Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-31-18

The French have a saying, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. It often seems apt, and is of course a variant of a Biblical principle (God usually nails it, right?) found in Ecclesiastes – “There is nothing new under the sun.”

These sort of thoughts occur to many of us around New Years, or I might say, specifically after New Year’s, when our resolutions wither and die. The French phrase translates to “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

This is not necessarily white-flag defeatism, but rather a reflection of human nature. And January received its name from the Roman god Janus, the two-faced god of endings and beginnings.

Many of us do not merely make (and break) resolutions around now. And we will not address that famous “road to hell” that is paved with good intentions, because pledges to improve, or reform, or lose weight, or clean the office, are fungible; and at least reflect proper impulses. We also, at this time of year, often grow nostalgic… remember friends… regret mistakes… miss family members… plan to renew old acquaintances. Also proper impulses.

Perhaps the fatal flaw with intentions and resolutions is that ol’ human nature. It seems wiser to pray that the Holy Spirit equip us to be tender and resourceful and sympathetic, rather than relying on our own lists and computer calendars and strings around our fingers.

Implicit in New Year’s resolutions is a whole lot of Self – we can discern; we can assign; we can choose; we can self-motivate; we can mark the dates and goals.

We can… but we often don’t.

I am thinking of this week. Most people are happy (surveys say) with the course of the economy and “optimistic about the future.” Unemployment numbers are good … and so forth. How many people have a bounce in their step as the new year unfolds?

In my own little world, I am happy enough, and grateful to God for my blessings. But just in the past few days, I have learned, or been reminded, of friends and relatives with radically different prospects. A friend whose happily married daughter is… not so happily married. The sudden death, perhaps from meningitis, of 26-year-old commentator Bre Payton, a rising star. A friend whose daughter and grandkids went into hiding because of an abusive husband. A friend whose husband has been ill for months, in pain and not eating, wasting away. A friend whose daughter has been estranged for two years, rejecting outreach and severing relations with grandsons caught in the middle. A friend whose only child is mercurial to the point of heartbreak, variously cheerful and abusive. A friend who has just gone on Hospice.

Is everything seen, all of a sudden, as the “glass half empty”? (– or half-full? I never understood the proper term or distinction of that). No. Of all my friends above, with one exception where “negative confession” is her reaction of choice, these people do count their blessings, and are mindful of silver linings. Another friend whose daughter impulsively got pregnant, got married, and got separated in mind-numbing and sad rapidity, nevertheless praises God for clarity and rededication… and so does her precious daughter. My friend on Hospice is in a situation that would make people cry, yet is full of life and enthusiasm that is inspiring.

We must always remember, or realize, that behind every storm cloud the sun still shines brightly. Storm clouds pass, but the sun shines always, after storms and after dark nights.

Our job as Christians, trying to live as Christians – and maybe to be, or to reflect, that sun to others – is, if I may put it this way, how to order the gloomy news and the hopeful news. Joy… BUT? or horrible news… BUT!

But there is hope; but there is redemption; but there is the bright day ahead.

So, here we go again, in January. Rather than relying on our own “Do-Better” lists, why don’t we all make a New Years Resolution to let God order our ways, light our pathways, and inhabit our praise?

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For all the friends with challenges and grief I listed here – and for each other – let us pray. Farther along, we’ll know all about it…

Click: Farther Along

8-6-12

Recently I heard a world-famous preacher talk about God’s promises. Actually, it was the wife of a world-famous preacher, who had developed quite a thriving business with her own ministry. These days it seems that evangelists and big-name ministers are not just called to preach the Gospel, but called to be the wife, or son, of a big-name preacher. Prosperity often follows.

Actually, that was the topic – prosperity – of this evangelista, who shall remain nameless. But Victoria Osteen is not the only prophet of the Prosperity Gospel these days. Many of my brothers and sisters in the Pentecostal churches, and in other corners of Christianity, frequently preach about prosperity, “seed offerings,” the blessings that await the faithful – under the general, spiritual umbrella of “receiving God’s promises.”

Content warning: I do not intend to join the debate, here, on the theology of what should be a more active discussion in today’s American church. I want to address our response to the promises of God, not whether people are wasting chances for nice homes and cars, or whether people are wickedly twisting the words of the Bible, or whether naiveté or agendas have driven new translations and understandings.

For my own part, the plausibility of God’s intention to shower me with material things was shaken years ago when the magazine of a favorite evangelist printed a chart that explained the “hundredfold return” that Jesus promised. It explained by simple arithmetic how dollars given as offering would return in dollars that were, well, one hundred times greater. A sure bet.

Mark 10:28-31: Then Peter began to say to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You.” So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time – houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions – and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Hmmm. Christ’s fine print included sacrifices that do not mention money; results in this life and the next; persecutions might be numbered among the “dividends”; and a warning against expecting anything by formula. It IS called the Hundredfold “Return,” not “Reward.”

So much for not joining the debate, but I do urge us all to think about God’s promises for a moment. God had made many promises to us, His children. Many more than we realize. More than most of us ever… take advantage of? … receive? With terms like that we stray close to presumption, a sin. Not petitioning God to do something, not expecting, but presuming He will do something; and as it turns out in the circumstances of believers, it translates to Him do doing something we want. Not usually the mode of the Almighty.

Bookstores are full of biblical “Promise Books”… and should be. Indeed, God has made many promises. In fact, besides the history and commandments, we can say that the entire Bible is “God’s Promise Book”! Some of God’s promises are conditional, of course. But His greatest promise – eternal life bought by the substitutionary death of His Son – is unconditional. Jesus died while we were yet sinners, and we are free to accept or reject this unspeakable gift according to His grace.

How often do the evangelists talk about OUR promises, in between “calling in” those of God? Every one of us, maybe in different ways, have made the same promises to God – when we received Christ into our hearts; when we have been hurting; when we have sought forgiveness; after we have sinned; at times of confusion; when crises have hit; during challenges in the areas of health, finances, career, loved ones; and so forth in an endless list. When we recite the Lord’s Prayer or the Creeds, we exchange promises with God. The mere act of repentance – a frequent thing for Christians – is tantamount to making a promise.

… and how often do we break our promises to God? How many times do we sin? The thoughts, words, and deeds, even of “saints,” are not perfect. We break our word to the Creator of the Universe, the master of our souls. Often. And we have the audacity to call God out about what we perceive to be His promises to us? God cannot lie, no… but let us be a little humble about this Promise thing. As Micah wrote, He has showed you, oh man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Does God want us to prosper? I say that it is not inconsistent with His will. But I have a friend who once said to me, with tears in his eyes, “I KNOW if I were rich, I would lose control of myself in a lot of ways, afford the sins I used to lust over… probably kill myself in the process.” If this man was correct about himself, it would be a merciful God who would prosper him in radically different ways.

Farther along, we will understand the finer points of theology. But we can receive the spiritual blessings of justice, mercy, and humility, right now. That is a solid promise we can take to the REAL bank.

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Part of a Christian’s humility is accepting that we will never know some things… or know them “farther along.” Here that great old hymn of faith is sung in a living-room setting – complete with flubbed lines! – by three of the most beautiful singers, and beautiful voices, in music today: Suzy Bogguss, who opens and sings the verses; Matraca Berg; and Gretchen Peters on the mandolin. A prosperity of talent! (With the line, “And still we wonder why others prosper…”)

Click: Farther Along