Building Bigger Barns

Luke 12:13-31

So I have distinct memories of two times that I was studying Luke, once during grad school in Wisconsin and a second time in Buffalo shortly after I got my first engineering job. In both cases I was cruising along in the book, the stories were pretty familiar and the study was pretty unremarkable, until I ran into chapter 12 like a brick wall. Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village church, said that this passage has beaten him up. I agree.

Jesus makes two basic and related points here. First, he says, Watch out for greed. Then he says Do not worry. This is all precipitated, however, from a nonsequiter. Jesus is teaching the crowd about some pretty weighty stuff. Earlier in chapter 12 you get the verses:

2There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 3What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs. 4"I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

Like I said, Jesus is not messing around in Luke 12. I honestly can’t believe this guy was listening. I can not read those verses without thinking about the things concealed that I am afraid to have made known. This guy wasn’t there to let Jesus set his agenda, he wanted to set the teacher’s agenda. He wanted Jesus to work for him. So he interrupts Jesus and asks him to force his brother to divide the inheritance with him. Now there are a few observations I’d like to make about this exchange:

i. The guy is treating Jesus as a rabbi. Rabbis were commonly called upon to adjudicate disputes like this. It is kind of ironic that he comes looking for a judge and he finds THE Judge.

ii. But the guy is not asking Jesus to make a decision. He is asking Jesus to rubber stamp his agenda. And this makes Jesus mad. I don’t think there is any question that Jesus is hot when he responds. And I think there is a subtle warning here. Don’t you dare assume that Jesus backs your agenda. He will not be used. He will not be coopted to serve your purposes. Honestly, this whole thing reminds me of the election. People on both sides essentially came to Jesus and said, tell the other folks I’m right. Or they said to each other ‘Jesus is on our side.’ We need to be very careful what we sign his name to.

iii. We have no information regarding whether this guy was actually wronged. He might have been. Jesus does not seem to think that is the point.

He takes no interest in this family dispute but uses the opportunity to teach about greed and contentment. He builds the argument from two directions. In verses 13-21 he warns about the dangers of greed, essentially developing the ‘negative’ argument. ‘Watch out,’ he says, this thing can wreck you. Then, in verses 22-34 he paints a picture of contentment, not just the absence of greed, but the active discipline of the opposite affection…and offers contentment as the antidote for worry and fear. So I will tackle the passage in these two parts. But before we get into some pretty thick material, let’s illustrate the two points with visual aids from xkcd.com:

1. Watch out for Greed

2. Cultivate Contentment

1. ‘Watch out…for greed.’

Now it may seem odd to give a talk on money and possessions to a room full of college students who don’t tend to have much of either, but let me make a case for it.

i. First, greed is an equal opportunity destroyer. It affects those with a lot and those with almost nothing. Greed is not actually a function of how much you have but of the orientation of the heart.

ii. Secondly, as UCD grads you are going to eventually have pretty strong earning potential. It is you and those like you that will resource the church for the decades to come. The patterns you set and commitments you make NOW will set the patterns for the decades when you will have significant resources.

iii. Third, Jesus says to ‘Watch out, for ALL kinds of greed.’ Lust and porn are essentially forms of greed. The are symptoms of discontent. Check out this verse in Collosians:

5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these:

Doesn’t it seem like ‘greed’ is out of place on that list. All the other verbs seem to refer to sex. But ‘greed’ does too, it totally belong in this list. In Luke 12 Jesus focuses on material or financial greed. This is not surprising since Jesus talks about money approximately 12 times more frequently than he talks about sex. But the principals are the same for ALL kinds of greed. So if you just cannot get into Jesus’ warning about financial greed, many of the same principals can be applied to other parts of our lives where our behaviors include unhealthy excess.

A: The Warning

"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

Jesus says ‘Watch out’ That phrase is actually significant. Why? No one thinks they are greedy. Look at the other places he uses this phrase:

“Watch out for false prophets.”
“Watch out that no one deceives you.”
“Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.”

He uses this phrase to talk about sneaky dangers.[1] He never says “Watch out for adultery.” Why? Because you know when you stepping out on your wife. It is destructive, but it’s not sneaky. Jesus uses this phrase ‘Watch out’ for sneaky stuff. You don’t know if you are being deceived (Because you’re being deceived) and, likewise, it is easy to overlook the results of greed in your life. Tim Keller said he did a series on the seven deadly sins. You have heard of these right? They are something like lust, pride, sloth…a few others…including greed. I think there was a disturbing Brad Pitt movie on them. Keller said that when he announced the series his wife said to him, you watch, your lowest attendance will be for the week on greed. And you know what. She was right. More people came to the week on sloth, which is surprising, since it would seem like if you struggle with sloth, you wouldn’t be motivated to go hear a talk on it. You’d just stay in bed.

The reason Keller’s wife was right is that no one thinks they struggle with greed. It’s sneaky. And that is why Jesus says ‘watch out’. He says be extra vigilant on this one. The Greek phrase for ‘be on your guard’ is a military term for keeping watch for armed hostiles. He says keep your hand on your gun, work the night vision goggles, because there is a stealth enemy out to get you, and he might already be in your midst.

'Because life does not consist in the abundance of things'

So since I started perching at college life I am 3 for 3 on film illustrations, but I could not read this passage without thinking of my all time favorite movie.[2] Here is a classic scene from Fight Club:

‘The Ikea Nesting influence.’ For years after seeing this I refused to go to Ikea. It is a devastating clip. But the question ‘what kind of dining set defines me as a person’ gets right at the heart of this passage. And incidentally, did you catch the link between greed and porn. Later in the movie the Ed Norton’s charecter is talking in a bar with Brad Pitt’s character and they have this exchange;

Tyler Durden: Do you know what a duvet is?
Narrator: It's a comforter...
Tyler Durden: It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?
Narrator: ...Consumers?
Tyler Durden: Right. We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.
Narrator: Martha Stewart.
Tyler Durden: (Bleep) Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down, man. So (Bleep) off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns…What you own ends up owning you.

And this is how we are viewed in our illustrious economic system. We are consumers. There is an entire industry that spends millions of dollars in psychological research with the admitted intent of assailing our contentment and agitating our greed. But Jesus beat Tyler Durden to this punch. By saying ‘a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions’ he is saying, refuse to let them define your personhood by what you consume. Be something radically different. Be content.

B: The Story

To illustrate his warning Jesus tells a REALLY disturbing story.

The first thing to notice about this story is that the man is not primarily responsible for his excess resources. The passage says, ‘The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop.’ Did you catch that? Who produced the crop? Jesus intentionally attributes this man’s success to forces outside of his control. From the very beginning he undermines the man’s assertion that ‘his’ stuff is really his by pointing out that there are forces outside his control that have made him prosperous. I think this is Jesus’ way of saying, God gave this man an abundant year. Let’s see what he does with it.

So the man decides to store the excess. Now this is where commentators disagree on this passage. Many (even most) say there was nothing wrong with his decision to tear down a perfectly good barn to build bigger ones to store his excess. I tend not to agree. I think he begins to go wrong here. There is something suspicious about storing large quantities of resources. Now this can be taken too far. For years Amanda and I refused to save for retirement based on this passage. No one could explain to us the Biblical basis for storage in light of this passage, until someone said, 'the first barn.' There is sanctioned storage in this passage. When the man had a standard sized barn that provided adequate storage, he was not condemned. And so we have sanction for reasonable savings. It was only when he wanted to assure his future and gaurentee that he would neither have need to trust God or work, by hoarding this crop for his own use, that he is condemned

So while the commentators differ on the rightness of building the bigger barns, they are agreed that the center of this mans error is in verses 18-19:

18"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."

