take out the trash

Philippians 3:4b-14
For Sunday, October 5, 2008
Proper 22

This passage is about profit and loss. With this week’s events on Wall Street loss is something many of us may be feeling acutely at the moment. Here’s the good news: compared to knowing Christ, even the best stock on the Street on the very best day amounts to no more than rubbish. “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Phil 3:8).

Just as many financial experts are saying that it’s time to get the toxic paper out of the financial system, it’s time to get our toxic paper out of our lives. What in your life is cluttering your ability to know Christ, gain Christ, and be found in Christ?

One of the most pernicious forms of clutter can be our own spiritual pride or religiousity. We fall into the trap of thinking that we can earn our salvation. Yet Christianity is not about earning righteousness (v. 7). Rather it is all about knowing Christ, through letting go of everything else (v. 8), through grabbing hold of the righteousness that comes from God Himself (v. 9), through experiencing the life-transforming power of Christ’s resurrection (v. 10), and through experiencing the fellowship of Christ’s suffering (v. 11).

That last one might sound curious: what does it mean to experience the fellowship of Christ’s suffering? It means that truly following Christ will cost you something. if you pledge your allegiance to Christ there are those in the world who will treat you with hostility.

When the clutter is gone, we will realize as Paul did that what the Christian life is really about is “striving towards the goal of resurrection from the dead” (v. 11, NJB). To put a point on it this means that rather than spending an eternal death in hell we will spend an eternal life in heaven.

Clutter or Christ. The choice is ours. It’s time to take out the trash.

all in

Philippians 2:1-13
For Sunday, September 28, 2008
Proper 21

I confess to occasionally having watched poker on TV. Let some lethargy here be at least partially redeemed. There are times in a poker game where a player decides to go “all in”. He puts all his chips in the pot and he’s either going to double his winnings or end his evening chipless.

What Paul is saying in Philippians 2 is this: go all in for Christ together. This is what he means when he says “make my joy complete by being like-minded” (NIV). I like the translation of the New Jerusalem Bible better: “.. by being of a single mind.” In other words, go all in together.

In v. 1 Paul notes four factors that ought to persuade us to go all in. First, Paul says, “If you have any encouragement in Christ.” He knows, of course, that we don’t have merely any encouragement in Christ: we have every encouragement, for Christ died on the cross to forgive our sins, and now sits at the right hand of the throne in heaven where he intercedes for us.
Second, says Paul, “If you have any comfort from his love.” Third: “if any fellowship of the Spirit.” Again, we don’t have just any comfort or just any fellowship of the Spirit, but rather every comfort and the full fellowship of the Spirit in our midst.

Fourth: “if any affection and compassion”. Note that this one is outwardly focused. To put it another way: “If you have any capacity to love or for empathy with your fellow man. . . “ Have you ever experienced the joy of making a difference in another person’s life? It’s not hard: just love the people near you as practically as you can. Where might your compassion lead you today?

The overall point is this: if you have any of these things, says Paul, then be of a single mind together for Christ. The verb Paul uses here for “be of a single mind” means to employ one’s faculty for thoughtful planning, with emphasis upon the underlying disposition or attitude. How might your life change if you employed your faculties today for thoughtful planning on how best to glorify Christ with your life, with an emphasis on your underlying disposition and attitude toward the gospel?

Want your life transformed? Want to be part of something bigger than yourself that is transforming the world? It’s time to go all in.

unrelenting grumblers

Food and Water are provided by God to the Israelites during the Exodus .
Bouts, Dieric (1410-1475)

Exodus 16:2-15
For Sunday, September 21, 2008
Proper 20

As sinful human beings we tend to be unrelenting grumblers. This is what is on display in Exodus chapter 16. Just a month and a half previous the Israelites were delivered from slavery in Egypt under miraculous circumstances. Yet now "the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron . . . If only we had died by the Lord's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death" (vv. 2-3).

