Trust is a Big Deal

    Have you ever had one of those “Duh!” moments when things start to make sense for the first time? But there are also moments when we read scripture and we completely miss important things because we assume that the people in the Bible were just like us.  In our scripture lesson this week, we read the story of Moses leading the people of Israel through the dry path God had created in the depths of the Red Sea.  But after the chariots, horsemen and soldiers of Egypt’s army are drowned, we read these verses in Exodus 14:30-31:

That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore.  And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

    Most of us read this and think, “So what? They trusted God. God is trustworthy. Duh.”  And, because we assume that the people of Israel were just like us, we completely miss what a big deal this really was.

    We have lived our lives in possession of the entire Old Testament as well as the New Testament.  For many of us, there has never really been much doubt that God was trustworthy, even when we weren’t sure that God was real.  But the people of the Exodus did not know what we know.  The world that they lived in, and the gods that they knew, were very different.

    In the story of the Exodus, despite coming from the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Israelites had lived in the land of Egypt for 400 years.  At that time, they did not have a formal system of worship, or priesthood, they had stories.  The stories of their forefathers had been passed down to them from generation to generation, and even though the stories were magnificent, they lived in a world with very different stories.

    The Egyptians, like the Romans and the Greeks of the New Testament, were polytheists.  They believed, not in the one God of Israel, but in a collection of gods that were far from trustworthy.  The gods warred with one another through human agents and tens of thousands died for their amusement.  The gods of the Egyptians were capricious; they did what they wanted, when they wanted, often without any guiding morality.  To the gods, humans were little more than playthings and to humans, the gods were to be feared and not trusted.

    And so when the people of Israel saw that the God of Abraham had used his great power, not only to provide a means for them to escape their slavery, but to destroy those who sought to kill them, they saw, many for the first time, that their God was different.  Finally, the stories began to make sense.  They realized that the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph was different than the gods of the Egyptians. 

They realized that the God of Israel could be trusted.

And trust really is a big deal.

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Entitlement and the Impossible (American) Dream

    A few weeks ago, USA Today printed an article about the impossibility of reaching the American dream.  According to the article, to achieve the “American Dream” you would need to earn in excess of $130,000 per year. Since my family has been happily living the American dream for several generations (and none of us have earned anywhere near that much) I wondered just how the author chose to define the American Dream.  As I read, I realized two things, 1) the author’s definition was wildly different than my own and 2) it is clear that many Americans have fallen into a (very unbiblical) trap of entitlement.

    The first item on the list projects the median mortgage cost of a new home (Price: $275,000).  While this might seem reasonable in some parts of the country, it reveals two assumptions.  First, in order to achieve the American dream we have to be better than average, and second any home we buy has to be new. 

Both assumptions are false. 

    Historically, the American dream was simply “an opportunity for Americans to achieve prosperity through hard work. According to The Dream, this includes the opportunity for one's children to grow up and receive a good education and career without artificial barriers.”  (Wikipedia) In modern times, politicians have implied that the dream included home ownership, but for most people, the American dream is still about freedom of opportunity more than anything else.

    But the American dream has nothing to do with the expectation that I should be better than average or that the only acceptable home is a new one.  Where I live, homes in a decent blue collar neighborhood can be had for $50,000 and if you are handy, a fixer-upper can be considerably cheaper.  Homes in suburban neighborhoods and in more affluent school districts obviously cost more, but who says that hard-working, blue collar, city dwellers can’t live the American dream?

    With the exception of utilities, I take exception to nearly every item on the author’s list.  I understand that it much harder to make a life where the cost of living is high, but we need to remind ourselves that living the American dream has never been, and should never be, about the accumulation of “stuff.”  Too many of us believe that the American dream means we should have more possessions than our parents rather than the freedom to do what we want to do.

    It is said that blacksmiths and cleaning ladies worked extra jobs so that their children could go to college and become engineers and accountants, so that their children could become poets and artists.  That mirrors the history of our family.  Our grandparents got off the boat with little more than a suitcase.  And while none of us has ever been wealthy, because we live in a nation with extraordinary freedoms, we have had the ability to be and to do whatever we chose, within the limits of our God-given abilities.

