We spent a few days at Hilton Head island recently, and I was reminded of the parable of the man who builds his house on the sand. That man, having built his house on the sand, found that when the storms came his house collapsed as the sand was washed away by the storm. Sand does not make a firm foundation. The day we drove over to Hilton Head from Atlanta was rainy and by the time we arrived it had cooled after the rain. It also was quite windy. The next day we went down to the beach and attempted to plant a beach umbrella in the sand. While the wind wasn't quite as bad as I imagine the raging storms to have been in Jesus' parable, it was still very windy; not quite like sitting in a sand storm but not exactly what you have in mind by the phrase 'a day at the beach' either. The umbrella, having no firm foundation, kept trying to blow away. We were able to keep it in place by sitting right next to it and holding onto it, but that was not exactly convenient. It just wasn't the kind of day at the beach we had imagined.
Now, I am not all that fond of the beach anyway. I'd rather be in the mountains than at the beach, but the beach is ok from time to time, in limited doses. I sunburn easily and don't really like being on the beach outside of the morning or evening for a walk. Being there to get wind-burned in addition to sunburned just adds to my overall negative viewpoint about the beach.
Still it was a reminder of lessons to be learned. As we left and saw the traffic jam headed onto the island I was reminded of how we seem to long for the beach despite the issues of being there. To me Hilton Head, in spite of the many awards for careful development, is too crowded and overbuilt. Since we had been there before the weekend, I was glad to be leaving as the crowd arrived. That crowd, though, wants to be at the beach! Seeing the dolphins swim by, eating the seafood, even spending a little (emphasis on 'little') time on the beach all have their appeal, even to me at times. My roots, though, just are not there. Like the umbrella, when the wind blows, I am ready to leave!
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Easter and Pride
As Easter approaches I like to listen to Handel's Messiah, both the Christmas and Easter sections. One of the great things about that work is how the words come directly from Scripture. 'Worthy is the Lamb' stands out in the Easter portion, and the words come directly from Revelation 5:12, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.' One of the remarkable things about Christianity is that Jesus' triumph over sin and death results from His humbling of Himself in self-sacrifice. His resurrection that we celebrate at Easter calls me to humble myself in view of His sacrifice and to confess that my pride is very often the main thing that keeps from experiencing God's presence.
In contemplating this I was reminded of the apostle Paul's words in Philippians 3 in which he recalls how as a Pharisee he had much pride in his own goodness but had come to realize that all of that was
'manure' (Phil. 3:8). He realized that based on Easter, on the death and resurrection of Jesus (Phil. 3:10).
So, after listening to Handel and contemplating this as I did my time on the treadmill, I was drawn to listen to a song by Caedmon's Call that I think captures this attitude of Paul. The song is entitled 'I Boast No More' and goes like this:
No more my God, I boast no more
Of all the duties I have done
I quit the hopes I had before
To trust the merits of Thy Son
Now, for the loss I bear His name
What was my gain I count my loss
My former pride I call my shame
And nail my glory to His cross
Yes, and I must, I will esteem
All things but loss for Jesus' sake
Oh may my soul be found in Him
And of His righteousness partake.
The best obedience of my hands
Does not appear before Thy throne
But faith can answer Thy demands
By pleading what my Lord has done.
All of this speaks to me of pride and my innate tendency to want to be my own savior. Easter confronts me with the reality of what God has done on my behalf and makes me ashamed of my pride. C. S. Lewis writes about pride as 'the complete anti-God state of mind' and that 'pride is essentially competitive-is competitive by its very nature'. Through pride I compete against God to be my own god, to provide my own salvation, to be the center of my own little universe. Paul saw that in himself when he looked at the cross, when he comtemplated the events of that first Easter.
When I think about pride I often get upset, even angry, at what I see in the world around me. I don't like what I see on the athletic field, or what I see in politics, or what I see in CEOs. I don't like what I hear coaches teaching about pride or what I hear 'leadership' gurus saying about it. But all of that is outside of me and easy for me to criticize. At Easter I am confronted with my own pride and am challenged to lay it down at the cross in repentance, to seek the grace to say with Paul, 'no more'.