Sounds like my 12 year-old. Israel just couldn't grasp why God had brought them into the desert. He brought them there in order to get them to the Promised Land. He brought them there to shape them for living redeemed lives. He brought them there to teach them that He really was capable of providing everything they needed. He brought them there for them to learn to trust and obey.

What are we grumbling about? Job? Marriage? Finances? Our church? Our pastor? If you want to keep grumbling, you can: just as God answered the Israelites in the midst of their grumbling so will he answer you. Yet a better response might be this: God, how do you want to bless me where I am now?

Your Heavenly Father loves you more than you could possibly know. He knows the plans he has for you, for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11). He sacrificed his own son so that you could be freed from the slavery of sin and begin a journey toward a life filled with promise. Let's together commit to stop grumbling, and instead start remembering, trusting, and moving forward.

conscience and the kingdom of God

Romans 14:1-12
For Sunday September 14, 2008
Proper 19

How should we handle disagreements about what is appropriate behavior for Christians in terms of social conduct? One Christian thinks drinking alcohol is a terrible sin while another might think it is perfectly fine. One Christian might think the Sabbath should be strictly observed while another might think the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

There are wonderful words of wisdom for us in this chapter whether our consciences are of the strong or the weak variety. Mine tends to be of the strong variety. It's therefore important for me to keep v. 15 firmly in view: "If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died."

For the consciences of the weak variety, v. 17 might be an appropriate touchstone: "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit."

Let us today listen to our consciences and live in accordance with them that we would experience the righteousness, peace, and joy which is ours in the gospel.

Caribou Barbie

Caribou Barbie is the nickname a friend of mine suggested for Sarah Palin. Given the liberal environment in which he works and from which the nickname came I don't think it was meant affectionately, but I still like it.

Peggy Noonan's Saturday columns in the Wall Street Journal are consistently insightful. She talks today about the impact Sarah Palin had this week on both the Republican Convention and the presidential campaign. "The speech was, in its way, a call so tender it made grown-ups weep on the floor. The things she spoke of were the beating heart of the old America." She closes with this wonderful addendum: "John McCain also made a speech. It was flat."

Politically, I am for the goals of Palin that Noonan cites in her column: low taxes, small business, private sector, less regulation, and governing with a servant's heart. I was at a doctor's office yesterday and one of the forms I had to fill out was the HIPAA form. It's useless to both my doctor and me. Why then don't we get rid of it rather than spend billions on compliance with futility? You want to kill an economy? This and Sarbanes-Oxley are good ways to do it.

My blogging time has been limited this week because I'm taking a Harley Davidson "Riders' Edge" course here in Milwaukee, where Harley's 105th anniversary celebration just ended. On Friday Wisconsin Avenue downtown was lined with Harley black and chrome: it was a beautiful thing. My brother and I have wanted to ride motorcycles together forever. We had wanted to do this with my Dad, but he passed away two years ago. My brother Chris has cancer and has already lived longer than anticipated. All of this puts a new sharpness into Harley Davidson's theme: Live to Ride. For both of us, there is also a powerful personal connection. We're related to the Davidsons. The 'G' in Willie G Davidson, HD's current standard-bearer, is short for our last name, Godfrey. More than that, we grew up next to the former President of Harley Davidson, Bill Davidson. When we were kids, he used to stop in our driveway upon his return from his daily walks to McDonalds for lunch and play basketball with us. He was a good and admirable man: corporate America, while tinged by greed, is not defined by it.

Where am I going with all of this? Here: life doesn't need to be fractured and harried. All of life comes together when we consecrate ourselves to living out Christ's calling day by day. Connecting with this is like the cool breeze that flows through the screen of an early fall morning. I follow this calling imperfectly, but I'm doing it, and I rejoice in it. Join me, won't you?

John McCain, albeit delivering a flat speech, ended well: "fight for your country". Fellow Christians, even beyond fighting for our country, let's also fight for God's redemptive purpose in the world. God is going to reconcile the whole creation to himself and has deigned to give us a role in the process: praise be to His name.