October 28, 2008: A Reason To Be Humble
One of the reasons we ought to be humble is that others have done so much better than we with far less help, far fewer resources, and far greater challenges.
A friend told me he has a spiritual fantasy: he wants to be called upon in the Final Judgment to "rise and condemn" adulterers who defend themselves by saying they were married to bad people. My friend was married to a bad person too, but did not consider that grief a justification for sexual license. Maybe at the throne of God he will rise to judge, joining the Queen of Sheba and the men of Nineveh (Matthew 12:41-42) who will condemn certain Judeans. (Sheba valued the wisdom of mere Solomon, and the Ninevites repented at the preaching of mere Jonah, while the Judeans rejected Someone Far Greater.) On the day when all souls are rendering account for deeds done in the body, and some adulterous creep cries out, "But I was married to a shrew!" God can say, "Well, concerning that, let us hear a word from my servant Doug..."
I can understand my friend's fantasy because I relate so well to it. For example, one of the reasons I find former InterVarsity President Gordon MacDonald so insufferable is because he cheated on a good and faithful wife - his partner in ministry! - while I stayed faithful to a hostile and frigid apostate. So, MacDonald, what do you suppose a guy like you has to teach a guy like me about Christian virtue?
But such fantasies receive a hard rebuke when we consider all the people who could rise up in judgment against us. The line of my just condemners would be long. Sometimes, for example, I sin by being discouraged, and in my spirit stare blankly at cinder-block walls of hindrance and captivity. Quadriplegic Joni Eareckson Tada could be called upon to rise (or in her case, sit) in judgment against me, saying, "How dare you be discouraged! At least you've got arms and legs that work - I can't even brush my own teeth!"
Or take the sin of indulgence and the contrasting virtue of generosity. If I hear one more WMBI preacher begging money one minute, and talking about his Alaskan or Caribbean cruise the next, I'm going to scream bloody judgment. At such times I feel a dark temptation to pray like the Pharisee in Luke 18:11: "God, I thank thee that I am not as other [preachers]." But then there come to mind the widow of Zarephath, who shared what she thought was her and her son's last meal with the prophet Elijah, and the widow at the temple in Jerusalem, who gave her last two pennies in the offering plate. I imagine these women rising in judgment against me, saying, "Yes, Paul, do tell us your great story of faithful stewardship of meager resources."
God sets us as examples to one another. When we are tempted to sin, and justify that sin because our situation is so tough, let us call to mind victors who have had it so much tougher. And when we do well, and because of doing well come to despise those who fail, let us call to mind the real heroes, the ones who probably would not find our moral accomplishments all that impressive.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
My Living Will, or Heaven Ain't So Bad
Some years ago I wrote a Pastor's Page advising people to make out a living will. Today I thought I'd tell you what mine is. I have written (by hand) and distributed these words:
In the event of my incapacitation, I insist that no medical measures be taken other than those designed to relieve pain or that have a strong likelihood of restoring me to full, independent, unmedicated health. Hence no breathing machines, feeding tubes, dialysis, resuscitation, or anything else that medical science may invent to delay the inevitable. I mean it. See with what large letters I write with my own hand. [The last sentence is writ larger than the rest. You may recognize it from Galatians 6:11.]
I want to persuade you of the rightness of making such a statement. My case:
(1) When I die I will be received into glory, not by any merit of my own but by the same grace that Jesus promised the dying thief: "Today you will be with me in paradise." Though it is sinful to try to hasten heavenly bliss through suicide, is it not foolish to try to postpone it through grasping at straws? Is heaven so frightful that we must avoid being sucked into it until the last possible moment? Especially when so many of those medical "lifelines" thrown to us from the shores of earth are just flotsam that enable us drown more slowly.
(2) The quicker we let go, the less we burden our children. They have jobs and families and burdens of their own. What used to be a few weeks of making grandpa comfortable have now become years and years of changing his diapers and hooking him up to tubes. I'd rather not do that to my kids if I can help it. Sure, the young have a responsibility to care for the old, and it builds character for them to do so - but don't the old also have a responsibility to make that care-giving period as short and simple and dignified as possible?
(3) The quicker we go, the less we burden the health care system. The cost of preserving (I know this is offensive, but I'll just say it) a human vegetable can run into millions of dollars, and that money is better spent on those who have a shot at productive health. The staggering costs of long-term maintenance will break Medicare someday. Our selfish clinging to earthly life makes medical costs go up for everyone, and renders insurance unaffordable. To borrow an image from global warming, I don't know if my "carbon footprint" will ever really damage the planet, but I do believe that my "medical care footprint" weighs down a system that will increasingly struggle to provide care for those who can actually benefit from it.
You may notice that I say nothing in my living will about my funeral. That is because I believe it is selfish for people to give post-death instructions about their remains. That is for the living to decide - why should we care about it if we're dead? When my soul is rejoicing before Jesus, I won't give two hoots if, for example, med school students are slicing up my dead body in order to learn how better to treat living ones. Won't bother me one bit - and if it helps them, well, glory to God.
In the event of my incapacitation, I insist that no medical measures be taken other than those designed to relieve pain or that have a strong likelihood of restoring me to full, independent, unmedicated health. Hence no breathing machines, feeding tubes, dialysis, resuscitation, or anything else that medical science may invent to delay the inevitable. I mean it. See with what large letters I write with my own hand. [The last sentence is writ larger than the rest. You may recognize it from Galatians 6:11.]
