Strength and Weakness

Strength and Weakness

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

            I love job interviews where they ask you to list your strengths and weaknesses.  Strengths are easy.  You just have to be careful not to make yourself sound too good.  After all you want them to hire you, and if you appear too wonderful they might not want you.  You’ll make them look bad.  

            Weaknesses—ah!  There’s the tough one.  If you give them too few, they won’t believe you.  Same if your weaknesses are too weak—too superficial.  If you give them too many—or ones that are too huge—you’re out of the running, out of luck, and out the door.  What do you say that strikes just the right balance—humble and imperfect, but not a walking disaster?

            The best question I was ever asked at an interview was, “Why shouldn’t we hire you?”  It was the last question of a very long (and ultimately successful) interview.  It gave me a chance to turn a quest for weaknesses into a statement of strength.  “Because I’ll work you to death,” I replied, speaking to three people who would be reporting to me if I was hired.  I got the job, and have indeed worked them—and myself—hard over the last several years.

            How to turn a weakness into a strength:  that’s a difficult maneuver.  How do you take a defect and make it an asset?  The other way round is easy.  If you push a strength too far it becomes a weakness.  Strong points pushed to extremes become character flaws—sometimes serious ones. 

            Paul understood that situation well.  He knew all about strengths—and taking them too far.  It was his overzealous persecution of Christians that got him stopped cold on the road to Damascus.  He had been operating from his own strength and the strength of the Jewish religious leaders, only to find himself on his knees before a Strength greater than he could ever imagine.  Now he was blind—so weak he had to be led.  So humbled all he could do was fall on his knees and pray.  He learned—the hard way—the limits of his own strength, and the power of the greatest Strength in the universe.

            Years later, writing to the Corinthians for the second time, he returns to this matter of strength and weakness.  He has just been boasting—not in himself, he says, but in an opportunity he has been given for an unusual revelation.  Now he comes back down to earth.  So that he won’t become too proud, he has been given a “thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan” to torment him and remind him not just of his own humanity, but of his overwhelming weakness.  Although many have speculated as to what this thorn might have been, we have no idea what it actually was.  We just know he prayed earnestly that God would take it from him.  God refused.

            “My strength is made perfect in weakness,” God said to Paul.  “My grace is sufficient for you.  That’s all you need from me.  When people see me working in you and working through you, they will know that I can take even imperfect vessels and make them able to do my work.  Be content.”

            Paul’s response is a perfect example of God’s grace at work.  “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.  Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

            Paul got it right.  There is no way anyone is strong enough to do God’s work alone.  We are all weak, and have no chance of turning our weakness into strength.  Only by God’s grace—God’s strength supplied to us by the power of Christ—can we be strong.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness

Matthew 18:21-22

John 21:15-17

            A pastor once told me the sermons he preached that received the most negative reactions were the ones on grace.  It seems his listeners wanted themselves and the people they loved (or at least who thought and believed the way they did) forgiven freely, but not any of those other kinds of folk.  The parishioners wanted the other ones to suffer—to pay for their forgiveness.  Why should that kind of sinner get off scot free?

            Jesus, of course, saw things differently.  He understood forgiveness—real forgiveness—better than anyone.  True, he did seem to have it in for the religious leaders.  He gave them a hard time about forgiveness—but it’s important to remember that most of them were unrepentant.  There is solid evidence that some of the leaders (Nicodemus, for instance, or Joseph of Arimathea) came to Jesus in an entirely different frame of mind.

            The Matthew passage actually begins several verses before this.  Jesus says, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.  If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”  Jesus continued on with other teaching on this subject, but if we look at Peter we can see he’s not paying attention.  We know how that works.  We hear something that engages our interest, so we stop listening to what is being said and begin to frame our response.  People who teach interpersonal communication skills tell us this is the wrong approach, but in the heat of the moment, we forget.

            When Jesus stops to take a breath, Peter says, “So, should I forgive my brother seven times?”  Seven—the magic number.  Anyone who forgave seven times was considered gracious indeed!  After all, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  Fool me seven times and I’m either a super fool or a saint.

