What it Takes for Love to Last

Posted on February 13, 2021 by salooper57
Photo by Susan Kirsch on Unsplash

Hundreds of years before people began celebrating Valentine’s Day, the holiday du jour for February 14 was Lupercalia. The philosopher Plutarch refers to Lupercalia as a time when “young men of noble families run through the city naked and …strike those they meet with shaggy thongs.” They were history’s first streakers.

Though respectable people no longer took part in it, the festival was still being celebrated in the middle of the third century when a priest named Valentinus – we know him as St. Valentine –lived in Rome. Fast-forward to 496 AD. Lupercalia is a distant memory. February 14 is now the day to celebrate the Feast of St. Valentine.

Valentine’s Day is now associated with romantic love, but it didn’t start that way. St. Valentine – or Valentinus – was a third century Roman priest. He got in trouble for helping Christians (which was illegal at that time) and for flouting the emperor’s prohibition against marrying Christians. He was imprisoned, but the emperor took a liking to him – that is, until he tried to convert the emperor to Christianity. Claudius Gothicus was so angry at Valentine that he had him beaten with sticks and then beheaded on one of the major thoroughfares outside Rome.

I’ve never seen “I lost my head over you” on a Valentine’s Day card but if I ever do, I’m going to buy it.

During the Middle Ages, people somehow began thinking of the feast day of St. Valentine as a time to celebrate romantic love. The 14th century poet Chaucer wrote, “This was on St. Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.”

Romantic love is something to celebrate, and to have a special day for it is a good thing. Christians think that romantic love is wonderful – an entire book of the Bible is about it – but they don’t believe that it is enough to fulfill us. The people who wrote the Bible had terms to signify four different kinds of love and they understood that all four are important.

One had to do with romantic love. Another had to do with friendship. A third denoted family loyalty. And the fourth referred to God’s own, never-give-up, unconditional, and self-giving love.

Romantic love is like the first stage of a Saturn rocket – the kind that went to the moon (still the most powerful thing humans have ever made). The first stage is spectacular. It’s bright and fiery and exciting. But people who only know this first stage will never attain a stable orbit in their relationship. Romantic love will get people off the ground – gloriously so – but it won’t keep them there. Unless the other kinds of love are also present, the relationship is destined to crash and burn.

Stage Two is friendship love. This is the stage that gets a relationship into a sustainable orbit. In this kind of love people don’t so much look at each other as they look together in the same direction. They play together, talk together, and work together. They pursue goals together. This kind of love keeps relationships going.

Stage Three is family love – that mother bear, protective, blood-is-thicker-than-water kind of love. Stage Three can, and often does, get pretty rocky, but it does something the previous loves cannot do. It enables people to escape the gravity of self-centeredness and attain new heights.

But the Command Module – the thing that holds it all together – is that never-give-up, self-giving God-like love. This is the love that takes people further than they knew they could go. It sees them through a lifetime and carries them on till death. It is an especially beautiful thing when a man and woman and the family they have made still love each other after spending a lifetime together. This kind of love lasts even beyond that.

According to the Bible, this love comes from God. It does not originate in an experience, whether sexual or filial. It does not even originate in a bloodline. Family members can become detached; lovers can grow to hate each other. But the “love” that “comes from God,” remains.

(First published by Gannett.)

Posted in Bible, Marriage and Family, relationships | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Telling the Good News: Answering Tough Questions

Posted on February 11, 2021 by salooper57

A common criticism non-Christian have goes like this: “Religious people think they are better than everyone else. They are so judgmental. I don’t even want to be around them.”

How do you answer? You go back to Jesus. “I don’t know if you know this, but Jesus felt that way too. The people he liked to hang out with most were the ones religious folks looked down on. When they put them down, Jesus stood up for them.”

Jesus had a lot to say about that too. Check out: Matthew 7:1-6; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 10:3-37 (the story of the Good Samaritan); all of Luke 15; Luke 18:9-14.