The Greek words for “I” and “my” are used 12 times in 3 verses here . This man had a passion for himself. His primary error, the essence of greed, was to take the abundance God has given him, and us it on himself alone rather than to return God’s generosity by passing the excess on to those who had need. This man is fundamentally an American, he thinks that the purpose of life is the 'pursuit of happiness.' He’s wrong. It was ultra easy for me to fill a powerpoint slide with logos and items encouraging us to ‘Eat, Drink and be Merry.’ It is our anthem. Its our destruction. Some people talk about cultural propensities for certain sins. In some cultures lying is more prevalent because it is more socially acceptable. If you ask a Christian from almost any other culture what our cultural sins are, they will say lust and greed. So more than almost any one else, we need to ‘Watch Out.’

Remember the verse from Colossians…why does Paul call greed idolatry? Because how you use resources IS WORSHIP. Hoarding them our using them in a self centered way demonstrates that you do not worship Yahweh. Money, like everything else in life, is a worship issue. When evangelicals talk about worship we generally mean singing. This frankly sucks. It is so wrong. The moments of greatest worship can be writing a check or holding your tongue. Have you ever thought about internet worship…the act of NOT clicking on sites you know are not good for you is a radical act of WORSHIP. What you buy and where you click demonstrates your allegiance.

A couple commentators pointed out that this man is talking to himself instead of to other people or to God. Notice that this is a private rather than a corporate decision. Who is his personal financial advisor? He is. So his decisions make perfect sense to him...but God calls him a fool. Which bring up the roles of community in generosity. I think Christian community has two roles in the generosity of individual Christians. First, other Christians can provide accountability. I think it is funny that we hold each other accountable on sex, affection and lust issues…but some how, our finances are too personal. Some of my professors at Wheaton used to voluntarily share their tax returns with each other and give each other permission to question whether or not the numbers demonstrate that the worship Yahweh.

But there is a second role of community in generosity: protection.[3] God says he will provide all of your needs if you are generous and, in our individualistic society, we think that means we will get a mysterious check in the mail. But God’s primary instrument for his work is his people. One role of the church is to have each other’s backs in the event that someone’s generosity leaves them exposed.

There is another subtle subtext to this passage. In the Roman and Greek world work was seen as mundane and unfortunate. If you could, you had other people labor (i.e. slaves) for you giving you the leisure necessary for philosophical and spiritual development.[4] Work was seen as fundamentally unspiritual and a hiderence to spiritual growth. This dichotomy has made its way into our culture as well. Most of us see work as bad and leisure as good. We want to put ourselves in a position where we can work as little as possible and have as much leisure as possible. The American dream is to be independently wealthy (note, independent means not dependent). But this is not the Hebrew view or the New Testament situation. In the Bible work is a PRE-Fall ordinance, which means that when Adam and Eve were living the best possible life, the ideal existence that God had in mind for them before sin messed things up, it included work. The fall made work harder, but it didn’t invent it. You do not here this preached a lot in churches, I think, because those who preach do not work outside the church...so they don’t spend much time thinking about it. You here, spend more time with your families, or spend more time in ministry, but you seldom here good biblical teaching on the other 50 hours of your week. Here’s a kicker, I think heaven will include work. Pastors and doctors will have to undergo vocational re-training with the drug dealers and prostitutes[5], but we will work in the eschaton. In addition to this man being self involved and failing to worship, he tried to create for himself a life of leisure. A life dedicated to leisure is unnatural as a life dedicated to work.

2. Cultivate Contentment as the Antidote to Worry

A. Where Worry Comes From

In verse 22 it appears that Jesus abruptly changes topic. He says: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.” It would appear that he made a random topic change from greed to worry…except, one of the first things you learn about biblical interpretation is that ‘Therefore’ connects the passage to whatever came before it. In mathematics, ‘therefore’ connotes a logical consequence, such as the conclusion of a syllogism. It represents a strong connection. So what is the connection between greed and worry? Worry is the proportional byproduct of vesting in loosable things. Jesus suggests that worry precedes from greed.

To unpack this idea Jesus tells two micro parables. Now I used to think that the birds and the lilies were just Hebrew parallelism. Are you familiar with parallelism? Glen actually talked about it on Sunday. It is one of the foundational structures of Hebrew poetry. You see this all the time in the Psalms where the poet says the same thing two different ways for emphasis. For example:
"O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger,
or discipline me in your wrath.

Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint;
Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony." Psalm 6:1-2,

So I though, Jesus is making the same point two different ways for emphasis. But I was wrong.[6] He is drawing out two different kinds of greed that we need to watch out for. A common root cause that manifests in two opposite behaviors. He is saying there are at least two dramatically different ways that greed can lead to worry: security and image. The first is the one I struggle with the most. The story of the Raven gets at worry that resources will run out…that I will somehow come up short. This generates the impulse to horde in order to reduce uncertainty about the future and, thus, mitigate worry. Those of us affected by this kind of greed, we tend to be misers.

But the story of the lilies addresses an entirely different kind of resource worry. It is a concern about image. Will I appear important, clever, attractive, interesting, worthy of love. This kind of worry generates the opposite behavior. Instead of hoarding, this kind of worry brings with it the impulse to max out credit cards to aquire goods that will make us feel good about ourselves and seem beautiful or important in the eyes of others. .

The hoarders look at the spenders and judge. The spenders look a the hoarders and judge. But both worry and at the heart of both kinds of worry is a fundamental discontent. Greed if you will. Jesus says that both of these are symptoms of the same disease, and require the same prescription; contentment.

The Bible is consistent in its treatment of this topic. Paul says, be careful, greed is sneaky and it can mess you up before you even realize you are affected by it. And then he offers contentment as the solution.

6But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 9People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction.

B. The Prescription

31But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. 32"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.”

I love the insight we get into Jesus in this passage. He is dramatically stern and tender within a few minutes of each other. Before this he was railing on religious hypocrisy and he laid into the guy who interrupted him with a family squabble. But listen to how gentle he is here in assuaging fears. Do not be afraid little flock. But after he tenderly assuages our fears, he gets shocking again. Look with me at the next verse (33):

33Sell your possessions and give to the poor.

That always floors me. It is like the previous text sets me reeling and this is the knock out upper cut. That is a radical command. The last thing I want to do is to diffuse the power of this verse…but I think there are three things we need to think about as we try to apply such a radical statement.

i. We store resources differently in our time, culture and economy than those listening to Jesus that day did. We have bank accounts, 401k’s IRA’s, Roth IRA’s, CD’s, stocks, shorts etc… There were not that many ways to store resources back then. If you had excess agricultural resources, either you build a bigger barn or you buy something of value (e.g. fine cloth was a common investment which is why he mentions the moths, it was not a completely safe investment). So when Jesus tells those listening to sell stuff, what he is essentially saying is ‘dip into what you have stored up’ your buffer if you will.

ii. How much should we liquidate to give? Well there is not a formulaic answer to this.[7] We see a variety of responses in the Scriptures. Jesus told the rich young ruler (who Bronwyn will be talking about next quarter) to give everything he had. Zacheus (who Bronwyn will also be talking about next quarter) gave half and Jesus was pleased. Barnabas sold a field.

iii. Third, he is not just talking about supporting the work of the gospel. He is interested in the poor. There are 2103 in our scriptures that address the poor and the oppressed. That is like 2096 more times than the Bible mentions homosexuality. The poor should be the special interest of the people of God.

