An Invitation (04-15-16)

Imagine entering every seventh day as an opportunity to experience sacred space, time to encounter the divine presence and time to extend this grace to all our other relationships. Heschel calls this Sabbath rest “the installation of man as a sovereign in the world of time.”

Every seventh day we are given the gift of taking control of our time, those hours that seem to get away from us during the rest of the week in the midst of the rat race and busyness. Time seems to control and dominate us. We always feel behind or under the clock, as it were. But on Sabbath, we’re in charge, we’re “sovereign,” use Heschel’s word. We choose to enter into God’s rest, and by so doing we experience spiritual peace, God’s presence and compassion, the spiritual value that He has chosen to press into this sanctuary in time. Imagine taking this kind of time for your personal, relational and spiritual life every week! Would it be helpful to you? Could it give you a significant point of reference in the whirlwind of life?

Remember those twin lambs in the experiment? The lamb that survived the shocks of daily life best was the one who had a place of retreat, a safe place to be nurtured and cuddled and empowered. Perhaps a weekly Sabbath could help facilitate that point of reference for you; a time for your spiritual nurture, to get close to God and the significant others in your life. It might be worth experiencing!

A Spiritual Rhythm of Life (04-14-16)

The Hebrew Scriptures tell the story of origins in the book called “Genesis.” The first several chapters describe God as the creator of cosmic, terrestrial and human life and existence. In six days God brings the diversity of life into reality, including the creation of humanity, man and woman, Adam and Eve. And then here’s what the account describes as taking place next. “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” (Genesis 2:1-3, New International Version)

Notice the rhythm of life God institutes at the end of the creation week. It’s a weekly cycle revolving around work and rest. God works for six days and then rests the seventh. But it’s obviously not a

seventh day rest because of the physical exhaustion from his work week (God certainly doesn’t get tired and so need to rest). The story describes God changing the nature of his activity from the six days to the seventh.

One, God finishes the creative endeavor after six days. He completes His task. Two, God rests from His work. That word translated “rest” is “Sabbath” which literally means “to stop, to cease.” In other words, God is stopping his creative labors because they’re all done. But he’s also stopping in order to do something else. Look at what comes next.

Three, God blesses and makes holy the seventh day. He’s infusing something special into this final day of the weekly cycle. In Hebrew Scriptures, whenever God is described as blessing and making holy something, it means He is bringing His presence into it in order to make it authentically spiritual.

So what is God doing here? He is carving out this seventh day as a special time for spiritual encounter—a holy God comes to His created world to bring His holiness into that life—to infuse life with holiness, to express value in that creation by desiring to be with that creation and bring himself into experience with that creation.

Imagine the profound paradigm here. Unlike the pagan gods of those early cultures who create humans to serve their every whim and fancy, who require humans to reach up to them if they want to get connected, this God of the Genesis story creates life in an act of admiration and respect and value and institutes a day every week to express that special purpose and value. This story shows God coming to His creation, serving His creation with love and compassion. It’s a monumental reversal in paradigms from the pagan culture of its time.

In the parallel pagan story God rests because human beings make it possible. In the Bible story it is the other way around: human beings rest because God makes it possible. God created the seventh day as a day of rest. In fact, the seventh day is the first full day of life for the human beings. And what does God give them for their first full day? A day of rest. A day to encounter God in meaningful ways. A day of sacred space because it has been blessed and made holy by the God of creation.

The eminent Protestant theologian Karl Barth wrote: “God’s rest day is man’s first day. Hence man’s life begins with the gospel [the good news of grace], not the law, in freedom to celebrate with joy the festal day of God, not with an obligation laid upon him to perform some task, to labor and toil. Man rests before he works.” (Barth, pp. 56-57)

A Harbor of Stillness (04-13-16)

The respected Jewish philosopher and theologian Abraham Heschel described one such reference point: “In the tempestuous ocean of time and toil there are islands of stillness where man may enter a harbor and reclaim his dignity. The island is the seventh day, the Sabbath, a day of detachment from things, instruments and practical affairs as well as attachment to the spirit … The seventh day is the exodus from tension, the liberation of man from his own muddiness, the installation of man as a sovereign in the world of time.” (Heschel, p. 29)

Notice the significant and relevant phrases in that statement. “The tempestuous ocean of time and toil.” Do you ever feel like a little boat being thrown around and battered by the winds and waves of life? Your boss with her incessant demands is someone you can never please. The politics at work drain you. Your kids’ activities seem nonstop and wear you out. Your bills pile up, your bank balance plummets. You wonder how you’ll ever stay ahead. Your life seems to be passing away right in front of you and you still don’t feel like you’ve accomplished many of the things you wanted to when you started out. Life often feels like a tempestuous ocean.

Imagine being able to enter “a harbor [of] stillness” in the midst of the storms. A place where you can “reclaim your dignity.” Picture yourself steering your battered boat out of the hurricane winds, behind the strong breakwater rocks and boulders and solid pylons. The water becomes smooth and placid. You tie up in one of the secure slips. Your boat is still. You sink back into the couch in your cabin. Your heart begins to slow, your mind stops racing, the adrenaline ebbs away, your muscles relax as you lean your head back on the cushion. Time seems to stop as you sip a hot drink. An island of stillness, a safe harbor.

You start thinking about your life. What are those forces that so often attack you and steal your sense of dignity, those people or frequent circumstances that batter your sense of security and confidence in who you are? Those places in time when you begin to doubt yourself, when you’re challenged and fought against and humiliated and disrespected. Those times when you get huge dents in your armor and you feel like nothing or nobody.

Imagine finding a place in the midst of all that chaos where you’re empowered to “reclaim your dignity.” A place where you rediscover what makes you a person of worth and value. How does that happen? You enter a day, a space in time, where you “detach from things, instruments, and practical affairs.” In other words, by you carving out some boundaries for this time, you remind yourself that you are more than simply a consumer, production-maniac, protector and stockpiler. You are more than what you do. You are more than your failures and successes, the busyness of your life, your activities. Your value and worth are not based upon what you produce or consume or protect or stockpile but based simply upon who you are as a human being.

But it’s not only a time of detachment. It’s also a time of attachment to the spiritual. You carve out this space in time to reconnect with the eternal, the divine presence, your deepest, most core values that drive who you are as a human being. The gift of stopping the rat race for this period of time enables you to spend priority time, to engage in intentionality about the deep issues of your life, who you really are, who God is, where you’re heading, how aligned your behavior is to your core values. It affords the opportunity to reengage with the people most important to you, to rekindle the significant relationships, to reestablish and rebuild love and compassion and service to others.

This Harbor is “the exodus from tension.” Think of all the things in your life that produce tension. Think about how you manifest tension, your body response, your emotional symptoms. Experts tell us that 80-90% of all visits to physicians are over symptoms that end up being primarily stress-related. Dr. Archibald Hart, dean-emeritus of the School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, states that each person has a physiological weak link that gets triggered when the body is under high stress, especially for a prolonged period of time. In other words, the body breaks down in specific places (different places with different people) when experiencing great stress.

So imagine experiencing an “exodus from tension” on a regular basis. Heschel is using an intentional biblical metaphor especially significant to Jews when he refers to an “exodus.” The Jews were held in bondage and slavery by the Egyptian kings (pharaohs) for 400 years, oppressed, maligned and victimized mercilessly by their masters. Then God had mercy and stepped in to intervene. He called Moses, a Hebrew slave raised by the pharaoh’s daughter as her very own child but then banished from the empire over an act of violence. And Moses became the liberator of his people as he led them out of slavery and bondage, across the vast desert and wilderness, into the promised land. A literal exodus from tension.

So Heschel uses this story to convey the powerful reality of hope and liberation afforded by the Sabbath, every seven days one enters this sacred space, this special day carved out intentionally from the stress and tension of the other six days of work and labor, to experience God’s peace and a liberation from the bondage of our relentless responsibilities, from the hype and noise of our culture which demands our loyalty and buy-in, from the temptation to see ourselves as simply consumers and products.

Imagine spending one day every week slowing down, allowing your body and mind to experience peace and quiet, reconnecting with the deepest part of you (your soul and spirit), and spending intentional time realigning yourself to your highest values. Imagine taking time to build your most important relationships, to pay attention to not only your own heart but the heart and lives of those closest to you.

Imagine placing yourself regularly in a space where you’re reminded who you really are instead of who the culture says you are. Heschel calls this “the liberation of man from his own muddiness.” Experts point out that we are living in an age of profound identity confusion and crisis. People are being confronted incessantly with conflicting paradigms. The marketing gurus through infinite advertisements say one thing (we are what we buy and consume), our employers say another (we are what we produce), our inner tapes shout others (we will never measure up or be good enough, we need to perform better, our failures define us, our successes aren’t enough). And the bombarding messages  continue unabated. No wonder we live in such confusion and conflict! And because we’re so busy trying to succeed or survive, we never stop long enough to question or push back on those identity messages.

But imagine what the Sabbath can provide, an uninterrupted day in which we confront the truth about ourselves by reminding ourselves of where our true worth and value reside. And herein lies the powerful beauty of this Sabbath gift. 

Finding Rest in a Restless World-Sabbath for Pre-Christians (04-08-16)

A group of researchers studying the effects of stress used twin lambs as subjects of an interesting experiment. For the first part of the experiment, one of the lambs was placed in a pen all alone. Electrical pulsing devices were hooked up at several feeding locations in the pen. As the lamb wandered to each feeding station in the enclosure, the researchers gave the lamb a short burst of electrical current. Each time this happened, the lamb would twitch and scamper to another part of the pen. The lamb never returned to the same location once it had been shocked.

This was repeated at each feeding station until the frightened lamb stood in the center of the pen shaking uncontrollably. He had no place to run. There were shocks everywhere. Completely overcome and filled with anxiety and stress, the lamb collapsed in a nervous breakdown. The second part of the experiment involved the first lamb’s twin brother. The researchers put him in the same pen. Only this time they put his mother in the pen with him. Presently, they shocked him at the feeding station. Like his twin brother, he immediately twitched and ran, only he ran directly to his mother. He snuggled close to her while she grunted softly in his ear.

She apparently reassured him because the lamb promptly returned to the exact spot where he was shocked the first time. The researchers threw the switch again. Again the lamb ran to his mother. Again she snuggled with him and grunted in his ear, and again he returned to the same place.

This happened over and over, but as long as there was a safe place, a reference point for the lamb to return to after each shock, he could handle the stress. He was able to cope. We live in a world that is filled with the shocks of life; stress, anxiety, fear, danger, failure, hurt, pain, brokenness. The list is long. We are surrounded by forces that drain us, damage our dignity, and call into question our identity. Each year seems to bring with it a faster and faster pace of life, more demands on us, more things to do to just keep up and survive, not to mention what it takes to go beyond maintenance to the increasingly impossible dream of actually thriving. If there’s ever a time when we need a safe place, a secure point of reference in the middle of the rat race, a sanctuary in which we can stop and regroup, be refreshed and reassured it is now!

What Does Organized Religion Offer Today? (04-07-16)

One Adventist pastor, puzzling over the widespread negative attitudes toward organized religion in our world  today suggests that we offer them “disorganized religion.” In other words, for those potential believers who cannot come to terms with the “big business” type of religion perhaps we should use informal, small groups, café churches and similar grass-roots communities. The Catholic Church has experienced an almost Protestant style of renewal in some countries in Latin America through the use of “base communities.” The Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America has a Simple Church Project which starts small congregations (average size; 10 adults) that meet in homes or other available locations and function very informally. Complexity of organization is not necessarily a sign of strong faith, so maybe the best approach is “don’t fight it; join them.” Nonetheless there are, on reflection, some assets associated with organized religion that may be useful. Here is a brief description of several items that may fall into that category:

1. Organized religion provides the resources necessary to serve communities and internationally. When an earthquake kills hundreds of thousands in Haiti or a hurricane devastates New Orleans and the Gulf coast of the U.S., it is the relief organizations of large religious entities—World Vision, ADRA, United Methodist Committee on Relief, Catholic Charities, etc.—that end up doing the most good. The United Nations and various governments, including the local governments, can do certain things, but nothing is better at meeting the survivors where they are and providing immediate, practical assistance than the agencies created by large denominations and parachurch ministries. Only a constituency as broad as a major denomination can consistently mobilize the resources, provide the large numbers of trained personnel and the on-the-ground relationships necessary to do this work.

2. Organized religion provides large churches that meet the needs of suburban families and inner city neighborhoods. It is a myth that most megachurches are independent congregations. In fact, recent research has shown that the majority of megachurches are affiliated with a denomination. And the independent megachurches are, most of them, affiliated with a support organization such as the Vineyard or the Willow Creek Association. (Thumma and Davis)

3. Organized religion provides many smaller congregations that meet the needs of young adults, senior citizens and small towns. New generations today seem to prefer smaller churches in urban neighborhoods and other communities. Senior citizens generally get better care in small congregations that often become their extended family. Even the smallest towns in North America are served by one or more churches when all the other entities of civilization have deserted them. These small churches are kept alive by the large denominational structures that support them. For example, in the Adventist Church in North America, the small churches are subsidized from the tithe of the large churches. Even if in a three-church district the amount of tithe turned in by those three churches does not cover the actual cost of their pastor, tithe from the college church or the largest church in the conference keep them from becoming an eight-church district.

