Walking in the Truth

3 John

Favoritism is regularly prohibited in the New Testament.  How strange, then, that in his third letter John commends one member of his congregation while condemning another.  Gaius, the recipient of the letter, gets top grades from John for welcoming and accommodating traveling Christians.  Then there’s Diotrophes.  According to John, Diotrophes:

“likes to be first”;

“spreads malicious nonsense”;

“refuses to welcome other believers”.

Not very charitable of John to parade Diotrephes’ faults - not only to Gaius, but to the whole church in perpetuity. 

But look: the point isn’t that Gaius is good and Diotrephes is bad.  Or even that John likes one and dislikes the other.  John’s goal in writing each of his letters is to establish what it means to have true faith in Jesus Christ, and what it looks like to have a life transformed by faith in Christ.  

In his address to Gaius John says,

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

For John, “walking in the truth” is most evident in love – not just for friends and family members, but also for neighbors and strangers.  In the early church, love was made concrete through the ethic of hospitality: feeding and clothing people in need; expanding one’s table to include visitors and newcomers; and providing accommodations for traveling Christians.  These were the indicators that the love of Jesus had really made its way into the heart of a believer and become the heart of a believing community.  John has to point out that some in his church have caught on, and some are still learning.  It’s his job as church leader to honestly assess how his students are progressing on the journey toward Christlikeness. 

Those of us aspiring to be followers of Jesus Christ need to evaluate our progress.  The best indication is not our knowledge of the Bible or our theological insight.  It’s how well our lives demonstrate the love of Jesus.  “Walking in the truth”, in our case as in John’s first century congregation, is this: embracing visitors and newcomers; feeding the hungry; befriending the friendless; making more space at our tables; making room for people who need a place to rest.  Not just opening our minds to the truth, but opening our lives to people who need to experience it.   

What is Truth?

Passage: 2 John

“What about that passage,” she asked, “that says ‘you all are gods’?”  I was an intern at a Christian counseling agency.  I had begun working with a client who, incidental to a crisis in a romantic relationship, was exploring the Christian faith.  She was a self-taught, “spiritual-but-not-religious” person who had spent a lot of time reading best-sellers from the new age, self-help section at Barnes & Noble.  She had ascribed to the popular – but pagan – notion that human beings are divine.  The Bible passage to which she referred is Psalm 82.  In Psalm 82, God confronts despotic human leaders.  Using hyperbole and satire, the psalm writer calls these rulers ‘gods’ – individuals who have set themselves up as gods on earth.  The writer goes on to contrast them with ‘The Most High’, the true God, noting in particular their mortality and corruption.  In truth, Psalm 82 communicates the opposite of what my client thought it did: that in fact, though we think of ourselves as gods, even the greatest among us is just a human being.  I explained this, and she responded, “Well, that’s just your interpretation.”

How do you move past that point in a conversation about the Bible?  How do you decide what truths are fundamental and non-negotiable?

This is what John addresses in his letters to the church.  In his second letter, John says,

It has given me great joy to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

I say this because many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world.

For John and the other disciples of Jesus, the fundamental measuring stick is this: that Jesus Christ came in the flesh.  Imbedded in this one statement is John’s longer discourse of John1:1-14: that the man Jesus is actually the one true God, who became fully human.  The truth of Jesus’ full humanity and full divinity is at the center of the Christian faith.  Every important distinctive of Christian theology and Christian practice derives from this: Jesus is God in the flesh.  “If,” says John, “any person propagates a religious idea that is inconsistent with this truth, then that person is not a Christian.”

Now John goes on to say, “Don’t associate with that person.  Don’t even let that person into your house.”  This has led many Christians to refuse entry to or conversation with  Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and proponents of other religions that don’t acknowledge Jesus as the one true God.  I’m not convinced this is the right application of the passage. It’s important to note that at the time of John’s writing, most official church gatherings were held in homes.  As such, anyone seen in a Christian home would be perceived to be a representative of the Christian faith.  At that time there was real danger in being identified too closely with someone who taught non-Christian religious views.  The caution for us today is this: be upfront and articulate about the beliefs that distinguish Christianity from other religions (especially ones that hold some beliefs in common with Christianity).  As Christian communities, be vigilant about the beliefs your church’s representatives, leaders and teachers express; be sure they’re consistent with the fundamentals of your faith.  And insofar as non-believers or new believers enter your fellowship, be unapologetic about letting them know what your church believes.  There are foundational truths, without which a faith ceases to be the Christian faith.  

