Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field. In the presence of the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. But if, when the Lord your God has blessed you, the distance is so great that you are unable to transport it, because the place where the Lord your God will choose to set his name is too far away from you, then you may turn it into money. With the money secure in hand, go to the place that the Lord your God will choose; spend the money for whatever you wish—oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your household rejoicing together. As for the Levites resident in your towns, do not neglect them, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you.
• Deuteronomy 14:22-27
In all my years in the church, I don’t think I’ve ever heard heard a pastor or teacher talk about one of the purposes the Law gives for people bringing tithes to the Lord and the sanctuary. Supporting the sanctuary and the Levites, who had no other means of earning a living, is a primary reason given for tithes in Leviticus and Numbers. But Deuteronomy 14 sets forth a different purpose.
According to this text, the Hebrew people were to tithe from their harvests annually, take the animals and crops (or the money they exchanged it for if they lived at a far distance), and there prepare a great feast that they themselves would enjoy. They were to share it with those who had no harvest stuffs to tithe.
The purpose was pure enjoyment. There were no bounds prescribed — “…spend the money for whatever you wish—oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire.” This was to be a religious feast, enjoyed in the Lord’s presence, with one’s family and community. But no concerns are expressed about the possibility of over-indulgence. Indeed, it is encouraged: “Whatever you desire.”
I find it interesting that the ultimate reason for this tithing and feasting is “so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always” (v.23). Learning to let go and enjoy unbounded partying before the Lord is one way we learn to reverence God!
From my series of posts a little over five years ago in my original “How I Became…” series, you might have thought that I embrace change quickly. After all, I have made a lot of theological changes in my life time. In fact, while I am willing to change my mind on things, it takes years or even decades for those changes to see fruition.
Climate change is no exception.
It was back in 2007 that my son Josh introduced me to “An Inconvenient Truth”. I said back then that I was not completely convinced, and that it would probably take another 5-10 years of data, for me to really make up my mind. Well, here it is 13 years later, and I am now truly convinced. A version of the two graphs presented here are what made me initially cautious, and have now convinced me.
I should note that I was never a climate change denier. Perhaps you could have called me a skeptic, but I think even that term is too strong. Cautious is probably the best way to describe my thoughts on the matter.
I am not a climate scientist. I have no opinion on the validity of climate models. I am however a qualified economist, and have made a living working with data and statistics.
Let me first tell you what you are seeing on the top graph.
In 1998, a drilling project in East Antartica extracted the deepest ice core ever, reaching down 2.2 miles (3.6 kilometers) into the frozen ice. This ice, through its yearly layers, and the gasses trapped therein, gave us a historical record of over 400,000 years of climate at that location. Through it scientists were able to determine levels of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and temperature at any point in time during that period.
So how did they determine the temperature?
Measuring the amount of Carbon Dioxide is easiest to understand. They simply took the amount of CO2 compared to all the gases and expressed it as parts per million (ppm). As for the temperature…
Oxygen has three naturally occurring isotopes: 16O, 17O, and 18O, where the 16, 17 and 18 refer to the atomic mass made up of 8 protons and 8 neutrons, 8 protons and 9 neutrons and 8 protons and 10 neutrons respectively. The most abundant of these isotopes is 16O, while a small percentage exist as 18O and an even smaller percentage as 17O.
Analysing the ratio between 18O and 16O can provide a way of determining [historical] temperature.
In short, the ratio of 18O and 16O in snow varies according to temperature. By examining the ratio of these gases trapped at various points in the ice core, they were able determine the temperature at the time that the snow fell.
So, as you can see from the graph above, temperatures over the past 400,000 years have varied from approximately 3 degrees above the 1961 average, to 9 degrees below. At the same time CO2 varied over the same time period from 180 parts per million (ppm) to 300 ppm.
You can see how closely the two lines are inter-related. There is a very high degree of correlation between temperature and carbon dioxide.
Then the industrial revolution happened. From 1800 to 1950 CO2 rose from 280 ppm to 310 ppm, reaching past the top of the historical band. From 1950 until now, CO2 has climbed up and up and up, so that in January it measured 413 ppm, over one hundred points higher than it had been at any time in nearly half a million years!
So why was I initially so cautious?
One of my initial thoughts was that, temperature wise, we are already close to a historical high. Perhaps adding CO2 to the atmosphere was what keeping our temperature from crashing as it had in past eras? Besides, as any statistician will tell you, correlation does not equal causation. Indeed a close look at the data will show that CO2 has historically followed temperature changes and not the other way around.
So what changed my mind?
Let’s look at the graph below and discuss further.
