Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-15-13

One of the severe downsides of living in a prosperous society is… “What? Downsides? Can’t you see the glass as half full?” (I have never really understood that one. Half is half, period.) “We have achieved the greatest material prosperity in world history. America is the Promised Land for millions, and what people throughout history have dreamed about!”

Yes, all true. We are, on the whole, prosperous, well-off. And happy, even joyful. Just look at some of the signs: an epidemic of obesity proves we are well-fed. Divorce rates, suicide rates, infanticide, all at record levels in human history, indicate that were are happily well-adjusted. We are told that prejudice and hatred still run rampant; “hate crimes” are codified to resist those emotions. Even in the church: how many preachers think we are not prosperous ENOUGH, so now the “Prosperity Gospel” is preached.

And meanwhile, large sections of the church, while absorbed in such “theology,” surrenders its former domains of charity and morality, while governments and courts and media decide standards for the culture. A militant Compassion Police, without uniforms.

As I was saying, one of the downsides of living in a prosperous society… well, I have listed several already. But I think the biggest danger is the tendency of prosperity to dehumanize people. It might be ironic, but tends to be true, that the less we THINK we have to worry about sickness, poverty, hatred, and death, the less sensitive we are to those facts of life. Less aware of their implications. Less worried about those effects on other people.

The less we tend to think about eternal rewards and damnation, the less we think about Heaven as a goal of life’s long, hard journey – that is to say, less long and hard than it has been for the majority of humankind – the more irrelevant Heaven becomes.

Not obsolete, just seemingly irrelevant. What about this anomaly? Do we prohibit complacency and prosperity? Of course not. But it becomes more important a job of the church to increase the preaching about righteousness. Just as patriots, from the Founders to Ronald Reagan, recognized that Liberty is never more than one generation away from extinction.

Believers around the world are bearing unbelievable burdens these days. The last century saw more Christians martyred for their faith than in any previous century. Today, persecution, torture, slavery, displacement, ethno-religious cleansing, legal harassment, and spying are added to the deaths. Many churches in prosperous Western and first-world countries like America argue amongst themselves about Absolute Truth vs relational truth; and whether the Bible’s teachings about, say, homosexuality should be silenced, so to encourage new members to stop in; and whether there is a hell or not.

The remnant – today’s People of the Word – in America have a job that is somewhat easier, but also more challenging, than members of the persecuted church in other lands. In China, North Korea, Pakistan, and other societies, Christians risk their lives to worship and fellowship. They meet in secret places, sometimes each member hiding, then exchanging, one page of the Bible to avoid detection of the whole Book by authorities. Believers in America increasingly do battle with powers and principalities of the air; hard to see, hard to fight.

How many of those foreign believers DO those things for their faith? How many of us here AVOID things that would nurture out faith and service?

If it were against the law to be a Christian in America, would there be enough evidence to convict some of us?

Hebrews, Chapter 11, is nicknamed “the Hall of Fame of Faith,” listing many of the Old Testament heroes who were chosen, who were persecuted, who battled, who overcame, for their faith and their God. But, interesting to note, not every man and woman in the list reached the putative goal or version of the Promised Land. Some were rejected and persecuted, even killed for their faith; yet they fought on.

“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth” (Hebrews 11:13).

A prosperous America is a fine place, but it can be finer still – as fine as it was in our earlier days – if we keep our eyes on a yet finer place indeed: the life of God’s commands, the Heaven of God’s promises.

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Today’s musical clip is a musical encapsulation of this message. Sung plaintively, solo, by the late Rich Mullins, it sounds like an ancient biblical strain, or a slave song of the primitive church, or the lonesome sound of the Sacred Harp songbooks in America’s past. But it was written about a half-century ago by Albert E Brumley Sr… and has been embraced by the white and black churches, rural and “mainstream,” in church services and concerts alike. It calls to us. If you “can’t feel at home in the world any more”… maybe your spirit is in a good place.

Click: This World Is Not My Home

1-3-11

The recent lunar eclipse is the last the northern hemisphere will see for a number of years. Its coincidence with the Winter solstice was the first in three centuries. Our New Year’s Day, 1-1-11, is the last such group of numbers until… oh, you get it.

If you think hard enough, EVERY day is the last of this or the first of that.

As Christians, we should see life that way. Every regret or painful memory, for instance, can be filed under “past” because we have forgiveness and a new life offered by Jesus. And no matter what else is going on, TODAY can be the start of amazing things you can do, and God can do through you.

There is a traditional Irish blessing (set to music and beautiful photographs in the link below) that is both appropriate for any day, between friends, as we are; and to think upon this New Year.

It set me thinking about Ireland’s role in Christian history. At one point, in Europe, Rome fell to barbarians, sacked and pillaged. The trappings of “civilization” and Christianity were put to flight. To a great extent, learning and biblical spirituality were pushed westward, until the Atlantic Ocean became a watery end-of-the-road. In Ireland, in isolated monasteries and abbeys, the Bible was copied by hand; faith was kept alive; Christian traditions were nurtured. There were pockets of believers elsewhere, of course, but largely it was a persecuted church. It was the “Dark Ages,” but things were not so dark in those places where the flame of faith was kept glowing.

I have a feeling that the decade we enter this weekend will be characterized as a decade of Christian persecution. It won’t be the last, but there is no reason to think that the attacks on believers we see in the news (and many we don’t), weekly and now daily around the world, will not grow in intensity or ferocity. These happen in Pakistan, North Korea, China, Iraq, Egypt, Russia, Cuba, India… and Western Europe and Canada and the United States.

Erosion of religious liberty, mockery of our Christian heritage, “legal” restrictions on the exercise of our faith and sharing our beliefs – classifying portions of the Bible as “hate speech” is only one of countless examples – confirm that no place in the world is safe from attack. Just as The Son of Man, we believers will have “no place to lay our heads,” spiritually speaking.

When the Irish “saved civilization” and preserved Western Christianity for a season, it was the geographical firewall. Today, in the global community with new media, each one of us – individuals who have received the Great Commission from Jesus Himself – will need to be virtual monasteries unto ourselves: Holding the Word close; keeping the flame of faith alive; nurturing Christian tradition.

I wish you not a path devoid of clouds, nor a life on a bed of roses,
Not that you might never need regret,
nor that you should never feel pain.

No, that is not my wish for you.
My wish for you is:

That you might be brave in times of trial,
when others lay crosses upon your shoulders.
When mountains must be climbed and chasms are to be crossed,
When hope can scarce shine through.
That every gift God gave you might grow with you
and let you give your gift of joy to all who care for you.
That you may always have a Friend who is worth that name,
whom you can trust and who helps you in times of sadness,
Who will defy the storms of daily life at your side.

One more wish I have for you:
That in every hour of joy and pain you may feel God close to you.
This is my wish for you and for all who care for you.
This is my hope for you now and forever.

— anonymous Irish blessing

Click:  The Best Possible New Year’s Wish