessert.  Jesus skewers the Pharisees with his words, and we give him and 7.8, thinking, “Really, Jesus, didn’t your mama teach you that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all?”

• God raises Jesus from the dead, we give him a 10.  God decrees that Jesus should die the brutal death of the cross, and we give God a 2, thinking, “How could a loving God do something like that to his own son?”

Am I right?  Isn’t this what so many of us do?  We sit in judgment on God, trying to force him into our particular biases, prejudices, likes and dislikes.  And when the God of the Bible doesn’t fit neatly into the image we want to mold him to fill, we either write him off, diminish him, or lose our respect for who he is.  We do this with the God we discover in the Bible and we do this with what we think God should or shouldn’t do in the world around us.  We give God a 10 for rainbows and pretty birds and cancer cures and the majesty of the Rockies.  But we give God a 2 for tsunamis and tornadoes and wars and world hunger—“Surely, God can do better than that,” we assume.

I’m wondering if we could learn to accept God as he revealed himself to be in the Bible.  I’m wondering if we could give God the benefit of the doubt in the mind-boggling, faith-testing events that happen in the news day by day.  And I’m wondering if we could humble ourselves before God, yield to his superior wisdom and ways which are not our ways and are higher than our ways, and quit judging God and start trusting God in all things.  We’ll have to get down off our high-horse to do that, but that’s a trip worth making.  Now, I’m not saying that it’s wrong for us to ask God questions when our faith is tested, to wrestle with him until he blesses us.  God welcomes that, I think—Job did it; Jeremiah did it; the psalmist did it; even Jesus did it in Gethsemane.  But let’s just never forget one simple thing we struggle to remember: God is God and we are not.    And if we can just get that right, who knows … God may just give us a 10.