In contemplating this I was reminded of the apostle Paul's words in Philippians 3 in which he recalls how as a Pharisee he had much pride in his own goodness but had come to realize that all of that was
'manure' (Phil. 3:8). He realized that based on Easter, on the death and resurrection of Jesus (Phil. 3:10).
So, after listening to Handel and contemplating this as I did my time on the treadmill, I was drawn to listen to a song by Caedmon's Call that I think captures this attitude of Paul. The song is entitled 'I Boast No More' and goes like this:
No more my God, I boast no more
Of all the duties I have done
I quit the hopes I had before
To trust the merits of Thy Son
Now, for the loss I bear His name
What was my gain I count my loss
My former pride I call my shame
And nail my glory to His cross
Yes, and I must, I will esteem
All things but loss for Jesus' sake
Oh may my soul be found in Him
And of His righteousness partake.
The best obedience of my hands
Does not appear before Thy throne
But faith can answer Thy demands
By pleading what my Lord has done.
All of this speaks to me of pride and my innate tendency to want to be my own savior. Easter confronts me with the reality of what God has done on my behalf and makes me ashamed of my pride. C. S. Lewis writes about pride as 'the complete anti-God state of mind' and that 'pride is essentially competitive-is competitive by its very nature'. Through pride I compete against God to be my own god, to provide my own salvation, to be the center of my own little universe. Paul saw that in himself when he looked at the cross, when he comtemplated the events of that first Easter.
When I think about pride I often get upset, even angry, at what I see in the world around me. I don't like what I see on the athletic field, or what I see in politics, or what I see in CEOs. I don't like what I hear coaches teaching about pride or what I hear 'leadership' gurus saying about it. But all of that is outside of me and easy for me to criticize. At Easter I am confronted with my own pride and am challenged to lay it down at the cross in repentance, to seek the grace to say with Paul, 'no more'.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Fasting versus Abstaining
It is Palm Sunday as I write this and we are nearing the end of this year's Lenten season. This week's online version of Christianity Today has an article about fasting, noting that it is currently popular to fast for a cause. This year several groups have advocated fasting to show solidarity with the poor. At other times fasting has been recommended for a variety of reasons, including to use the food money you would have used as an offering for the hungry, or to free up time for prayer by saving the time used for food preparation. The article this week in Christianity Today promotes the idea of fasting in order to gain more self-control and even to shape the desires of our subconscious. As I grew up my friends and neighbors who were Roman Catholic would not eat meat on Friday, which they referred to as a 'fast'.
These seem to generally be good causes. It is good to help the poor, to gain self-control, and so on. Yet, these various approaches to try to explain fasting illustrate how we as a culture have a difficult time relating to the very idea of fasting and how we continue to be confused about it. Today in our Sunday morning Bible study we were looking into the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 where Jesus tells His followers not to fast the way the 'hypocrites' do, who would put ashes on their faces and make a show of it, but rather to look happy and keep it secret from those around you. He said very similar things about prayer and about giving to the poor. The Greek word used there in Matthew which is translated into English as 'fasting' comes from 2 Greek words, 'not' and 'to eat'; it is very much about not eating, not about a general idea of 'giving something up' for a time. Fasting is clearly focused on not eating. Fasting is a different thing than abstaining.
This is not to say that there is no benefit to abstaining. The Jews were to continually abstain from some things like non-kosher foods; they were to periodically abstain from some things, like sexual intimacy during a woman's monthly cycle; they were on special occasions to abstain from some things, like leaven during Passover. These are not fasts; they are abstinence.