Some people say, “You know, I’m just not the religious type.” Whenever someone says that to me, I always respond, “I’m not either.” They can hardly believe it. But then you can go on and say: “And you know what? Jesus wasn’t either.” Then you can tell them about Mark 7:1-13, where Jesus distinguished between religion and knowing and loving God. Religion wasn’t his thing, but he was all about God. You might go on to say that the Bible hardly ever mentions religion – that’s not what it’s all about.

Then you can ask: “What? Did you think Jesus was really religious or something?” You will get their curiosity up. Who knows? That may open the door for further conversations – either with you or with some other person God will send along.

Sometimes people say, “Look, I know I’m perfect or anything – but I try to be a good person.” Your answer might be: “I think that’s great but Jesus said that God wants something a little different than just trying to be a good person. He said that what God really wants is for people to love him and to love their neighbors – the people who come in and out of their lives.”

Then you can follow up with a question: “Or is that what you meant by being a good person?”

If you are living an optimistic, connected, and principled life as a follower of Jesus, sooner or later someone is going to say to you: “If God exists, why does he allow suffering?” That is a big and intractable question. Some people will ask it as a smokescreen. Others will really want to know the answer. It helps to know which kind of person you are talking to. So, you can ask: “Is that something that really bothers you?” Or even, “Would you become a Christian if that question didn’t bother you so much?”

When I am asked that question, my conditioned (and unhelpful) response is to launch into an explanation – a kind of philosophical argument. I want to regurgitate C. S. Lewis’s entire book, The Problem of Pain. I talk about human free will and the glorious kind of world God wanted and still wants. I wax eloquent for twenty minutes – or an hour, if I’m given that long – and, when I’m all done, the person is no closer to Jesus than they were when I started.

Don’t get me wrong. I think those arguments are important and helpful. It’s just that people aren’t argued into the kingdom of God; they’re drawn into it. That’s why they need good news more than they need logical arguments. So, consider telling them the good news that God is not indifferent to our suffering. He actually lived – and lives – a human life in Jesus. (Always bring people back to Jesus.) He experienced pain and suffering, just like we do. Even more than we do. He suffered betrayal by a friend, gross injustice, and a ghastly death.

For whatever reason God set things up the way he did, he at least plays by his own rules. He hasn’t put us through anything he has not experienced himself. He is able to sympathize and to help us when we suffer. He knows – better than we do – how bad suffering can be, yet he has promised that our present suffering won’t compare to the great things that are waiting for his loved ones.

Then you can add something like: “What I’ve found is that answers to why people suffer don’t satisfy me. But the Answerer does. Is that the way it is for you too?” Keep bringing people back to Jesus.

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Mission, Theology | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Telling the Good News: Right Words, Wrong Life?

Posted on February 9, 2021 by salooper57

It is natural, when we are telling people the good news, to want to make sure we have all the right words – it makes us feel safer. But having the right words won’t help if we’re living the wrong life! A life with God that is authentic and satisfying is what provide opportunities.

I’ll mention three characteristics of that kind of life. (There are of course more.) First, it is genuinely optimistic. For the first twenty years of my marriage, my wife told me I was a pessimist. I always countered that I was a realist. Now, I can say that I am an optimist.

This optimism is not a Pollyanna, turn a blind eye, kind of thing. It is a life of hope built on the certainty that God will make things right. God is so much a part of the hopeful life that it is inexplicable apart from him. If your life can be explained without recourse to God, you’re too much like everyone else.

The authentic God-filled life is also a connected life. Connectedness is largely missing in our society. Over the past few decades, social scientists have consistently found “slippages in self-confidence, growing regrets about the past, and declines in virtually every measure of self-reported physical and mental health … regardless of gender, age, marital status, and educational attainment.”[1] This in one of the world’s wealthiest nations.

