The one thing we cannot lose

Posted on February 20, 2016 by salooper57

Christianity Today recently ran an article by history professor Susan Lim about the faith of the Founding Fathers, featuring a brief account of the life of Alexander Hamilton. It was timely: Broadway’s unlikely hip-hop hit musical based on the patriot’s life just won a Best Musical Theater Grammy.

The Christianity Today article was titled, “God Loved Alexander Hamilton,” and was subtitled, “but did this particular Founding Father love God?” As interesting (and debatable) as that question is, the article caused me to think again about God’s seeming predilection for losers.

What does Alexander Hamilton have to do with losers? He was George Washington’s right hand man, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, the first Secretary of the Treasury, and the genius behind the national banking system. He was a prominent lawyer and one of the most influential people in government and, indeed, in the history of the United States.

But he was born a loser. His mother was married but separated from her husband and was living with another man when Alexander and his brother came along. Their own father deserted them when Alexander was still a boy (his first great loss), their mother then died (his second great loss), and her former (and still legitimate) husband took everything of value in her estate (his third great loss).

Yet through the care of a Presbyterian pastor and the generosity of some of the wealthier men of his town, young Alexander was given a first-rate education. He was connected to a prominent patriot and took up the cause of American independence. He caught the attention of George Washington and became his trusted confidant.

Hamilton’s last great loss was in a famous duel with Aaron Burr. He was mortally wounded and lived only a short time. But in that time he reaffirmed his faith and received Holy Communion.

Did God love Alexander Hamilton because he succeeded in escaping his loser status? No, God loved Alexander Hamilton “because,” to quote the Bible, “God is love.” We just see that love more clearly when it is lavished on losers because we wrongly assume that winners – the people who’ve got it altogether; the nice people from good families – deserve to be loved.

But nobody was ever loved because they deserved it. That’s just not how love works. Respect works that way, responding to the worth of its object, like echoes rebounding from granite. But love does not respond; it initiates. Love does not materialize because of the loveliness of its recipient, but because of the character of the one doing the loving.

Because that is true, it must also be true that God loves losers just as much as winners and winners just as much as losers. It’s just that, in our merit-driven, image-conscious world, love for losers stands out in bold relief.

That God loves losers is obvious. The Bible is full of examples. Consider the long list of losers in Jesus’s genealogy. There was Judah, whose shameful behavior toward his daughter-in-law is a matter of biblical record. There was Rahab, remembered forever as “the harlot.” There was David, who stole the wife (also in the line of Jesus) of one of his most faithful supporters.

The list goes on and on. As U2 frontman Bono once put it: “The fact that the Scriptures are brim full of hustlers, murderers, cowards, adulterers, and mercenaries used to shock me. Now it is a source of great comfort.”

It’s a source of great comfort because it means God’s love is not conditioned on our success but on his character. He loves us not because we’re lovable but because he is love. We can choose not to care about that love, but we cannot choose not to be loved. Ours may be a long, sad story of failures and losses, but there’s one thing we can’t lose: God’s love.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 2/20/2016

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Looks like I forgot…

Posted on February 17, 2016 by salooper57

Hey, I just realized I haven’t kept up to date on sermons. Sorry about that Here’s the new link: http://lockwoodchurch.org/media. If you’re interested, check it out for the latest sermons, including this week’s message from 1 Corinthians 13 titled, “Sorry, No Substitutions.”

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A humbler approach to the Bible

Posted on February 13, 2016 by salooper57

My doctor referred me to a vascular surgeon for a consult. The surgeon’s assistant led me to an examination room and went over my paperwork, asked a bunch of questions, then told me I’d have to strip down to my skivvies while I waited for the doctor.

Earlier that day I’d donned a t-shirt with a graphic of Lake Superior above a graphic of Lake Erie. Each graphic has a caption. The top one reads, “Michigan is Superior” while the bottom reads, “Ohio is Erie.” The shirt was a gag gift from an anonymous University of Michigan fan. (I’m from the Cleveland area and make no secret of the fact that I root for Ohio State, which is a sort of heresy in southern Michigan, where we live.)

I suppose the observant doctor noticed my t-shirt and wrongly assumed I was a Michigan fan. The real reason I wore the shirt was that I was going over to my son’s house after my appointment to help him paint his laundry room. I chose that particular shirt because I thought it was the one article of clothing I own that would look better with paint splotches than it does without them.

