Jesus, Christmas and Politics

Earlier this week I was privileged to be invited to the Cass County Conservatives Christmas gathering.  This gathering of local politicians and supporters includes some of my friends in town.  In addition to praying the invocation and blessing the meal, they asked me to share a few words about the real meaning of Christmas.  Below are my thoughts.  I hope they will bless you in some way (or at least make you think.)

I have to admit that I am a Christmas junkie.  And not for the reasons that you might assume when you first hear that I am a pastor.  I just love the season!  I love fresh baked cookies that seem to only find their ways out of recipe books in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I love the aroma of evergreen and the beauty of green and reds around the house and halls.  Our ornament box contains several that I colored and pasted in elementary school. I even enjoy a good fruitcake  and really enjoy egg nog (minus the rum).  And the music.  Whether hymns, carols or merely songs about snow and sleds.  Some of you might remember Singing along with Mitch Miller and the Gang.  I grew up listening to his Chrismtas record – and now I play the CD every year!

But deep down, and all around, we know there is something more, something deeper, to this season than cookies, greenery and merriment. We discover our deep-seated values.  We find what is most important…what drives us.

If what brings us together tonight is the word, “conservative” let’s think for a moment what that implies.  What exactly are we trying to conserve?  It is our deep-seated values that we long to share with others.  The values that are not personal, but that we believe ought to be shared by neighbors and fellow-citizens.  We value family, especially the importance of the household, or nuclear, family.  We don’t want to see the definition of family changed, as we recognize the importance of a mother and father together raising children in a safe, loving home. And at this Christmas season, we long for family to expand beyond our own four walls as we travel great distances to be with those who are also family.

Our value of freedom also arises during this season.  As we wish for peace, I think specifically of Norman Rockwell’s famous “freedom from fear” painting, featuring a mother and father tucking in their 2 young sons, who sleep peacefully, blissfully unaware of the pain, hurt and fear that others their age around the world face as they lay heads on pillows.

But Christmas is even deeper than the values of family and freedom, as important as those are.  And we are wise, in our increasingly secular culture, to remind each other of the most important element of Christmas, as my son says as he looks into our tabletop nativity set – the little Lord Jesus.  Christmas is about Jesus.  We know and we say it, “Jesus is the reason for the season.”  But what does that really mean?  I fear that for many, the real reason for the season is merely an emotional reaction to a cuddly baby boy born to a carpenter and his young wife.  Who doesn’t love babies?  Others are quick to fast-forward to this baby’s adult teachings and influence.  But could there be more to Christmas than a baby or a pre-requisite to adulthood?  What does the manger say to a group gathered around influencing politics and culture with conservative values?  Can I suggest three ways that we might consider this season, of what is implied by the meaning of Christmas?

1. God is interested in politics.   Contrary to the philosophers of the 18^th century, God is not merely watching the affairs of earth from a disconnected and safe distance.  God is active and involved. He cares.  He hurts with victims and is angered by perpetrators.  AT Christmas, we see God entering humanity, getting his hands dirty, and confronting social and political abuses.  He speaks the truth to Kings and Governors.  God cares about peace and justice, right and wrong, society and government.  And he got involved!  We like this.  In this respect, we feel like we are doing God’s work as we also get involved in politics.  But the next two might challenge us. 
2.  God engaged politics from a highly unlikely position.  If we had positioned Jesus for influence, we would have birthed him in Rome. If necessary, Jerusalem.  But not the tiny village of Bethlehem, and definitely not a stable.  We would have chosen powerful Roman parents, maybe a wealthy Jewish family, but not a poor carpenter. We would have directed the angels to announce his birth to the town elders, not shepherds.  We would have chosen senator-material disciples, not fishermen. 
3. Jesus changed the world through a position of weakness, by giving his own life away.  We tend to value strength, and when absolutely necessary, the taking of life.   But in Jesus, we find a consistent theme.  From a humble birth, to a quiet upbringing, even his teachings promoted giving.  We influence more by serving than by being served, by giving more than receiving.  When we give our lives away, we find gain a life better than we could imagine.  We do not “Lord our influence over others,” which is the Gentile way.  And we see this as the Son of God gave up the comfort of heaven for the discomfort of earth, serving and giving all along the way, even until he breathed his last, on our behalf. 