Studies have found that this unhappiness is rooted in a failure to connect. Here’s how one sociologist summarized it: “Americans over the past several decades became increasingly detached from family and friends …. There is indeed a large body of evidence indicating that social connectedness … has a powerful influence on self-reported health and happiness.”[2]

It was God who said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” We understand that, but we don’t know what to do about it. Jesus does. He offers a connected life. If we are living that life, connected by dozens and dozens of threads to our church family, we will have opportunities to tell others the good news.

The optimistic life and the connected life bring opportunities and so does the principled life. Whenever we see someone living by principle, we have questions. Why do you do that? What do you get out of it? Don’t you miss it? Are there other people like you?

This is not just true of Christian principles; any principled person will raise questions. “You’re vegan? Don’t you miss a good steak?” “You only buy fair trade coffee?” “You use cloth diapers – what’s that about?” But when the principles that make you different come from Christ and his apostles, the door to sharing the good news opens smoothly.

“You mean you are celibate? Really?” “You go to church every week? I mean I know people do that, but you’re like the first one I’ve ever actually met.” (By the way, inviting people to church is still one of the most common routes by which people come to Christ. Think about who you can invite.) “I don’t understand how you can forgive her?” “Why do you give so much money to charity?” “Aren’t you going to respond to the things he posted about you?”

If you are living a life that is optimistic, connected, and principled, you will get those kinds of questions. You need to be ready with answers. And the best place to go for answers is to the life and words of Jesus because they naturally open a door for sharing the good news. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t read theologians and philosophers – some of us, at least, should. What I am saying is that we need to be so familiar with Jesus that we can answer people’s questions in his words and with examples from his life.

Here is what I mean. Someone says to you: “You’re inviting me to your baptism? I thought people got baptized when they were babies.” And you say, “Well, I’m kind of a big baby,” and you both laugh. But he says, “Why now? I mean, it’s not like you have to get baptized to go to heaven, right?”

That is an opportunity to seize! But handle it wisely. Instead of going into a long theological explanation that will go right over your friend’s head, explain that you take seriously what Jesus what said about making disciples and “baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” That will almost certainly raise further questions in your friend’s mind, which is good. But if it doesn’t, you should ask a question: “So, haven’t you ever thought about getting baptized?” Questions open doors.

One of the things I’ve heard many times over the years is: “If I walked into a church, the walls would fall down.” That person is telling me that he’s done a lot of things he shouldn’t have done and he can’t imagine that God would want him anymore. That one throws the door wide open to talk about Jesus. He spoke about this kind of thing over and over. One of many places you could go is Luke 7:36-50.

You could say: “So Jesus was having lunch with a seriously religious guy, when a woman came in and did something really embarrassing. Only Jesus was not embarrassed. The religious guy thought: ‘Jesus obviously doesn’t know what kind of woman she is – what a trashy life she’s lived?’ But Jesus did know. He told the woman her sins were forgiven and put the religious guy in his place.”

And then you could ask: “You ever read one of the biographies of Jesus?” If your friend says no, you can suggest a good biography: Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. If they seem interested, you can ask them if they want to read it at the same time and get together over coffee to talk about it.

[1] See Herbst, C. M., “‘Paradoxical’ Decline? Another Look at the Relative Reduction in Female Happiness.” Journal of Economic Psychology (2011).

[2] https://psmag.com/social-justice/new-research-suggests-everybodys-less-satisfied-33769

Posted in Bible, Church, Mission, Theology | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

What Superbowl Advertisers Teach Us

Posted on February 7, 2021 by salooper57

(This previously – and somewhat dated – article is still relevant on this Superbowl Sunday.)

Sixty-nine commercial spots ran during this year’s Superbowl. Each thirty-second commercial cost two million dollars, which means, if I did the math right, that advertisers spent 138 million dollars to convince us to buy their product during just one television program. One suspects that Pepsi, Anheuser-Bush, Cadillac and others don’t buy into the lingering myth that television content has no lasting effect on viewers.

