THE SILENT MOUND OF DAYS

For friends long-separated, life has a way of piling up like snow, and it is only when you sit down to write a letter or place a phone call that you become suddenly surprised at just how much has accumulated since you last caught up. It can be hard work to keep the paths between homes cleared. Although letters and phone calls make a poor shovel, shovel we sometimes must because that silent mound of days can become a serious impediment to an easy back-and-forth. That is sometimes the fate of friendships in this fallen, winter world, but Jesus is bringing the springtime when all that chill and silence will melt, and all those separated by distance, death, and disappointment, yet still bound and tethered by Christ will pull chairs up to the fire and enjoy a more perfect fellowship in the warmth and light of his eternal presence.

THE PERFECT, MIRROR SYMMETRY OF THE STORY WE ARE LIVING IN

There is such a perfect, mirror symmetry to the story of man's fall and subsequent redemption on the cross. In the garden of Eden there were many trees by which one could eat and live, but only one that would cause you to die. On this side of the fall there are many ways to die and only one way to know life. Adam exited paradise when he decided it would be better to be a god than to trust in God, and all us sons and daughters of Adam may only enter back in when we cease striving in our own power, trying to be our own godlike savior, and trust in Jesus alone for our salvation. Our Tree of Life is the cross and its fruit is the broken body and spilled blood of Jesus. Adam ate and was banished. We eat and are welcomed home.

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. - John 14:6

LAZY BOY CHRISTIANITY

With a hot bowl full of Maccaroni and Cheese and a diet Pepsi I settled in front of the TV for an episode of Bear Grylls' show "Man vs. Wild" on the Discovery Channel. It's easily one of my favorite shows. I could kill an entire day watching Bear conquer the wildest corners of the earth. In this particular episode he landed on a desolate stretch of Scotland's coast and "self-rescued" his way back to civilization.

I began to ask myself what it is that appeals to me about the show. Adventure, self-sufficiency, wilderness, danger, challenge were all words that occurred to me. In truth, it brings out the little boy in me, and also a hidden, dusty part of who I am as a man. The old desire for adventure , which courses through the hearts of boys and men alike. On some level I want such a life so I escape for a bit and watch Bear play out my fantasies by proxy.

A spoonful of Mac & Cheese. 

A drink of Diet Pepsi.

And back to the show.

The scene is farcical if you take it in in its entirety. Perverse even. The fit and toned Bear Grylls scrambling down cliff faces, dangling by one hand above certain death, swimming raging rivers, meeting and conquering the worst nature has to throw at him, and me- fat, lazy me- watching him wide-eyed from the comfort of my lazy-boy. My admiration for him does not translate into action. I enjoy taking in his exploits, but I'm not motivated to imitate him.

Another drink.

Another spoonful of mac and cheese.

And back to Bear who is skinning a seal carcass he found along the shore in order to fashion some sort of wet-suit from its disembodied hide so he can swim a stretch of the north Atantic, which separates the island he has landed on from the mainland.

Confronted as I was by Bear Grylls awesomeness I couldn't help but feel a tad like a flabby pretender. I want to be a praticipant. How much do I live by proxy? Do I do this with my faith, which is the most important thing to me? Do I pretend.

Not always. I'm flawed, but genuine for the most part. Though perhaps, at times I am guilty of studying the life of Christ with a similar detachment. I have sat in church and I have read the Bible in a manner similar to watching Man vs. Wild. I have, at times, admired and enjoyed Jesus without imitating him.

So I asked myself...

...am I eager to do what is good or am I just an admirer of what is good?

Does my understanding of Christ and what He has done for me translate into action in my life? His love for me was an active one. Is my worshipful response?

Is it transformative?

Does it govern me?

Has it motivated me to pursue holiness and reject sin?

Or am I lazy-boy sort of Christian? How about you?

or is it just another drink of sin. Another spoonful of the flesh.

And back to the program.