Hunger and Thirst

Passage: Psalm 42

As a parent of young children, I’m regularly frustrated and confounded by my kids’ inability to identify what they need.  Take, for example, food.  Fairly routinely, halfway between breakfast and lunch, or between lunch and dinner, one or both of our kids will:

1. Instigate a fight with their sibling;
2. Ask for TV or candy;
3. Complain of stomach pains;
4. Throw some kind of tantrum; or
5. Perpetrate some act of vandalism around the house.

What’s going on?  They’re on the brink of low-blood-sugar-induced psychopathy.  But when said behaviors rear their ugly heads, and we suggest it’s time for a snack, what do the kids say?  “Leave me alone!  I’m not hungry!”

Our worst behaviors are rooted in deep hunger and thirst.  Our souls were created to subsist not primarily on food and water, but on the presence of God.  The problem is that we’re so out of touch with our soul hunger, and so disconnected with the true source of our sustenance, that we aren’t even aware of what we need.  We distract from our hunger by stimulating ourselves with junk food; beer; bad TV; bad relationships.  We rail against the idiosyncrasies of our neighbors; we complain about the government; we lash out at our loved ones.  What we really need is to have our souls fed.  We need to be replenished by the love of God.

Psalm 42 is the prayer of a soul that hungers and thirsts, and finds its sustenance in the right place.  Read it.  Listen to your soul’s hunger and thirst.  Stop feeding it the wrong stuff.  Stop taking it out in the wrong places.  Go to the one who has what you need.  Be satisfied and set right.  

News of Deliverance

Passage: Psalm 40

During my first few years in Detroit, I accidentally ended up in a helping relationship with a very needy person.  I say accidentally because I really didn’t go out looking for someone to help.  And I didn’t particularly like it helping when I was called on to do so.  It started one night when I was driving to a meeting.  It was a rainy November evening.  Halfway between home and church there was this couple – a tall skinny guy pushing a middle-aged woman down the street in a wheelchair.  After a moment of internal conflict, I pulled over the family mini-van, and asked them if they needed a ride.  They did.  I loaded the wheelchair into the back while they got situated.  It turned out they were at the halfway point of a 5-mile walk from the hospital, where they’d just left the ER, and a pharmacy in my neighborhood.  They had no other means of transportation.  I dropped them off at the pharmacy.  They asked me, while I was at it, if I could help them with some food.  I said I was late for a meeting, and would get in touch with them after it was done.  We exchanged cell numbers (a move I would, at times, come to regret).  I went to the meeting.  Afterward I called.  They needed a ride home; and they needed food.  I picked up a hot and ready pepperoni pizza.  Found them outside the pharmacy, from which they were in the process of being evicted by security (they had, on past occasions, panhandled there).  I walked up and asked if I could help.  The woman said, “See, we’re not here to cause trouble.  I just need my prescription.  This is my pastor!”  The security guard looked at me skeptically.  I confirmed that I was, indeed, their pastor (granted, I’d only been their pastor for about an hour).  We completed our business, and I brought them home.

Two years later, after numerous emergency phone calls for food, warm blankets for winter, fans for summer, changed locks after a break-in, and rides to appointments, I was talking with the woman.  And she said, “I tell all my friends about you.  You’re not like their pastors, who don’t even acknowledge them half the time because they’re embarrassed.  Remember that time we were at the store?  And I said you were my pastor, and you said, ‘Yes’?  I tell my all my friends, ‘That’s my pastor!’” 

I rethought all the times I’d let her calls go to voicemail.  All the times I’d grudgingly responded to her calls for help.  And I thought about the props I’d been getting the whole time in this woman’s motley community of friends and relations.  Good props.