    To claim that it is impossible to achieve the American dream unless you own a new, 3000 square-foot home, with all new furniture, two new cars and a lot of other “stuff” is an insult to everything our parents and grandparents sacrificed for.  They worked their fannies off so that we would have freedom and opportunity, not sports cars, Gucci handbags and iPhones. 

As followers of Jesus Christ, there is a far more significant problem.

When we fill our lives with the desire for material possessions, rather than things like integrity, justice, and the things of God, we open ourselves to all sorts of evil.  The Apostle Paul warned his young protégé Timothy saying…

⁷ For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. ⁸ But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. ⁹ Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. (1 Timothy 6:7-9)

    Paul wasn’t saying that it was bad to have wealth.  Paul was born to a family with wealth and influence.  What Paul is saying is that we cross a line when we desire money and material possessions too much.

I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. (Philippians 4:10-12)

    We don’t need new cars and new houses to be content, and we certainly shouldn’t feel like we are entitled to have more than our parents had.  Ten years ago we sold our house and I walked away from a satisfying career in engineering.  Today, I make almost $100,000 per year less than USA Today thinks I need. 

Regardless, I am happy, I am content, and…

…I am living the American Dream.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:4-6)

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Rockets and Jesus

    As I write this I am in Pueblo, Colorado for a week long event known as NARAM, the National Association of Rocketry Annual Meet.  Each year, several hundred members of our organization meet for the national model rocket contests and for a week of sport flying (just for fun).  I generally don't compete but just fly for fun.  In the evenings there are research presentations, craftsmanship model contests, movies, a charity auction, and a "state of the union" message from our president. 

    As I listened to the president's message it struck me that the experience of this group of rocket enthusiasts is similar in many ways to our experience as a church.  For many years the membership of this organization, as well as nearly all craftsmanship hobbies, has been in serious decline.  Today's youth are pulled in a thousand directions with video games, school clubs, and many other things and hobbies that require a skill and have a longer learning curve have suffered.  The response of the NAR (National Association of Rocketry) has been to reach out to the community, schools and groups like the scouts and 4-H (evangelism, in a way).  We offer programs of mentoring and teaching so that young people can experience our hobby and learn about rocketry but also interest them in the math and science that explains how it all works.

    Nearly ten years ago, the NAR partnered with a group of major aircraft and aviation industry corporations to conduct an annual event called TARC, the Team America Rocketry Challenge. Teams from junior high and high schools, boy scouts, girl scouts and other youth organizations from all over the country compete against one another for $50,000 in college scholarships and a trip to the Paris airshow where our champions will compete against the champions from France, England and Japan.

    But as great as the program has been, for many years, our membership wondered whether it was all worth the effort.  Our membership continued to decline despite all of the time and effort that we were contributing.  We heard the same sorts of things we hear in church, "Kids today just don't have time." or "There just isn't as much interest in these sorts of things." But we persisted because it was the right thing to do.  We were interesting a new generation in science and mathematics and we began to see that many of the students who competed on TARC teams were going on to major in science in college.  This year, our president reported that our organization reached the highest membership we have had in decades.  It didn't happen overnight and in reality, we still have a lot of work to do to stay healthy, but we do seem to be on the right track. 

 

    As I listened to the president's speech I wondered how much our church might be just like this association of hobbyists.  How often to we hear things like, "We tried that already and it isn't working." or "We've been doing that for years and it isn't doing any good." or even "We did that and we haven't gotten any new members."?  What that speech reminded me was that often times there is no magic bullet.  Our programs, our outreach, our evangelism, are all different than they were forty years ago.  We won't see instant results and flocks of new members overnight.  But, if we do the right things, and we are persistent over the long haul, I am confident that we will see results.

    We are seeing some results, even if the church isn't filling up overnight.  We must continue to do the right thing.  We must remember out mission.    Our mission is to reach out, to tell the world about Jesus, and to be persistent even when nothing seems to be working.