The point here is to work out with God how much you keep and how much you give and to whom. This is dangerous ground for legalism. I have to admit that every time I see a $60,000 vehicle in the church parking lot I start to get all judgy. But we feel like God led us to buy a house in Davis a few months ago which, honestly, makes Lexus money seem like chump change. The point here is for each of us to try to simplify. For us, there is one number on our tax return that is more important than any other…more important than how much we owe or will get back…it is what our giving percentage is. It would be moral failure for Amanda and I, with what we make as a two income engineer/nurse family, to give only 10%. We want to see this percentage (not just the amount but the percentage) that we give grow each year.

For you, as students, who are already simplified by necessity, I think the goal is as your income grows, place governors on your spending. Try to lag your secular couleuges in standard of living by 5 to 10 years. Try to reject the idea that certain life stages require a certain standard of living. Intentionally rebel against the cultural expectations and wage simplicity so that you can put your excess resources into God’s business of justice, beauty, the poor and the gospel. Be rich towards God.

The passage concludes: Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

I’ll close with this story. I 8th grade I had a friend named Korey Buzzell. Lets just say that, in 8th grade, neither of our social calendars were exactly packed. So most weekends we’d get together and play video games, chess and monopoly. We were evenly matched at chess. Most weekends we’d each win half the games and we’d never play an odd number because we were afraid to give the other one a week of bragging rights. When it came to monopoly, however, it was a different story. Korey Buzzell owned me in monopoly. I tried everyting, I tried to play precisely like him, I even took a book out of the library on monopoly strategy and read the whole thing (Yes, a book like that exists and yes, that is how popular I was in 8th grade, I had plenty of time to read it). But to this day I have never beaten Korey in monopoly. That year we probably played 30 games and I went 0-30. But here is the thing. I got really vested in each of those games. The more I lost the more I wanted to win and the more the monopoly money meant to me. But it only mattered for 2-3 hours. After Korey had all my monopoly money, which happened every time without fail, he couldn’t so much as buy a coke with it. Once the game was over it had no value. But what if there was a way to win real $ in monopoly I assure you that wining the actual cash would become the game’s primary objective.

And this is essentially the point of this passage. Jesus says “Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted.” Essentially, he is saying, ‘Stop hoarding monopoly money.’ It's value is fleeting. Go for the stuff that will last. Invest in the Kingdom. Be rich towards God.

__________________________________
[1] For this point I am indebted to Tim Keller.
[2] Actually, since the last 20 minutes of fight club fall apart, it is in a dead heat with Braveheart…but the opening hour of Fight Club was written for me, an Angsty X-er man.
[3] This point is from Keller as well.
[4] See Faith and Wealth: A History of Early Christian Ideas on the Origin, Significance and Use of Money by Justo Gonzalez. http://www.amazon.com/Faith-Wealth-History-Christian-Significance/dp/0060633174/ref=cm_cr-mr-title
[5] That is a funny picture.
[6] Again, Keller was the only one I encountered (of 5 commentaries and 12 sermons reviewed) that brought this out.
[7] This point is from John Piper’s work on this passage.

Soil Classification: A Taxonomy of Hearts

The Parable of the Sower: Luke 8: 1-15

So I think I am going to start with a nerdy confession. I love soil. No, really, I mean it. I have a master’s degree in soil mechanics. I moved from my home in Northern New York, to Madison Wisconsin (which at the time was the farthest west I had ever been) just to study soil with some of the best. I went to Kenya a couple weeks ago and here is a sample of some of the pictures I took.
I was so enamored with the rich red soil of Africa that I tried to bring some home and got it confiscated by the customs folks. Yup, I really like soil. And one of the things you learn to do, when you move half way across the country to study soil is how to classify it. Here are a dozens of standard soil classification systems:
You classify it by what size it is, or how cohesive it is, or what color it is, or how much water it can retrain or a wide range of other intrinsic factors. So it occurred to me, as I was reading this passage, that it is one of two ‘geotechnical’ passages that Jesus teaches (the other being his course in foundation design). But Jesus does not classify the soil based on an intrinsic property, but a functional property: how it responds to seed. He uses the metaphor of soil to classify four basic responses to his message and claims.

So I read this passage and I immediately thought of…Raiders of the Lost Ark. See if you can figure out why:

Video

The reason I thought of this sequence is because Harrison Ford is after a treasure. He is desperately seeking something real and valuable. But it is not an easy path. There are traps set for him along the way to take him out. Malevolent forces designed to derail his pursuit. In his excellent commentary on Luke, Darrell Bock says:

“Weather riches, fame, success, desire to be accepted, pursuit of pleasure of comfort, or fear of letting God have control, the road to fruitfulness is packed with black holes that can swallow up any progress towards spiritual vibrancy.”[1]

And I essentially feel like this is the picture Jesus is drawing for us here. He is saying that during the pursuit of Him and His kingdom and His purposes, the things of greatest value, there are three main traps set along the way. The parable of the sower, which is more appropriately called the parable of the soils, is about three things that can go wrong between here and the finish line.

1. The Birds: Cosmic Medaling

11"This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.

Dan has made it very clear that this is a community for two kinds of people. It is a place for Christians to meet and grow and learn. But it is also a place for the spiritually curious. This is precisely the same makeup of the crowd that first heard Jesus tell and interpret this parable. His committed followers were there, but the majority of those listening were spiritually curious men and women from the surrounding towns.

But it is you, the spiritually curious, that Jesus is warning in this first illustration. He says, you may think you are on an intellectual quest…and you are…but it is not purely intellectual. There are spiritual forces at work. There are personal, malevolent forces at work that have a vested interest in you loosing interest in the gospel. The idea of spooky boogie men running around doing spiritual mischief is outside of our modern plausibility structures. But Jesus does not problem with a belief in a real and personal devil. Jesus says he is real, he is devious, he is powerful, and his primary agenda is to keep the gospel from finding a welcoming and fertile home in your heart.

Most images of this personified evil, or a personal devil, are just caricatures. They are either stylized images of a mythical beast or ridiculous deconstructions of the historical belief:
Actually, there is very little specific information about the devil in the scriptures. This is pretty much what we get. He is our enemy and he would like to keep us from Jesus and the liberation of the gospel. The most direct description of his activities is in 1 Peter 5:8;

“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

This gives me a chance to show one of my more interesting Kenya pictures. Two things impressed me about lions in the wild. They are powerful and they are constantly on the prowl for the next unsuspecting gazelle that they can tear to shreds and consume. They are seriously bad ass creatures. This is the picture drawn for us of a spiritual enemy that would collude with our unresponsiveness to deny us the gospel. If you are here and are just checking Jesus out, Jesus says, hey, it’s worth knowing that there are spiritual forces at work to keep you away.