Psalm 40 is a cry for help.  The author – King David, presumably – is in dire straits.  Not for the first time.  In desperation he calls out to the God whom he’s asked for help again and again.  He appeals to God because God always comes through.  Partway through the Psalm, David says this:

I have told the glad news of deliverance
    in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
    as you know, O Lord.
I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
    I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
    from the great congregation.

It’s as though David is saying, “God, you have done your part in rescuing me time after time.  But look – I’ve done my part, too!  I never fail to give you your props.”  Remarkably, this is what God wants.  The God of the Bible never withholds his deliverance from his people.  All God asks is that we give him his props.  That we tell the communities of our friends and relations about a God who has made himself our God.  Who always comes through for us.  Whatever your trouble, ask God for help.  Then, when it comes, spread the “news of deliverance”.  Give God the props he deserves.  

The Higher Gifts

Passage: 1 Corinthians 12:27-13:3

Renowned author and priest Henri Nouwen invested much of his remaining time on earth in one person – a severely disabled man named Adam.  During his career Nouwen earned doctoral degrees in theology and psychology.  He served as a professor, fellow, and scholar-in-residence at several prestigious academic institutions, including Yale.  His writing included more than 40 books, and garnered him awards and international accolades.  Any observer would have said that Nouwen reached the apex of his career when he arrived at Harvard Divinity in 1983.  And yet from there he moved to L’Arche Daybreak, a community of disabled and able-bodied people living in close partnership.  For the last 10 years of his life, Nouwen was partnered with Adam.  For two hours every morning, and two hours every night, Nouwen tended Adam’s basic needs.  Four hours a day committed to the most menial tasks a person could serve.

In 1 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul lists the gifts, or abilities, that God gives members of the church.  The gift of prophecy; the gift of interpreting the language of the angels; the gift of preaching powerfully; the gift of teaching compellingly; the gift of healing; the gift of performing other miraculous acts.  Paul lists all these.  Then Paul adds, “But earnestly desire the higher gifts.”  What higher gift could there be than healing and performing miracles? 

Paul answers that question with his famous discourse on love.  He says, “I could have every excellent and sensational ability in the world.  But if I don’t have love, none of it matters.”  What are the higher gifts?  The gifts that express love.  And how is love best expressed?  In the giving up of your life for someone else.  Acts of compassion; generosity; humility.  Feeding those not yet able to feed themselves.  Changing the bedding of those no longer able to take themselves to the bathroom.  Lingering over a cup of coffee with someone who doesn’t know where they’ll be sleeping tonight.  Precious hours spent out of the public eye, invested in one hurting, humble soul at a time.  These are the higher gifts. 

This is what Henri Nouwen, the brilliant scholar, winning author, gifted speaker and man after  God’s own heart learned.  After mastering the public and prestigious gifts, he went on to achieve the higher gifts.  The gifts of humility; of invisible and sacrificial service; of life-giving compassion; of love.  Ignore the voice of a culture which celebrates only that which is achieved in the public eye.  Earnestly desire the higher gifts.  

Trial by Fire

Passage: 1 Corinthians 3:10-15

Over the past several weeks lighting strikes have ignited wildfires across the American Southwest.  These fires have incinerated acres of brush and woods that had turned into tinder after weeks without rain.  And the advancing walls of fire have struck fear into the hearts of all those whose homes and communities lay in their paths.  If the fire comes, what will survive?

Throughout the New Testament, fire is used as a metaphor. Typically, Christians see it as a metaphor for God’s judgment – God is going to use fire to rid the world of evil; and evildoers can look forward to an eternity in the fires of hell.  If you read the New Testament references to fire more carefully, however, you discover a much more nuanced picture of God’s work in our world and God’s ultimate purposes.