A PHILANTHROPIC ONE NIGHT STAND

From 2004 until 2013 I had the privilege of living in the small, resort town of Idyllwild in Southern California’s San Jacinto Mountains. I recall that every year, around this time, thru-hikers would begin to trickle out of the woods on their annual migration from Mexico to Canada. Their route along the Pacific Crest Trail would bring them into Idyllwild where they would arrive looking trail-weary, bearded, and asking “Can I use your restroom?”  They eagerly dropped their packs outside of coffee shops, restaurants, the post office, and along the front porch of the Idyllwild Inn before being reunited with the comforts of civilization- beds, beer, pizza, and wireless internet.  They often struck me as having knowing, introspective eyes, as though their intellectual palate had been washed clean in the lonely quiet of the back country, and their reemergence into society allowed them to see things differently.

They also seemed drunk with the novelty of their existence and, in their presence, I felt somewhat dissatisfied with my own. I knew it was not fair to them, and also probably wildly inaccurate, but I always felt vaguely judged by them. They always made me feel especially fat.  To be honest, I did envy them a little. In some ways I think I was built by my Creator to thrive in solitude, and I would enjoy the opportunity to be alone with my thoughts, putting one foot in front of the other for days at a stretch, and then limp into town with new eyes for the place. Plus I knew that their vanilla latte tasted far better than mine because it was earned and anticipated over miles of sun-drenched trail.

I also wondered at the expense and, frankly, the frivolity of what they were doing. All that gear wasn’t cheap, and if the old maxim is true that time is money then thru-hiking is either a terrible waste or a profound statement of something’s worth. But what exactly is that something? I think that in order to enjoy being a thru-hiker I would need a good reason for doing it, something larger than personal fulfillment. I've never asked them for their reasons, but I suspect that most of their reasons could never be mine. I clearly do more judging of them than they of me.

Still, in a mysterious way, I was drawn to them. Their experience was magnetic, and judging by the reaction of others in town, they felt the same. I think they wanted to share vicariously in the thru-hiker’s experience. Thru-hikers seemed to excite in people a strong desire to help them along their way. I felt the same tug in me and this even as I privately judged the merits and usefulness of that they were doing.

Every spring, their arrival in Idyllwild coincided with a general outpouring of good will and generosity. Folks, who I suspect would never think of offering a ride to a neighbor, would stop and ask thru-hikers if they could give them a lift, and even agree spontaneously to drive them as far away as the next trail head in Big Bear. They would pick up the tab in restaurants and pay for the groceries of thru-hikers then pass by the homeless as they walked out to their cars. They even offered thru-hikers hospitality in their very homes and considered it no hardship. Judging by the way people helped the thru-hikers you would think these bearded, greasy nomads were on a quest to cast a ring into Mordor or taking much needed medicine to a remote village or something, but as best I could discern the long walk had no such end in view. It was an end all its own.  

I think all human beings are made in the image of the God who said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35) So it makes sense that, for many, there would be a strong internal pull to be a giver and to meet needs, but why then would we tamp that impulse down and harden our hearts against the everyday needs in our community only to release it so generously when the thru-hikers arrived? I think one possibility is that the open-ended need of our neighbors represented a philanthropic Vietnam of sorts, a quagmire of giving with no clear exit strategy. If we gave our neighbor a ride to work today, won’t they still be without a car tomorrow?  If we offered hospitality to the homeless man living behind Fairway Market won’t he still be homeless tomorrow?

For the trail angels, as they are called, thru-hiker season in Idyllwild was like a no-strings-attached fling. Each encounter was a one-night-stand of generosity. However, every year this rare community-wide spirit of open-handed good will proved in the end to be every bit as transient as…well…a thru-hiker. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t have been generous and kind to them but insofar as that generosity represents a departure from the norm it strikes me more as penance then the natural overflow of a generous heart. 

OXBOW CHRISTIANITY

An oxbow lake is a stagnant body of water that used to be part of  the main channel of a dynamic, flowing river. It forms when the river cuts a new channel across the neck of a meander leaving a crescent-shaped lake that is cut off from the river it used to be a part of.

