Our Right To Choose

The long-delayed conclusion to a series of posts beginning with The One Where I Lose Friends. Finally posted because I still haven't really answered the question "why."

My blogging friends Fajita and Kendall-Ball have been stirring the homosexuality cauldron of late.

I've raised the question in the comments of both posts if homosexuality can be a Romans 14 issue.

That is, could it simply be a matter of conscience? If it violates your conscience, it's wrong; if it doesn't, it's not.

Conscience seems to be the criterion in Romans 14 for the question of celebrating certain holidays and eating meat sacrificed to idols.

Either, in that culture, could have be interpreted by some devout Christians - and by those outside of Christ - as compromise between culture and Christ.

Paul's instruction was that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with either. But when the freedom to celebrate was used to taunt or tempt a Christian whose conscience was offended by it, it becomes wrong. It is sin.

So far, I've had no takers on my question.

Perhaps because the answer is "no."

Homosexuality is not simply a matter of conscience.

Romans 1 - and I'll just stick to this one New Testament citation - makes it clear that homosexual activity stirs God's wrath; both lesbians and gay men are cited. The activity is called "unnatural" and "perversion." It is described as bringing an unspecified penalty in the very person of the participant. It is listed as the consequence of having exchanged the truth of God for a lie; for having failed to see the evidence of God in His very creation and having participated in idolatry. Those who suppressed the truth by their wickedness made a choice, and God let them make it. He has always let us make our own choices. And He has always let us live with the consequences ... in this life.

In fact, things just seem to get worse for them as they: "... become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless."

Yup, that's right. God gave them over to shameful lusts. Then He gave them over to depraved minds that were even worse: gossiping, slandering, insolent - well, you just read the list.

And right at the heart of each of them is self.

That's where we get off-track with homosexuality. It can be like a relationship that is loving, caring, and lifelong - so it seems harmless and therefore sinless. But it's a relationship that two partners choose against what God wants for them. They want it for themselves.

I've read the arguments that God makes people gay. I don't buy them. That means that God creates some people who have no choice and others who do. I don't buy that. That means that God creates some people whom He intends to disobey Him. That's just not consistent with what I read of His nature. He may love Jacob and "hate" Esau, but Esau still chose. (And he lived with the consequences. And he forgave his brother and reconciled with him. But that's another whole story.)

We sleep with whom we choose - if they choose us as well.

Now, I will buy the argument that God makes people with predilections toward homosexuality ... just as He makes people with tendencies toward obesity, greed, sexual proclivity, and all sorts of other self-seeking appetites. Some choices are just tougher for some people.

The answer is not be condemnatory toward some whose struggles with sin are different from our own and accepting toward others whose struggles are similar.

It's not to justify or re-interpret scripture to approve what God doesn't.

It's to live convicting, transparent, confessional lives among all people. It's to love openly, deeply, and transformationally. It's to renounce sin in our own lives and encourage others to do the same ... because none of our sins - even really bad ones like disobeying our parents - is more powerful than the blood of Christ. The answer is to try to live like Him.

That's the choice we all need to make.

God's Right to Choose

Of course He has the right to choose. We can ask Him anything, and He can choose His response.

And, if we're being fair, we recognize His right to choose - just like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did (as John Alan Turner has wisely pointed out).

We don't have the right to blame Him for the consequences if He chooses against our wishes.

Because He lets us choose. And He paid the Price for the consequences when we choose against His wishes.

A very, very high Price.

More Church Advertising You'll Never See

"The 'seeker-sensitive' thing wasn't working. We decided to go with 'Christ-sensitive.'"

"Sale on indulgences! Less church for more money!"

"Please respect our seating arrangement: Saints in the front; Sinners in the back."

"We've decided not to talk about Jesus this Sunday. You probably already know everything about Him that you need to, and it most likely makes you as uncomfortable as it does us."

"Sermon topic this Sunday: God Gave Us Mothers. Surely that won't offend very many folks."

"Communion will be served individually, in booths set up in the foyer this Sunday so that no one will distract you from your time of communion. Please pick up a booth number and 2:00-minute appointment time ticket as you enter."

"There is no order of worship this Sunday. There will be no worship leader ... except for the Holy Spirit. However, He needs transportation. Can you bring Him with you?"

"We have a sound problem on the right side of the sanctuary. Nobody's singing over there."

"Our new minister will be speaking on the 'Fruits of the Spirit.' No tomatoes, please."

"To correct a common misconception: our minister's 'D.Min.' degree does not connote his grade average."

"We're over budget, so there will be no collection this week. You are encouraged to give your regular contribution to someone you know is in need. Tax vouchers will be available upon request."

"We just quote the parts we like."

