Monday Morning Music Ministry

10-1-18

Statistics don’t lie, we are told; but statisticians do. More dispositive is that our perceptions often are more aggressive than the biased sources. The corollary is true, I fear – that our biases filter our perceptions. It was not always the case in our culture, not to the extent from which we suffer; and my view is that the Media-Industrial Complex has forced people to be discriminating.

This is not unique in human history, and is famously prophesied in the Bible – we have become a people with “itching ears.” Sometimes wisely picking and choosing; but many people only hearing what they want to hear.

This could be regarded merely as abstract: a society of people withdrawing to their own groups and self-interests. Tribalism, really. But it is more, a crisis of the old order. The West is too integrated, too inter-dependent to allow us to function as myriad separate islands.

History has placed us in a chess tournament, and we cannot pretend it is checkers. We can yearn for simple melodies, but the musical score before us is a complex fugue.

Drift and dissolution are swift. A stark barometer informs us. I observe that a year ago, the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court evinced hand-wringing, angst, and gloom from opponents in the press and politics. The nomination of a man with fairly identical credentials and prospects, now, is met with apocalyptic frenzy.

In 2018, so many geniis have been let out of bottles that a virtual fog surrounds us. It seems impossible to imagine that any Supreme Court nominee henceforth will not be a pawn in bloody wars between right and left.

Or that football and other professional sports will ever again be unaccompanied by contentious politics.

Or that the entertainment world, especially as exemplified in awards programs, will ever be free of political statements and attacks.

Or that town councils, school-board meetings, indeed school textbooks and curricula, will never more be bloody fights between opposing worldviews.

This is the inheritance of an amazing civilization – a culture rich in material goods and intellectual promise, of spiritual foundations but ultimate philosophical drift. Shakespeare wrote in King Lear, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” America is populated today by thankless children, ignorant or even dismissive of the precious heritage vouchsafed to us, arrogant in assumptions, and increasingly intolerant.

You might agree with me, or not. However I think everybody will agree that the battlegrounds I describe are real; and are many. That these are relatively recent phenomena in America does not mean that they will be fleeting.

Polls and statistics can frighten us, and of late there are so many gloomy assessments that our senses are dulled. It is ironic that in the midst of so many encouraging economic signs – are we getting of winning? – the social signs are dropping like rocks. Notice that the areas of controversy I have listed above are philosophical.

The state of our society is increasingly schizophrenic. Yes, economic signs are positive. Social signs are… disastrous. This ought to trouble us quite enough, and demand our attention and action. But when accompanied by the philosophical disagreements we have listed, it is a crisis, not a challenge, that confronts us.

A bewildering complexity of horrible situations, however, need not defeat us.

History provides the detailed stories of cultures and civilizations – societies and empires – that have crumbled and dissolved. Even disappeared. We could learn lessons. Self-realized revival has been a scarce commodity throughout history, however.

But despite what History tries to teach us from complicated narratives, the Bible provides the simplest of solutions. It has the answer to all of life’s problems – rather, it is the answer to all of life’s problems. In this Age of Anxiety, it is tempting to distrust the wonder-working power of the Prince of Peace, who still speaks through His Word.

“Yes, but…” One negative aspect of education, especially Christian education, is the tendency to think that if we know the answers, we have the answers. With proper stress, that WE have the answers. And that maturity – spiritual or civic – is charging off as lone crusaders.

As Abraham Lincoln wisely noted, it is not important that God is on our side; what matters is that we be on His side. As Grace gives us that sight and perspective, we may proceed to redeem our households, our communities, our culture.

We can put on “the whole armor of God,” but must realize that the Bible’s fashion guide in that passage points mostly to how we may be protected. Once equipped, we can do the Lord’s work.

It seems counter-intuitive, but I think the righteous in America today don’t need a mighty army. Boldness has its place, but so does humility. We might win – or lose – votes, but America might be coming to a place where we wonder what we defend these days. We cannot argue that it is impossible for the secularists, the Left, to impose values bureaucratically downward… only to assume that we can.

Our own hearts, our own households, our own children, our own churches and communities, our own priorities, must change before our own nation can. One person, with God at his or her side, can be mightier than any army. We don’t need to be superheroes: That is why the Holy Spirit was sent. Jesus said that our yokes will be light when He assumes them.

Humility demands that we think less about how bad “others” are; but how we have not been good enough. We are not saviors; we already have One. In the meantime, where have all the average people gone?

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Click: Where Have All the Average People Gone?

9-24-18

It occurs to me more and more, lately, that we – all of us; not only Christians or Westeners; but everyone with a pulse these days – should be a heck of a lot humbler than we are. In fact, not too many residents of the 21st century are humble at all, so we all have a long way to fall.