Christmas changed everything. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.  It is God with us.  It brings life into focus and reminds us of the greatest values worth conserving.  May your Christmas indeed be blessed as you value what is most important!

God can't intervene? A Review of Harold Kushner's "When Bad Things Happen to Good People"

In preparation for my current teaching series at New Vision Church, I read the classic work by the Jewish Rabbi Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People.  I read it first of all because it has become a modern classic on this difficult subject.  Second, I wanted to read a non-Christian perspective on this issue.

In the end, I really enjoyed it.  Kushner interacts with the Hebrew Scriptures (AKA the Old Testament) well.  He does come from a modernist, naturalist, evolutionary perspective, which influences his assumptions, arguments, and therefore, conclusions. But he does not come from a rationally dis-interested perspective.  Very early in the work, he tells that his work rose from his personal struggles with God as his son battled a terrible disease and died too young.  By sharing his story and his pain, Kushner keeps his readers from treating the subject as mere intellectual debate.

Rabbi Kushner essentially lands at the conclusion that God has chosen not to interfere with the workings of his creation, and thus, cannot, by his own choice, stop bad things from happening to good people.  He writes, "No matter what stories we were taught about Jonah or Daniel in Sunday School, God does not reach down to interrupt the workings of laws of nature to protect the righteous from harm.  This is a second area of our world which causes bad things to happen to good people, and God does not cause it and cannot stop it."  I disagree.  Even without accepting the New Testament, the Hebrew Bible is full of stories, which I believe to be historical, in which God intervenes and interferes with the very "laws" of nature which he created.  We have to be careful to understand what Rabbi Kushner is NOT suggesting.  He is not suggesting that God is somehow limited by the laws of nature.  He stands above them as creator, a fact which Kushner beautifully illustrates and recognizes.  He merely suggests that God chose to limit himself by his own choices.  At the same time, using the adverb cannot when God is the active subject is a bit strong.

Kushner also shares an interesting interpretation of the tree of knowledge of good and evil found in the stories of creation and the fall in Genesis 2 & 3.  Coming from his evolutionary perspective, Kushner sees the tree of knowledge of good and evil as a step in the evolutionary process that made humans greater than animals as they gained a conscience.  In eating the fruit, Kushner argues that they became truly human.  In conclusion, the gaining of conscience included the opportunity for real freedom.  I have the admit that this argument has pushed me to really think.  However, I cannot imagine this as the intended meaning of the story.  It is just too evident that God is unhappy with their choice. Additionally, there is plenty of evidence that they were more than animals and were fully human before eating the fruit.

Coming from this perspective, however, Rabbi Kushner is able to strongly say what many Christian leaders, who would disagree with his other positions, also try to proclaim.  First, he argues against our need (which often sound more like demands) for answers.  He decries the popular assumption that "there is a reason for everything!"  I think he is right when he suggests that sometimes there is simply no reason.  Second, he argues that we should give more attention to what we can do in response to bad things and less attention to figuring out why the bad things happened in the first place.  I agree!

Finally, he argues that we should learn to pray differently.  And here, his thoughts are really good!  He shares an incredible insight into two prayers of Isaac's son Jacob - one as a young man bargaining with God in exchange for protection and blessing, and then one prayer as an older, mature man who has nothing to bargain with.  He writes, "But people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left instead of what they have lost, very often find their prayers answered.  They discover that they have more strength, more courage than they ever knew themselves to have."

I believe that we should listen to Kushner at this point.  I believe that God can and does interact with his world, interfering regularly in the lives of humans and with the laws of nature.  But I often pray only for miracles or healing (interference).  What if, while praying for healing, we also prayed for strength and for a sense of God's presence?  I believe we would then be better prepared for either response from God.  If he chooses not to heal, then I have strength and a sense of his presence.  If he chooses to heal, I am less likely to forget about him, having gotten what I asked for.

In the end, When Bad Things Happen to Good People is a good read with good arguments and good pastoral advice, but it comes from a perspective with which I have significant disagreements.

How Can a Loving God Sacrifice His Son?

Preparing for Easter weekend, I have been thinking a lot about the death and resurrection of Jesus in terms of the plan of God.  Throughout the Bible, in the prequel that we call the Old Testament, we find hundreds of references to God's plan to save the world.  In fact, in their first conversation after the great sin, (Genesis 3:15) God himself previews his plan with prophecy #1.

A few thousand years later, Jesus begins his ministry, and in what has become the most popular verse of the Bible, thanks to posterboard and NFL broadcasts, Jesus says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only-born Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have life eternal."  (John 3:16)

I often read objections to the rationality of this verse.  "How can God be described as loving, while demanding and planning for his Son to die for guilt of others?"  And it does make sense.  We can imagine how a strict, mean, judgmental God might plan such a thing.  But it is difficult to believe that is at all loving.  When we try to imagine how that decision went down, it gets worse.  Did the Father, Son and Holy Spirit gather in the throne room of heaven?  Did the God the Father reveal the strategic plan with charts, timelines and cute PowerPoint animations?  Did they draw straws for the dying part, with Jesus losing?  Or did the Father autocratically assign the roles, reserving for himself the part of "booming voice from heaven?"  It is difficult to imagine and understand.  It gets worse when I imagine it in human relational terms.  I can't imagine myself showing love by choosing and sending my son to die for another.

I have discovered what I believe is the best answer.  It has been a significant insight for me this Easter season.  In fact, I find myself drawn to Jesus more than ever.  If the book of John provides the problematic verse (John 3:16), then we ought to look at what else Jesus says in that same book.  Yes, Jesus describes himself as subordinate to the Father.  However, the whole of the book describes Jesus as fully God, doing all of the things that God does, with Jesus even proclaiming to be "one" with the Father in all things.  Here is why this is a big deal:  The cross was not the Father's plan dumped on Jesus; the cross was Jesus' plan.  Jesus was working out his plan.  Jesus, the Son, loved the world so much, he gave his own life....

Does this answer all of the difficult-to-understand aspects of the cross?  No.  It still blows my mind.  But this Friday, rather than question the love of the Father, I am going to marvel in the self-giving, long-ranging love planned and lived out by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who gave his life for me.

Wesleyan Arminianism Versus Calvinism

I recently preached a two part series entitled, Why Can't We All Just Get Along?  The purpose of the series was to show the differences between major groups/traditions/denominations/teams (or however you prefer to label it) within Christianity, but also to look at what varying groups hold in common, including how we can work/worship together based on our commonalities.  

This, of course, returned me to a previous study of the theology known as Calvinism (usually associated with Baptists, Presbyterians, Independent Bible churches, Reformed churches, etc.)  When looking at contrasting systems of belief, I usually look to find that core of the differences, and not just any difference.  Calvinism is usually best known for the doctrines of eternal security ("once saved, always saved") and/or predestination.  But I don't believe either of these are the core.  Eternal Security, in fact, is the necessary conclusion of the system (which is really untenable without the entire system)  But the real foundation of the system, or the "root of the TULIP" if you will, is the doctrine of divine sovereignty.  That is, that God is fully and absolutely in charge of everything in the universe.  In my own words, God micromanages every movement in the universe.  This, of course, does not allow for any free-will.  Not only the philosophical and often atheistic version of free-will, but also the Wesleyan, God-given and limited freedom kind.

Then I found this quote- the best I have seen- that really sums up our differences:

“If an iota of chance is allowed into the universe, then God’s sovereignty is denied, and God is not God.”                                                   -R. J. Rushdoony, The Necessity For Sytematic Theology

This truly is the core of the core of the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism.  And we must note and acknowledge that this sentence, and its converse, are philosophical constructs, and are a priori in nature.  That is, one makes a decision regarding this issue, and then selectively reads and conveniently interprets all of Scripture through this construct, or filer.  Note that the source for this is a book on the necessity of systematic theology, which, as a formal discipline, co-mingles biblical AND philosophical theology.  The word systematic implies it.  If not, then it is merely biblical theology, which results in mixed bag of both human freedom and absolute divine sovereignty, without a clear explanation between the two.

The Calvinist reasons as he reads Scripture, and lands at the above conclusion.  The Arminian reasons as he reads, and concludes that God, in his undeniable sovereignty, creates and allows for “chance” which is really managed freedom, and that this managed freedom in no way denies God’s sovereignty but only upholds and indeed magnifies it!

This, then is the separating point between the two systems of theology.  The real core, I believe, for both.  Every other difference, I would argue, stems from here.