The only fast specifically prescribed in the Torah is for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In the description, in both Leviticus 16 and Leviticus 19, it is clear that the purpose is to 'humble yourselves'. The text does not even use the word 'fast', yet the Jews clearly understood it that way. The focus was on humbling themselves before God. This comes up again when fasts are called for by Ezra, by the prophets, and by David for himself (see Ps. 35:13 and Ezra 8:21). Repeatedly in the Old Testament fasts are about one main thing: humbling ourselves in repentance. It is not about 'solidarity'; it is not even about self-control. It is about humbling ourselves.
As time went on this got muddled. After the Babylonian captivity, there were fasts to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and other things. By Jesus time, the devout were fasting twice every week. Long before this, in Isaiah's time it was clear that they had begun to miss the point. (See Isaiah 58:3-5). Jesus displeasure with fasting in His day sounds rather like Isaiah.
Abstinence still had its own place, though. Again, repeatedly in the Old Testament we see the reason for abstinence as being related to purity. So they 'purified' their houses from leaven before Passover; they did not eat 'unclean' animals; women would 'purify' themselves after their monthly cycle; and so on. The focus of abstinence was on purity, and the focus of fasting was on humbling ourselves before God.
The article calling for fasting to show 'solidarity with the poor' shows that the muddled thinking continues. I do not object at all to caring for the poor. I also think our culture could stand a great deal more self-control, as learned by abstinence. I just don't think that is the point in fasting. As I contemplate the arrival of Easter next week, I need to focus more on repentance than on 'solidarity'.
These seem to generally be good causes. It is good to help the poor, to gain self-control, and so on. Yet, these various approaches to try to explain fasting illustrate how we as a culture have a difficult time relating to the very idea of fasting and how we continue to be confused about it. Today in our Sunday morning Bible study we were looking into the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 where Jesus tells His followers not to fast the way the 'hypocrites' do, who would put ashes on their faces and make a show of it, but rather to look happy and keep it secret from those around you. He said very similar things about prayer and about giving to the poor. The Greek word used there in Matthew which is translated into English as 'fasting' comes from 2 Greek words, 'not' and 'to eat'; it is very much about not eating, not about a general idea of 'giving something up' for a time. Fasting is clearly focused on not eating. Fasting is a different thing than abstaining.
This is not to say that there is no benefit to abstaining. The Jews were to continually abstain from some things like non-kosher foods; they were to periodically abstain from some things, like sexual intimacy during a woman's monthly cycle; they were on special occasions to abstain from some things, like leaven during Passover. These are not fasts; they are abstinence.
The only fast specifically prescribed in the Torah is for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. In the description, in both Leviticus 16 and Leviticus 19, it is clear that the purpose is to 'humble yourselves'. The text does not even use the word 'fast', yet the Jews clearly understood it that way. The focus was on humbling themselves before God. This comes up again when fasts are called for by Ezra, by the prophets, and by David for himself (see Ps. 35:13 and Ezra 8:21). Repeatedly in the Old Testament fasts are about one main thing: humbling ourselves in repentance. It is not about 'solidarity'; it is not even about self-control. It is about humbling ourselves.
As time went on this got muddled. After the Babylonian captivity, there were fasts to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and other things. By Jesus time, the devout were fasting twice every week. Long before this, in Isaiah's time it was clear that they had begun to miss the point. (See Isaiah 58:3-5). Jesus displeasure with fasting in His day sounds rather like Isaiah.
Abstinence still had its own place, though. Again, repeatedly in the Old Testament we see the reason for abstinence as being related to purity. So they 'purified' their houses from leaven before Passover; they did not eat 'unclean' animals; women would 'purify' themselves after their monthly cycle; and so on. The focus of abstinence was on purity, and the focus of fasting was on humbling ourselves before God.
The article calling for fasting to show 'solidarity with the poor' shows that the muddled thinking continues. I do not object at all to caring for the poor. I also think our culture could stand a great deal more self-control, as learned by abstinence. I just don't think that is the point in fasting. As I contemplate the arrival of Easter next week, I need to focus more on repentance than on 'solidarity'.
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