"First Church of Predestination: This Sunday's sermon is titled 'Let's Just Get It Over With.'"

"The one who dies with the most toys ... still dies."

The Problem With Being Right All The Time

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It's the way God made us.

The Problem With Being Right All The Time is that we have to be strong in everything and weak in nothing to get there.

Jesus tells us to be perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect. Yet He knows we're completely incapable of it, so He pays for our perfection with His own blood so that He can give it to us as a gift.

The Problem With Being Right All The Time is that we can get confused about whether it is Jesus who has given us perfection, or whether it is something that we have earned by ourselves.

God wants us to reach out in love and compassion to others, especially others whom we can bless and who desperately need it.

The Problem With Being Right All The Time is that we may avoid reaching out to others who are wrong and whose wrongness may somehow corrupt our rightness. It may prevent us from recognizing their desperate need because it prevents us from seeing our own.

God wants us to be forgiving without being judgmental. Okay, that's just a really tall order right there.

The Problem With Being Right All The Time is that we feel we almost have to be judgmental before we can be forgiving ... and it can make us feel that we have a moral responsibility to point out the immoral irresponsibility of others, early and often. Which makes it much more difficult to reach much of anyone.

Jesus was forgiving long before He promised to return in judgment. That's the example He left us.

The Problem With Being Right All The Time is that we people who feel we ourselves are in no particular danger of judgment are just not sympathetic towards people who (we feel) REALLY ARE in danger of judgment but don't particularly feel it themselves. We feel very little urgency about the judgment, since we ourselves are safe and immune and guaranteed a free ticket to the very nicest luxury suburb of heaven where only other people like us will live forever.

At least that's how I see The Problem With Being Right All The Time.

(I could be wrong about it.)

A Hole in My Day

All services have been dismissed for fellow worshipers today, because of yesterday's ice storm. (My daughter is still at her friend's house, 40 miles away, having half-expectedly stayed a second night.)

At nine a.m., the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences imploded a 50-year-old student dorm and the sound of its destruction rumbled across Little Rock like thunder.

After the debris is cleared away, there will be a big hole on campus.

It won't be anything like the one I have in my day today. I already miss co-teaching my class on Revelation; being uplifted by the corporate worship; sharing at the Lord's table ... even hearing my preaching minister's wrap-up of his multi-month series about the Sermon on the Mount. (Don't tell him I admitted that, though.)

Today won't be the same without my children at my side in the worship center. It won't be the same, waiting for the noise before second worship hour to diminish so that the leader can be heard. It won't be the same, not hearing the fellowship in the foyer after worship.

Oh, I can still worship in my heart, in my closet, on my own. I can worship with what I have available of my family right here in my own home.

But there's a reason why Jesus wants us to gather in His name, frequently, and remember Him together.

And on days like this, I understand His reason a little more deeply.

Storm's a-Comin' ...?

If an ice storm really is on its way and we get iced in and/or lose our electricity, I just wanted to take this opportunity to say thanks for dropping by ... and, sorry, I don't have much on my mind.

I bought extra firelogs today. I know where the matches and candles are. There are plenty of batteries for the flashlights.

Yet I feel uneasy. My nine-year-old daughter is spending the night with a school chum who lives almost 40 miles to the north of us. Or, maybe, several nights - should the storm hit with force.

You never know what will happen.

A senior cheerleader at my son's junior high/high school was killed - along with her mother - instantly, in an automobile accident on Wednesday night. She didn't have a church home in life, but in death my home church will serve next Tuesday morning.

It's been especially tough on her friends, most of whom have strong church ties. All of the youth ministry staff and many others have spent a lot of time at Central Arkansas Christian's Maumelle campus, helping console and counsel.

I don't know what you say to grieving young people that will lessen their pain at an already-difficult time in their lives. I don't know that the young staffers at my home church do either.

Except that you do your best to be prepared. You try to stoke the fire within you; to recharge your spiritual batteries; to know how to ignite the light of Christ that will shine and warm those around.

And you pray that the storm will pass you by.

It's Preacher Feature Time!

Some weeks back I begged my preaching minister to submit a fine message he had delivered on the subject of unity as an article for New Wineskins - and the guy consented! On top of that, managing editor Greg Taylor accepted it, and it went live Monday. You can read it (or listen to it) and see if my risk of sycophanting up to the boss was worth the ribbing I'll get in the church office.

(Though, as I told my minister when I accepted the communications job there last fall, he's not technically the Boss. That'd be Springsteen.)

Evidently spurred on by my dauntless courage in the face of merciless taunting, Greg Taylor lost no time asking his preaching minister Wade Hodges to contribute an article on the subject of unity and the table, which should appear in a couple of weeks.