We have gone, over the past 500 years, from pre-modernism to modernism to post-modernism. From the Age of Faith to the Age of Reason to the Age of Skepticism to the New Age of Personal Inventions of Belief. From Agrarian to Industrial to Post-Industrial Virtual Reality. From the Gothic to the Renaissance to the Enlightenment to.. confusion: societal anarchy, cultural nihilism.

All of human history is characterized by evolution and change, but it has never been this radical, or, actually, as sudden when considered in the arc of human history.

There are many social scientists – probably a majority of “experts” and faculty members dealing with such things – who view all this as perhaps inevitable, but certainly welcome. I believe they feed the cancer that is devouring us in myriad ways. The arcs I described, and many similar ones that can be limned, are not evidences of progress.

Rather the opposite. “Progress” is the meme of our time; the secular religion; the brand-identification of contemporary life. Progress, whether contorted to define a political commitment, or as the assumption behind everything that changes or is new in our lives, encourages us. Forgives us. Animates us.

Not only is Progress a false god – is it really inevitable that everything gets better, is better, will be better, as the globe spins into the future? But Progress is frequently corrosive. Not merely false in its promises and scenarios, but cruel.

Humankind “advanced” to the 20th century, achieving, yes, many industrial marvels, medical breakthroughs, and economic blessings. At the same time – and partly assisted by these very tools of Progress – the 20th century saw more slaughter (wars and oppression) than all previous 20 centuries, combined. More torture, displacements, death, than in all previous 20 centuries. Humankind has developed means to live healthier and longer… and invented more efficient means of killing and ending life.

We have fooled ourselves into believing that, in the name of Progress, killing babies is life-affirming. That euthanasia is not killing but is “mercy.” That slavery is obsolete but sweat-shops around the world, keeping WalMart shoppers in cheap sandals, is… Progress. (By the way, more people around the world are in literal slavery today than during the “slave trade of the 18th and 19th centuries.)

We have progressed to the point where we cringe at the thought of skinning baby seals or hunting rhinoceros tusks. Yet aborted babies are not merely ignored but celebrated in some quarters. We have “progressed” past pagan societies of the past, that practiced infant sacrifice. Yet today, babies are slaughtered to the gods of Pleasure and Convenience or (if you don’t like my one-note sing) – we have sacrificed a generation of children to the hells of broken homes, acceptance of drugs, the corruption – theft of their innocence – of awful music and movies. Progress.

With so many things swirling about us – the thick fog of sensations, pleasures, and diversions – is it possible, actually, that we are missing something in contemporary life?

Yes. We are missing God.

Oh, He is still there, still here. But at one time – the grandest time and times of human history – we were dedicated to Him. Humankind was sold out to God. Painted for Him. Wrote music for Him. Worked, or worked extra, for Him. Wrote poetry, served, wove, sculpted, carved, built, for Him. Lived for Him. Lived for God.

Today we live for ourselves. We eat, drink, and be merry. Even our politics (and I balefully expect revolution in the streets of America within the decade) about which we think we serve the Lord with such fervor, is empty and futile. The same for the “other” side.

Psalm 127 begins: “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord inhabits the city, the watchmen are useless.”

The Monday Morning Music Ministry blog’s catch-line is “Start the week with a song in your heart.” This essay, today, is not of cheer. But the truth seldom is, except for the promise it holds. A remedy for our parlous times is to keep the songs of the Lord in our hearts first. That – and true repentance for what we have squandered, where we have strayed – will restore real Progress to humankind.

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Click: Trauermusik

9-17-18

“Don’t you know that Jesus Himself never claimed to be God?” Many atheists, or agnostics, or armchair theologians have challenged me through the years. In fact: Yes, He did. Often. In many ways. Plus, He proved it by fulfilling prophecy and doing mighty works. Hey, if you cite the Bible, try reading it first. To quote the Good Book (somewhere) (I think) shutteth thy mouth.

Jesus was “only a teacher”? Read His words… see His effects on uncountable multitudes through the ages.

A few decades ago there was a book that flashed in the pan, but persuaded some people whose itching ears were waiting for persuasion, titled The Passover Plot. It represented heresies that have popped up for a couple millennia arguing that Jesus was a fraud; that His miracles were staged; that He was either a charlatan or simply delusional. His disciples, too, were either political manipulators or likewise crazy.

Absurd on its face, even if only for the fact that very few people – certainly not all the Disciples; all the early Church’s martyrs; the persecuted who endured torture and death as Christianity spread; and millions today who die rather than renounce Jesus — would “die for a lie,” follow a lunatic.

The great Christian apologist C S Lewis posed the most profound of challenges to skeptics. To those who are familiar, you can hear it shared one more time.