Now suppose the doctor was a University of Michigan graduate. He would, perhaps subconsciously, approve of my shirt and me. My shirt might even inspire him to greater interest in my case, which could only turn out for my good.

On the other hand, imagine that the good doctor was a graduate of Ohio State and was a huge Buckeye fan. He would, perhaps subconsciously, find my shirt and me disagreeable. My shirt might even discourage interest in me and my case.

In either scenario, the doctor would be in danger of making assumptions from the available data that might mislead him. Because he didn’t know the backstory – the friendly rivalry in our church between Buckeyes and Wolverines – he might completely misread the situation. A whole host of miscellaneous data – where we live, the outcome of the college bowl games, past conversations – might lead him to draw the wrong conclusions.

I don’t for a moment think the doctor would have provided second-rate care had he known I was a Buckeye fan. My point is rather that the interpretation of a text, whether on a t-shirt or in the U. S. Constitution or in the Bible, will be affected by the assumptions we bring to it. The interpreter does not come to the data as a completely detached and objective observer.

We come to the Bible with all kinds of cultural and linguistic (not to mention personal) baggage in tow. Even the questions we bring to the text are conditioned by our own experiences and expectations. For example, people expect the Bible to answer a question like, “Can a believer lose his salvation?” But for a person to use biblical data to answer that question, he or she must deal with a number of preliminary issues, among them: what constitutes a “believer” and what the biblical writers had in mind when they used the word “salvation.”

A person might come to the Bible with the assumption that “salvation” is about getting into heaven when one dies, but is that all there is to it? When St. Peter wrote, “…for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls” did he really mean his readers were getting into heaven, at that very moment? And, if not, what else (or what more) did he mean?

To do justice to a text, any text – the Bible, the Constitution or a t-shirt – it must not be divorced from its author’s intent. This is not to deny that there may be more to a text than even its author understood (as many poets have testified about their own poems, and as Christians generally believe about the Bible). It is to say that the author’s intent and the text’s meaning are inseparable.

The Bible has been used to lend support to all kinds of theological and ecclesiastical campaigns that would have puzzled, and perhaps angered, the biblical writers themselves. Interpretive integrity requires a more principled and, frankly, a humbler approach.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 2/13/2016

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Bible reading for rugged individualists

Posted on February 6, 2016 by salooper57

(Note: The effects of strident individualism on theology generally and on biblical interpretation specifically deserves a more developed treatment. I hope this article will wet some readers appetite to go further. )

Herbert Hoover, that stalwart Republican champion of smaller and more efficient government, has been credited with coining the phrase “rugged individualism.” Hoover once described “rugged individualism” as “the American system,” and credited it for America’s supremacy in the world.

In 1922, seven years before his election as president of the United States, Hoover wrote a small book titled “American Individualism.” In it he acted as apologist-in-chief for an individualist worldview, which he defended against the competing philosophies of Communism, Socialism, Syndicalism, and Capitalism on both philosophic and spiritual grounds. Hoover, raised in the sometimes ruggedly individualist Friends (or Quaker) movement, argued that each person has an inner light, a divine inspiration that is not dependent upon religious hierarchies.

Citing Hoover in an election year is fraught with danger, since readers might get stuck in the debate, still associated with his name, over the size of government. But my concern is not with Hoover’s conception of efficient government, though his speeches are surprisingly apropos for our day. My concern is with the individualist worldview he celebrated, its influence on American thought and, particularly, its effect on biblical interpretation.

Hoover was right: America has been and is populated with rugged individualists. The people who crossed the Atlantic, whether for spiritual freedom or economic opportunity, were rugged individualists. Their descendants who made their way into the forests of Ohio, the vast planes of Kansas and the dangerous wilds of the Pacific Northwest were a tough people who relied on their own strength and wits.

When people like that read the Bible, they can’t help but do so through a lens of rugged individualism. But the Bible was written by and for people who believed in the fundamental connectedness of society, and especially of the church. Readers who fail to take that into account will have trouble understanding some biblical concepts. Take salvation, which Hoover rightly insisted is not the result of “mass or group action.” But neither is salvation, as the Bible reveals it, a reward for individual effort or piety.