John Paul II once noted that “Vast sectors of society are confused about what is right and what is wrong and are at the mercy of those with the power to ‘create’ opinion and impose it on others.”  I am not sure who the Pope had in mind when he referred to “those with the power to ‘create’ opinion and impose it” but I suspect he was thinking of those in the entertainment industry.

Television and the movies have a bully pulpit in almost every home in America.  So what do they teach?  For one thing, they teach that religious people are always suspect, usually odd and sometimes dangerous (unless, of course, they are clergy, which almost guarantees them to be dangerous).  A recent study conducted by the Parents Television Council found that 25% of  the time religious people are portrayed on television, it is in a negative light (22% of such portrayals are positive).  But on NBC, the network of West Wing, ER and “Must See TV”, over nine out of ten portrayals of religious people were negative.  Apparently someone at NBC is on a mission to warn America that religious people are greedy, mean and, very possibly, sexual predators.

Ah, yes, sex: another favorite topic for television.  According to an Associated Press article by Lynn Elber, television sends teenagers (and all the rest of us) mixed messages about sex.  A study by researchers at Stanford University and Lewis and Clark college found that teens receive a “highly inconsistent picture of what sexual relation are and can be.”

Elber goes on to quote from the study, which notes that TV lessons on sex are both “explicit and implicit” and “ranged from ‘Virginity is a sign that a boy is a loser’ to ‘Teens don’t need to be sexually active to be cool.”  I wonder which message plays best in the mind of a teenager.

John Ashton, Britain’s Health Protection Agency North West director, has no doubt.  He wrote that “…on film and television people jump into bed together…and there are no consequences.  It’s nonsense.”

And they are jumping into bed together more frequently than ever before.  Marcus Yoars, associate editor at “Plugged In”, writes that ABC, desperate to reverse flagging ratings, found their solution in “Desperate Housewives.”  It is a show built on “lingerie-clad seductresses, affair-driven story lines and suggestive dialogue.”  ABC added to their repertoire of sexually suggestive programs the high school drama, “Life as We Know It,” and the lewd, “Boston Legal.” I have to admit that I haven’t seen any of these shows, but I have seen the commercials, and that was enough for me.

Television further teaches us that women and girls need to be physically attractive.  Guys can be overweight and balding as long as they are funny, but girls have to be beautiful. If they are not? Then their best hope is to be the lovable but geeky friend of a beautiful girl. Not the role most women aspire to.

Of course, its only television.  It doesn’t really have an effect on us – or does it? Maybe we should ask what the marketing gurus at Anheuser-Bush think.  They just spent $66,666 per second to air six commercials during the Superbowl. I’m guessing they have an opinion

Posted in Spiritual life, Worldview and Culture | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

A Different Take on Immigration

Posted on February 6, 2021 by salooper57

This is a true – and sad – story. I do not know the details, but I have become acquainted with the outline. It seems personal to me.

Violence, war, and famine were not happening over there. They were happening here, all around the family and the village. Dangerous men were strongarming them for protection money – money they could not afford to give, money that was needed to buy food.

There was nothing they could do. They scraped what little money they had together and paid them off. By the time the army arrived, it was too late; their tormentors were already gone. Besides that, the soldiers were as bad as the men they were fighting.

After two dreadful growing seasons – most of the people in the village were farmers – poverty was pervasive throughout the region. The farmers had no crops to sell. The village artisans had no one to buy their merchandise. Life in the village had always been difficult, always only one step ahead of indigence; but during the last three years starvation had been nipping their heels.

But word had been spreading through the village and around the region that America was the land of promise, the land of plenty. In America, there is law and order. Its people live in peace. Hard work brings prosperity there, unlike here, where it invites extortion.

People all over the village, all over the region, were talking about America. They even knew the names of the particular places where they wanted to live. Carolina sounded like heaven. Pennsylvania – lots of immigrants go there. There was work in New York. They passed around books about these places, printed in their own language, and shared them with friends and relatives.