For those of you who have not heard it, read carefully.

Jesus lived. He lives in the accounts of Roman governments; and of contemporary historians like Josephus, the great Jewish historian. Was He divine? Was He the Son of God… God incarnate? If you are mathematically inclined, you can figure the odds of hundreds of prophesies, written by dozens of writers, over many centuries, in different locations… all fulfilled in the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

OK. Perhaps that does not persuade you. Here is what C S Lewis proposed:

The historical figure of Jesus, heir to spiritual inheritance and a recorded lineage, was known to have taught and preached and healed. No one claims He was like a Greek god or mythological figure: He lived. So now we confront this Jesus. “Who do you say I am?” Before the rhetorical answer, Lewis confronts us with the logical choice… the only possible answers to Jesus’s claims about Himself.

One: He was a liar. And ringmaster of an elaborate conspiracy.

Two: He was a madman, claiming to be God, but able to convince multitudes.

Three: He was – is – who He says He is.

There is no other logical choice. Much of the world thinks about it – frankly, hardly at all – and bets on the Teacher thing; or the craziness of ancient shepherds; or maybe they bet on the kindness of a god, if there is one, who will tally their good deeds, or make allowances for “good hearts” and charity deductions on their tax forms…

But there is that nagging question: What if Jesus IS who He says He is?

Are you willing to bet? Do you like the odds? Would you bet your life?

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Click: What a Friend

9-10-18

She was sitting on the curb outside her apartment, the little apartment in the row of several small units on one of the rivers that feed into the Atlantic Ocean in central New Jersey. A hot summer afternoon, yes, and the little apartment has no air conditioning.

But mainly she was out there, alone – alone with her thoughts. It was the end of the month; benefits had run out, as had most of the food.

Actually, as I learned of this story afterward, it was not an unfrequent circumstance. But lately, in scenes like this, Barbara was not really alone; not only with her thoughts. She was praying. And her relatively recent and closer relationship with Jesus led her to pray. Jesus, her new best friend. When the New Life happens, you don’t only pray to God. The Holy Spirit inhabits and inspires your prayers. You pray with Jesus, not only to or through Him.

The Lord wants to know the burdens of our hearts, so we no longer feel selfish in asking for basics, big or small. The Word has promised – the Peace That Passes All Understanding bathes our troubled souls.

As she sat there lifting up those burdens, a neighbor from five doors down walked up. An old Black man named Victor, with a very young son or grandson whose puppy was on a leash, greeted her and said he thought she might like some crabs. Now, Victor lays crab traps outside his place on the river, and all along the coastline, selling Blueclaws to shops and restaurants. Blue crabs, common up and down the Atlantic coast and mostly identified with Chesapeake Bay, are interesting creatures with bright azure claws, back fins that act as paddles – they actually swim – and the sweetest, most tender meat you can imagine.

Many of my summer afternoons, on Jersey Shore childhood vacations, were spent in rowboats with my dad, my uncle Gus, and cousin Tommy, in Barnegat Bay. Fastening clunky wire traps with bait, usually mossbunker heads, we would lower the traps and pull them up almost immediately, with one or two crabs in each, all afternoon. On good days we would have several bushel baskets of those clacking crabs. In the evening our grandmothers, moms, and sisters would boil up innumerable crabs – no longer blue but scarlet red – to be turned out onto “tablecloths” of cut brown paper bags; cracking, poking, picking that sweet meat from every small corner and tip.

This history would explain why Barbara responded to Victor’s offer with a shout that could be heard across the Atlantic, maybe as far as to Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn: “CRABS??? Wow! Yes! THANK YOU!!!”

At that moment, the offer of a pack of saltines would have been gratefully met. But an abundance of fresh crabs – especially in these latter days when they are more delicacies in seafood markets and menus than results of lazy, sunburned afternoons in rowboats – seemed like a miracle.

When I heard the story, I knew it was a miracle on several levels. For Barbara – for anyone – to immediately thank God and give Him the glory, is often a miracle in itself, particularly when that spiritual attitude had not been traditional. But, more, she felt that prayer was answered. She acknowledged that God’s blessings often reflect his holy timing; being still and waiting, as the Bible says.

Further, the attitude of thanksgiving is essential. Was Victor an angel, sent with his kid and basket of crabs? Maybe, but she did know him from the neighborhood. The important thing is, as Christians, that when Christ visits His brothers and sisters, it is as He lives in the hearts of the mercy-givers.

Satan knows this. He hates us according to the amount of Jesus we open to Him in our hearts.

So when someone says, “that wasn’t Jesus – that was only a neighbor being nice,” the truth is, for instance in this story, that’s Jesus acting through our neighbors and us, to each other.