But there are two things working together to destroy the seed in this example. The birds sweep it away, but only because thy have access to it. This heart is resistant. The birds only have access to the seed sown on the hard soil. The heart is complicit in the stealing of the seed. There is no room for Jesus’ message so it essentially bounces off and the meddling comic opportunist is there to dispose of the unwanted message. Charles Spurgeon, a famous British preacher of the 19th century, spent over half of his sermon on the sower on this soil saying: “there is too much traffic in your heart to make room for the word.”

Jesus’ plea is ‘If you’ve got ears, please use them not just to comprehend, but to apprehend. Don’t just try to figure the Jesus thing out, but make it your own. And be careful, because there are those who do not want you to.

2. The Rocky Soil: Derailing Pressures

13Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.

I used to get really excited when someone became a Christian…and I still get pretty excited when this happens, but there is a hesitance to it for me. Instead, I get really excited when someone is still a Christian after several years. Because we have all seen this. Someone we care about aligns with Jesus. They hear his message and it grips them and they say “Yeah, that sounds pretty good. I want in on that.” And it is really sincere. They aren’t messing around, it’s for real. But then something happens. After a couple weeks or a couple months or a couple years they drift away. They are just not into it any more. Now I do not have any idea why this happens. The reasons are probably as diverse as the people who choose this path. Jesus gives us a hint though. He says that in many cases it happens because the new faith is not robust enough to survive trouble.

I think this often is because we do not always traffic in the real gospel. ‘Accept Jesus, clean up your life and God will bless you’ is not the gospel. ‘Sell out for Jesus, get on the right team and your life will have meaning and purpose’ is not the gospel either. Christianity is not a program of moral improvement to earn God’s favor, or to force his hand or any permutation of the idea that God’s response to me is based on my moral performance. If that is the gospel you responded to, you are in danger of wilting – because what happens when things go poorly. When the metaphorical intensity of mid day the summer sun bears down on you do you have the theological resources and the depth of relationship with Jesus to not only survive, but grow? If we behave well in the hopes that God blesses us, what happens when things get worse? What happens when things get worse precisely because of our new faith?

But if we respond to the actual gospel of rescue rather than improvement: My sin is a horrible offense to a holy God and separates me from him indefinitely. But God was not satisfied with this separation so he sent Jesus to pay our penalty and make a relationship with God available again. Because Jesus died I am free from condemnation and live a life of grateful service. If your roots go deep into the truth of the gospel, you know that you are not exempt from suffering. If God would put himself in the way of pain on our behalf, he would certainly put us in the way of pain on behalf of others or his sovereign will. If anything, the gospel exposes us to more suffering.

People often cite personal tragedies as the reason they can not believe in God…but this is a inconclusive argument The same tragedy will cause some people to reject the message of Jesus and it will cause others to cling closer too him. Your response to pressure reveals the taxonomy of your heart and usually, if you got a hold of the real good news of Jesus.

I want to tell you a story of something horrible that happened to someone I care about that revealed what kind of ‘soil’ he is. My brother Nic was expecting his third child at the same time we were expecting Charis. Of our 5 collective children (including the one Amanda and I are expecting in February) Jude was going to be the only boy. But I got a phone call half way through the pregnancy that devastated me. Nic recently blogged about it and I’ll let him tell you the story:

Jude brought about another of these predictive happiness-faith conundrums as we found out at 4.5 months he was going to be severely handicapped. We were told he would have trouble moving at all and would likely have little or no brain function… I will always remember my wife and I, drinking tropical smoothies in Tallahassee, with tears streaming down our faith, confessing to each other that we must receive this child and yet ashamed that we both preferred him to die. My iconic family dream had always been Alexi and I and our teenage or grown kids hiking through the Grand Tetons, and this was the greatest possible blow to two athlete, graduate level trained parents- a physically disabled, mentally impaired child.[2]

Nic said that within 30 seconds of their first appointment with the specialist they were talking to him about elective abortion. When Jude was born he was arced all the way backwards so that his little crooked feet touched the back of his head. He was a little circle of sadness. I decided to spare you the pictures. But it was just a really hard time for them. Now If Nic and Alexi’s roots had been shallow…if they had responded to the gospel because they thought God would bless them…if they were not deeply rooted in the gospel so that they realized that God owned them, loved them and had every right to ask extraordinary things of them, this very well could have been the end of their faith. But they embraced it as the opportunity to learn, love, grow and testify to God’s goodness and faithfulness through terrible things.

Now Jude is doing great. He is extremely smart and cute and can even stand already (something the doctors were almost certain he would never do). And so we thank God for his gentleness. But this event showed me more than any other single thing Nic and Alexi have done, that they understand the gospel and are have deep roots in its good soil.

3. The Weeds: Death by Pleasure

14The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.

Now Jesus sets up a strange paradox in verse 14. He says there are two opposite states that can shipwreck our faith. We can be crushed by pressures or choked by pleasures. Now this is not an anti-pleasure passage. Fruitful Christians can enjoy film and music and sports and sex and food and all sorts of things within the safe boundaries that God sets for these things. In fact, CS Lewis says that most sin is just the misuse of the good things God gave us for our pleasure. But the picture that Jesus is painting for us here is that of a life for which Jesus is not the central priority, where pleasure becomes the main pursuit. Neil Postman, in the brilliant introduction to his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, juxtaposes the warnings of two high school books: 1984 and Brave New World and suggests that our society needs to be more concerned about death be pleasure rather than pressure.

“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that along side Orwell’s dark vision, there was another-slightly older, slightly less well known but equally chilling: Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of the autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared that we would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared that we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with the equivalent of feelies, the orgy porgy, the centrifugal bumble puppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny, “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distraction.” In 1984 Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell is right.” Neil Postman – Amusing Ourselves to Death

My favorite scientist/theologian had a lot to say about the role of diversion in impeding spiritual growth or realization.

“Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things.”

“We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it.”[3]

Pleasure and pressure are the twin perils of the heart. The first is usually inflicted from without and the second we usually inflict upon ourselves. It is this understanding that probably lead the author of Proverbs (ch 30) to say:

7 "Two things I ask of you, O LORD; do not refuse me before I die:
8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches,

but give me only my daily bread.
9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'

Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

This is the reason that simplicity is a discipline of the Christian life. Developing the discipline of simplicity helps uncluttered you life and keeps room in your heart for Jesus and his kingdom.

4. A Couple Thoughts on Fruitfulness

So the first three examples are negative examples, warnings if you will. Jesus says, be careful not to be like this. But the fourth example, the good, productive soil is a positive example. To wrap things up I’d just like to make a couple of brief observations about the soil Jesus tells us to be like. I will ask two questions: (a) what is it that we are supposed to produce and (b) how do we get it:

15But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

(a) What do we produce?