For example, the Apostle Paul talks about fire not as an agent of God’s punishment but rather of purification.  He says,

…if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 

Here Paul refers to “The Day of the Lord”, discussed by the prophets in the Old Testament and by Jesus Christ in the New – the day when God shows up in person and finally restores all things to the way they were meant to be. The Day of the Lord is good news for all those who have grown disenchanted with the brokenness and injustices of the world, and the suffering of all its inhabitants.  In fact, during his earthly life and ministry, Jesus invites his followers to stop living for the moment, and live instead in the hope of his return.  To live not for the flammable things of this world, but to live for his eternal kingdom.This is what Paul’s talking about when he says, “Build your life on the foundation of Jesus Christ.  If you build on anything else, your life’s work will disappear in the end – as though it was consumed by fire.” 

Almost as an afterthought, Paul adds this:

If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

This is a hopeful note for those of us who are unsure whether we’ve invested in the world or the Kingdom of God. In the end the fire of God’s presence will reveal what lasts and what doesn’t.  But even if your life’s work is consumed – even if it turns out you’ve spent your life building stuff that won’t last – you yourself can withstand the fire.  Make no mistake – everything and everyone on earth will pass through the refiner’s fire at the end of time.  But if you have found your life in Jesus Christ, and placed your life in his hands, you will pass into glory.  The reason for it is this: your life’s work isn’t God’s primary concern.  You are.  All the time you’ve been investing in your home, your portfolio, your career, God has been investing in you.  Build on the foundation of Jesus Christ.  Invite his Spirit to renovate your heart.  Partner with God as he makes you his eternal project – built to withstand the fire. 

Rebuilding

Passage: Nehemiah 2:11-20

70 years after the fall of Jerusalem, survivors of the exile return to God’s promised land.  They’re led by Nehemiah, a civic employee of Babylon, whose boss gives him a leave of absence to go back and rebuild the ruined city of his ancestors.  Nehemiah makes the trip; sets up camp; and one night goes out to inspect the city.  It’s far worse than he imagined.  The walls are completely broken down and overgrown.  It looks less like a city than a pile of rubble.  Nehemiah goes back to the camp.

And he says to his leaders,

 “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” (Neh. 2:17)

But Nehemiah adds that God has miraculously paved the way for them to be right here, right now. And God will not abandon them at this point in the project.

In response, his leaders say,

 “Let us start rebuilding.”  

They engage the good work.

They don’t do the work alone.  A whole crowd of haters appears on day one of the reconstruction.  They stand around all day – not helping, of course – telling the workers how their endeavor is impossible.  Telling them they're fools to believe that the ruins can be rebuilt.

But they don’t do the work alone.  Nehemiah tells his detractors,

“The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in our city or any claim or historic right to it.”

Our God is a God of rebuilding.  A God who restores ruined hearts; reconciles ruined relationship; redeems ruined communities.  When conditions for full human flourishing are being rebuilt, God is at work.  When we step out in courage to join him in his work, we cannot fail.  Don’t stand back and hate – have the courage to jump in.  And if you are engaged in the daunting and difficult task of rebuilding – a relationship; a community; a city – don’t listen to the haters.  The God of heaven will give us success.

At Peace with...Everyone?

During his ministry on earth, Jesus introduces a radical new ethic.  He says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” Even after 2,000 years, the command hasn’t mellowed.  It leaves the same sharp, bitter taste on our tongues.  It’s counterintuitive; it contradicts our instincts; it violates against our sense of fairness. Love your enemies.  If we respond to our enemies with love, how will justice be done?  Who will take them to task?

The Apostle Paul provides the answer: God.  God will take them to task.  Paul says,

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:17-21)

To love one’s enemies is not to ignore justice; it is to ensure it. The only way we can answer hostility with love is on the conviction that God is keeping track.  God says, “Because I’m keeping track, you don’t have to.”