While I stated above that temperature has preceded CO2 changes, the high correlation and strong trends indicate that there is very likely to be a feedback mechanism. That is, while in the past an initial change in temperature led to a change in CO2, it is also very likely that change in CO2 led to a further change in temperature, and they proceeded in lock step until a minimum or maximum was reached, or until some cataclysmic event resulted in a shock to the trend.
What I see in the second graph is what troubles me most. The earth has had relatively stable temperatures for about 12,000 years. That corresponds with the timeline for the rise of agriculture among humans. The rise of civilizations only occurred about 5,000 years ago. In that entire 12,000 years the proportion of CO2 has been between 255 and 285 ppm. For 12,000 years we have had a variance of only 30 ppm. We are now 130 points higher than at any point in that 12,000 years!!!
One reason why it has taken me so long to become convinced is because temperature has been slow to respond to the carbon dioxide increases. From 1998 until 2012 there was no increasing trend in temperature, and it took until 2016 to beat the 1998 temperatures. But we are again hitting new temperature highs and I believe we will continue to do so.
As I said at the beginning of this post, I am not a climate scientist. I have no expertise in climate models. I have to trust those that are. However, I do now strongly believe that we face a very uncertain future with our current levels of CO2. Whether that involves a temperature spike, and then a temperature crash I do not know. What I do know is that civilization and the events that proceeded it have only been able to occur when CO2 was between a range of 250 and 285 ppm. With CO2 now at 413 ppm, I would argue that our entire civilization is at stake. Can any action be too drastic to return us to the safe levels of CO2?
Strong words, I realize. What do we do as Christians? As human beings? I am not going to comment further here, but will try and interact with your comments below. As always, your thoughts are welcome.
Update: I am deleting the abortion thread. It was getting way off topic and deteriorating into name calling.
Update 2: The Bernie thread is also now gone. It was irrelevant.
A Theory of Everything (That Matters): A Brief Guide to Einstein, Relativity, and His Surprising Thoughts on God by Alister McGrath- Part 4, Chapter 3- A Scientific Revolutionary: Einstein’s Four Papers of 1905
We are reviewing Alister McGrath’s new book, “A Theory of Everything (That Matters): A Brief Guide to Einstein, Relativity, and His Surprising Thoughts on God”. Chapter 3 is entitled- “A Scientific Revolutionary: Einstein’s Four Papers of 1905”. In 1905, Albert Einstein was working as a clerk in the Swiss patent office, the Federal Office for Intellectual Property in Bern. At that time, he held no academic position in any university or research institute. The accounts of his time there suggest he was diligent in his duties. But the job was intellectually undemanding, and he found he had time to work on projects that really mattered to him – solving the riddles of physics that remained unsolved at the beginning of the 20th century.
Einstein at work in room 86, third floor, Federal Office for Intellectual Property in Bern
Einstein was born to nonobservant Jewish parents at Ulm, in the kingdom of Württemberg, on March 14, 1879. Württemberg had recently become part of a unified Germany after the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. He began his education in Munich, after his parents moved there. His goal was to settle in Switzerland and train as a teacher in physics and mathematics at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, which he attended as a student. However, his grades were not outstanding, and it was clear to Einstein that there was little likelihood he would secure an academic position in Switzerland. He renounced his German citizenship in 1896 and in 1901 he acquired Swiss citizenship. In 1902 he found the relatively well-paid job as a technical assistant in the Swiss patent office. In January 1903 he married the Serbian mathematician Mileva Marić, who was a fellow student during his time at Zurich Polytechnic. The couple had two children: Hans Albert born in 1904, and Eduard, born in 1910.
Einstein was influenced at that time by German physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, who explained the observed properties of gases as “discreet particles of definite size which move according to certain conditions”. This “kinetic theory of gases”, developed by Boltzman, emphasized that atoms were not some kind of hypothetical theoretical construction but were real objects. This ran counter to the dominant view of that time, which was forcefully expressed in the writings of Ernst Mach. Einstein later criticized Mach and his followers for allowing their scientific ideas to be determined by their philosophical presuppositions, arguing their prejudices against atomic theory were due to “their positivistic philosophical views”. Positivism is a philosophical system deeply rooted in science and mathematics. It’s based on the view that whatever exists can be verified through experiments, observation, and mathematical/logical proof. Everything else is nonexistent. As we’ll see later in the book, although Einstein as a good scientist was an empiricist, he did not agree with the assertion that only statements verifiable through direct observation or logical proof are meaningful: he was a vibrant imaginative and valued intuition.