And if Greg gets any teasing as a result, I think you'll find the article will be well worth it to him.

So far the only reaction I've fielded was from someone who was a bit surprised that my minister - who likes to think of himself as a staunch conservative - would write for New Wineskins, which frequently serves as a forum for generally less-conservative views.

I quoted back to him the old Vulcan proverb from Star Trek:

"Only Nixon could go to China."

Church Advertising You'll Probably Never See

"Don't come to this church expecting to be fed. - Unless you're willing to help feed others."

"Come late. Kneeling room only."

" 'Nobody's perfect'? Well, there's an exception to every rule ..."

"Jesus died for His brothers and sisters. The least you can do is move to the center of the pew for them."

"We're tired of doing church, too. Whaddya say we just follow Christ?"

"Sometimes you can find coins in the pew cushions."

"None of the other churches wanted our kind. You know, our kind: Sinners."

"Come Sunday for the improvisational performance. Our PowerPoint projector's down."

"Drop by Sunday. You never know when God may show up, too."

"Church dismissed this Sunday night. We decided to go paint an old lady's house instead."

"Come sit in our regular pew and see how Christlike we act about it."

"Services for all ages: Mesozoic, Jurassic, Triassic ...."

"We believe in evolution. In fact, we're for making talking serpents an endangered species."

"Special memorial Sunday for all those who died in the services. First and second services."

"Our elders have approved using eBay when selling your goods to give to the poor."

"Ananias and Sapphira might have gotten away with it if they hadn't driven the Bentley and the Rolls to church."

The Neon Flamingo Light of Grace

I was a crank last night.

All day, in fact. I woke up cranky, achey and headachey, and in spite of all the ibuprofen I went through like butter mints, I didn't get any better.

It was a bad day to be that way. I needed to get a lot of stuff done. And Angi was to host her bunco group at our house in the evening.

So I dutifully fetched the kids after school and whisked them off to the pizza buffet for dinner, with a brief stop at the Game Exchange which my 9-year-old daughter Laura did not want to visit but my 13-year-old son Matthew did. She didn't want to go see a movie, either; though there were a couple playing that would have been good bets.

The pizza was not at its best, and the kids quarreled non-stop. At the claw machine, Laura squandered the seven dollars she had earned helping stuff church bulletins. I did not stop her. I took her to Party City instead, where there were many attractive things that money could have bought. Then we went to Toys R Us, where there were more. And thence to Garden Ridge, where there were still more. Then to Target. I didn't lecture. But I didn't advance money, either. I was teaching conservatism, thrift. And by the time we needed to return home, I wasn't the only cranky one.

Matthew had checked out in secret at Garden Ridge with a couple of treasures he found on the clearance tables. I didn't pry. He had bought an "American Army" video game earlier in the week, against my wishes, but had been good enough to ask my opinion first. I thanked him for that, and told him I would draw the line at games rated "M" that his friends' parents permitted, but games rated "T" he could buy at his discretion. He is a teenager now. He doesn't always choose wisely, or as I would choose for him - but he has to learn to choose.

So I was surprised - pleasantly - that he chose to give one of his two new purchases to his disappointed little sister in the car on the way home; in fact he had bought it for her because he thought she would like it. It was a $3 battery-powered, neon flamingo lamp, marked down from $10. He had bought himself one that was an 8-ball - he has become quite the billiards fiend. But, as he explained later - showing me the package - most of the other lamps available were things like martini glasses and signs that said "BAR." He knew I wouldn't approve, and he didn't want any of them.

Then I got home and, unilluminated by the neon light of grace I had just seen, acted even more like a complete idiot.

I went to replace the batteries in my 17-year-old programmable master remote control ($99 from Radio Shack back then - insert appropriate Tim Allen noises here) and discovered that it had, for the first time, lost all of the programmed settings when I removed the old batteries. So I slumped into an easy chair and grumpily began re-setting all of them from the individual remotes, grousing and fidgeting about all my tired aches and pizza-inflated gut.

I did not help my sweet wife clean up after her bunco party.

Usually, I am pretty good about doing things like that - I had helped dust and vacuum before it - but, even though she had thanked me for taking care of the children, I did not offer to help clean up last night. I just sat and programmed. She even offered me one of her world-famous homemade dinner rolls, hot and fresh out of the oven, and I let it grow room-temperature cold while I programmed.

Angi doesn't nag. It's not in her nature. She gently dropped a hint or two, and I picked up on them: "Well, I finally got everything tidied up." "Oh ... your roll is getting cold." But I did nothing. Except eat the roll. I'm not stupid; I just act stupidly.

I didn't sleep very well last night. I didn't deserve to. Because I missed most of that good sleep by trying to justify my ignorant behavior, which no amount of crankiness or achiness can excuse.