4. Networks to share ideas and information. Organized religion fosters all kinds of networks that support a wide variety of special needs and specific ministries. Someone who is skeptical of organized religion will probably say at this point, “Well, there can be all kinds of networks without organized religion.” OK, but that means she has one foot in the boat. Are these networks not organized religion? They may be non-bureaucratic, low-cost structures, but they are structures nonetheless. Organized religion is often informal and low-budget in nature.

5. Organized religion can provide a variety of structures from those that have only the most distant connection to the large, corporation-style denominations to those that have a long history at the heart of denominational traditions. Organized religion has the capacity to meet a wide spectrum of needs. A “one size fits all” approach is bound to fail in today’s world. The growing religions are those that foster more variety. Large religious organizations have the ability to offer that variety. Some of the café churches and community-based groups associated with organized religion are seen by most of their local participants as entirely informal, independent groups. Yet the allegiances and resources that the sponsoring denomination, invisible in the background, brings to the venture are really essential even if it is just the vision and experience of passionate church planters fostering postmodern church planting movements.

6. Organized religion has the capacity to form a visible national or international witness on significant issues. It is the vast resources of organized religion that can mobilize pressure to save the invisible refugees of Darfur or press for civil rights laws to protect African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. Admittedly, it is difficult to create consensus and sometimes these movements over-reach into meddling with the private lives of nonbelievers, but organized religion has also done much good through the centuries, ending the slave trade in the 19th century and colonialism in the 20th century, inventing the hospital and the university.

7. Large religious organizations provide accountability. Cults like the Branch Davidians permit a David Koresh to misbehave because there is no higher authority or outside source to say, “David, where does it say in the Bible that you can take the wives of your elders or have sex with 12-year-old girls?” Cults are dangerous because they are small, free-form and dominated by charismatic figures who are accountable to no one. Organized religion provides structures for objective evaluation of leadership, intervention in unhealthy situations, and a balance of power. Completely privatized religion is the most dangerous kind when it comes to abuses even if the abusers hiding in the largest denominations get the most attention from the media.

8. Organized religion provides a community of well-educated scholars that bring the best study and thinking to issues of faith. Throughout history wild, new religious ideas have swept through various civilizations. Some of these turned out to be excellent innovations that we praise God for today. Others resulted in untold cruelty and stupidity. Some scholars believe that the early civilizations of Central America that seem to have disappeared so rapidly despite advanced astronomy and vast economic networks (and perhaps many other advanced features we do not know about) did so because a new religious cult came along and destabilized the empire. The most effective guard against wild and dangerous new religious movements is a group of people prepared to ask challenging questions, to look beneath the surface and evaluate these ideas. Organized religion, by supporting seminaries and universities, paying for some of its brightest minds to get doctoral degrees, etc., is the bulwark that provides this safety feature which really benefits all of society. None of this is necessary to salvation, but all of it adds much to the richness and depth of Christian faith. It provides the wide range of choices that are generally valued by North Americans today. Within organized religion there is a much deeper menu of possibilities than there is outside of it.

More important much of this structure is clearly within the purposes of God. It may not be your cup of tea, but it does meet the needs of others. It is the Holy Spirit, after all, that gifts people with vision and energy to organize, according to Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. To condemn it across the board is to condemn servants of Christ operating at the behest of the Holy Spirit.

Organized religion connects us to the history of faith. A family lineage is important to an individual’s identity. Those who have been cut off from their lineage are excited to find clues to where they came from. This is the same for us as believers. There is a history of organized religion that helps to identify who we are and where we came from. The truth has been passed down from Adam, and we are privileged to share in the tradition and the enjoyment of the worship of our Maker. Even if our earthly family does not share our beliefs, we know that we have a spiritual family that does. We are part of Abraham’s promise. We are part of the line of Adam. We belong.

