Excuses, Excuses

 “I could never be a _______ because I once heard about a really stupid _______.”

    This kind of statement is all too common on social media.  It has been said about almost every possible group.  I have heard it said about Republicans, Democrats, pro-lifers, pro-choicers, Christians, Atheists, and everything in-between.

But those aren’t arguments, they’re excuses.

And it is unfair to everyone.

    Sure, it’s funny to point at the Republican that didn’t know that Tehran is the capitol of Iran.  Or the Democrat who thought the island of Guam would capsize if we sent too many Marines there.  But it isn’t really fair to say that these people represent all Republicans or all Democrats.

And the same is true for Christianity.

    I admit that sometimes Christians say really dumb things.  There are some Christian leaders who make me cringe almost every time they open their mouths.

But that seems to be true of people from any large group.

    I have heard people with Masters and Doctorate degrees say dumb things but that doesn’t mean that education is stupid.  We shouldn’t give up on education because we once met an educated person that did, or said, something dumb.

    Just because someone in Hollywood made a bad movie (and there have been some really awful ones) is no reason to give up on movies forever.

    Just because we saw a stupid driver on the highway (and there are plenty) is no reason to give up on driving. 

    Our opinions about education, politics, morality, religion, or anything else, should be built on the truth and on the merits of their arguments, not simply on whether or not we once heard one of “those people” say something stupid.

    If you want an excuse to stay away from a political party, or church, or anything else, that’s up to you. But don’t say that it’s because a few people said, or did, something dumb.

Don’t judge an entire group by the actions of a few.

Because that would just be stupid.

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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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Two Lies Christians Believe

    As a pastor and as a lay person I have seen too many Christians believe at least one of two lies.  Both of are easy to believe.  We believe them because we lack self-esteem or because we want to be excused from God’s service, but neither are even remotely supported by scripture.  These lies are so similar that it is difficult to separate them. 

Lie #1: God can’t love me.

    Too many of us believe that we are too old, or too young, or too damaged, or so inferior, that even God can’t make something of us.  But the stories that we read in the Bible tell us about people with flaws.  The men and women in God’s story were loved by God despite their imperfections and none of them were perfect.  But God called them just the same. 

    After the flood, one of the very first things that Noah did was to plant a vineyard, make wine, get drunk, and pass out.  But God still loved him.

    King David is described as a man after God’s own heart, but cheated on his wife, took another man’s wife, and then had that man killed to cover it up.

    Abraham told the Pharaoh that his wife was really his sister because he was afraid that the Pharaoh would kill him and steal his wife.  Abraham was a coward who, despite his faith, didn’t trust that God could protect him.  God loved him anyway.

    Solomon loved women and pleasure too much.  Despite God’s warnings, Solomon takes hundreds of wives and concubines and allows himself every pleasure under the sun, but Solomon’s wives turned his heart away from God and Nehemiah says that Solomon sinned by doing these things.  But God still loved him.

    The Pharisees had rules about who good people ought to associate with and which people good folks should stay away from.  But Jesus ignored those rules.  Jesus made friends with, and spent time with prostitutes, tax collectors, Roman soldiers, and outcasts that society hated.

There is simply nothing you can do that can make you unlovable.

    What’s more, many of these damaged people became heroes and champions of God’s story.

Lie #2: God can’t use me.

    Joseph and David were the younger brothers in a culture that placed honor and value on the oldest brothers.  No one really expected the younger brothers to amount to anything, but God called these men to rescue nations.

    Likewise, Gideon was from a small family, from a small town, from a small tribe that wasn’t known for much.  No one expected anything more than mediocrity but God called Gideon to drive out an occupying army and save his people.

    Jesus’ friends were tax collectors who collaborated with the Roman government, fishermen who were thought of as country hicks, prostitutes, outcast, and crazy militia guys (zealots) who took up arms against their government, .

    Jesus said that a Roman Centurion had more faith than anyone in Israel.

    In the Easter story, the first people who first saw the empty tomb, who first saw Jesus, and who were sent as messengers to tell the disciples were Mary Magdalene and the other Mary.  But women weren’t legally reliable witnesses.  Under Roman law, slaves could give testimony in court (if they were tortured) but women could not.  Women were considered to be prone to hysteria and fits of emotion.  Even a group of women were considered to be unreliable.  And yet, who does Jesus send as the first messengers and witnesses?  Women.

    No matter who you are, no matter what you have done, no matter what you have been through…

God can still use you.

Life Out of Control

    In my last post (Sometimes Bad Things Happen) I noted that life doesn’t always seem fair.  Likewise, life doesn’t always happen the way we want it to, or the way that we expect it to happen.  Most of us have learned that this is true, and see that those folks who insist on being “in control” are often miserable. Learning how to tolerate and adapt to these sorts of unexpected changes would seem to be an important key to our happiness.  But that doesn’t mean that adjusting to these changes will be easy.  Scripture tells us story after story in which even God’s best and brightest, God’s hand picked leaders, feel out of control.

    David was anointed king and but for years afterward was running for his life.  King Saul (not unexpectedly) was jealous of David and resented him.  Saul personally tried to kill David on several occasions and sent the entire army of Israel to search for him.  There are several Psalms that David wrote during that time that cry out to God and ask why this is happening to him.

    Noah may have been the only righteous man on earth, but I am certain that he did not expect God to flood the world or to spend a hundred years building a giant boat.

    Joshua and Caleb did the right thing.  They did as Moses asked and went into the Promised Land with the other spies.  They returned, along with the others, with their report, and they stood up against the fear of the other spies.  While everyone else was afraid that the people in the land were too big and too powerful, it was Joshua and Caleb that held fast to their faith in God.  They argued against all the others that if God called them to fight, then God would lead them to victory no matter how big, or how powerful, the people were.  Despite doing everything right themselves, they spent forty years in the desert because of someone else’s mistakes.

    Scripture doesn’t tell us what happened to all of Jesus’ disciples but there are historical records for some and legends that tell of others.  From these sources we find that, with the singular exception of John, all twelve of the disciples were killed in one way or another.  Some were given the opportunity to live if they would only deny Jesus.  They died for telling the truth.

    Jesus prayed for a way to avoid dying on the cross but he was arrested in the middle of the night (which was questionable), tried in an illegal court, and convicted of a crime that he didn’t commit.  While we know that this was all a part of God’s plan, even Jesus was hoping for something different.

    Our lives are often marked by chaos but “out of control” and “abnormal” happens to everyone.   Life is unpredictable.  While we struggle to adapt, it helps to remember unexpected and painful changes happened to the good guys, even to the heroes, and yes, even to Jesus.