The metaphor of agricultural productivity shows up throughout the New Testament. But what does this look like. What does it mean to ‘produce a crop’ or ‘bear fruit.’ Well this metaphor generally refers to 3 different aspects of Christian growth:

i. Character: The most common referent of the ‘agricultural productivity’ metaphor is the image of making progress in the development of your character. Galatians calls it love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. In Ephesians Paul calls it goodness, righteousness and truth. One of the things the gospel is supposed to produce in us is progress in a wide range of aspects of our character.

ii. Kingdom priorities: Elsewhere in the scriptures fruitfulness refers to having kingdom priorities like Paul’s collection for the famine in Israel.[4] Those $ given to alleviate the suffering caused by a famine was called Christian fruit. Other places, it is just hard work for the things that Jesus cares about.[5]

iii. Finally, fruit or harvest or crop is a metaphor to describe the reproduction of the gospel.[6] Offering the liberation and forgiveness of Christ to anyone who will listen.

(b) How do we produce it:

There are three clues in this text

i. hear the words of God
ii. retain
iii. persevere

Jesus asks us how we approach his word. I had a friend in college who used to say that we should not read the scriptures, we should let the scriptures read us. This whole story is about hearing the words of Jesus with an open heart and a desired to be rattled by them. But these three words, hear, retain, persevere, these are not casual words. The final lesson of the parable of the sower is a familiar lesson in Luke. Be tenacious in your pursuit of Jesus and the things he says.

_________
[1] Darrell Bock The NIV Application Commentary: Luke, p 234.
[2] http://nicolablog.blogspot.com/2008/10/order-of-happiness-part-2.html
[3] And more from Pascal on the topic of diversions: The only thing that consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves, and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us on to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us, gradually and without ever adverting to it, to death.
[4] Romans 15:28
[5] Philippians 1:22, Colossians 1:10
[6] Colossians 1:6

Faith, Forgiveness, Identity and Ministry:

Jesus and the Dramatic Ceiling Entrance

(UCD Campus - October 7, 2008)

Luke 6:17-26

At the time of this story Jesus has been doing his thing for about a year and has become wildly popular. On this particular day he is teaching and healing in a house and it has become so densely packed that no more people can get in. There are these guys who have literally carried their friend to see Jesus and they will not be denied. So the passage begins with a dramatic ceiling entry. Entering a room through the ceiling is actually a narrative devise that is commonly employed by the story tellers of our culture. In particular, ceiling entries are a staple of Spy and Heist movies. Our culture’s iconic image of the ceiling entry has got to be Tom Cruise dangling in mid-air hacking the master spy list, a bead of sweat dangerously forming on his brow. But a more fun ceiling entry would be from Wallace and Grommet and the Wrong Pants where the nefarious penguin (disguised as a rooster by placing a rubber glove on his head) takes control of Wallace’s mechanical pants and uses the sleeping Wallace to stage a diamond heist.

But these activities have commonality with the people passing through the roof in Luke 6. They are in tenacious pursuit of something of absolute value that is otherwise inaccessible. And that is why Luke tells us the story of the ceiling entry. But it is the conversation that follows that is of primary interest. A disproportionate amount of spiritual insight emerges from the few sentences exchanged after the dramatic entry. This is some of the most theologically dense dialog anywhere in the book of Luke.

In the next twenty minutes or so I would like to try to understand this passage by zeroing in on four phrases.

1. ” Jesus saw their faith…” –What faith is
2. “Your sins are forgiven.” -What Jesus offers
3. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” –Who Jesus is
4. ‘So that you may know…’ -Jesus’ method of ministry


1. ” Jesus saw their faith…”

In the text we see a classic formula, which is at the center of Christian theology and that comes up again and again in Luke’s account of Jesus’ life: Jesus grants the forgiveness of sins in response to faith. The first half of Luke is a string of accounts of messed up people coming to Jesus with nothing but trust and hope and finding forgiveness. But one of the really interesting things that pops out from a careful reading of this passage is an unexpected insight on what faith is. How did Jesus know that these men had faith? He saw their faith. In this passage, faith is something Jesus can observe. Have you ever thought of faith in that way; as something that can be seen? I think that should affect our ideas about what faith is…and what it is not. It is not a private belief, an abstract idea, a warm feeling or a correct doctrinal statement. It is the confident and tenacious pursuit of Jesus. It is a lively trust that what Jesus offers is worth reorganizing you life for. It is going out of your way and pressing through obstacles to get to him

I think this undermines another misconception about faith. Some people think of faith as the opposite of doubt. That true faith exists only in the absence of doubt. But belief is not something you can muster by sheer willpower. God does not ask us to blindly ignore our doubts if we are to be forgiven. This is a common attack against the credibility of Christianity, that we force blind compliance because we threaten doubt with judgment. But, as defined in this passage, substantial, saving faith and doubt can coexist. Faith is not the absence of doubt, but a passionate pursuit of Jesus despite obstacles (including doubt itself).

I am a scientist. My wife works at a level one emergency room. Between my training in empiricism and my wife’s constant stream of stories of the worst kinds of suffering humans can endure, our home is not without doubt. But we are people of faith, not because we ignore our doubts but that we continue to pursue Jesus through them.

Some of you are struggling with doubt. Maybe, you have a particularly bombastic and antagonistic professor. Or more difficult yet, perhaps you have a particularly insightful professor that has challenged your world view. Maybe you have hurts that you blame God for or that were inflicted by Christians. Or maybe this is just your first time outside of your parent’s house, and you are trying to figure out if the God thing is really worth missing out on all of the sex and parties that college has to offer. Faith is not closing your eyes to these things and pretending they don’t exist. It is tenaciously pursuing Jesus through them.

2. “Your sins are forgiven.”

There are two possible reactions to this statement: ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ The first is to be underwhelmed. Jesus’ response could be considered ‘adventures in missing the point’. A paralyzed man goes through the trouble of being carried what was likely a significant distance, hoisted onto a roof and lowered through a mud hole, a maneuver that involved pretty significant risk for a man without the use of his limbs. And Jesus appears to look right past his real issue, waxing spiritual, but not providing the actual service they went through all that trouble for. His statement, ‘your sins are forgiven’ could be seen as a trivial response…an unverifiable response to what everyone can see is a very serious problem. I can almost see Andy Dufrane from the Shawshank Redemption looking at the warden in disbelief asking ‘how can you be so obtuse?’

But this is kind of the whole point of the story. By offering this man forgiveness, instead of healing, in response to his tenacious faith, Jesus suggests that we have misdiagnosed our greatest need. We, like those who were checking Jesus out in the gospel stories, come to Jesus for a variety of reasons, in response to a variety of felt needs. Sickness, helplessness, fear, guilt, and meaninglessness can all be reasons (among many others) that we develop a curiosity about Jesus. For most of us, these felt needs are far more trivial than the desire to walk. And Jesus cares about the things that trouble us. But in this passage, Jesus provocatively asserts that these are not our greatest needs.

Consider that you are watching my house while I am away. And while I am gone a bill comes for me and you pay it and tell me that you are not interested in being repaid. How thankful should I be…I actually have no idea how thankful to be. I have no idea how thankful to be until I know the value of the gift. Did a letter come with the wrong stamp and you paid the $0.03 postage due…was it my entire student loan…was it my mortgage? My gratitude will be commensurate with my need and the provision made for my need.[1]

And this is the tension of Jesus’ words in this passage. Those who were underwhelmed by his response ‘your sins are forgiven’ have not understood the value of the gift. They have misdiagnosed our greatest need. Jesus responds to the faith of the paralytic and his friends with the greatest gift possible. In doing so he subtly asserting that being reconciled to God is more valuable than walking. By looking past the paralysis and offering the man reconciliation with God in response to his faith, Jesus makes the case that our broken human condition, which separates us from God, is our actual greatest need.

