The Ancient Future Church

Acts 15:12-21

“Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God.”

So, James issues a resounding “no” to Jesus PLUS. Gentiles do not have to become Jews.

They should though avoid idols (elevating things above the Living God), food that is strangled (not drained of blood as when cut or slaughtered) and blood (itself) and, of course, unchastity (fornication). These, at least three of them look like concessions to Judaism or to those of the circumcision party. If so they would in a sense undermine James’ declaration. But these are universal laws given unto men prior to Moses and not what makes one a Jew or Mosaic laws. They stand outside rituals and of course must be observed by men in every age.

This is a profound teaching and one that needs to be revisited in every generation. For we so easily create rituals and rules. In and of themselves they are fine. And when embraced by others voluntarily they are fine. But when the church or pastors impose them upon the people of God we have both overstepped our authority and abandoned Gospel for law. For faith alone saves.

This is the first council of the church and when the entire enterprise of Christianity was saved. No to Jesus PLUS. Yes to Jesus!

Acts 15:1-11

“And he made no distinction between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith.”

This is the beginning of the end of “Jesus Plus.” Throughout the ages there are those who maintain that one must believe in Jesus PLUS something else in order to be saved. Plus be circumcised. Plus speak in tongues. Plus abstain from meat on Friday. Plus be a five point Calvinist.

This is the church’s answer in every age. Jesus only! God willed to save Jews and Gentiles alike without distinction so circumcision must not be required. He wills to save those who by the Holy Spirit profess “Jesus is Lord” and those who additionally speak in tongues without distinction so tongues must not be required.

Here is some good news. This means there are no second class citizens in the Kingdom. Abstaining from meat does not give anyone a leg up. The playing field is level before we are saved and level afterward.

Here is some even better news. We can be saved. And the means is quite clear. “But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will. Jesus saves. By grace. Through faith. Thank you Lord for making it something we could not overlook.

Acts 14:19-28

“And saying that through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God.”

So says Paul. And he should know. He was, a few verses earlier, stoned and dragged from the city and left for dead. And here is preaching and discipling again! He is even returning to the places in which he was rejected.

Paul helps us understand what it means to persevere. He has an indefatigable spirit. He can’t be held down. He rises from ashes like phoenix with ample wind beneath his wings.

What can I say of Paul? STOP! You make me feel small and old and half-hearted.

What must I say to Jesus? Please, by the power of your Holy Spirit, make me like this tireless worker for the Kingdom. While you labor to make me like yourself, allow me to fight the good fight as your servant Paul.

Acts 14:1-18

“With these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.”

Paul and Barnabas rightly resisted the efforts of the crowd to deify them. They would not have Barnabas called Zeus or Paul called Hermes. They resisted plainly in words. “We also are men, of like nature with you.” They demonstrated it boldly. “They tore their garments.” They consistently pointed to Jesus and eschewed any notoriety for themselves.

This is lesson that must be relearned in every age. In our present day we exalt speakers. Some of them speak eloquently of Jesus. Some simply speak eloquently. In either case, the measure of their faithfulness is whose name is advanced more, the preacher’s name or that of Jesus.

We also exalt churches often in the area of how many people they reach. Many have eliminated obstacles that keep a seeker or newcomer from accessing worship instantly. Others have eliminated words and symbols that challenge even words and symbols integral to understanding the faith. Regardless, the measure of their faithfulness is not attendance, the number of members or even baptisms into the church but how many are being led to being fully devoted followers of Jesus.

With Paul and Barnabas we must resist notoriety and endeavor to elevate the name of Jesus above all names. It’s never been about us!

Job 19:1-7, 14-27

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. “

So begins the burial office in the Anglican world. These words are proclaimed by the priest as the casket is processed to the front of the church. How appropriate! For Job has concluded his life is over. He has been abandoned by associates. Worse, friends and family have thrown him under the bus. “All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me.” He finds himself utterly alone.

While I have never suffered what Job has suffered, bits and pieces of his torment at most, I have felt what Job feels for a few seasons of my life. I know what it means to be alone. I know what it means to feel abandoned. I know what it feels like to see the fruits of my labor left in ruin. I know what it is like to have nothing left to say other than “I know my Redeemer lives.”

That I have not suffered the actual calamities overwhelming Job does not mean I cannot relate. There is a threshold. After that everything else is piling on. Whether real or imagined, the threshold is when you sense no other, not one, will come to your defense. You may be loved by someone but if they will not come to your defense, the love is empty from where you stand. The beloved person might as well be an enemy. Once you cross that threshold, the presence of one more enemy and the loss of one more friend changes nothing. You have no more hope to lose. All hope for this world is gone.