Somehow, within a matter of months, a caravan had formed. Thousands of people, people who have lost hope of a decent life in their own country, banded together in the hope of reaching America. The countries they passed through treated them like outlaws and, no doubt, a few of them were. But most were just people, families, looking for a way to survive.

The journey to America was fraught with dangers. Too many of the emigres did not survive it. The family about which I know began the journey to America with seven members: two parents and five children, the oldest being twelve. When they arrived, there were three. The father and three of the children had died. The mother, the twelve-year-old son, and his eleven-year-old sister survived.

They crossed into America and were immediately detained. The mother was separated from her children and sent to a detention camp. Unless she had the means to provide for herself and her children – which, of course, she did not – she would be sent back. She waited in the camp for months, not knowing what had become of her children.

They had been trafficked. Separated from each other and from their mother, their lives were filled with dread. What would become of them? Would they ever be freed, as they had been promised? And, if they were, what would happen then? And, worst of all, where was their mother? Was she even alive?

We have all heard the stories of Central American caravans, of detention camps, and the separation of parents from their children. These stories saddened me, but they seemed far away and utterly intractable. This past year, when I learned my ancestors had experienced the same kinds of hardships, the contemporary stories became more real and more unacceptable.

The story I tell in this article is my 6th-great-grandfather’s story. Johann Leper immigrated from southwest Germany in 1709. His father and three of his siblings died on the journey. His mother was placed in a detention camp and eventually was sent back. He and his sister were indentured for years. It is a shame I needed an ancestor to put a face to the contemporary stories of fear and pain. I offer no solutions to the current immigration mess, only a suggestion: we must try to see that these are real people, in real trouble, with real hopes and fears. People a lot like my 6th-great-grandfather. People a lot like me.

(First Published by Gannett.)

Posted in Worldview and Culture | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

What We’ll Find in the Future (According to the Bible)

Posted on February 4, 2021 by salooper57

(An excerpt from the sermon Good News About the Future. Reading Time: Less than three minutes.)

Some things will, thankfully, be missing from the future. But some of the things that are missing now will, thankfully, be there in the future. The most important is God’s presence. Because of Adam’s sin in the Garden, the God-with-us became the God-away-from-us. All our woes followed on that absence. All of us have experienced the feeling that something is missing. That’s because something – no, Someone – is missing and nothing has been right while he has been away. Or, rather, while we have been away. But he will be God-with-us again. That is good news.

The promise of God’s presence has sustained his people. To Jacob: “I will be with you” (Genesis 26:3). To Moses: “I will be with you” (Exodus 3:12). To Joshua: “I myself will be with you” (Deuteronomy 31:23). To Gideon: “I will be with you” (Judges 6:16). To his people: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2). The promise of the New Covenant, which was brought into effect through Jesus, was: “I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest” (Hebrews 8:10-11).

These are promises we cherish and yet how often God has seemed far away! Like Zion, we say: “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me” (Isaiah 49:14). God-with-us has been, because of sin, God-away-from-us.

But here is what the future holds (Revelation 21:3): “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with people, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”

But if God has desired to be with us all along, why hasn’t he? Because we couldn’t endure his presence. I don’t mean just emotionally but in every way. Sin has so unraveled us that the near presence of the holy God would unmake us entirely.

Well then how can he be with us in the future? What has changed? Christ has come. Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ has sent his Spirit into our hearts. The resurrection will transform us, remake us, into People of the Presence. We will grow and thrive in God’s presence, like a plant that loves the sun. That is good news.

What else awaits us? Every good thing awaits us. In God’s future, nothing good will be lost. “The kings of the earth (Revelations 21:24) will bring their splendor into it.” This echoes Isaiah who said that the wealth of the nations will be brought into God’s future kingdom.

(Want to watch this sermon? Click here.)

Picture it this way. You are standing in a train station. There are two tracks, running into the distance, as far as the eye can see. One comes from the east and ends at the station while the other, after a span in which they overlap, begins at the station, and runs to the west. The trains that run on those tracks are unimaginably long. The first, which arrives at the station with innumerable cars, is filled with all the riches of earths’ history.