The rugged individualist thinks of salvation as a personal relationship with Jesus that results in an individual’s entrance into heaven after death. Biblical teaching includes those components, but in a much larger framework. “Salvation belongs to our God,” cry the saved in the Book of Revelation, not to this or that individual. When a person experiences God’s salvation, he or she does so in the company of God’s people, not in the isolation of “a mansion, just over the hilltop.”

That God is calling to himself a people, not just individuals, may go unnoticed in an over-individualized approach to the Scriptures. When this happens the importance of the church is minimized, community is marginalized, and the unity for which Jesus prayed evades his people.

From the individualist’s perspective, people go to church to enjoy its benefits, “to get a word from the Lord” or to take Holy Communion. But early readers of the Bible didn’t go to church; they came together as a church (St. Paul’s wording). They did not attend services, they gathered as God’s special people.

And when they gathered, they shared the “Lord’s Supper,” as the Apostle Paul called it. This meal, which speaks of (among other things) the church’s unity, has divided Christians for centuries. The irony is that the apostle’s teaching about the Lord’s Supper was meant to stop divisions! The original problem had nothing to do with how Jesus was present in the bread and wine, and everything to do with how he was absent in the ugly divisions in the church. That reality, and many others, is likely to be overlooked in an individualist reading of Scripture.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 2/6/2016

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Just a reminder…

Posted on February 4, 2016 by salooper57

You can listen to sermons at http://www.lockwoodchurch.org. Just click “Media.” For the past few months, we’ve been working our way through what may be the oldest composition in the New Testament: 1 Corinthians. It’s been interesting. If you have a chance, check it out. – Shayne

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Don’t pull the rug out from under your faith

Posted on January 30, 2016 by salooper57

Why do I believe in God while other, equally (or more) intelligent people from a similar background and education do not? Why does faith stick to some people and slide off others? Why do some people have faith while others do not?

Sociology, psychology and theology have all offered explanations, but those explanations exist as part of a larger worldview. People who look through the lens of one worldview will find its explanations convincing, but those who look at the world through a different lens do not.

For my part, I find faith’s presence a mystery. But it is no mystery that faith can waver, even in the true believer. It waxes and wanes, grows and diminishes. Some experiences seem to build faith while others tear it down.

But perhaps it is misleading to say that experiences build or tear down faith, since people can go through very similar experiences (say, the death of a child) with very different results. One turns to God, another turns from him. Having seen this happen many times, it seems to me that the particular experience is not as consequential to faith as is the way one handles it.

Over the years I’ve become aware of certain faith-busters in life. Whether things are going well or life is coming apart at the seams, the presence of certain attitudes or mindsets can have an adverse effect on faith.

For example, faith is difficult, perhaps even impossible, when a person is trying to manage his or her own image. Faith is outward looking by its very nature, so when a person is looking inward, faith suffers. When one’s goal is to win the praise of others, the very possibility of faith disappears. This is what Jesus had in mind when he asked, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”

Faith is also weakened by resentment toward other people. The biblical writers generally, and St. John in particular, see a connection between faith and love. When we are relating to others in a loving way, “we have confidence before God.” But when relationships with others are governed by selfishness or antipathy, faith erodes.

The DIY approach to religion is also a faith-buster. The person who sets out to merit God’s approval (or be pious or religious, however you want to put it) by doing everything right will find it hard to trust God. Self-confidence can exist and even thrive in the rich soil of faith in God, but faith in God withers in the barren soil of self-reliance.

When St. Paul recognized this particular faith-buster among his former church members in Galatia, he vehemently exclaimed, “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” He went on to ask, “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” Their DIY approach to religion was pulling the rug out from under their own faith.

Staring at one’s problems, obsessing over them, focusing on them to the exclusion of everything else is yet another faith-buster. When our problems fill our vision, there is no room left for God. The bigger our problems get, the smaller our faith grows.

One sees this in the ancient story of Israel’s entrance into the Promised Land. Most of the men who explored Canaan came back with reports of a beautiful land that was “flowing with milk and honey.” But instead of focusing on the benefits this new land offered, they concentrated on the challenges it presented. As they magnified the challenges, their abilities (and God’s) were minimized. Before long they were saying, “We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes.”