What remains? Simply put, what God as sown in me. Something that man cannot destroy. There is this deep conviction that there is one on my side. And there comes a day when it becomes apparent to everyone that my advocate rules victorious. In other words, “I know my Redeemer lives”!

John 9:1-17

“Now it was the Sabbath day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.”

So! Do they really think that argument will hold water? Certainly the man blind from birth who now sees doesn’t care if it was the Sabbath when he was healed. Does anyone? Well some. But not genuinely. They grasp at anything that might undermine the masses confidence in Jesus. So it was the Sabbath. That makes him a sinner. Pharisees 1. Jesus 0.

But no so fast. People are smarter than that. “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?”

Is it ever a sin to heal? To better the life of someone created in the image of God? Even on the Sabbath? If Katrina sweeps into New Orleans on a Saturday night would the Lord have us conduct services Sunday morning? Or would He have us bag sand, deliver water and house the homeless? Both perhaps but never the former to the detriment of the latter.

Isn’t that what Paul is arguing in Romans 12? Isn’t our sacrifice serving God or the sheep of His hand a “spiritual act of worship”? Didn’t Jesus answer this for us definitively when he said the Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath?

Why such reasoning then among the religious? It is not reasoning. It is not reasonable. It is the pathetic cry of those losing control.

We have but one mediator and only one. The Lord Jesus Christ!

John 8:47-59

“You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?”

Surely the Jews Jesus is addressing are not dumbfounded that one who claims to be the Son of Man also claims to have seen Abraham. They believed in miracles after all. Red Sea sound familiar? Superior armed forces have been routed throughout their history. The waters of the Jordan have been dammed up. Furnaces have been neutralized, the mouths of lions closed. Surely the Son of Man can transcend his less than fifty years of earthly existence?

They are offended by his claims of divinity and his adding insult to injury when He suggests that Abraham rejoiced in his coming. They take up stones when Jesus says “I am.” None but God alone says “I am.”

And in that way the Jews he is addressing at the moment probably represent all of us. God at a distance is safe, God in your face in Jesus not so much. Religious acknowledgement is easier than relating personally. Intellectual assent is so much easier than following obediently. God is now before them in Jesus and He is a forced to be reckoned with.

I understand their angst. Too often it resonates with me.

And yet, the force remains. He knows my sitting down. He knows my rising up. I cannot hide. Reckoning is coming.

John 8:33-47

“How is it that you say, ‘You will be made free’?”

After a summer of travels, some personal and most missionary, “Gleanings” resumes. How appropriate that it begin with a discourse on truth and lies. “Gleanings” is meant to capture a nugget of truth from one of the three Daily Office readings. For those who practice their daily devotions through prayer book services (aka offices) of Morning and Evening Prayer and read the prescribed lessons, this is a place to find a fresh exposition of something they have just read. It builds community when we are literally and figuratively on the same page.

Looking for truth is so terribly important. We must be vigilant. First, truth sets us free. We are often looking for freedom. Less often we look for it in the truth. Acknowledging that I am not good at math frees me from pursuing fulfillment in engineering. Simple I know but truth nonetheless. There may be expectations, even pressure, that I pursue engineering. Accepting the unhappy truth that math is not my thing will free me from something that could so easily bind me. Of course a greater truth, a universal one, is in play here. Freedom from sin that enslaves us is found in the truth, in Jesus, the way, the TRUTH and the life. I can look for freedom elsewhere. I can even declare it in my rebellion. But I will still be bound. I won’t be free.

Second, the evil one seeks to keep us in bondage through lies. “For he is a liar and the father of lies.” He will trip us at every turn with falsehood and it often has a glimmer of or glimmers like truth. He will cause us to rationalize our sin. “This affair is the only way I can be truly happy.” So replete with lies this is. Happiness is not the goal. Even if it was the goal, an affair won’t achieve it, at least not for more than a few fleeting moments. He also seeks to destroy us by lying to us about who we are. He tells us we are unlovable and therefore not worthy of God’s love. So if not worthy of Love’s (God is love!) love, whose? We despair. The evil one makes us our own grim reaper.

The antidote to lies is Truth, the Truth that is Jesus and the truth that is the right way to see the world and understand our circumstances. May we, by the Lord’s favor, glean a bit more of the Truth each day! Make us free Lord Jesus! Make us free!