Jesus’ Critique of Organized Religion (04-04-16)

Jesus was a Jew and His experience of religion is in the context of the later stages of tribal or ethnic organization. The Jewish faith of His time was badly split. The ruling class that controlled the temple in Jerusalem had made a number of political compromises with the Roman overlords in order to preserve some autonomy for the faith. Dissident groups were widespread among the people. Among the original twelve disciples of Jesus was at least one Zealot, an underground movement that on several occasions sparked armed conflict with the Romans. (This eventually resulted in two devastating wars about 35 and 85 years after Christ. The first saw the destruction of the temple and the second resulted in the Jewish people being expelled from Judea.)

Many of Jesus’ disciples were evidently Pharisees, a conservative movement that sought to protect the religious heritage of Judaism from contamination by the surrounding cultures. In their efforts to “build a hedge around the law of God,” more and more emphasis was being put on the man-made rules, and hypocritical standards. The Pharisees judged the common people very harshly. Sickness was condemned as God’s judgment on sin and the righteous were encouraged to make a great show of religion while trampling on the poor and suffering. It was in this context that Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world.

Jesus was not born into a wealthy or religiously elite family. His father taught Him the art of carpentry. Jesus worked with His hands and was poor. However, from a very young age, Jesus felt comfortable in the presence of the religious elite and was able to discuss religion with the highly educated. At twelve years old, when Jesus’ parents lost Him in the crush of Jerusalem’s crowds, they found Him “in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard Him was amazed at His understanding and His answers.” (Luke 2:46-47)

Jesus did not attack organized religion, but He did clearly establish His place outside the dominant religion of His time. The Pharisees attacked Him for eating with sinners, associating with the hated tax-collectors and allowing women of ill repute to touch Him. They particularly objected to His approach to observing the Sabbath which ignored their strict rules and focused on the notion that God made the Sabbath for humanity. They watched Him constantly to find His infractions of their laws. He had to remind them very sternly that “If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Matt 12:7,8) They did not recognize their God in human form, and they did not remember the nature of God. God’s law that was meant to bring them rest and a closer relationship with the Divine, was misinterpreted to make it a crime to help the poor or heal the sick on the holy day. The Sabbath, that had been created in the beginning to be a blessing to the people, a day of rest and communion with their God, had turned into a day burdened down with so many rules and obligations that the people could no longer see the beauty of God in the day.

Jesus could be very critical of the religious elite. He pointed out their hypocritical actions and ideas and contrasted them with God’s will to help their fellow man and love each other. In fact, His criticism could get incredibly powerful, telling them directly, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire.” (John 8:44) He directly criticized the religious leaders, saying, “Woe to you, for you are like unmarked graves which men walk over without knowing it.” (Luke 11:44) They thought of themselves as important, superior and favored of God, but they had fallen so far away from God’s will that they were, in fact, in direct opposition to Him.

However, despite Jesus’ strong criticism of the leadership and individuals who had so polluted God’s ways, Jesus was supportive of the essentials of the Jewish religious structure. When He was found in the temple as a child, and His parents questioned Him, and He responded, “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49) His righteous indignation was roused when He saw the misuse of the temple, being used as a marketplace instead of as a holy place of worship. He made a whip, turned over tables, scattered money and shouted, “How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” (John 2:16)

Despite the corruption within the temple, Jesus respected and defended the institution. His aim was not to ignore it or destroy it, but to purify it. He said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” (Matt 5:17, 18)

Organized religion was established in God’s eyes to improve human life, to point humanity to the promise of a Savior and to teach essential truths. Jesus attended the feasts, worshipped at the temple and followed the basic Law of God. Jesus simply brought their perspective back to the loving God that religion was meant to convey, showing them the original purpose of religion; to worship God and to help humanity.

Organized Religion in the Bible (04-01-16)

When did organized religion begin? In the Old Testament religion was embedded in ethnic and tribal culture. Each culture had their god or gods and believed that their gods were involved in their wars of conquest. The one God asserted in the Old Testament was associated with the Hebrew people from which Judaism, Christianity and Islam later emerged. It was God’s intention that His people be a missionary people and bring the nations to know Him, but they largely failed at this mission. In this context God came in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, to create a new era of faith.

The new Jesus movement opened religion to all tribes, cultures and ethnic groups. The Christian faith took the concrete form of the household-based symposia or assemblies—private associations—that were well known throughout the Roman Empire but may have originated in Greek society where democracy was also invented. Then when the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire, it adopted the forms of government with bishops presiding over metropolitan areas parallel to the many princes and city-states. The oldest branches of Christianity still preserve organizational forms from the medieval period of European history. The Protestant denominations have been largely shaped after the corporations that came about with later free market economics and republican forms of government.