I think the biggest reason we underestimate our need for forgiveness is because we tend to misunderstand what ‘sin’ is. It has become a word without meaning in our culture. In most of its cultural uses it actually has positive connotations…to describe things we enjoy. A couple that is enjoying sex before they are married playfully quip that they are ‘living in sin.’ An eight layer chocolate dessert is described as ‘sinfully delicious.’ Chuck Klosteman get at this idea in his review of the Left Behind series in which a dispensational, pre-tribulational rapture[2] leaves the world without Christians.

“The post-rapture earth initially seems like a better place to live. Everyone boring would be gone. One could assume that all the infidels that weren’t teleported into God’s kingdom must be pretty cool. All the guys would be drinkers and all the women would be easy and you could make jokes about homeless people and teen suicide and crack babies without offending anyone. Quite frankly, my response to the opening pages of Left Behind was ‘sounds good to me.’”[3]

This is a common sentiment. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard someone joke that if Heaven and Hell exist they are angling for hell because that is where all of the fun people will be.

Even when sin has a negative connotation it is generally though of as a set of mistakes. For some of you, when you hear Jesus say ‘your sins are forgiven’ you hear ‘I will overlook the mistakes you have made because I get it. It’s hard to be you. Everyone makes mistakes. No, really, it’s cool.’ But this is not how Jesus views or defines view of sin.

The ‘mistakes’, the individual ‘sins’ are just symptoms of a condition of rebellion and brokenness…of a fundamental self reliance. Sin is a condition not a series of event. It is a fundamental inclination of self interest that causes the individual ‘sins’ like lying, misuse of sexuality or indifference towards the poor.

I actually think that a lot of the art generated by our culture gets this point pretty right. Even completely secular people look at the human condition and conclude that there is something fundamentally wrong with us. Malcom Muggeridge was talking about this phenomena when he said ‘The doctrine of human depravity is simultaneously the most unpopular and the most empirically verifiable of all the Christian beliefs.’ This observation that there is something fundamentally wrong with us that needs some sort of fix is the most noticeable theme in Linkin Park’s three major albums. Consider:

I'm my own worst enemy
I've given up, I'm sick of feeling
Is there nothing you can say?
Take this all away, I'm suffocating
Tell me what the f@#$ is wrong with me
___
Crawling in my skin
These wounds, they will not heal
Fear is how I fall
Confusing what is real

There's something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
Consuming, confusing
This lack of self control I fear is never ending
Controlling

I can't seem
To find myself again
My walls are closing in
I've felt this way before
So insecure
___
In this farewell,
There's no blood,
There's no alibi,
'Cause I've drawn regret,
From the truth of a thousand lies.
So let mercy come, and wash away...

What I've done,

or if the hybrid scene is not your thing The Arcade Fire (opposite genre, same desperate longing) echoes the same theme.

“And there’s something wrong in the heart of man,
you take it from your heart and put it in your hand!”

I think these lyrics actually articulates a central theme in the message of Jesus and those who came after him. We are fundamentally broken. We have an inclination towards self interest and self centeredness that is more than jus the sum of all our mistakes. It is a condition. It is rebellion and it separates us from God. Being forgiven and healed of this condition is our deepest and most desperate need and the great gifts Jesus offers. He knows that the greatest need that any of us has is a heart corroded and misshapen by misuse and turned away from God. And he offer forgiveness in response to faith.

3. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

So I said there were two possible responses to Jesus’ offer of forgiveness. The first is to be underwhelmed…to feel like he is missing the point. But the opposite reaction was the one actually recorded. The Pharisees, who were the popular religious leaders of the time, were actually upset at the audacity of the claim. They quietly wondered ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ One could make the case that this question is actually the thesis statement of the passage.

First a word about the Pharisees. This is the first time they appear in Luke’s story. Up until this point Jesus had attracted large crowds of common people who were attracted to his spiritual authority and accessible teaching in metaphors of their daily lives. At this point, however, he had gotten popular enough that the religious leaders felt the need to check this guy out. It says they came from all the surrounding towns in an organized effort to evaluate and eventually to discredit Jesus. The next two chapters record a series of encounters in which Jesus is teaching the common people and the religious leaders engage him in debate, trying to undermine his popularity.

But here is the thing about their question in this passage: ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ It is precisely the right question. They were incensed at his offer of forgiveness because they knew that this was something only God could do…and they were precisely correct. Physicians had significant social status in Jesus’ day. The author of this account, Luke, was himself a doctor. The realm of human healing was one that was not well understood but was at least open to human efforts and attempts. But forgiveness of sins; that was God’s alone to grant.

In making this audacious claim Jesus rejects the common misconception that he came as an enlightened teacher or prophet. His coming was not just educational, improving us with good advice. His coming was a cosmic event…nothing less than the visitation of God himself. The point of his coming was not access to his teaching, but access to Jesus himself as the redemptive agent of God. In this passage Jesus claims to at the very least, have God’s authority. As he unfolds his actual identity over the course of his ministry we learn that he has God’s authority because he is God. If this is a new idea to you it could be potentially shocking. It was for those who were there that day. They had come to see a magic show, and they heard a man claim to be God. But this is the only reason the could claim to offer the forgiveness that we all so desperately need.

I think that CS Lewis framed this idea pretty well in what is likely his most famous quote:

'I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about (Jesus): 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.[4]'

4. ‘So that you may know…’

Jesus makes an act of mercy and restoration the conduit of his message of cosmic forgiveness. The forgiveness of sins is not empirically verifiable. You can not test or prove it. There is no sin CAT scan that you can put the man into and evaluate if there is still sin or if it has all been expunged. But Jesus accompanies this message of forgiveness with a tangible act of compassion and service that can be verified empirically. In essence he makes the forgiveness of sins verifiable by accompanying it with a shocking act of compassion.

And this is actually the idea that is at the heart of College Life vision for this year…that we would bring the message of the forgiveness of sins to our campus and community, but that it would not be a purely theoretical offer…that it would be, accompanied by tangible acts of service and grace. This is the whole idea behind the growth group projects. That we would verify the reality of the offer of forgiveness by demonstrating

Some of you may be struggling with this idea a little bit. Historically evangelicals have been wary of mixing the proclamation of the gospel with acts of compassion. The argument goes, if the forgiveness of sins is the most important thing, as this passage seems to assert, we should not waste our time serving people’s physical and emotional needs. But here’s the thing, Jesus does not seem swayed by this. He lives a life of proclamation and service and this phrase ‘so that you may know’ seems to indicate that he sees the latter as authenticating the former. And lest you think this is an isolated event, Jesus’ compassion, healing and interest in the poor, oppressed and marginalized is generally considered by most commentators to be one of the major themes of Luke’s gospel. Our acts of service demonstrate the transformational nature of the gospel as much or more than our personal ethics. In our culture, breaking out of an insular, self centered existence to serve others is often more likely to bring attention to the gospel than the fact that we don’t drink or have extramarital sex.

Sometimes I feel like Bible believing Christians are too busy trying not to be Liberal to take Jesus’ words about compassion, mercy, the poor and works of general service seriously. Some of us need to be more concerned about trying to be like Jesus than trying to be conservative.