It occurs to me that a lot of churches are like that. We might even call them oxbow churches. This kind of church has a history to celebrate.  There was once a time, maybe even within living memory, when that church was part of the great, powerful current of what God was doing and, and during those years, that church was full of vigor and movement, mission and purpose, and their church life was marked by a sacrificial flowing-out. But now in the place of movement and vigor and mission and purpose there is just existence.

One of the marks of an oxbow church is that the continuing existence of the church- keeping the doors open- becomes the goal, and this goal trumps and ultimately replaces the great Kingdom purposes that caused previous generations to take big risks, sacrifice, and follow God even when what He was calling them to was very challenging.

A church’s goal should never be just to keep the doors open. That is an oxbow mentality. You show me a church that has made that their highest goal and I will show you one that is weak and irrelevant. Satan grins at such a church, because the Spirit of our Lord who poured out His life as a drink offering and who willingly gave His life in sacrifice for others has gone out of a church that sets its sights on self-preservation.

Brothers and sisters, there are fates worse than death for a church.

Our desire should not be to keep our church going, but to make our church fruitful.  If I was told that five or ten years from now my church would be forced to close its doors my response would be, “Well…let’s go down swinging. Let’s make these next five, ten years count! Let’s honor those who have come before us not by maintaining a lifeless monument of brick and mortar but by using what is temporary to accomplish eternal things. In the days between now and then let’s fill this place with full-throated worship! Let’s proclaim how excellent our God is! Let’s share the Gospel with our neighbors! Let’s pray! Let’s spend every penny! And all the while let’s keep in mind the words of 1 Corinthians 15:58, that “…in the Lord our labor is not in vain.” 

Here’s another mark of an oxbow church. Instead of actively flowing out as a river of blessings and life-giving truth to their community and beyond, an Oxbow church just kinda sits there requiring people to come to it.  Jesus, of course, is our example in everything. Jesus didn’t invite us from on high to come join Him in heaven that we might be saved. He left his place in heaven, a place of privilege and exaltedness, to come down to where we are. Christ Came among us in the flesh and we must follow His Example by going to the lost in the same way. An oxbow Christian views their church building primarily as a place for ministry rather than as a base for ministry. Such a church used to be part of a current that flowed all the way out to the great oceans that circle the globe, but now it is just a glorified puddle.  And to be sure, even within a vital, spirit-filled church, there can be individual oxbow Christians, but there is something especially sad about a whole group of believers- a church family- united together in the delusion that their little puddle-church is somehow an authentic expression of Biblical Christianity. Jesus said in John 7:38, “Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” Authentic Christianity is always marked by a flowing out, and a giving of life. It is a fearful thing when a church ceases to flow out for then it stagnates and becomes cut off from the main current of what God is doing. 

THE MAIN CHARACTER PROBLEM

Like most parents of young children I find myself sizing up our culture with an increasingly critical eye these days, and also like most, I find that the TV is a constant focus of concern. All manner of nastiness is indiscriminately fired buckshot into crowds of wide-eyed children seated before the barrel’s opening and soaking up every word, image and idea. Perhaps “indiscriminate” is a poor choice of words. Really the marketing behind most television programming and advertising allows producers to tailor content and packaging to a specific target audience for maximum effect. Whether the hearts and minds of my kids are specifically targeted or simply hit by stray bullets is not a moot point. It is significant and concerning, but these are tired talking points that others have articulated better before me.

There is something else, however, which worries me. The sheer volume of stories my kids consume has aroused a concern in me which I call the main character problem. With a few notable exceptions, most television shows, movies and books tend to center around a main character. This is especially true for those marketed to children. If the story is well crafted we feel and experience what happens to the main character as though it were happening to us. We are intended to identify throughout the story with the main character. Increasingly, Americans view life and the world through this foggy egocentric lens- we are all Truman. I shouldn’t wonder than that my kids tend to view themselves as the main characters, and this life as an unfolding drama centered on them. Mom, Dad, siblings and others all fall into the role of supporting cast or, even worse, antagonist. I know that my children are very young and that being egocentric is a natural stage of development, but what concerns me is the number of adults who retain these childlike traits well into adulthood. We have become a nation of main characters and I think this may be directly linked to the amount of media we consume. We are all chiefs and no Indians and the result is that no one seems willing to play the role of supporting cast in their marriages, communities, friendships or even their churches.