Its treasures include business, technology, art, music, science, literature, sports, games, and more – all the good things a society (whether ancient or modern) has ever produced. But these precious things are like raw ore and are filled with impurities.

Mixed in with these good things, even embedded in them, are toxins, injustices, greed, hatred, bigotry, and inequality. The sheer volume of these evils outweighs the good things they pervade.

As the first train reaches its terminal point, it is unloaded and all its treasures are purified of their contaminants. The ugliness that has defaced earth’s beauties, the toxins that have poisoned them, the hatred that has scarred humanity’s best efforts, is removed and incinerated. This is called “The Judgment.” What is left – and there is a great deal left – is loaded onto the second train.

The age to come will not start with a blank slate. “The wealth of nations” will be brought into it. Earth’s natural beauties and every good work will be preserved by the God who never wastes anything – least of all people. The things we have rightly loved will not be lost but they, like us, will be purified. That is good news.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

What Will Be Missing in the Future (According to the Bible)

Posted on February 3, 2021 by salooper57

(An excerpt from the sermon Good News About the Future.)

There are things that have been so much a part of our experience that we cannot imagine life without them. Fear is one. Even people who have no cognitive apprehension of fear are nonetheless restrained and unsettled by it. Fear was the first emotion Adam and Eve experienced after the rebellion, and it has been the quintessential human emotion ever since.

When the fear we have carried all our lives is gone – and it will be – we will feel a heavy load has been lifted. We’ll be buoyant, as if gravity itself has changed. Like Neil Armstrong bounding across the face of the moon; like the man crippled from birth who was healed at the temple gate, we’ll go “walking and leaping and praising God.”

There are other things that will not make it into God’s future kingdom. Revelation 21 and 22 mentions some of them. One, according to Revelation 21:1, is the sea. How could there be no sea?

It is important to remember that The Revelation belongs to an ancient (now extinct) genre of literature called apocalyptic, for which symbolism is its stock and trade. The symbols in Revelation are drawn largely from the Old Testament, which is the key to understanding them. One example is the sea. John says in verse 1: “And there was no longer any sea.”

This makes sense when we understand that in Old Testament symbolism the sea regularly represents chaos and evil. For example, in the Book of Daniel (which belongs to the same genre), the beasts that devastate the earth arise out of the sea. When John says that there will be no more sea, he is telling us that the source from which chaos and evil arise will be gone. There will be no more turmoil, disorder, and confusion. That is good news.

(Want to watch this sermon? Click here.)

Look at verse 4: “There will be no more death.” Death is an intruder. It was smuggled into our world, our lives, and even our bodies through Adam’s sin. If you have been around for any time at all, you know The Book of Common Prayer is right: “In the midst of life we are in death.” But it is even worse than that: not only are we in death; death is in us. But through the resurrection of Jesus Christ our ancient enemy has already been defeated and at our resurrection it will be obliterated – expunged from the universe. That is good news!

There will be no more mourning or crying – no more tears. The inconsolable hurt that resides in the depths of the human soul will be gone. The bitter spring from which those tears flow will be dried up. In the words of Isaiah, “sorrow and sighing will flee away” (Isaiah 35:10).

There will be no more pain. Can you imagine? No more arthritic pain. No more pain from disease or injury. No more emotional pain. For some people, pain is the “enemy that is closer than a brother.” It keeps them awake at night, haunts their sleep, and meets them first thing each morning. Pain too is an interloper, but it will be stopped at the border. It will not enter the age to come.

There will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain because there will be no more sin. Imagine walking into a room you’ve never been in before. Every inch of you is dirty. You are bedraggled, weary, and sad, carrying a weight that nearly buckles your legs beneath you. But as you cross the threshold – you don’t even know how it happens – the weight is lifted; the dirt is gone. You not only feel good, you feel better than you have ever felt, better than you knew it was possible to feel. That is what the future holds for those who belong to Jesus Christ. That is good news!