            Not in Jesus’ eyes.  Jesus throws all common ideas of grace out the window.  “Forgive seventy times seven,” he says.  The idea here is that by the time Peter (or any of us) gets well into that number he’ll forget where he is in the count and have to start over.  Our forgiveness, like God’s, will be never-ending.

            There was one other time, again with Peter, when Jesus seemed to tie the forgiveness closely to the sin.  You remember how on the night Jesus was arrested, Peter denied three times not only that he was a follower of his Lord, but that he even knew him.  You will also remember Peter’s reaction when he realized what he had done.  He wept bitterly—as any of us would have done who had denied Jesus so completely.

            Imagine the guilt Peter must have carried!  He knew he would never have a chance to make it right—never have a chance to ask forgiveness from the Lord he had turned his back on.  For Peter, even the resurrection must have been tinged with fear and remorse.  How would Jesus treat him now?  Would he still be given the keys to the kingdom?  Was there any hope of him ever being allowed back in the inner circle?

            Then comes the encounter by the seashore that John describes so beautifully.  Three times Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?”  Three times Peter replies, “Yes, Lord.”  By the third time we hear some exasperation creeping into his voice, but Jesus doesn’t seem to notice.  Three times Jesus says, “Feed my sheep, my lambs.  Do for them what I have done for you.  Here begins your chance to offer grace.”

            Jesus calls us to offer grace in the same way—and in the same amount—today.

Balance

Balance

Psalm 8

Job 38-41

“Balance,” he said.  “You’ve got to have balance.” 

Most of us have heard these words at some time or other, and we’ve heard them in a wide variety of settings. 

            We’ve got to have balance between our work lives and our social lives.

            We’ve got to have balance between studying and partying.

            We’ve got to have balance between obeying the rules and being creative.

            We’ve got to have balance between our birth families and our marriage families.

            We’ve got to have balance between opposing sides of an issue.

Right nowou’re probably thinking of many “balance” statements you’ve heard. 

We understand the need for balance.  If we skew too far to one side or the other we can stumble and fall.  I experience this when I walk on our treadmill.  If I get going fast (for me, that is), and pay too much attention to what I’m watching on TV, I shift my weight too far to one side and have to use the machine’s arms to help me regain my equilibrium.  I’ve got to pay attention to keep my balance.

Balance is important in our spiritual lives.  It is so easy to lose our balance, especially when we read what seem to be contradictory passages in the Bible.  As we read Scripture we become aware of conflicting statements.  How to resolve these conflicts is, I believe, what faith is all about.  We have faith that the Bible is the record of God’s interaction with creation, especially with humankind, and that God has given us this record to aid in our salvation.  We have faith that God will reveal enough truth to help us understand more completely.

One such apparent conflict appears in the contrast between the story of Job and Psalm 8.  Job and his three friends spend the better part of the book arguing theology.  Theologians can be like philosophers, finding fault with each other in order to enhance the truth of their own statements.  Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar give their theological opinions about the cause of Job’s affliction.  Job answers them with theology of his own.  They never reach consensus.  Job’s wife even makes her own theological statement:  “Curse God and die!”

God answers with a scathing criticism of all their theology.  “Who do you think you are?” God thunders.  “How can you possibly understand the way I do things?  Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?  You don’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about.”

Contrast these chapters with Psalm 8.  The psalmist says, “You have made humankind a little lower than the angels.  You have crowned us with glory and honor.  You have put all things under our dominion.”

A silly bunch of know-nothings or the crown of all creation:  which are we?  The answer, of course is—both.  We are indeed the highest form of creation—at least so far (care to debate evolution anyone?).  God told Adam and Eve at the beginning that they would have dominion over all creation.  (We’ll save criticism of the way we’ve handled that responsibility for another time).  We’re also so far below God that we cannot understand even the smallest part of God’s ways.  Yes, our knowledge is expanding exponentially, but only as God allows it—only as God reveals to us more and more how God is working in creation.