Boltzmann’s ideas stimulated Einstein to write his first published paper in 1901 on the implications of the well-known “capillary effect”, the ability of fluid to flow in confined spaces without the assistance of gravity, or even in opposition to gravity. A familiar example is water moving upward in concrete, or sap rising in trees. The paper was not particularly well written or argued. Einstein’s proposal for a correlation between the atomic weight of a liquid and the extent of its capillary action is no longer taken seriously. But having a published paper to his name, he was able to circulate it to academic institutions in hope of finding a position.
Mileva Marić
In recent years, increased attention has been paid to this early article on account of a suspicion that Einstein might have had some unacknowledged assistance from Mileva Marić. McGrath notes there was a 2003 documentary, titled Einstein’s Wife, that asserted that Marić was originally credited as a coauthor on several of these 1905 papers before her name was supposedly mysteriously removed from the final version of the texts. McGrath notes this fits an influential media narrative which notes that male artists and academics of this period were prone to incorporate the ideas of female students or collaborators into their own work without due acknowledgment, a point which no doubt was true and ubiquitous. However, this suggestion is no longer taken seriously. Mileva Marić did indeed support and encourage Einstein, but the core ideas were Einstein’s own, even if he was wise enough to consult others in his quest to present them most effectively.
Which brings us to March 1905 and the first of Einstein’s seminal papers in his annus mirabilis – wonderful year that established his reputation as one of the most significant scientific thinkers of his age. What is now known as the “photoelectric effect” was first observed in 1887 by German physicist Heinrich Hertz, and investigated more thoroughly by Hertz’s colleague Philipp Lenard in 1902. Under the right circumstances, it was found that if a beam of light was shone on certain metals, the beam was able to eject electrons from the surface of those metals.
As might be expected, Lenard’s 1902 experiments found that the rate of emission of electrons from the surface of the metal was directly proportional to the intensity of the light falling on it. The brighter the light the more electrons were dislodged from the metal surface. But the intensity of the light seemed to have no effect on the energy of the electrons emitted. The electrons emitted through exposure to a very bright light turned out to have the same energy as those emitted from exposure to a very dim light. That didn’t make sense. Furthermore, photoelectrons were emitted only if the frequency of the light (the number of light waves that pass a point per a certain time—typically one second) exceeded a threshold frequency, which varied from metal to metal. So why should the color of the light matter? Why did blue light seem more effective than red light?
In his first paper of 1905, Einstein proposed that according to the evidence, light seemed to be composed of particles (later named photons). Based on the work of Max Planck, energy may seem to be continuous, but on closer examination, it is made up of tiny packets (Planck called quanta) of energy. Einstein argued that the photoelectric effect was best understood in terms of a collision between incoming particle-like bundle of energy and an electron close to the surface of the metal. Einstein’s theory allowed two of Lenard’s otherwise puzzling observations to be explained:
The critical factor that determines whether an electron is ejected is not the intensity of the light but its frequency (color).
The observed features of the photoelectric effect can be accounted for by assuming that the collision between the incoming photon and the metallic electron obeys the principle of the conservation of energy. If the energy of the incoming photon is less than a certain quantity (the “work function” of the metal in question), no electrons will be emitted, no matter how intense the bombardment with photons. Above this threshold, the kinetic energy of the emitted electrons is directly proportional to the frequency of the radiation.
Einstein’s brilliant theoretical account for the photoelectric effect suggested that electromagnetic radiation had to be considered as behaving as particles under certain conditions. McGrath says it met with intense opposition, not least because it appeared to involve the abandonment of the prevailing classical understanding of the total exclusivity of waves and particles: something could be one or the other but not both. It wasn’t until 1915 that Einstein’s approach began to achieve acceptance, and he did not receive his Nobel Prize in physics until 1921. Einstein’s article was of critical importance in developing the field of quantum mechanics, yet Einstein later did not like the way in which quantum theory developed during the 1920s, especially as it came to place an emphasis on probability. Nevertheless, Einstein was instrumental in the development of what he called the “wave-particle duality of light”.
We have become people who must be in a crowd or at a special event to feel we have fellowshipped with God or known the power of the Spirit. We must have products to buy to feel we are following Jesus. We must decorate our cars, walls and bodies with slogans and art to reassure ourselves we are Christians. We want Christian entertainment, and we call it “worship”, but that is almost nonsensical in any ordinary sense. When we must have a stadium, a six-figure audio visual set up and a major league praise team to have worship where “God shows up”, who are we fooling?
The simple disciplines of the inner life escape us. We rarely pray, but we have all Stormie’s books on prayer. We rarely evangelize, but we’ve been to all the seminars and can use the Evangecube with skill. We can’t stop complaining about the boring worship at church, but we’d drive 500 miles to hear Third Day. We don’t read the Bible and we don’t read books about the Bible and we don’t train our minds, but then why should we? Pastor Rick has been to the grocery store and brought home all the verses we need on every topic, illustrated and alliterated. We aren’t talking to unbelievers, and we can’t turn off television- Christian or otherwise- long enough to read a book. We can go to a Beth Moore study, but we can’t go to the scriptures on our own for 15 minutes a day.
We’re pitiful. I’m pitiful. What are we doing with our lives? And how the heck did we convince ourselves that membership in the mall and the amusement park is following Jesus, loving God and serving our neighbor?
• • •
Before you start praying for my deliverance from the demons blinding me to the truth, I want to make it very clear that C.S. Lewis’s version of demonic activity in The Screwtape Letters is one I can confidently affirm and follow. Lewis shows demons suggesting behavior, bringing thoughts into consciousness and working within divine limitations to bring souls to the “Father below.” But Lewis does not deal with demonic possession or causation, and this is wise. He stays within the boundaries of a cautiously conservative view of scripture without throwing out the insights of science or the truths of human development.
Screwtape advises Wormwood to keep the patient unaware of his existence, and to work to keep the patient in conflict with his mother, at a distance from serious discipleship and attracted to peers who despise religion. A person reading Screwtape is sensitized to the “schemes” of the devil Paul warned the Corinthians to consider, but without the tendency to go into areas of Satanic explanation that are unwise and unwarranted. There is a great deal of pastoral wisdom in Lewis’s book, but it won’t make for much of a conference on “Power Encounters.”
I would urge those who find spiritual warfare to be a valid category to believe what scripture says, but to also believe that scripture does not tell us to resort to the demonic as an explanation for what is plainly ordinary or simply unpleasant to consider.
• • •
So…if the culture war cafeteria line has a left and right side, what side am I on?
I’m a conservative in most ways, but I am not concerned if am labeled a liberal on issues where I deviate from the norm. I’m an evangelical Christian who intentionally identifies with the Liturgical worship of Presbyterianism because evangelicals have become pragmatists at the mercy of merchants. I have no use for the word inerrancy, even though I love the Westminster Confession’s words on scripture. I believe the best way to read the literature of the Bible is as literature. I am totally comfortable with Biblical criticism, as long as it is honest about its presuppositions.
I really don’t care much for what is usually called evangelism. Some of it I completely reject as manipulation, but I believe that the Gospel message must be communicated in every way possible. I think that social action, missions, living a vocation, art, family life, justice and mercy ministries all combine into evangelism. The false choice between evangelism and social action seems childish to a student of church history.
I am pro-life, but I don’t want laws making moms and doctors into criminals. I can live with civil unions. I am not afraid of homosexuals in public life. My experience tends to confirm a belief that key elements of homosexuality are nature more than nurture, but it is a complex phenomenon with many components. Evangelicals are obsessed with homosexuality. It’s weird.
I’m a libertarian sympathizing Republican who could conceivably be a Democrat if a lot changed. I’m a bad Calvinist who can appreciate good Arminians. I love C.S. Lewis, Ravi Zacharias and many other Arminians. I’m for the war on terror and the defeat of terror states. I can live with anyone as a pastor because I read the Bible to say that subjection of women to men isn’t the creation order, but the result of sin.
I support public schools, but I work in a private Christian school. Why don’t we support whatever parents believe is right for their kids? I reject Young Earth creationism. I can accept some aspects of evolution, but not others. I listen to every kind of media and every kind of entertainment. Secular entertainment is better. Conservative media is sometimes more effective, but often knuckle-headed and obnoxious. I’m a blogger, and so are a lot of other idiots.
I want less government unless we need more in order to survive as a nation. I think people ought to be free to do what they want and Christians should quit protesting everything that offends them. I like Dobson on a few things, Piper on most things, Capon of anything related to the Gospel and Jim Wallis more than I did a couple of weeks ago. I voted for Bush, and I like him because I can understand him. He wants to do the right thing.
I graduated from Southern, but I think I would be mostly happy at a liberal school that takes a more progressive view of the Bible. I’m into a lot of modern scholars, but I don’t buy all they say. I treat the scholars I read as people worth listening to, but I don’t expect them to line up with everything I already believed. What would be the point?
Baseball.
Submission in Ephesians 5:21. Egalitarianism in Galatians 3:28.
Every translation has something to say. The ESV is on my desk. The Greek is in my computer. I can preach from anything.
Am I buggin’ ya?
As I said before, it isn’t important to me to line up all my beliefs with the rest of the team. I have my doubts. I have my questions. I am obstinate and stubborn, but I also might be right that we should be true to our own journey, and not true to some team in the culture war.
• • •
A lot of people have a “mission statement” for life. I have something I call a “Life project.” I’m more of a project-oriented person. It helps me think in very practical terms. My current life project can be described like this:
I am deconstructing everything in my life that is not vitally connected to Jesus as King and Messiah.
Why “deconstruction?” Am I just trying to sound postmodern? No…I really am better at tearing things down than at building things up. Like Graham Greene said in The Destructors, “Destruction is a form of creation.” That’s very true for me.
The issue for me is not relating to Jesus. All kinds of people relate to Jesus in some way. The issue is for everything in my life to relate to Jesus. The issue is how does Jesus relate to the total package that is Michael’s world?
When I approach that question, I find that I have to tear down all kinds of things. It’s like discovering a wonderful, valuable painting on a wall, but it’s under coats and layers of other paintings. Those layers have to be removed and then the original painting, once it’s revealed, can be restored to what it should look like.
The Gospel is not about how wonderful the church is or how dynamic the pastor is or how friendly the people are. If that is all true, word will get out, trust me. If you have to put it on a billboard or an ad or video, it’s spin. And the Gospel isn’t spin about us. It’s a straightforward proclamation about Christ. Remember?“For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery…” (I Thessalonians 2:3-5)
When people are told that the church has all the benefits of a store or a club or a product, they are not hearing the message of sinners saved by grace through faith, nor are they being prepared to hear it in a real community of fallen people gathered around the cross. They are hearing the crafted ploy of exaggeration, and sooner or later they will figure it out.
• • •
Which brings me to the point that these scandals provide an opportunity for us to confess one of the great blind spots of the church: its inability to admit its institutional sinfulness. To acknowledge that we are fallen persons is not hard, but to admit that all the deceitfulness of the human heart is multiplied within our institutions is much harder. We seem to endow our institutions with an absurd degree of infallibility, especially considering that conservatives particularly should be suspicious of the idolatry of any human system. Institutional evil not only exists in the hearts of persons who make up a church, it exists within the system itself, and manifests itself in particularly surprising ways. As far as I know, fallen human organizations cannot be redeemed, though the persons who make them up may.
So we should not wait for the world to discover our flaws and drag us through the streets in derision. Christians should police themselves, and not condemn those who do that good work.
• • •
Listen. My list of church preferences is so narrow that I could justifiably sit home every Sunday on five matters of essential principle. I don’t want to hear about the God of Arminianism. I don’t believe there is any Biblical warrant for the public invitation. I have no appetite for legalism. Congregational church government makes me ill. I loathe the saccharine content of most hymnody this side of Isaac Watts. The list goes on. But I’m convinced that God has no real appreciation for this collection of potential excuses, and therefore, I have spent most of my life standing and singing twenty verses of “The Savior Is Waiting” after a sermon on “Ten Things God Can’t Do If You Don’t Pray Just Like This.”
…I’ve chosen to show up on Sunday for my children’s sake, and for appearance sake and a dozen other reasons running from good to phobic. But I hope, at the core of my Christianity, I recognize that the gathered church is a constant reminder of just what a wild and extravagantly ridiculous idea grace really is. That this collection of characters is destined for glory, worship around the throne and judging angels….it’s hilarious. The Bible never makes any pretense that the church will look like much to the world. Hats off to the churches that have made church cool, hip, trendy and the place to be. (Hint: It CAN’T last. So enjoy it while you can. We are TOO PATHETIC.)
As we’ve said for years, be careful about looking for the perfect church. When you find and join it, you’ll ruin everything.
• • •
I believe the Bible’s inspiration is that it tells us about Jesus. After that, not only am I not interested, I don’t know why I should be. Of course, Jesus turns out to be the meaning of all of scripture, so I win the pony.
• • •
Therefore, the idea of heaven as a place “up there” or “over there on planet Q” is nonsensical in many ways. Far more likely to me is that we are constantly in the presence of God, constantly surrounded by spiritual “beings,” constantly surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses” because we are about as much “in heaven” as we can be…..two matters being excepted.
1) We exist in a physical plane that limits and restricts our awareness of reality. Before sin, this affected us less than it does after sin, but the physical universe is not identical with the fullness of God’s glory. That glory is mediated through it and is never separate from it, but physical existence- especially as mediated through the senses, the body, etc, is always a restriction of our participation in the full dimension of God’s presence and existence. (I believe this limitation will still be there in the new creation, and is a basic difference between God and any creature in any form.)
2) Sin has perverted our awareness of God and reality to the manner of self-centered, blind existence we currently live in. Though the glory and presence of God are everywhere, we are blinded to it by our fallen condition. At times that glory and reality creeps in around the edges, but we are utterly opposed to accepting it. This does change with conversion, and eventually, with glorification, as the effects of sin are removed. (Sin is, basically, a way of thinking and seeing reality.)
3) Therefore, “heaven” to me is a return to the full experience and awareness of God that surrounds us always. This happens in three ways: 1) Salvation, 2) death and 3) resurrection/new creation.
…Jesus is the traveler from reality to the shadow. He takes on the limitations of the flesh but lives fully in the presence of God. He says the Kingdom of God is here. Now. With him. With us. We are in it. If we believe in him, we never die. I believe that completely. I think when we “die,” it is death that falls away and we simply “fall” into the resurrection of Jesus, whose life allows our disembodied existence to continue until resurrection again gives us a spacial and temporal existence. If we follow him, to death and beyond, we are right there all the time.
Two thoughts. Some of the paranormal is the bleed-over from this situation. I am convinced of that. And “Field of Dreams” had it almost perfectly right. The door is in the cornfield.
When most people think of hospice, they imagine elderly people living out their last days. But we’ve had a run of young people dying of alcohol and drug abuse recently. It’s a real wake-up call when you sit at the bedside of a man or woman the same age as one of your children and watch them fade away.
Johnny was one of those. From all indications, Johnny had been a wild man. He showed some of that during his two stints on hospice care. He fought with his family, fought with his nurses, got kicked out of three nursing homes (that I know of), and had to have sitters in the hospital to keep him from getting out of bed and wandering down the hallway. At best, in this stage of his life, he tolerated others.
One day when I visited him, Johnny had become paranoid about his bank account. He pestered me over and over again to lend him my phone so that he could check his bank balance. His mother had already dealt with the issue and I kept trying to tell him that, but he wouldn’t trust any answer. It was not an appropriate use of my work phone, so I told him I couldn’t do it anyway. Well, he immediately shut me out, mumbling that he’d like me to leave.
Johnny never cut his hair. He wore long locks that made him look like the outlaw he was, especially when wearing one of his fancy cowboy hats. Tall and impossibly thin, he cut through life like a whirlwind, I was told, and the little of him that I knew confirmed that impression.
At the very end of his life, Johnny spent a few weeks — a long stretch — in the hospital. At first he became fidgety and restless as he dealt with pain and his body revolting against the abuse to which he had subjected it. Eventually, with his strength declining and the comfort of appropriate care and medication, he calmed down. He lay quietly for days and days and days.
During that time, I visited with members of his family. Previously, they had been forced to set boundaries and keep their distance, but now that it was safe for them they came and showed real love and devotion, sitting for long hours at his bedside and keeping vigil. Some even came from out of town to be with him. They told me that Johnny had been a bright, fun-loving, artistic and creative child. In his late teens, demon alcohol pounced and set him on a chaotic roller coaster ride for the next twenty years. He never lost his charm, but it was often overwhelmed by the rage and unpredictable behavior that arose from his addictions.
When Johnny died, I went and sat with his mom and sister. We prayed. I helped them understand the next steps. They asked if I would join their family for a brief viewing before he was cremated. Of course, I said.
A few days later Johnny’s mother called me and said there had been a change of plans. When funeral homes do a family viewing before cremation, they place the body in a cheap, plain box and the whole thing is a pretty sad and stark affair. She told me she couldn’t do that. She would not put her son in a cardboard box. He deserved better than that. So they were going to have a public viewing in a real casket, with flowers and time for the family to be together. I put it on my calendar.
I was surprised at how many people were there. Family from out of state had come, and there were aunts and uncles and cousins and friends — all manner of people there to see Johnny and to catch up with each other. I met Johnny’s biological father, and he showed me pictures of Johnny as a baby. “I held him when he was born,” he said with cracking voice. “I had to be here to be with him today.”
I saw lots of pictures — including many of Johnny as a child when life was good and he won everyone’s heart. I heard lots of people telling stories, and it was clear from all the laughter and fondness that Johnny did indeed have the kind of charm that made him attractive and made his story so tragic. Mom gave me a picture of him in a fancy cowboy hat, locks streaming down, mischievous look in his eye — an outlaw all the way.
At one point, they asked me to pray, and we gathered around his casket and I did. If there was a dry eye, I didn’t see one. I committed Johnny into God’s care and asked that God would comfort him for all the trials he had known in his too-short life.
I remembered the thief on the cross. He was an outlaw too.
You know, Lord, I’m not perfect, some even call me no count But I’ll tell you, I believe a man is judged by what’s in his heart, and not his bank account So if this is what religion is, a big car, a suit and a tie
Then I might as well forget it Lord, ’cause I can’t qualify
Oh, by the way, Lord, right before they kicked me out, didn’t I see a picture of you? With sandals and a beard, believe you had long hair too
When most people think of hospice, they imagine elderly people living out their last days. But we’ve had a run of young people dying of alcohol and drug abuse recently. It’s a real wake-up call when you sit at the bedside of a man or woman the same age as one of your children and watch them fade away.
Johnny was one of those. From all indications, Johnny had been a wild man. He showed some of that during his two stints on hospice care. He fought with his family, fought with his nurses, got kicked out of three nursing homes (that I know of), and had to have sitters in the hospital to keep him from getting out of bed and wandering down the hallway. At best, in this stage of his life, he tolerated others.
One day when I visited him, Johnny had become paranoid about his bank account. He pestered me over and over again to lend him my phone so that he could check his bank balance. His mother had already dealt with the issue and I kept trying to tell him that, but he wouldn’t trust any answer. It was not an appropriate use of my work phone, so I told him I couldn’t do it anyway. Well, he immediately shut me out, mumbling that he’d like me to leave.
Johnny never cut his hair. He wore long locks that made him look like the outlaw he was, especially when wearing one of his fancy cowboy hats. Tall and impossibly thin, he cut through life like a whirlwind, I was told, and the little of him that I knew confirmed that impression.
At the very end of his life, Johnny spent a few weeks — a long stretch — in the hospital. At first he became fidgety and restless as he dealt with pain and his body revolting against the abuse to which he had subjected it. Eventually, with his strength declining and the comfort of appropriate care and medication, he calmed down. He lay quietly for days and days and days.
During that time, I visited with members of his family. Previously, they had been forced to set boundaries and keep their distance, but now that it was safe for them they came and showed real love and devotion, sitting for long hours at his bedside and keeping vigil. Some even came from out of town to be with him. They told me that Johnny had been a bright, fun-loving, artistic and creative child. In his late teens, demon alcohol pounced and set him on a chaotic roller coaster ride for the next twenty years. He never lost his charm, but it was often overwhelmed by the rage and unpredictable behavior that arose from his addictions.
When Johnny died, I went and sat with his mom and sister. We prayed. I helped them understand the next steps. They asked if I would join their family for a brief viewing before he was cremated. Of course, I said.
A few days later Johnny’s mother called me and said there had been a change of plans. When funeral homes do a family viewing before cremation, they place the body in a cheap, plain box and the whole thing is a pretty sad and stark affair. She told me she couldn’t do that. She would not put her son in a cardboard box. He deserved better than that. So they were going to have a public viewing in a real casket, with flowers and time for the family to be together. I put it on my calendar.
I was surprised at how many people were there. Family from out of state had come, and there were aunts and uncles and cousins and friends — all manner of people there to see Johnny and to catch up with each other. I met Johnny’s biological father, and he showed me pictures of Johnny as a baby. “I held him when he was born,” he said with cracking voice. “I had to be here to be with him today.”
I saw lots of pictures — including many of Johnny as a child when life was good and he won everyone’s heart. I heard lots of people telling stories, and it was clear from all the laughter and fondness that Johnny did indeed have the kind of charm that made him attractive and made his story so tragic. Mom gave me a picture of him in a fancy cowboy hat, locks streaming down, mischievous look in his eye — an outlaw all the way.
At one point, they asked me to pray, and we gathered around his casket and I did. If there was a dry eye, I didn’t see one. I committed Johnny into God’s care and asked that God would comfort him for all the trials he had known in his too-short life.
I remembered the thief on the cross. He was an outlaw too.
You know, Lord, I’m not perfect, some even call me no count But I’ll tell you, I believe a man is judged by what’s in his heart, and not his bank account So if this is what religion is, a big car, a suit and a tie
Then I might as well forget it Lord, ’cause I can’t qualify
Oh, by the way, Lord, right before they kicked me out, didn’t I see a picture of you? With sandals and a beard, believe you had long hair too
Bob Dylan once wrote: “Democracy don’t rule the world, you better get that in your head. This world is ruled by violence but I guess that’s better left unsaid…”
One of the metaphors that the Bible uses about life in this age is that it is a battle. Conflict and violence have always been a part of life, sad as that may be. Many of us have led relatively peaceful lives, thanks be to God, but I would wager that most of us here know someone, whether in our families or among our friends and acquaintances, that has been a victim of violence. We know people who died or were wounded serving their country in the military. We know people who have been scarred by domestic violence. Criminal violence or sexual violence touch our communities almost daily. People of all ages and all backgrounds find themselves victimized. If we stop and think about it, life can be pretty scary sometimes. There are battles going on all around us.
God’s plan for creation did not include this kind of violence, pain, and death. God made this world to enjoy shalom — peace, wholeness, a life that is allowed to flourish and thrive without fear. In the biblical story it wasn’t long, though, after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden that violence took root. Cain murdered Abel, followed by a whole line of people exercising violent control over others. We are only six chapters deep into the story when we read, “Now the earth was filled with violence.”