What I should have done this morning is to apologize. (In fact, there needs to be a Hallmark card for situations like this; one that says on the outside "You have a perfect ass," and when you open it on the inside it reads "Me.")

By the time I can give Angi the flowers and the apology she deserves face-to-face this evening, she will probably have forgotten my boorish behavior altogether. She's like that. She understands grace; she even embodies it.

And she doesn't even need a neon flamingo light to remind her.

A Generous Eschatology

First of all - I know I shouldn't borrow titles from books I haven't completely read, but the title of this Brian McLaren opus fits too well to pass it up.

Because, secondly, what I want to write about is eschatology - "end" things - and I want to remain completely generous in my view toward them and toward others' interpretations of them.

Thirdly, my byword on this and many other subjects is a disarmingly honest "I don't know." I can afford to be generous about my stupidity because I lose nothing by confessing it. I don't hold any advanced degrees, nor does my lowly professional position require one. Same for my reputation and my ego.

Finally, to the point: I favor my unique view of Christ's (ongoing) return because it is generous. It's generous with God's greatness. God is the Person whom, Peter tells us, regards a day as a thousand years and vice-versa. So, about three of His years could equal about a million of ours. Or the reverse! I'm certain, in fact, that one of those thousand-year-long days for Him was the day His Son hung on a cross.

God's greatness remains undiminished by our limited perception of it. I think He understands that, and expressed His eternal truths in the simplest possible terms for our impossibly simple minds.

It's also generous with the potential lifespan of the earth - "Men come and go, but earth abides (forever?)" implies the Preacher. "The earth and its fullness are God's," observes another inspired writer of antiquity. That means I have a responsibility toward it; toward generations that may well follow me. I may be part of the humanity charged with subduing it, but we're not charged with selfishly wasting and destroying it.

The "new earth" promised to His children might be parallel to this one ... but it might also be this very one, completely renewed, currently only a shadow of its glory to come. And that fate could still be consistent with Peter's description of its total destruction at some point in the future. (Think of that "Genesis wave" sequence in Star Trek II and III, except animated by God.)

Can children who have wasted a gorgeous, delicate, precious toy be trusted to be given another that's even more fabulous?

So I'm generously willing to concede a lot of points offered by differing views of eschatolgy - excepting, of course, those which are inarguably contradictory to what God reveals in scripture.

But - can I say "in the end"? - the view of a continuously-unfolding eschatology that I tend to favor gives me the same level of comfort and discomfort that I find in the rest of scripture - and for the same reasons.

Not A Biblical Concept

So, I'm sitting around here trying to prepare to begin co-teaching a class on the Revelation to John - something I haven't taught since teaching a junior high class in Springfield, Missouri almost ten years ago - and I'm suddenly wondering:

"Where does the phrase 'end of time' come from?"

Because it sure ain't in the Bible.

"End of the age" or "world," yes. "End of all things," yes. "There shall be no delay any longer," sure - in heaven as announced by an angel swearing all over the universe to the truth of it.

But no "end of time."

There's no "end-time" in there, either.

No single "tribulation," although there's one singled out as "great."

And "rapture" is only hinted at - once, I believe. To mean "caught up," or "snatched up."

We sit in our churches and gladly sing "... and time shall be no more," but shall it?

Won't there just be a lot more of it in eternity? Won't it just be a lot different from this age or this world?

I know I'm pickin' nits here, and mite-y tiny ones at that, but ...

What if there really ain't no "end of time"?

What if death comes to all, except for those whom Jesus and his angels snatch up here and there, now and then; followers who have gone His way, collected by the score and the hundreds and the thousands every minute of every day?

What if we can't know the day and the hour because it isn't a single day or a single hour - except for each one of us, individually?

What if God chooses to perpetuate this troubled old globe for another few million years? Will the power of the gospel of Christ diminish to valuelessness over than span? Will technology and democracy and freedom and man's inherently decent nature finally perfect ol' planet Earth? Will sin cease to exist? Will people ever create some other way to live forever?

What if God chooses to prove His eternal righteousness to the angels who fell by demonstrating that the good news of Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection never loses its capability to draw people close to His heart, even after entropy has increased and the sun has burnt out and mankind has fled to distant worlds orbiting far-flung stars?

What if God maintains for his collected family a new Jerusalem on the new earth within the new heavens on a whole 'nother playing field of time ... where entropy doesn't increase and bodies are incorruptible and moths don't consume white robes of righteousness and rust doesn't ruin heavenly treasure and thieves don't break in to steal it because they're changed completely from the heart and besides there's more than enough to go around for everyone?

Is all of that not a biblical concept, either?

Or is it some kind of revelation?