The power of positive thinking is not a fix for this faith-buster. Trying to exclude problems from one’s thoughts is not the answer, but including God in one’s thoughts is. One will either see God in the light of one’s problems or see one’s problems in the light of God, and that’s the difference between night and day.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 1/30/2015

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The well-tempered person

Posted on January 23, 2016 by salooper57

Controlling anger is a big issue for many people. “I’ll admit it,” they say. “I have a real temper.” But they’re mistaken. The problem is they have not been tempered enough.

“Tempering” is a process that increases strength and elasticity. The word is usually used in reference to glass or steel, but can describe an analogous process in people. A well-tempered person does not break under pressure; does not give up in despair or lash out in anger.

One of a parent’s main child-rearing duties is to temper the child: to train the child to keep on trying when things are tough and to remain calm when emotions are strained. Not surprisingly, this training tests the temper of the parent, and parents who have not been properly tempered themselves may give up in despair or lash out in anger.

A failure in tempering can continue for generations. It shows up in individuals and families who cannot face difficulties without caving in or adversaries without blowing up. The results – a long line of broken marriages, neglected children and failed careers – are a sad testament to the importance of tempering.

Anger is one result of a failure to temper oneself and one’s children. It is self-perpetuating. Anger begets anger, not just in the heat of a moment between adversaries, but from generation to generation within families. People who struggle with anger frequently have parents who had the same issues.

The Apostle Paul described anger memorably as the devil’s foothold. Knowing the dangers it presents, he warned, “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger…”

In commenting on this text, preachers often point out that anger is not, in itself, a sin, and they’re right. Anger isn’t necessarily a sin, just as fire isn’t necessarily destructive. But just as one shouldn’t go around lighting fires in the house, one shouldn’t go around pouring out anger on the family. Anger is a fire, and some people carry a veritable flame-thrower around their homes, torching relationships and wreaking destruction.

Anger keeps bad company with filthy language (both profanity and hurtful, damaging words), malice, gossip and strife. Anger has ravaged families all over the world, including those that consider themselves religious, and left them with constant strife, ugly words, and an alarming readiness to inflict pain.

When we are initially made to face our anger, our first step is usually not to abandon it but to justify it. “I have good reasons for being angry,” we say, and will explain them to anyone who will listen. But who cares to listen? Everyone has their own reasons for being angry. What we need is a reason to stop being angry.

The Bible offers many such reasons: For one, anger does not bring about the righteous life God desires or, for that matter, the happy life we desire. In fact it militates against it. Anger damages the soul. It leads to evil. It hurts others. It causes a person to act in ways he or she will later regret. And it leaves the angry person subject to judgment – both human and divine.

But if a person was not effectively tempered as a child, and struggles with despair and/or anger now, is there anything that can be done? Yes. First, get serious. People don’t overcome anger issues by accident. Unless you intend to be different, you will not be different. Take responsibility for your anger, resolutely choose not to act out of it, and tell others of your choice.

Then, get spiritual: turn to God and ask for help. Talk about your anger with a pastor. Pray daily, even hourly, for grace to overcome it. Practice appropriate spiritual disciplines.

Finally, get practical. Get advice from people who’ve been through it. Ask a friend to hold you accountable. Read up on the subject. See a counselor. And when you fail (and you will), start over. Tempering is a process, so give yourself time. Just don’t give excuses.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 1/23/2015

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Does God live in our zip code?

Posted on January 16, 2016 by salooper57

In her book, Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity, the philosopher Catharine Wilson has asserted that “we are all, in a sense, Epicureans now.” The biblical scholar N. T. Wright quotes Wilson, and calls her assessment “spot on.”

When I was a young man, I thought Epicureans were people who ate foods with names I couldn’t pronounce at restaurants I couldn’t afford. And indeed, Webster’s “simple” definition of Epicurean is “Involving an appreciation of fine food and drink.” But we are clearly not all Epicureans in that sense. So what does Wilson mean?

She means that the worldview of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus has won the day. Epicurus, who lived three centuries before Christ, taught that God (or the gods) are irrelevant to our lives. Everything we see and are is but a chance and temporary configuration of atoms that is destined to dissolve and be reconfigured.