From then on, we read violent story after violent story, culminating in the Son of God himself being killed violently by crucifixion. In many ways, if we read it thoughtfully, the Bible is a dark and brutal book, an ongoing tale of human inhumanity to other humans, to the earth’s creatures, and to the earth itself.
In today’s scripture, Paul pulls back the curtain on all that conflict, cruelty, and destructiveness. He shows us that behind the scenes there are forces at work, cosmic powers of chaos that are actively fighting against the shalom that God intends for our lives and for this world. Our struggle in this life is not, in the final analysis, Paul says, against other people with whom we may fight. It is agains “the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of darkness, and the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.”
It is against these forces that Paul says we must stand. So far in Ephesians we have talked about sitting in Christ in the heavenly places, walking in Christ in our daily lives, and now we are going to talk about standing strong in Christ in the midst of the spiritual battle of life.
This battle with the powers of darkness was a chief characteristic of Martin Luther’s life. My favorite biography of Luther is called, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. Its author describes the reformer in these words:
Christ and the Devil were equally real to him: one was the perpetual intercessor for Christianity, the other a menace to mankind until the end. …Christ and Satan wage a cosmic war for mastery over Church and World. No one can evade involvement in this struggle. …The Devil is the omnipresent threat, and exactly for this reason the faithful need the proper weapons for survival.
You can’t sing “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and miss the fact that Luther saw all Christians engaged in a battle with the Evil One and the spiritual forces of darkness.
In our own day, Dr. Richard Beck from Abilene Christian University has written a book called, Reviving Old Scratch. Beck, who has been sympathetic with progressive Christians who seek social justice, came to see that there is something missing in their approach. They miss the fundamental reality that there are evil forces in the spiritual realm that oppose justice and inclusion. These forces go deeper than people, deeper than the systems and structures people set up. There is a satanic force at work in the world.
The word “satan” means the one who opposes. And so, Richard Beck says,
Hate is the satan of love.
Exclusion is the satan of inclusion.
War is the satan of peace.
Oppression is the satan of justice.
Tearing down is the satan of building up.
Competition is the satan of cooperation.
Revenge is the satan of mercy. Harm is the satan of care.
Hostility is the satan of reconciliation.
There is a satan to the kingdom of God.
If you follow Jesus, you know there is anti-Jesus.
Simply put, there are forces working against the kingdom of God in this world. They are working against shalom. Whereas God’s plan in Christ is to bring life from death, to renew all creation and make us whole, allowing us to flourish as the creatures God made us to be, the satanic forces work to bring chaos, disintegration, destruction, and death.
And so, Paul tells us here in Ephesians, we must put on the armor of the gospel each day as we go about our lives. The gospel of truth. The gospel of right living. The gospel of peace and reconciliation. The gospel of faith, not trusting our own strength but the power of God. The gospel of salvation. The gospel of the Spirit and God’s word.
The harder the fight becomes, Paul is telling us, the deeper we must go into the gospel. The more we find ourselves under enemy attack, the closer we must get to Christ. The more the world in us and around us threatens to spin off into chaos, the more we must cling to shalom that God gives us through the Holy Spirit.
Now this all sounds so grand, so noble, so lofty — all this talk of great battles and cosmic powers. But you and I both know that the battle is fought in the trenches. It starts in our own hearts, with the battles we face within ourselves: Will I be a person of faith or self-reliance? Will I be a person of hope or despair? Will I be a person of love or selfishness?
It works itself out in our closest relationships and encounters: Will I think kindly of others or will I look down on them? Will I listen to others or will I despise their contribution? Will I speak honestly and kindly, or will my words be deceptive, cutting, and hurtful? Will I be helpful and available to others, or will I close myself off and think that they owe me something instead?
Unfortunately, none of us will get through this conflict unscathed. We will be wounded and we will wound others. But once again, that brings us back to the gospel, the gospel of forgiveness and cleansing, the gospel of dying to sin daily and rising again to walk in newness of life. The gospel of Christ, seated at the Father’s right hand, ruling over all the powers that threaten God’s shalom.
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing. You ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he; Lord Sabaoth his name, from age to age the same; and he must win the battle.
May the Word of Christ dwell in us richly in all wisdom.
. Its author describes the reformer in these words:
. Beck, who has been sympathetic with progressive Christians who seek social justice, came to see that there is something missing in their approach. They miss the fundamental reality that there are evil forces in the spiritual realm that oppose justice and inclusion. These forces go deeper than people, deeper than the systems and structures people set up. There is a satanic force at work in the world.
The Internet Monk Archives 