There will be no more sin (verse 8) because there will be no more sinners. And that includes you and me. We will be changed. Sin, and the devastation it has caused, will be gone. The world will be changed. No more greed. No more hatred. No more violence. No more lies. No more preying on innocent people. Sin will not be around us and it will not be in us. That is incomprehensible. That is incomparable. That is good news!

There will be no more darkness and night (21:25). In the Bible, darkness and night symbolize confusion, deception, and sin. But in the age to come, there will be light, transparency, and truth, for “the glory of God gives it light” (v. 23) “and the Lamb is its lamp.” That is good news!

There will be no more shame (21:27). Since our first parents’ sin, the black thread of shame has been woven into our very nature. It caused Adam and Eve to hide, and we’ve been hiding ever since. They hid their shame in the trees of the Garden. We hide ours in distractions and work. But shame will not enter into the age to come. No more fear of what others think. Even the possibility of shame will be removed. That is good news!

Another thing that will be missing – a very consequential thing: There will be no more curse (22:3). Adam’s rebellion brought a curse that has affected every aspect of life on earth. But the curse will be no more. And this because of Christ who, in Paul’s words, “became a curse for us.” He made all this possible. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Jesus Christ.

Posted in Bible, Theology | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

HOPE: Good News About the Future

Posted on February 1, 2021 by salooper57

The Bible gives many reasons for hope. Christians believe that the future will be good – incomprehensibly and incomparably good! This sermon shows us why.

Viewing Time: 25:51

(Excerpts will be posted later in the week.)

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Sermons, Theology | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Masks in America: Hiding, Revealing, Transforming

Posted on January 30, 2021 by salooper57

It would not be surprising to learn that the various words for “mask” around the world have been used more in the past year than in all recorded history combined. That is impressive, given the length of time masks have been around. In 2018, archeologists discovered a 9,000-year-old Neolithic stone mask in the Middle East. One could argue that the earliest masks, although not face masks, were worn by Adam and Eve when they donned fig leaf coverings and tried to hide from the Lord. 

Ancient Egyptians wore masks in religious rituals. They also placed masks on the faces of the dead to protect them on their crossing to the afterlife. In the Far East, masks were worn both for religious ceremonies and for theatrical productions. Classical actors routinely performed in masks, which explains why the ancient Greek word for actor was “hypocrite,” which means, “the one under the mask.”

Masks sometimes serve as identity markers. The mask marked the stage performer as an actor, the shaman as a healer, the chief as an authority. In West Africa, certain masks identified their wearers as intermediaries through whom petitions might be delivered to the dead.

More often, though, masks are worn to hide one’s identity. In ancient religious ceremonies, masks sometimes hid the wearer from malicious spirits. Historically, judges in many cultures have donned masks to protect themselves from reprisal from both friends and enemies of the accused. Today, companies are working to design “masks” that hide people’s identity from facial recognition software.

The KKK’s white, cone-shaped hood served both purposes. It both identified its wearer and hid his identity. Whenever anyone saw the white hood, they knew what its wearer stood for and with what group he was associated. At the same time, it concealed his personal identity from authorities who might call him to account.

There is third reason, particularly in primitive rituals, that people wore masks: to transform their identity. When Pueblo ceremonial dancers wore masks, they believed they were taken over by the spirit whose identity they had assumed. In many cultures, masks were considered a means by which their wearers could become one with the character they represented.

In Max Beerbohm’s story The Happy Hypocrite, a dissolute aristocrat falls in love with a virtuous young woman. She refuses his proposal, telling him that she can only marry a man with the face of a saint. The aristocrat then buys a remarkable mask which provides him with a saintly appearance. He marries the girl and immediately begins to change how he acts, returning ill-gotten gains, giving to charity, and adopting a simple lifestyle.