Let’s face it, acts of compassion were easier for Jesus. It would be tempting for us to look at his ministry and say, “if God would do miracles through me I’d be willing to act on behalf of the suffering, but without miraculous power it is really hard. Jesus can’t expect us to undergird the message of forgiveness with compassionate action if it is so hard.” But I don’t think the fact that it was easier for Jesus gets us off the hook.

So, there it is. The story of the dramatic ceiling entry provides us with insight about faith, forgiveness, the identity of Jesus and his ministry methods. Just a few sentences of dialog offer a high density of spiritual insight. But the fundamental thrust is to press into a confident and tenacious pursuit of Jesus. He is worth the trouble.

____________
[1] Illustration borrowed from Dr Martian Loyd Jones
[2] A strange (if popular) theology which I consider unbiblical.
[3] Chuck Klosterman “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs”
[4] CS Lewis Mere Christianity

Why I am Still a Christian

UCD – 4/06

Note: I gave this talk a couple years ago to a UCD college ministry. If you are interested in the topic, it gets much better treatment (in free downloadable MP3 format) by Tim Keller here and in his new book. You will recognize some of the material and quotes from past and future posts on my main blog. In retrospect, I’d change a lot of stuff and completely redo or abandon the first point. But for what it is worth, here is my 20 minute summary…

During a recent event, several students erected an enormous wall on the UC Davis campus. In an exercise in sanctioned graffiti, listening and, occasionally dialog, they encouraged their peers to cover it with their response to the statement: ‘Why I am not a Christian.’ Here is a sample of the responses.

There is one Christ yet so many denominations. If they’re all Christians, then why don’t they get along?

Churches have a feel of a social club whose members are “by invitation only”

Too many people have been slaughtered in Christ’s name. (a sobering accusation that must be taken seriously)

Used to promote heterosexist white male privilege.

Evolution, it is real.

-Historically inaccurate
-Scientifically inaccurate
-Logically and internally inconsistent

I love my sin! (I give this person credit for self awareness)

Bush

And let me give you one more response…a little more articulate and well put together, from the most famous answerer of this question: Bertrand Russell, author of the famous book ‘Why I am not a Christian’. He says:

“purposeless (and)…void of meaning is the world which science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That man is the product of causes which had no pre-vision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins – all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”[1]
…

All of this raises the obvious question, Why on earth am I still a Christian? Why would I voluntarily choose to be associated with the crusades, the inquisition and the Religious right. Am I just contrarian, a revolutionary, defy all odds, against the flow of public opinion kind of guy. Well, yes, but I could have chosen any number of more socially acceptable world views that satisfy the contrition nature. No I am a Christian because I believe that despite the checkerd past of associated institutions the way of Jesus Christ is still the most compelling paradigm under which the data of life falls into place. It is a worldview with challenges to be sure, but, I believe in the final analysis it has more explanatory power and, fewer weaknesses than other available options.

So I understand that you had a week of ‘You talk, I listen, but if you have another 20 minutes of listening in you I’m plan to use the time I you’ve given me this evening to hit 3 reasons that I am still a Christian. Now this will be to a certain extent anecdotal and personal as one could not hope to give a comprehensive statement of the faith in so short a time. But the core of the reasons that I am still a Christian involve:

1. Christianity Motivates Heroic Lives
2. Christianity Provides the Most Compelling and Comprehensive Explanation of Reality
3. Christianity Responds to the Universal Experience of Suffering

Let's start with what I will call the pagmatic test...

1. Christianity Motivates Heroic Lives

Most worldviews in our culture are asked to pass a pragmatic test before they are ever allowed to respond to the philosophical or existential queries. People want to know if something works before they will entertain the idea that it might be true. Therefore, in my mind one of the first and most damaging accusations brought against Christianity is the charge of hypocrisy, that it actually does not result in significant personal or institutional transformation and, in fact, its institutions have themselves directly perpetrated crass evil. This is, on many counts, a fair charge. But I am unwilling to fully cede this point.

I would argue, first of all, that much of the evil perpetrated in the name of the church actually support a fundamental Christian doctrine – that the human condition is broken at the core and will use any idea or institution, no matter how noble, be it Islam, Hinduism, Communism, nationalism, Christianity or even Darwinian evolution (if you’ll recall social Darwinism and the robber barons of the industrial revolution) to gain power, pleasure or self interest. There are very few worldviews that have not been tarnished by the abuses of wicked men. However, I would assert that aside from the abuses we have a historical record of the Way of Jesus Christ being exceptionally fertile ground for the development of heroic lives. Where rightly applied the Christian worldview equips individuals to live functional, even inspiring lives…lives that ‘work.’
Biblical Authors and early church figures were calling for care for the poor and action on behalf of the oppressed before it was trendy and increased one’s social status to purport such things. And these words were not always ignored the way they often are today. In the 4th century, the Roman emperor Julian failed in his efforts to suppress Christianity – “He told his officials, “We ought to be ashamed. Not a beggar is to be found among the Jews and those godless Galileans (what he called Christians) feed not only their own people but ours as well, whereas our people receive no assistance whatsoever from us.” Similarly William Dyrness asserts that Christians had lower mortality rates during the early medieval plagues because the spurned the risks and provided each other basic nursing care. It was their understanding that this world was not the final destination that equipped them to live heroic lives of love and courage. And the story of Christ and his people is littered with lives that inspire, from Francis of Assisi to Teresa of Calcutta, heroic lives of love, courage and beauty, virtues nearly universally esteemed…Lives that, if you will, ‘work.’

The institution and idea of the Church has been systematically and diabolically abused by corrupt men. But the Way of Jesus Christ has produced countless lives of beauty and courage. If beauty and courage can be viewed as appropriate metrics of evaluation, Christianity does - in fact - work.

And from there I’ll move from a pragmatic test to a test of correspondence with reality.

2. Christianity Provides the Most Compelling and Comprehensive Explanation of Reality

I generally reject pragmatism and the premise that something is true if it works. Does the Way of Jesus Christ actually provide a paradigm that accounts for the observed phenomena of human existence? If someone asks me why I am a Christian expecting a one sentence answer, my answer is something like this: The Way of Jesus Christ provides the most comprehensive and compelling organization of my understandings of my world and myself. In other words, it describes me and my world in most precise agreement with my observations of both.

First, to borrow from Ravi Zechariahs, Jesus Christ diagnoses my condition most precisely. He articulates clearly the things that are apparent to me about me. That I am somehow intrinsically good and valuable yet fundamentally broken and bent on self service. It is the Christian narrative of creation and fall that accounts for both of these aspects of the human condition, a condition simultaneously capable of such sublime beauty and diabolical wickedness. Malcom Muggeridge unpacks this point well. He says "(human) depravity…is at once the most unpopular of all dogmas, yet the most empirically verifiable" Any worldview that asserts either that I am fundamentally good or that I am fundamentally evil (including those that say I am some sort of biological automaton bent only on self service and genetic propagation) do not correspond to my self understanding. Jesus Christ diagnoses my condition most precisely.