Epicurus, as popularized by his first century B.C.E. disciple Lucretius, saw no need for a God or gods to create the cosmos. If there is a God, he does not care about humanity, does not answer prayers and offers no judgment on individuals. The best humans can do is avoid as much pain and enjoy as much pleasure as possible, for as long as possible.
God, if he exists (and Epicurus does seem to believe in some kind of detached deity or deities) does not live in our zip code. He may live (to borrow an analogy from Wright) on an upper story of our building, but the stairs have collapsed and the elevator is out of order. God, in Lucretius’s Epicureanism, does not care about us, and we do not need him.

This is the view that, according to Catherine Wilson, dominates our day. It is taken for granted on college campuses, both in the sciences and in the humanities. It is the orthodox view of modern secularism, and provides the philosophical foundation for atheism, old and new.

Many people believe that science has produced this modern and enlightened view of things, but one could argue that the truth lies in exactly the opposite direction. It was an ancient and unscientific (in the modern sense) philosophy that produced modern scientists, who conduct their inquiries having already concluded that God is not involved. That is a philosophical assumption, not a scientific deduction.

It is important to realize that Epicureanism has never been the only philosophical game in town, though its contemporary dominance, as Wilson asserted, is clear. In the ancient world, Epicureans shared the stage with Stoics, Sophists, Platonists and others.

Indeed, in the first century, the Apostle Paul squared off against Stoic and Epicurean philosophers at Athens. His view, founded on Jewish monotheism, made claims that flatly contradicted those of Epicureanism: The God who created and sustains the world has entered the world to redeem it through Jesus Christ. His resurrection is proof that God has come among us.

The Epicureans debated St. Paul, though it is not at all clear that they understood him. They eventually resorted to name-calling, as some contemporary Epicureans have also been known to do. And that is, is some ways, the point post-modern Americans need to keep in mind: today’s cultural debates are nothing new. They are not the result of science versus obscurantism or reason verses religion, or modern enlightenment verses ancient naiveté, as is so often portrayed. They are the result of competing philosophical approaches to life.

Because that is true, it is not enough, not nearly enough, to ask if modern science is right, since modern science is conducted and interpreted through a philosophical worldview. We need to go further and ask which worldview best depicts reality. One can utterly reject Epicurean philosophy and still value science and hold it in high regard. But one cannot accept Christianity, with its central belief in a creator and redeemer, without utterly rejecting Epicureanism.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 1/16/2015

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Don’t Be Bored in the New Year

Posted on January 2, 2016 by salooper57

Our church was selling its old pews a few years ago. One wag suggested we advertise them with the tag line, “You’ve slept in them at church. Now you can try them at home.” His fellow wit added, “And we can throw in one of Shayne’s CDs to sweeten the deal.”

Of course one of the most common complaints people have about church is that it is boring. It may be a mistake, however, to conclude that people are bored because church services are uninteresting. The opposite, could in fact, be true: that services are uninteresting because church people are bored. As Chesterton said, “There are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people.”

Americans fear boredom. (There’s even a word for that: thaasophobia.) David McCullough tells the story of the American writer Barnaby Conrad who, in 1958, was badly gored in a bullfight in Spain. Shortly thereafter the actress Eva Gabor was having lunch with Noel Coward in a New York restaurant, and the two were overheard talking about the incident.

“Noel, dahling,” said Eva. “Have you heard the news about poor Bahnaby? He vas terribly gored in Spain.”

“He was what?” asked Coward in alarm.

“He vas gored!”

“Thank heavens. I thought you said he was bored.”

Boredom isn’t all bad. It can force people into creativity, but more often it makes people easy prey for distractions and temptations. A church service can never be an antidote for a boring life, but a life of purpose and adventure can be an antidote for boring church services.

The word “boredom” was not part of common English usage until the 18th century, and didn’t make its way into the Oxford English Dictionary until midway through the 19th. Curiously, it was when labor-saving devices and attention-grabbing distractions were becoming more readily available, that people began talking about being bored. And now, in the age of constant connection and instant gratification, boredom has reached epidemic levels.

Boredom is difficult to avoid when one’s purpose in life is comfort, prosperity, or security. Caught in the stale life of self-promotion and self-protection, people look for relief in exotic vacations, wilderness treks, action movies, pornography, and gambling. But relief is often costly and always short-lived.