It’s what Christians do.

Questions about timing… about further prayers’ further effects… about the temptation to see prayers as magic wands… to wonder why God sometimes seems to say No…

These are still… questions. God did not promise that we would avoid the Valley of the Shadow; only that He would be with us. So there are, and continue to be, questions, challenges, and problems in life. But God answers prayer in His time and in His way. And He honors faith, and faithfulness (two different things) – and He will bless the grateful heart.

How many people, sitting on the curb like Barbara was that afternoon, would have “thanked her lucky stars,” shaken Victor’s hand, and told her friends about an amazing “coincidence” that just happened? I can tell you: a lot of people.

But the New Life brings something sweeter – well, let me say, some great complements and spiritual condiments – to steamed crabs, drawn butter, and Jesus at your table.

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Click: Lead Me To the Rock

9-3-18

Occasionally, maybe more than occasionally if your friendships run a certain way, you chat with religious skeptics or unbelievers. How do your conversations go?

The vast majority of humankind – those who believe in God, or who regard Him in any manner at all – spends a great portion of their “faith lives” explaining themselves to Him. Justifying themselves… asking for forgiveness… praying. Explaining themselves, their lives, to God.

But there are people – pastors, priests, teachers, writers, Christian friends – who take it upon themselves to justify God and God’s ways to humankind, or one-on-one to friends.

And a smaller number of people, quite a small group, unfortunately, explain the nature of God, the ways of God, to humankind and to friends when the opportunities arise. Explain, defend, educate – not “justify” (which depends on our points of view, not His, really). This group is known as “apologists.”

We are not apologizing for anything – how could we apologize, in the contemporary meaning of the word – for God Almighty? Make excuses for His ways? No…

The root of the word “apologetics” is the concept closer to “defending.” In the Bible, a letter by Peter to persecuted young Christians in Asia Minor (I Peter 3:15) says, If you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is within you: yet do it with gentleness and respect.

In this passage – advice that comes down to us through the ages – the defense (not excuse; not justification; not softened explanation) was originally apologia. We must defend God to those who do not know the Truth!

When people ask about “reasons” for God’s workings, or our mature faith, in the letter, that was the word logos, from which many of our familiar words come.

So by Christian apologetics, we defend God by reason and evidence.

Is this such a big deal? Defend? Explain? Persuade? Didn’t Paul say to be all things to all people? Shouldn’t we relate to people in ways they understand?

It is a big deal. You might adopt the pose of explaining away what you think are superficial inconsistencies in the Godhead; or His acts from one millennium to another; or whether He is vengeful or loving; or whether His plan of salvation seems fair. If so – if you mistakenly believe that God needs your help by contradicting His Holy Word – go ahead, but… by the way, you are enabling someone’s descent to hell. If not your own. You would be excusing God, distorting His essence, polluting His message, denying His sovereignty… all while your puny self is misunderstanding Him, and insulting Him.

Defending God instead of explaining or justifying Him immediately assures your listener (and reassures yourself!) that Truth is Truth. There is no need to devise explanations or justifications. It is. Just like God said, “I am.”

And the truth of the Truth does not depend on our opinion of it. Nor our explanation, which is bound to be faulty; nor our justification, which is limited by our human ability to reason. God merely needs defense – (word origins again!) not against arrows and darts; but requires no-nonsense, no-doubt, presentations by reason and evidence.

God does not require our clever justifications. Which makes the calling of the Apologist unique.

So we rely on God’s Word and the evidence in our hearts – we know that God is real; he lives within us! We know that we know that we know. I tell you, that confidence has persuaded more skeptics to accept Christ than any stack of scientific charts and graphs.

We can turn to historical evidence. Or the thousands of fulfilled prophecies. Or the surprising number, lately, of archaeological discoveries that confirm Bible accounts.

We rely, better, on the changed lives, the miracles we witness, the gifts believers exercise. And, yes, the blood of martyrs.

Who would die for a lie?

Millions would not; millions have not; millions do not. But people do die to defend the Truth.

Apologetics, when you read or hear, or if you choose that particular path of sharing the Gospel, is sometimes a rare and lonely profession. But it is the first step to disciple friends; a necessary component of evangelizing strangers. To defend Someone and Something that, ultimately, needs no defense? Yes.

We know that, but the world does not. So we engage in Christian apologetics. It’s what lonely and brave Paul did at Mars Hill. It’s what Jan Hus and Martin Luther did against the raging establishments… of church bureaucrats. It’s what millions of Christians in Communist and Muslim countries do, in our world today.

Can we at least do the same thing at family dinners… at school board meetings… in political discussions?

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Click: He Lives!