Instead, God invites us to abandon the road of revenge for the much more difficult path of peace. One way to eliminate conflict is to obliterate all your enemies. Experience and history have taught us this approach never pays off. In the process of eliminating old enemies, you make new ones. And you can always find some enemy if you look hard enough. Imagine what would change if you went looking for friends. What would the city look like if every stranger was a future guest; neighbor; member of the family?  We always have a ready excuse for not helping: “He doesn’t deserve it.  She doesn’t deserve it.  They’re takers.  They’re users.  They’ve abused the neighborhood; they’ve abused the system.  They’re the enemy.”  If God is real and the Gospel is true, then enemy is no longer a meaningful category.  Settling the score is God’s job.  Let God do his job, and do the job God has given you.  Feed the hungry.  House the homeless.  Comfort the sick and the imprisoned.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 

Welcome One Another

Passage: Romans 15:1-7

Hamid Mohsin’s novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a story within a story.  The main story is the fictional memoir of a young Pakistani man who comes of age in New York City.  Driven and extremely bright, the man graduates at the top of his class at Princeton, and gets hired as a the top draft pick of a competitive Wall Street consultancy firm.  The trajectory of his life is radically altered following 9/11, when his accent and skin color take on a new significance.

He recounts the story as a middle-aged man working as a professor in Lahore.  He tells the story to an American visitor who, over the course of the conversation, becomes increasingly agitated.  The narrator notes, in passing, that in some circles he’s been labeled anti-American and that there is some concern that an attempt may be made on his life.  His American guest may, in fact, be there to kill him.  Ironically, the narrator is abundantly welcoming and hospitable to this stranger. 

We’re always looking for reasons to write each other off.  In this polarized time and place, it feels as though we scrutinize one another for any identifying feature.  Like soldiers in a revolutionary war, we want to make sure the person we’re talking to is an ally.  If there’s any indication to the contrary, we shut down the conversation. 

At the end of the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul tells the church to adopt a radically different approach.  He says,

We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.  For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”

Paul says, “Your default setting is friendship. When you were God’s enemy, Christ treated you as a friend.  Do the same.”  Paul concludes,

…welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.

Our goal is harmony.  Christ provided us harmony with God at the cost of his life.  The call of the Gospel is to militate for peace and harmony – with neighbors; strangers; even enemies.  No matter the cost.   

Cleansing the Temple...Again

Passage: 2 Chronicles 29:3-19; Matthew 21:12-14

When Hezekiah, one of the last God-fearing kings of Judah, takes the throne, he finds the temple of God out of order.  His no-good predecessor, Ahaz, sold the gold and bronze temple furnishings to finance his predilection for wine, women and song.  The general populace had long since forsaken the boring temple for the more entertaining and sensational worship of Baal and Asherah.  The dutiful clergy, the Levites, have all taken other jobs, and eventually just boarded up the doors and windows.  God’s temple is out of business.  At Hezekiah’s orders, the boards are pried off the windows and the chain barring the door removed.  The dust and detritus of years of neglect are exposed to the light of day, and swept out into the street.  The Levites are given their old jobs back, and they get to work cleaning out the temple, and cleaning themselves up to prepare for worship.  When the work of cleansing is done, Hezekiah commands his people to come back to God. 

In the Gospel of Matthew, the temple is once again out of order. At the beginning of the week that will end with his death, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.  Onlookers recognize him as the Messiah – the triumphant king come from God to set all things right.  Jesus rides straight to the temple.  There, he throws open the doors.  He kicks out the merchants who are there to make a buck off of people too gullible to know that God’s favor can’t be bought with a religious trinket and a Hail Mary.  He turns over the tables of money changers who promise to turn Roman currency into the currency of Heaven – at a very profitable exchange rate.  Jesus sweeps out the debris and detritus that have built up and blocked the way to worship.

In 1 Corinthians 6, the Apostle Paul says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?”  Paul’s addressing a church whose hearts are at risk of being clogged with the debris of a broken world and the detritus of sin.  The Holy Spirit comes to us, cleansing us and opening up the way to true worship.

When Hezekiah cleanses the temple, it is finally fit for worship.  When Jesus cleanses the temple, something else happens.  Matthew says, “The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.”  We resist the monumental task of temple cleansing because we’ve gotten used to the debris, and we’re afraid of what it will cost us to clean house.  Look at what happens when Jesus cleans house: Healing; restoration; redemption.  Let him in, and let him get to work.