 ^"And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good." (2 Thessalonians 3:13) 

Mixed Messages

    Have you ever received mixed messages?  In high school a friend included me during youth group but at school… not so much.  Our social groups were far too different.  Many of us have had bosses that told us how great we were only to say something completely different during our annual review in order to justify crappy raises.  Of course, politicians do this all the time.  It’s hard to know what we should do when the folks who preach about “reducing our carbon footprint” live in gigantic mansions and fly on private jets. 

Mixed messages are confusing and undermine credibility.

So why do we send mixed messages to our children about church?

    We take our children to church, we make sure they get to Sunday school and Vacation Bible School, we take them to youth meetings, Christian concerts, missionary programs, to church camp in the summer.  We tell them that their decisions about church and Jesus Christ are the most important decisions that they will make in their lives.  We tell them that it is important to live our lives like Jesus.

And then we act as if none of that matters.

You don’t think so? 

    What about all the times that we complain about being overcharged and stand in line for 20 minutes to get a dollar back from customer service, but when we get undercharged we simply rejoice and go home?

    What about all the times we do questionable math or take sketchy deductions on our taxes?

Or react in anger instead of “turning the other cheek?”

Or insist that the poor are just lazy so that we don’t have a reason to help them.

    Or say that church attendance is important… unless we have a sporting event, or a cultural event, or a work conflict, or voluntary overtime, or a family event, or a thousand other things that we have shown our children are more important by our actions, if not by our words.

    We can't teach that abortion is evil and then condemn single moms who decided not to have one.

    What about the political candidates (and parties) that we support despite their obviously unbiblical positions, character, morals and actions?

    We teach our children that pornography is bad, but half of all Christian men and one in five Christian women view porn on a regular basis.  

    We proclaim that our church welcomes everyone but turn away people who don't fit in because they aren't like us.

Which is it?

We can’t teach our children one thing and do something else. 

They’re smarter than that.

    Worse, we run the risk receiving the same condemnation as the church in Laodicea to whom Jesus said, “^I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

Are we hot?  Or are we cold? 

Pick one.

    We need to quit giving our kids mixed messages.  They hate it as much as we do and it undermines our credibility.

We need to live like we believe.

Don't Be Weak, Be Tea

    I drink tea.  Although I like the smell of coffee, I never developed a taste for it.  

    In any case, it occurred to me that our relationship with Jesus is a lot like tea. 

    No one wants to drink tea that is watery and weak but that is exactly what you get when you only dip the tea bag (or infuser) into the water momentarily.  One quick dip might leave a vague, tea-like, drippy impression, but the result is still more water than tea.  To get a proper cup, tea has to steep.  The tea must remain in the water until the water begins to take on the characteristics of the tea itself.  The water becomes dark, deep, full-bodied, and begins to take on the aroma of the tea.

    It’s the same with Jesus.  No one wants to be a weak and watery Christian but that is exactly what you get if you only dip Jesus into your life momentarily.  A quick dip might leave a vague, Jesus-like, drippy impression, but the results are still more human than Jesus.  To become more like Christ, we need time to steep.  We need to stay in the cup with Jesus for hours at a time until we begin to take on the characteristics of Jesus.  Our humanity needs time to brew so that our faith becomes deep, full-bodied, and begins to take on the aroma of Christ.

    In our overburdened, over-scheduled, hurried culture, the temptation is to try to microwave everything.  But while you can microwave a cup of water, you really can’t rush tea.  Your tea still has to steep.  The temptation is the same in church.  We want to drop in on Jesus once in a while and call it good, but real faith has to steep.  Our Christianity needs time to brew.  We need to spend time with Jesus, in church, in group study, in scripture reading, and in prayer so that we begin to take on the character of Christ.

We have a choice.

    Our faith can be weak, watery, and vaguely Christ-like, or we can take the time to steep and let our faith become deep, full-bodied, with the aroma of Christ.

Be tea.