Similarly, expanding from the person as a microcosm to the world in general, a world created purposefully by God but fundamentally broken by a cosmic fall provides the most compelling description of the world I see out my window each morning. I reject Beauty and Justice as social constructs. They are too universal in their acceptance. I will talk shortly about how a Christianity like other world views must respond to the problem of evil. But there is a flip side to that problem, a problem of beauty. A worldview must be comprehensive enough to handle the world as it is with its great beauty and undeniable evil. The non-theistic worldview has trouble with beauty. Russell himself said “No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?.” The materialist has trouble with beauty. Why should a glaciated, uplifted, plutonic intrusion generate the transcendent sense of awe one experiences walking through the Yosemite valley or why should we respond to art at all, a human artifact that does not aid our propagation as a species. Christianity handles beauty very well, and says that our capacity to recognize beauty is part of being created in the image of its source. We respond to created beauty because we resonate with its source.

Likewise, Christianity explains the universal requirement for justice as a reflection of our Creator’s fundamental nature. This is far more compelling to me than any materialist explanation for the surprisingly universal moral affirmations. A naturalistic explanation of social evolution, ‘nature red in tooth in claw,’ really struggles to underpin why we should care about poor inner city schools or why ethnic cleansing or rape are wrong. Both of these latter examples though especially diabolical, are particularly problematic as they both serve the interests of genetic propagation. But Christianity rejects what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls the biologization of the human person.

Now I want to be very clear here. I am not saying that since society would fall apart if we embraced a truly naturalistic view of the world and therefore we shouldn’t. I’m with Nietzsche and Russell in thinking that if this were the true state of affairs we should get on with it and create a society based on these principals (a society incidentally, that I think would look very different from ours). What I am saying is that this is not the human experience. The human heart cries out for justice in all languages. Russell himself claims that Christianity is immoral, Derrida demanded vehemently that an individual was simply wrong for profiting off his work, both suggesting a fundamental standard by which oughtness can be evaluated.

Finally, under correspondence to reality, I will invoke the strongest of Aquinas’ 5 arguments for the existence of God: what has come to be known the teleological argument, or the argument from design. There is plenty of talk in the news about design these days. It is a debate I’m not particularly interested in here. Because, beyond the pedantic debate of how it was created, as a scientist I am basically convinced that it is not what we don’t understand that make the case for a creator, not the remaining mysteries of the universe that require us to invoke something magical, but what we do understand that points to purposeful involvement. I was often told to be careful of science, particularly biology and geology, because they would damage my faith. I of course paid no attention to this, in part because I was a punk kid, but mainly because I had no interest in holding a worldview that was not robust enough to handle the best observations of the secular mind. What I found in the sciences, rather than the ruin of my faith, was a great call to worship. I found the study of natural revelation, the careful observations of our world, to be almost as worshipful as the study of specific revelation, the scriptures themselves. And I am not alone. When I was a graduate student in Wisconsin the Christian Fellowships hosted a debate with the local Atheist clubs in commemoration of the great Russell/Copelston debate. They went after their top choices for both sides of issue and got them. William Lane-Craig For the existence of God (an able thinker and retoratician with multiple doctorates) and Anthony Flew (widely recognized as Craig’s intellectual superior) for the dissenting position. Several thousand people came to the debate. So I read with interest a couple years ago when Flew issued a statement that he was no longer an atheist. The reason he gave for his public switch was that he was “convinced by the scientific teleological argument”.

The teleological argument has had its problems but it is most convincingly cast in the form of the ‘fine tuning argument’ or the ‘anthropic principal.’ Francis Collins, the long time director of the human genome project, summarizes this well:

‘Now that the origin of the universe and our own solar system has become increasingly well understood, a number of fascinating apparent coincidences about the natural world have been discovered…Altogether, there are fifteen physical constants whose values current theory is unable to predict. They are givens: the simply have the value they have. The list includes the speed of light, the strength of the weak and strong nuclear forces, various parameters associated with electromagnetism and the force of gravity. The chance that all of these constants would take on the values necessary to result in a stable universe capable of sustaining complex life forms is almost infinitesimal. And yet those are exactly the parameters that we observe. In sum, our universe is wildly improbable.” (The Language of God)

There has been a healthy amount of philosophical debate on this issue, but the naturalistic explanations of these phenomena are rich with faith commitments.

Immanuel Kant, an able and influential philosopher who set out to systematically undermine Thomas Aquinas’ 5 proofs for the existence of God said that there were only two things that he could not get past ‘the starry host above and the moral law within.’ Beauty, brokenness, justice and purpose. Christianity provides a compelling paradigm that organizes the data of life.

3. Christianity Responds to the Universal Experience of Suffering

The great weakness of the teleological argument or the argument from design is that it is hard to credit a God which is the great source of justice and beauty with a world that is so widely characterized by injustice and suffering. Here we face the problem of evil, a quandary that I am sure that you, in your careful listening to your peers, have encountered again and again: How can a good and all powerful God allow such desperate suffering. It causes one to question either his goodness or his power.

Now there are many responses to the problem of evil, some of them quite helpful. I do not have the time to do this justice. It would take much more time and, likely, a more appropriate speaker. But just briefly a couple of approaches include:

i. a careful discussion of the metric of goodness – that it may be something other than happiness by which a good word is evaluated

ii. Certain goods require adversity to be fully realized: generosity in response to need and bravery in response to danger

iii. Plantinga talks about the possibility that the best of all possible worlds is not, in fact, a utopia of our imagining but a world of volitional moral agents with the ability to choose God or rebel.

These approaches and several others each have strengths and weaknesses. In the end they are sufficient but not overwhelming. These are reasons I am not not a Christian.

What I do find compelling, however, and one of the reasons that I am, in fact, a Christian is the Christian response (not explanation but response) to evil. It is clear that God allows evil, for whatever reason we choose to explain or not explain it – it is also clear that He is not OK with it. It is the Christian God who take evil and suffering seriously…seriously enough to stand in solidarity with those who suffer. It is the Christian God who is the suffering God. It is the Christian God who is the crucified God. In this beautiful and broken world that we live in he becomes the present co-sufferer. In the Christian narrative God experienced the God-forsakeness of suffering in the person of Jesus Christ.

In summary, I believe that it is because Christianity is true that it reflects the fundamental nature of empirical reality with all of its complexity, beauty, justice, evil and suffering. This is why I am still a Christian. And to return to the pragmatic question, does it work, I would say that a worldview that takes seriously the fundamental goodness and brokenness of our world and our condition prepares one to take on life as it truly is and respond heroically. I think G. K. Chesterton sums this up well. This quote is particularly poignant for me since it is one my brother quoted at my Father’s funeral: several days after our Father had been killed by a reckless driver and a couple days before the birth of my brother’s first child…a time when the beauty and brokenness of our world stood in stark proximity. The Christian world view is robust enough to embrace this complex reality. The arms of Christ reach far enough for this embrace. Chesterton says:

"For our Titanic purposes of faith and revolution, what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it. We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre’s castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return at evening.
No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist?"[2]

This is what the Way of Jesus Christ offers. A fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent and a God who so passionately stands in solidarity with us in both the joys and the sufferings as we work to mend the brokenness and look to a final mending. This is why I belong to Jesus Christ. This is why I am still a Christian.

[1] Bertrand Russell, Why I am Not a Christian Second page of “A Free Man’s Worship”
[2] G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, “The Flag of the World”