Festschrift to My Brothers II – First Principles Considered a Second Time

You can tell from my face I have been in the sun recently. I spent the last three days at Callaway Gardens playing golf. I promise I used sunscreen. However, I failed to reapply on a timely basis.

Why Callaway Gardens and golf? For 22 years, fraternity brothers of mine have been putting together three days of golf as an annual reunion. It is open to any ATO but draws heavily from those at the University of Alabama between 1976 and 1985.

This was my fourth trip. I stayed a way for years sure that the debauchery was no different from that which WE (emphasis on we including ME) lived in Tuscaloosa. And to a degree I was right about that. Some things have changed little.

The golf itself varies greatly. There are a few ringers, that is really good golfers. But most are more like me. They play very little. I myself have not played since this tournament, called “Divot Masters,” last year.

Consequently there are a number of shanks. Do you know what a shank is? It is when the golfer swings and barley catches a piece of the ball. It usually shoots hard left. A wise ATO never stands ahead or beside a Divot Masters golfer while he is on the tee box.

Sadly there are also a number of whiffs. Do you know what a whiff is? In baseball, we would say it is “a swing and a miss.” Basically, a strike. But in baseball a strike is completely understandable. The ball that is “whiffed” is often traveling at 100 miles per hour. Not so in golf. In golf, the ball is stationary. And to add insult to injury, the ball has been teed up. To miss it is awfully embarrassing.

Sometimes when we study the Scriptures, we shank. Or worse, we whiff. . .

So began my sermon Sunday. Thanks brothers for the sermon material! But now to my point.

So what do we shank or whiff? That the Christian life is about relationships, ours to God and out of that relationship ours to each other! Remember Jesus said that we are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. All else hangs on these two commandments. If we can get these things right, all else will fall into place. He teed this one up! And yet we shank or whiff this one at home all too often.

And relationships begin with acceptance. Unbeknownst to many, this is where Divot Masters or the ATOs excel.Remember I stayed away from this annual reunion for 18 years out of my own insecurities. Last year, I wrote:

But the truth be told, my insecurities kept me away. Wanting to think I am personally confident in my call, I was not sure others would be. People were sure to wonder if the dramatic change in course was real. Heck, I am fairly certain members of my own family of origin wonder the same though I am 23 years down this path of ministry including a year of mission work in Bolivia.

That is what I thought. This is what I experienced:

What did I find? What had I missed? What did I rob myself of for 18 years? An incredibly strong fellowship! You might not know it from the outside. The ribbing is incessant and none of it is new. I am convinced boys wrestle to show their appropriate affection for their male friends. Attend any junior high church function to confirm that. Men, on the other hand beat the crap out of each other verbally, with insults. About the best you can do at Divot Masters, especially after making the turn and the beers consumed before [the turn] set in, is “your drive didn’t suck nearly as bad as his.”  I was reminded again and again I would be a good golfer if I could only aim. Thanks Shane.

Some of the memorable zingers from this year’s outing were mine. “Ministry has sown in me a great deference for the elderly. So you go first Albright/Nash.” And “Landers, you didn’t hit that as crisply as some others.” Had my A game on. The groove comes in knowing that you are accepted. Others were in rare (in reality quite typical) form. Not just a few brothers lamented Rob Clark’s absence. After all, who would give the seafood buffet speech? No good deed goes unpunished at DM.

I was struck Friday night when an after dinner laugh fest turned deadly serious. Someone had received a text about the medical trials of one of our brothers. Most of us have not seen him in 20 years but deep thoughts became the immediate order of business. Appropriately the sobering news broke up the party. I am confident prayers followed.

“Acceptance” does not mean anything goes. It doesn’t mean a blanket approval of paths or ethics at odds with what most of us hold dear. But even being at odds in such ways doesn’t prevent relating at a basic level. It does not preclude a sense that our lives are inextricably intertwined because of a shared experience some thirty years ago.

What we do well as ATO’s at Divot Masters, we all want do well at home. Too often unconditional love and acceptance does not mark every interaction with our children and with our spouses. Like us they need to hear “You can’t do anything to make me love you more. And you can’t do anything to make me love you less” especially when they fail to meet expectations. Mother Teresa said it well when she said this: “Love doesn’t measure. It just gives.”

This is how God loves us. This is how we are meant to love one another. And too much is at stake at home for a shank. To be sure, we, nor our families, can afford a whiff!

Long live Divot Masters, the Taus and the creed that binds men together!

VTL