The long-term solution to boredom is not to go looking for distraction but to commit to a purpose. The philosopher Peter Kreeft pointed out that “The rich fop Francis of Assisi was bored all his life―until he fell in love with Christ and gave all his stuff away and became the troubadour of Lady Poverty.” Francis escaped boredom when he found a purpose.

In Humboldt’s Gift, Saul Bellow has his main character describe boredom as “a kind of pain caused by unused powers, the pain of wasted possibilities or talents…” Boredom does not so much result from a lack of worthwhile things to do, but from a waste of God-given abilities.

Those God-given abilities are often wasted by people who do not know they live in a purposeful world occupied by a purposeful God. Even people who believe in such a God are sometimes bored, their boredom resulting (in part) from an indistinct or distorted view of God’s involvement in the world and in their lives.

From what we can tell, Jesus was never bored. Neither were his apostles. Neither were the saints. These were people who lived in a God-bathed world, with a God-given purpose for which they employed their God-given abilities. And they taught others to do the same.

Jesus told people, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Full of joy, yes. and sometimes trouble; work, weariness, and sometimes tears; but never full of boredom.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 1/2/2016

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The hard-to-believe truth about Christmas

Posted on December 19, 2015 by salooper57

In a famous Old Testament passage, the prophet Isaiah wrote: “The Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). St. Matthew tells us that the conception and birth of Jesus fulfilled that prophecy. He has no doubt that Jesus is the Immanuel whose coming Isaiah foretold.

Immanuel is a Hebrew name meaning, “God with us.” Jesus was a sign to the world that God is with us. The biblical writers boldly claimed that in Jesus, God came to us by becoming one of us. He is the “with us God.” He is Immanuel.

He did not come simply to be for us, as wonderful as that might be. He came to be with us. It is almost beyond belief that God – the eternal, all-knowing, everywhere-present, always joyful, omnipotent deity – wants to be with ordinary people like us.

It is much easier to believe that he wants to be for us than it is to believe that he wants to be with us. We can accept the fact that he came to do something for us – atone for our sin, heal our diseases, give us eternal life – so long as we can picture him returning to the glory of heaven’s mansions when he’s done. But it’s hard to believe that he would choose – that he actually desires – to be with us from now on.

We’ve all seen news footage of some movie star who flies to the slums of Calcutta or some other poverty-ravaged place, writes a check for malaria drugs, and tenderly holds an emaciated child in her arms. But we know that when the photo op is over, she’ll fly back to her Hollywood mansion. We really can’t imagine the film star moving into the crowded and dirty slums, living with its people and loving them, sharing their few joys and many sorrows.

But Christmas announces God’s intention to share our lives, and to share his life with us. He apparently wants to be part of what we’re doing. He wants to share PTO meetings, and days at the shop or office. He wants to meet our friends and love our families. He wants to go to church with us, rather than just meet us there. And he wants to go back home with us when we leave.

He wants to be there on that magical day when the doctor walks into the office and announces, “You’re going to have twins!” And he wants to be with us years later, when the doctor sits down next to us and says, “I’m sorry. It’s cancer. There’s nothing we can do.”

Most of us have heard that God requires our time, money and obedience, but we’ve somehow missed the reason behind the requirement: he wants to share our lives. Perhaps the biggest problem I’ve seen church people make over the years is that they try to live the Christian life without Christ. They try for a year or two (and maybe longer) to live a for-God life instead of trusting Jesus to bring them into a with-God life.

When people try to live for God without living with God, life becomes a drudgery. It leads to hypocrisy, envy and a bevy of other sins. But God will not force himself on us. He waits for us to invite him. He waits for us to ask him to the PTO meeting. He’s ready at the drop of a pin to go with us to work. He’d positively love for us to take him to church.

Jesus didn’t come into the world so that we could live a successful and solitary Christian life. He came so that God could be with us in a shared life. If we don’t understand that, we don’t understand Christmas.

Most of us start off wanting God to do things for us. Some of us, through God’s grace and the experience of gratitude, progress to the place where we want to do something for God. That is better, but it is not best. Best is to come to the place where we want to do something – in fact, to do everything – with God. This is the abundant life Jesus said he came to give us. This is what it means to believe in Immanuel.

First published in The Coldwater Daily Reporter, 12/19/2015

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