Of course, to be prideful and self-centered is a part of every person’s make up, but I think that this has never been so unashamedly indulged and unchecked in our culture prior to these days.

The church has something needed to offer to a culture that is suffering from the main character problem. Becoming a Christian radically reorients a person’s perspective away from their own small lives to the great overarching story of God’s plan to redeem fallen man. In becoming a Christian a person’s eyes are opened to see that they are not main characters. This life is not an unfolding drama centered on us. We are living within a story, and Jesus is the main character. We are not even supporting cast. Who can claim to be a support to the almighty? )Acts 17:25) It is in Him that we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). He is the vine, we are the branches, and apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5). In truth, we are all supported cast.

DON'T BE YOURSELF

Fellow Christian-

There were a few times when I was growing up when I had to go to a new school, or youth group, or a week at summer camp and on those occasions I can remember feeling nervous about not fitting in. When that would happen, an adult, usually my Mom, would always give the same bit of advice- “Just be yourself.”

And by that, of course, they meant “You’re great just the way you are.”

And whereas that was not bad advice to give a young person on the first day of school, it would be a horrible statement to adopt as a governing principle for your life.

That is so because the Bible does not call us to just be ourselves, but to be like Jesus. And if you will hear it lovingly, fellow Christian, you are not fine the way you are if who you are doesn’t look a thing like Jesus.

Humanism, which is the dominant belief system in our culture today, elevates “Just be yourself” to an entire worldview. It posits that each individual is the arbiter of their own truth. Truth is personally derived and personally held. So the pursuit of truth, to the humanist, is the quest to be more authentically yourself. In his book “Counter Culture,” David Platt makes the following observation, “We live in a culture that assumes… if you were born with a desire it is essential to your nature to carry it out.”

But whereas humanism argues that truth is found within, Christianity makes the opposite claim that truth is found outside of ourselves, namely in God’s Word, and in the Word made flesh, who famously said, "I am the way, the truth and the life." So whereas, for the humanist, the pursuit of truth is the quest to become more authentically yourself, for the Christian the pursuit of truth is to become more authentically like Jesus.

It is this simultaneous rejection of self and embrace of Christ that permitted Paul, Hebrews of Hebrews that he was, to set aside his deep, personally held identity as a Jew to become a missionary to the Gentile peoples. After all, Jesus, who was God, became like a man in order to save men. So Paul who was a Jew became like a Gentile in order to save Gentiles. He wrote in1 Corinthians 9:22- "I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some."

So we must understand the church in this way- we are a community of people who are committed to helping one another become more like Jesus. As fallen human beings we are all naturally full of disordered desires and misshapen longings, and, as Brett McCracken said in his book, Uncomfortable, "What we don’t need in this state are people who affirm us in our brokenness and urge us to continue just “being who we are.”

Fellow Christian, don't let me just be myself.

I beg you, help me be like Jesus.

ARE YOUR TROUBLES TOO SMALL TO BRING TO GOD?

Some people approach prayer as though God had a triage system in place for prayer requests. They think, "I won't pray to God about my troubles because there are undoubtedly people out there with much bigger problems. After all," they reason, "God must hear a lot of prayers and in the grand scheme of things mine can only come across as small compared to some of the really desperate stuff that others are facing." However, the only reason why hospital emergency rooms institute a triage system by which patients are assessed and then prioritized for care is that the hospital is limited in resources, space, time and personnel. God is not limited in any way. He is like a vast, infinite ocean of care that covers the shallows and the deeps alike. Approaching prayer with the assumption that God has a triage system in place to filter out seemingly small requests is ultimately dishonoring to God because it assumes that He is limited in some way. Your needs, or the needs of others around you, will always seem less urgent than other hypothetical scenarios, but that is not the point, He is the God of all those who look to Him in trust.

"...do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." Philippians 4:6