Balance.  We’ve got to have balance.  We’ve got to know where we fit in God’s order.  As a Serbian proverb says, “Be humble for you are made of Earth.  Be noble, for you are made of stars.”  We find our balance—our place in God’s order—in the middle.

My Resting Place Is in God

My Resting Place Is in God

Psalm 23

Matthew 11:28-29

            One of my goals when I work with voice students is to help them get rid of the tension that stands in the way of good vocal production.  +It can be a difficult goal to attain.  Those who are the most conscientious are often the ones who have the most difficulty achieving the kind of relaxation good vocal quality demands.  These students want so much to please, want so much to be successful that they tense up trying to do the right thing.  When students finally learn to relax, there is a feeling of accomplishment and well-being that is difficult to describe.  At that point, real vocal instruction can begin.  We’ve eliminated the biggest obstacle to successful singing.  Now we can move forward to find out how good they can be.  They can learn to sing their songs with beauty and freedom.

            How like my voice students are many of us who try to follow God!  We build tension into our lives.  Some of us do it because we want to please God so much that we work far too hard at trying to do the right thing.  Remember the story of Mary and Martha in John’s gospel?  Some of us build tension in an attempt to run from God, to hold onto those things in our lives we value so highly that we can’t bear to give them up.  Whether we struggle to do the right thing or struggle to keep ourselves for ourselves, the result is the same.  We fail to achieve all we can for God because we get in our own way.

            David addressed this in the psalm which is a favorite for so many people.  You know it;  it begins, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”  David goes on to speak about green pastures and still waters.  In a verse that all of us should repeat at least once a day, he says of God, “He restores my soul.”

            What a wonderful picture David paints:  a beautiful, pastoral scene where all is at peace, where no enemy threatens, where there is enough to satisfy all.  David concludes by stating that he will “dwell in the house of the Lord forever” surrounded by God’s mercy and goodness.

            Even though this psalm must have been recited many thousands of times over the centuries, the children of Israel had yet to find peace.  They still built tension into their lives.  In many cases this tension was caused not by their own efforts, but by the actions and attitudes of those around them.  Still, first century Judah was not dwelling in safety.  David’s dream of the perfect pasture had yet to be realized.  It was a time of stress for everyone, some because they waited expectantly for the fulfillment of God’s promises, and some because they were busily pursuing their own ends.

            Then came Jesus, who offered the peace so many longed for.  As he was teaching one day, he looked to his Father in heaven and prayed.  Then turning to his listeners, he spoke words of comfort.  We can imagine him opening his arms wide to include not just those in front of him, not just the first century world, but all of us, down through the ages.  Having compassion for everyone he said:

“Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Are you tired of the burden you’ve been carrying?  I’ll give you an easier one.  My yoke is not as heavy nor as cumbersome as the one you’ve placed on yourselves.  Whatever the burden—whatever the reason you’re tense, overworked, over-tired, take my yoke, accept my teaching, learn from me how to give up the stress you’ve built into your lives, and learn to live tension-free. Within my service you will find rest for your souls.  Stop fighting yourselves and learn to sing the songs of peace, beauty and freedom I will teach you.”

Who Is the Man?

Who Is “The Man?”

John 18-19

2 Samuel 11:1-12:15

People love to say, “You’re the man!” or its colloquial version, “You da man!”  The idea behind this is celebrating some (usually male) person who has done—or is capable of doing—something extraordinary, some feat of prowess that sets him apart from his fellows and makes him special.  Many times it’s said in jest, a friendly mocking of someone we care about but want to tease a little.  Often it’s said in realization of something so stupendous that we can think of nothing else to say.

There are two interesting usages of this phrase (or something like it) in the Bible.  They present different interpretations of the saying, and at the same time tell us something about ourselves.  Two rather long Scripture passages will help us see the two contrasting sides.

David should have gone to war with his troops.  It was the king’s responsibility to lead them into battle, but for some reason, this time he stayed at home.  Because he was not where he should have been, he got into trouble.  Walking on his rooftop one day, he saw a beautiful woman bathing.  Even though she was married to another man, David had Bathsheba brought to the palace and slept with her.  She became pregnant.  In order to cover up his first sin, David had her husband killed, then married her.

God sent the prophet Nathan to challenge David.  Even kings have to listen when God’s messenger speaks.  Nathan told David a parable in which a rich man took a sheep from a poor man to serve his guests for supper.  David became outraged and asked, “Who is this evil person?  Tell me that I may punish him!”  Nathan replied, “You are the man!”

We can only guess at David’s mortification and humiliation when he was confronted with his sin, but there was no easy way out for him.  He had sinned, and God would hold him accountable.  David would be punished, but because of God’s promise to make his descendants a royal line forever, God would allow him to live.

Fast forward several hundred years.  Jesus has come to earth, fulfilling the prophecies of a Messiah and also God’s promise to David.  One has been born of David’s line who will save his people from the sin which has corrupted them.  He lives quietly for most of his life, then, at about age thirty, he begins a three-year ministry.  This ministry attracts a lot of attention, good and bad.  The people love him, but the religious rulers hate him because he exposes their self-serving interpretation of God’s law.  Finally, on trumped-up charges, these leaders have him arrested and arrange for him to be put to death by the cruelest method their Roman allies can devise.

See him hanging on the cross.  Hear him as he forgives those who put him there.  Hear him finally give up the ghost and die.  Hear someone standing at the foot of the cross say, “Behold the Man!”

We know that Jesus died that we might have abundant life.  We know it was our sin that put him on that cross.  We know God could have easily said to each of us, “You are the man!” and held us responsible for our sin.  God could have exacted the death penalty from us.  But that was not God’s plan.  God had long before determined that we would be redeemed. 

Today God says to us, “Behold the Man—the One I sent to restore you to me.  See him as he hangs on that cross.  Hear him as he forgives you for putting him there.  Behold him, the Man of Sorrows, your Savior, my Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

There Are More of Us than of Them

There Are More of Us than of Them

Isaiah 2:1-5

            The National Rifle Association claims 4.2 million members.  The most powerful lobbying group in the United States says it speaks with one voice for all of its members—a claim no organization can make with total assurance.  Its leadership says Congress doesn’t “have the muscle” to pass an assault weapons ban.  Translation:  “So many congressmen are in our pocket that the other side doesn’t have the votes.  And those we control won’t break ranks because they know we’ll take them down the next time they’re up for re-election.”

            There’s a memorable scene in the movie The Power of One.  A black prisoner in a South African jail tells his Afrikaner jailer what the other prisoners are singing about.  They are saying that the jailers are afraid of the prisoners.  For his honesty he is beaten to death.  But he has one moment of triumph.  He knows, as he suffers the death-dealing blows, that what he says is true.

            I believe the National Rifle Association is facing much the same situation.  They are afraid.  They have 4.2 million members.  The population of the United States at last count is 315,156,599.  You do the math.  There are more of us than there are of them.

            The NRA is afraid that if there is ever one chink in their armor, their whole wall will come tumbling down.  This is a familiar argument.  We hear it every time there is the possibility of great change.  Those opposing the civil rights movement were sure their whole way of life would be destroyed if legislation passed assuring minorities of their rights.  Those opposing women’s rights were sure that if legislation were passed assuring equal rights for females it would mean women in combat roles and single-sex bathrooms.  Those opposing gay rights and gays in the military are sure that the whole fabric of civilization will be irreparably torn if those measures go into effect.

            Any time a group tries to claim its rights, the opposition is sure it will mean the end of life as they know it.  Witness Syria. Witness the Arab spring.  Witness (on a much smaller scale) free agency in sports.  Freedom is never won easily, nor are rights won without a struggle.

            Please do not misunderstand me.  I am not anti-gun.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  I believe hunting and target shooting are worthwhile activities even though I do not participate in either.  These were the principles on which the NRA was founded over 100 years ago.  Gun safety was stressed.  Sport shooting was stressed.  This situation continued until the 1950’s when a group, fearing the loss of a right they could never lose, hijacked the NRA and turned it into the powerful, reactionary force we see today.

            Perhaps we’ll never see the future Isaiah envisioned—not in our lifetime, not in this world.  Perhaps this vision will only be realized when Christ has come again and God has established the New Jerusalem here on earth.  But wouldn’t it be a good start if we could get guns out of the hands of those who use them to kill innocent children?  Wouldn’t it be a good first step to limit access to weapons no hunter or sportsman could ever have a use for?  I’ve never heard of anyone hunting ducks, or geese, or deer with an assault rifle.  Seems like overkill to me.  And target shooting would, I think, not be as much of a challenge with one. 

Yes, I know:  guns don’t kill people, people kill people.  But it’s undeniable that people with guns kill more people and kill them more efficiently than any other way.

            Several years ago, the NRA ran an ad campaign that featured various members saying, “I’m the NRA, and I vote.”  Perhaps it’s time for the rest of us to start a similar campaign:  “I’m not  the NRA, and I vote—and there are more of us than there are of them.”

An Old-Fashioned Prophet

An Old-Fashioned Prophet

Luke 3:7-18

            How we long to go back to the time when everything was wonderful!  Families all had two parents (one of each gender), 2.3 children (evenly balanced between genders), a home on a sunny/shady street with just the right number of rooms, a perfect lawn, and a two-car garage.  Father had a job with a good, steady income, and mother was home all day to take care of the kids.  Everyone went to church on Sunday, and everyone watched the same (wholesome) TV programs.  Life was perfect—just like on those wholesome TV programs.  Why can’t we still be like that?

            The truth, of course, is that few of us ever were.  We like to think everything was perfect “back then,” but for most people it never was.  There were wars, poverty, crime, disease, broken homes—most of the same problems we have today.  The difference is that “back then” we could keep them at arm’s length.  We didn’t have to be reminded of troubles so frequently or so vividly.  Those problems were “out there,” or “over there,” not in the leafy suburbs or small towns where everyone lived.

            Judah remembered such a time in her past as inaccurately as we remember our gold-plated one.  There was a time when Israel seemed to be a major player in the Middle East.  The time was short-lived (David, Solomon), and was never as wonderful as the people remembered, but it was something for them to hold on to.  As we look in our rose-colored rear view mirrors, so they looked back on a time where all was perfect.

            Now Rome ruled, and kept corrupt and unjust kings in power.  The religious leaders were in cahoots with the Romans, and everyone outside of the ruling class felt oppressed and under someone’s thumb.  Oh, how the people longed for the good old days!

            Then came a man who defied every description of a leader they had ever imagined.  He wore weird clothing, ate strange foods, and said disturbing things.  He called his listeners a “brood of vipers,” and told them they were sinners.  He said they’d better repent, change their ways, and begin to care for those who were less fortunate—the way God had meant Israel to do from the beginning.

            “Perhaps,” the people thought, “this is the way to get back to the good old days.  Maybe if we do what he says Judah will become great once more, and Rome will disappear, and our evil rulers will disappear, and our oppressive religious leaders will disappear.  Maybe everything will be wonderful again, as it was before.”

            But John was not calling them backward into some mis-remembered, golden-haloed past.  He was urging them forward into a bright new future, a future that demanded—and depended upon—changed lives.  No longer would they be able to take refuge in restructured memories.  They would have to come to grips with the problems they had kept at arm’s length—the ones they had consigned to reaches of their memories so far removed from consciousness they could not even call them to mind.

            “Repent,” John said.  “Change your ways.  Follow the law as God meant you to, not the easy, self-absorbed way you have for the vast majority of your history.  And do it soon!  For One is coming who will not just call you to repentance, but will sift the good from the bad.  The good fruit will be gathered into his barn, and the chaff will be destroyed—now and for eternity.”

            John’s message is no less meaningful today.  God calls us to put away our half-true memories of past glories and look to an even more glorious future, one in which all of us can share, one in which God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.