He is, however, soon confronted by a woman who knows his true identity and insists he remove his mask. A scuffle ensues and in the fracas the mask is torn off. To his surprise, his face has come to look like the mask.

It seems to me that the facemasks that people around the world are now wearing serve each of these purposes: to identify people, to hide people, and to transform people.

Today’s ubiquitous masks are certainly meant to hide us (or others) from COVID-19, but they also identify us. In the United States, facemasks – or the lack thereof – quickly became identity markers. Conservatives who wear masks are mistakenly thought to be liberals and liberals who don’t wear masks are assumed to be conservatives. People are identified – or misidentified, as the case may be – by their masks.

Today’s masks also have had a transformational effect, both on those who wear them and those who don’t. By wearing – or refusing to wear – a mask, many people have aligned themselves with a cause. Whenever people do that – whether the cause be political, social, or religious – they adjust their thoughts, attitudes, and actions to the support of that cause.

This transformational effect of masks could be put to good use. Christians should perhaps wear masks that say “Christ-Follower” or feature a Bible verse like John 3:16. All of us could wear masks that simply say, “American.” If we were to adjust our thoughts, attitudes, and actions to these identities, the transformation would be positive and the world would be a better place.

(First published by Gannett.)

Posted in In the News, Lifestyle, Worldview and Culture | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Our Shame and Our Hope

Posted on January 29, 2021 by salooper57

Humans were designed to rule the world but powers they do not understand now rule them. Under God’s rule, they could rule, but the moment they stopped being subject to God, they became subject to fear (verse 10) and were ruled by desire (verse 16). The earth that once cooperated with them no longer yielded to their touch. On the very day of their revolt, there began a struggle between man and God, man and earth, and man and man. They were expelled from the garden, and the world began to fall apart. And so did the humans. And, to all appearances, so did God’s plan.

But the Creator is not easily stopped. In fact, he can’t be stopped. He made the world so that it would fall apart, should the humans turn away from him. It was a safeguard and a mercy. The recalcitrant earth, the relational conflict, the pain, fear and, above all, death were God-designed consequences of man’s rebellion. Why? Because God wants revenge? No. Because God wants us. Sorrow and failure and struggle are a mercy. The Creator knows we will not come to him without them. And if we don’t come to him, we cannot come to ourselves, to our rightful place, and to our joy. Only when we have fully come to God, can we fully be ourselves.

The man and woman were expelled from the safety of the garden into the world they had betrayed. Immanuel – the God with them of the Garden – was now God away from them. And the distance they had introduced into that relationship had also come between them. They were no longer with each other in the same way they had been. Their disobedience introduced a painful new reality into their world: distance. They were far from God, increasingly far from each other, and even far from themselves – the selves they were made to be.

Physicists tells us that the universe is constantly expanding, which means the distance between constellations and solar systems is growing. Theologians tell us that what is happening on the physical level is also happening on a spiritual one. Adam’s and Eve’s sin – not eating a fruit but rejecting their Creator and the role he’d given them; going their own way and setting up as their own god – has been repeated by all of us and has led to heartbreaking distance between humans and between humans and God.

The result of the choice they made (which we too have all made more times than we can count), is chaos. There is injustice, hatred, misunderstanding, malice, and bitterness. And these things not only bubble over in society, they bubble over in us. Chaos without and chaos within. This is what happens when God-with-us is God-away-from-us, and even God-against-us. Nothing can be right while we are our own gods.

The humans rejected the Creator, and that is our shame. But the Creator did not reject the humans, and that is our hope. Instead, he went looking for them. Genesis 3:8 says, “They hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’” Rather than crushing the rebellion, God chose to reverse it. The relationship between the Creator and his creatures was not the same. Groomed to be regents, they had become rebels. The damage had been done and it was horrendous, but God knew how it could be undone and set about the task of undoing it. This is where Jesus comes into the story.

(You can watch the entire sermon here.)

Posted in Bible, Christianity, Sermons, Theology | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment