Scales

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! -- Psalms 139:23-24

A few weeks ago, a pedophile wrote a piece on Salon admitting how much he struggles with his thoughts about children.  I have not read all of his words, but I have read excerpts and commentary about it.  His attempt at public confession has stirred sympathy in some and revulsion in others.  I think revulsion is the proper response.  Supposedly, if you can believe anything a pedophile might tell you, he has never acted on his thoughts or impulses.  If that’s true then that is good as far as it goes. 

If I were to speak one-on-one with this person, I would suggest that he change his thoughts.  I’ve talked before about the difference between temptation and sin.  That one is tempted to do something is not the same as doing it.  Too, there is a difference between admiring and acknowledging beauty or someone’s possessions and temptation.  For example, there is a huge gulf between a grown man thinking a fourteen-year-old girl is pretty and him raping the babysitter.  There is a similar chasm between admiring how your sister looks in a bikini and committing incest.  There’s a difference between thinking it would be nice to have a particular car and stealing the one your neighbor just bought.

Certain elements of society do not seem to be able to understand this very simple concept.  Our actions start as thoughts.  Yes, we all have natural, built-in biological drives for things like food and sex.  On top of those basic drives, we have rules that have been inculcated by traditional wisdom.  When our rules are based on the deeper truth and reality of our unique existence as humans, they are good and work well.  Not all rules are equally truth-based; therefore, not all rules are equally good.  

Some argue that our western, Christian view of homosexuality, pedophilia and other traditionally aberrant behaviors are “merely” cultural.  This is true, but not merely.  Cannibalism, human sacrifice, infanticide, suicide, genocide, and other practices have been acceptable at various times to various cultures.  Our opposition to those kinds of behaviors is “merely” cultural as well.  All cultures are less than perfect and probably corrupted to one degree or another.  Some are much less perfect and much more corrupt than others.  When someone says we need learn from one of those corrupt cultures, my reply is that we have.  We learned not to do those things. 

Apparently we have forgotten the lessons.

Western culture is not the Kingdom of God.  It was, however, informed and shaped by the principles of the Kingdom to a greater degree than most any other culture.  The current phase is not one of evolution and movement toward the Kingdom, but devolution and regression. 

Personal deliverance and societal revival begin with rejecting the thoughts and impulses of the corrupted mind and the carnal nature.  As long as we harbor and excuse thoughts that run contrary to the mind of Christ, we are enemies of God.  Deviancy does not need acceptance and understanding. 

Very few of us are overweight because someone chained us to a bed and force-fed us.  We lose weight by, in essence, embracing hunger, being honest about and aware of what we are eating, and practicing self-denial.  Part of that might be not thinking about cheesecake, chocolate, peanut butter, French fries, or whatever our weakness is.  It might not be fair that some people seem to be able to eat whatever they want and not gain a pound, but anyone can learn to think about food intake and use a simple bathroom scale to achieve a caloric balance. 

If he or she wants to. 

Having bad thoughts is not an excuse to harbor bad thoughts.

Why Can't I Ever Get a Crown of Thorns That Fits?

We have crosses to bear everyday.  But I have learned to enjoy the bitterest of them.  And it is sweet to know that heaviest cross can be borne in peace.  However, there may be times when it seems you do not have the strength even to bear it or to drag it.  All you can do is fall down beneath it, overwhelmed and exhausted.  – Fénelon

And he said to all, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. -- Luke 9:23

Somewhere in the one of the chapters of The Screwtape Letters, Lewis talks about how we tend to get the wrong impression of bearing our cross daily.  I suppose I would say that it comes down to daily life.  The grind might be a better name for it in our times than the cross.  It really isn’t the big issues but the accumulation of very small ones.  I can buck up against the great stone wheels of the mill if it weren’t for the grist that is in here with me.  I can get angry because my wife moves something a foot out of place on my desk, because the hook on my boot hangs on the inside seam of my jeans, because I grabbed the wrench that was one size too big instead of the one I wanted, because … well, a hundred different annoyances.  Crucify me and I might laugh in your face -- until I realize I can’t wipe the sweat running into my eyes. 

Man is a strange creature, but we are on guard against the big stuff, it’s the little foxes, nay, even the field mice or the ants that spoil the vine.  Peppered with the petty, I lose my composure.  Maybe that’s the point.  Maybe it’s not “composure” that I need.  After all, isn’t that rather like a pose, a case of me “putting myself together”?  Do I have composure or do I have peace?

It could be to effectively endure the grind of the cross, I have to let that fragile outside shell be shattered, lose my k-k-kool once and for all, and deny the false image I call self.  Smash the mirror, find a window that opens on heaven.

Sunday Go to Meetin’

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.  -- Exodus 20:8

If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. -- Isaiah 58:13-14

The Sabbath has always been something of a difficulty for me.  As a child I was willing enough to accept that “keeping the Sabbath” was equivalent to “going to church”.  When I was older, I learned more about the Sabbath, the rules for keeping it, the various restraints God had placed on His people, Israel.  I encountered Adventists and others who insisted on a true Saturday Sabbath and on adhering to some of the Jewish requirements.  There are many variations in understanding.  I was standing outside a little rural church one Sunday morning after service.  The pastor, in addition to his work at the church, ran a herd of beef cattle.  As he was shaking hands and speaking to members of the congregation, he came up to a man, Jim, standing next to me – a family member by marriage.  Following the more typical exchange, the pastor added that he was interested in buying a bull that Jim had for sale.  Without rebuke, Jim replied, “I never talk business on Sunday.”  But Jim was going back to the house to watch sports on television all afternoon. 

I have always figured that keeping the Sabbath had a deeper significance than whether or not the cows got milked – ours always did.  A lot of us in certain lines of work have or have had no option other than to show up and do our jobs on Saturday or Sunday.  We all seem, though, to understand Eric Liddell’s refusal to run in the Olympics on what he considered his Sabbath and realize that it was not a sign of legalism.  Liddell was honoring God, his refusal a testimony to God’s place and presence in his life. 

If we look again at the verses from Isaiah – in fact, it makes even more sense if you read the whole chapter – we realize that the Sabbath, like fasting, is about self-denial.  A denial is a negation but it can also be an affirmation.  If I say that one thing is not true I am often asserting, by my denial, that something else is true.  This is the case with the Sabbath and fasting.  We are saying that human nature, human effort, human energy, intellect, power, and strength are not driving the whole she-bang.  The positive side is that we are demonstrating by our self-denying actions that God is in control. 

The man who gets up on Sunday morning and goes with his wife and children to sit in a church building for a couple of hours instead of going golfing or fishing or cranking up his John Deere is making a statement about God’s place in his life.  He is denying self and honoring God.  So, sometimes, is the man who gets up and goes to work at a part-time job on Sunday morning in order to pay off his debts and honor his commitments. 

In Christ, self-denial is not limited to public displays.  Remember that in Liddell’s case he was a very famous and well-known figure in the world of athletics, especially in Scotland.  We are generally known only to our family, friends and neighbors.  They may watch what we do, but many of them get to see – for better or worse – what we are.  I think regular public, corporate worship is good.  I think an effort to go to church and “keep the Sabbath” in that way is good.  But I also think it can become, not just unnecessary, but a hindrance at times.  It can become a means of compartmentalizing our world – putting God in a box, restricting Him, His access to us and our access to Him to a unique and limited time and place. 

The truth and the reality is that we are able to live our lives daily, hourly in the presence of God, carrying out the tasks of life, bearing the burdens of existence and relationships and commitments while involving and acknowledging the Divine even in minutia.  What we really need to find -- and what I think most of us seek, is that closet that we have talked about recently, that place of peace within our own hearts.  In that Meetin’ House, it is always Sunday Mornin’.  

The Daily Grind

Therefore we do not give up; even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. – 2 Corinthians 4:16-17

Even though our outer person is being destroyed, as Paul understood, that is the whole point.

Our troubles are meant to peel away the old man, the shell, like husk from corn. Remember what Jesus said to Peter in speaking of his coming denial? Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. Jesus said He was praying for Peter, not that the sifting would not occur, but that Peter’s faith would not fail. Do not fear the adversary. Let him do his job: separate the inner wheat from the outer chaff.

When Paul says the inner man is being renewed, he is not talking about growth in the sense of maturity. We require a daily renewal of the new man and a day-by-day shucking of the old man. The outer person is dead, but, zombie-like, he just can’t seem to grasp the concept. The Lord uses the trials, temptations, failures, and stresses of the daily grind to continually wear away the natural self, to reveal my hopelessness and vanity.

Does it sound like I have this all figured out? Do not be deceived. I am the world’s worst whiner most of the time. I completely lose sight of the truth on a regular basis. I am writing it down here in the faint hope that I might be reminded the next time – probably later today – that I run into something I can’t handle, something that humbles me, that forces me to acknowledge I am not “all that”.

What is it that the old man operates on? What is it that keeps him going? Why does he have to be knocked down day after bloody day? The life of the zombie has its own ghoulish rewards. We get recognition, gratitude, plaudits, and plasma TV’s -- feedback, positive reinforcement. The outer person can achieve a lot in the material world. The old man can have most anything if he is willing to work at it – except true peace and contentment.

It is this conflict, this continual stripping away of that which is dead and insensitive to the Spirit that confuses many people – both those who are seeking after Truth and those who are trying to keep as far from it as possible. Peter’s denial of Christ was not the end for him. It was merely part of the revelation he needed.

I say, if I could just find the right teacher I would be able to get it together. Jesus taught Peter for three years. You can’t do any better than that. Until he denied his Lord, Peter still relied on his own great strength, his own fleshly power to get things done. Yes, he had worked miracles through the authority of Christ, but he still argued with his wife; he still clung to his status among the other disciples; he still lost his temper because he did not realize that the outer person cannot be reformed by all the spiritual teaching in the world. A hog returns to the wallow. The failure of his most cherished virtue, his courage, was necessary to show him he had to let the old man go. He had to deny himself if he didn’t want to deny the Lord.

That’s how “our momentary light affliction” works for us an eternal reward, in part at least. If we are going to live in the light of truth and the overwhelming rush of reality as it is, the inner person has to be renewed, strengthened, and trained. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom. Caterpillar and cocoon must be left behind.

Shell Games

”But what do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘My son, go, work in the vineyard today.’

“He answered, ‘I don’t want to!’ Yet later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the man went to the other and said the same thing. ‘I will, sir,’ he answered. But he didn’t go. Which of these two did his father’s will?”

“The first,” they said.

Jesus said to them, “I assure you: Tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.” --Matthew 21:28-31

Those who attend churches and call themselves Christians today seem to be deeply concerned about immorality – especially the specific immorality of others. The adulterer wants to help the drunk out of his pit, and the drunk looks down on the drug user, who, in turn, is repulsed by the homosexual. We can always find someone more disgustingly immoral than ourselves. It’s a fact of human nature. You can have a prison full of rapists, murderers, thieves, and pushers, but you cannot turn a child molester loose in general population. They won’t last fifteen minutes because even the most hardened criminal hates that particular kind of perversion.

Jesus, on the other hand, never freaked out about basic immorality. He certainly did not approve of it, but it was not His focus. After all, we all know that lying, cheating, stealing, murder, etc. are wrong. Jesus did not lay aside His glory, empty Himself of all His rights, and walk a pain-filled path to the Cross in order to point out that we should be “better” people. He made His point with His own life, laying it down, denying Himself.

What did get the Lord stirred up was the idea that we could serve God on our own terms, in our own way – which really amounts to serving our own god. A group of idiots like the Westboro Baptist Church illustrates this point in hundred-foot high pink and green neon, but a lot of Christians -- including me -- are guilty in less egregious ways. I want to hold onto self and figure out some way to get God to go along. Jesus said, “Deny yourself.” That’s the only way to truly serve the Lord.

Christians like to talk about doing God’s will. We have sermons and seminars, classes, conventions, and conferences. I am reminded of the philosopher, Tuco, who said, “When you have to shoot, shoot, don’t talk.”

My friend, Eddie, used to tell his own, updated version of the Good Samaritan. A man had run off the road into a big ditch, was hurt and could not get out. Member of various Christian denominations and movements came by and turned away with condemnation, offered no help, or, at best, shouted a comically inappropriate platitude or two toward the broken man in the hole. The Samaritan in Eddie’s story was a cigarette-smoking redneck with empty beer bottles in the floorboard of a dirty old truck. It was done so well that Eddie was almost never invited back to speak at a church after he told that story.

Kind of like Jesus.

Pointing out the essence of sin is what makes me uncomfortable. As long as I can keep it categorized into good and bad behavior, while avoiding the more notorious categories – prostitution, homosexuality, accounting, and politics, I am good. Jesus won’t let me off that easily. He says it’s not about how big and graphic and perverse my failure is, but it is about my simple refusal to deny myself, take up my cross and follow Him. Nothing more is required, and nothing less will do.