I want to persuade you of the rightness of making such a statement. My case:
(1) When I die I will be received into glory, not by any merit of my own but by the same grace that Jesus promised the dying thief: "Today you will be with me in paradise." Though it is sinful to try to hasten heavenly bliss through suicide, is it not foolish to try to postpone it through grasping at straws? Is heaven so frightful that we must avoid being sucked into it until the last possible moment? Especially when so many of those medical "lifelines" thrown to us from the shores of earth are just flotsam that enable us drown more slowly.
(2) The quicker we let go, the less we burden our children. They have jobs and families and burdens of their own. What used to be a few weeks of making grandpa comfortable have now become years and years of changing his diapers and hooking him up to tubes. I'd rather not do that to my kids if I can help it. Sure, the young have a responsibility to care for the old, and it builds character for them to do so - but don't the old also have a responsibility to make that care-giving period as short and simple and dignified as possible?
(3) The quicker we go, the less we burden the health care system. The cost of preserving (I know this is offensive, but I'll just say it) a human vegetable can run into millions of dollars, and that money is better spent on those who have a shot at productive health. The staggering costs of long-term maintenance will break Medicare someday. Our selfish clinging to earthly life makes medical costs go up for everyone, and renders insurance unaffordable. To borrow an image from global warming, I don't know if my "carbon footprint" will ever really damage the planet, but I do believe that my "medical care footprint" weighs down a system that will increasingly struggle to provide care for those who can actually benefit from it.
You may notice that I say nothing in my living will about my funeral. That is because I believe it is selfish for people to give post-death instructions about their remains. That is for the living to decide - why should we care about it if we're dead? When my soul is rejoicing before Jesus, I won't give two hoots if, for example, med school students are slicing up my dead body in order to learn how better to treat living ones. Won't bother me one bit - and if it helps them, well, glory to God.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
October 14, 2008: Endorsing A Candidate
Of the four Roman emperors who reigned during the New Testament era, three (Tiberius, Caligula and Nero) raped boys. Only Claudius might not have.
I bring up this unpleasant fact for the sake of those who seem to think that the flourishing of the church depends on having good secular leaders and laws. It doesn't. The church was born, and the gospel spread, in lands ruled by murderous thug perverts like Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, Herod Agrippa I and the emperors named above. (Even the best of the lot, Herod Agrippa II, slept with his sister!) Despite demons at the helm of secular government, the gospel was preached and the kingdom grew and tens of thousands of elect saints bowed the knee to Jesus Christ.
I'm not saying it is ok therefore to leave demons at the helm. I am saying that the cause of Christ will proceed or flounder no matter who is in charge.
That is one of the reasons I strongly oppose the action of 33 ministers who, two weeks ago, deliberately endorsed political candidates from the pulpit. (It was a protest against a 54-year-old law prohibiting non-profits from endorsing candidates. These churches may now lose their tax-exempt status.) As a citizen and private individual I certainly care who gets elected, and I'm happy to banter politics with anyone who would like to engage me about it on the side. But when I get into the pulpit I am not merely a citizen but a proclaimer of the gospel of Jesus Christ endowed with the sacred trust of exalting his name and making him known. To get distracted in the pulpit by these lesser things of politics is sin. Old-school preachers used to scotch-tape to their pulpits the text John 12:21: "We would see Jesus." They knew the temptation of taking the focus off Christ and fixing it on the relatively inconsequential, like political heroes and villains.
Rather than striking a blow for free speech by the civilly disobedient act of endorsing McCain or Obama in their September 28 sermons, it would have been better if these 33 preachers had raised their right hands and sworn, "I will not allow my political convictions to veil Christ from those who need to see him." Even from their perspective, even if they knew without error that one of these candidates was good and the other evil, how could they know whether the cause of Christ would flourish more under an Obama or a McCain administration? None of us can know that. Look at the world: western Europe has freedom of religion but nobody goes to church, while China enforces policies hostile to the faith and its churches multiply.
I have preferences, but you won't hear them in the pulpit. Part of that is because I have a Bigger Name to exalt and don't want lesser names to obscure it. Part of it too is because I seek first the kingdom of God, and am fully convinced that that kingdom can advance just as easily whether the Oval Office is occupied by humble St. Francis or Attila the Hun.
Of the four Roman emperors who reigned during the New Testament era, three (Tiberius, Caligula and Nero) raped boys. Only Claudius might not have.
I bring up this unpleasant fact for the sake of those who seem to think that the flourishing of the church depends on having good secular leaders and laws. It doesn't. The church was born, and the gospel spread, in lands ruled by murderous thug perverts like Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate, Herod Agrippa I and the emperors named above. (Even the best of the lot, Herod Agrippa II, slept with his sister!) Despite demons at the helm of secular government, the gospel was preached and the kingdom grew and tens of thousands of elect saints bowed the knee to Jesus Christ.
I'm not saying it is ok therefore to leave demons at the helm. I am saying that the cause of Christ will proceed or flounder no matter who is in charge.
That is one of the reasons I strongly oppose the action of 33 ministers who, two weeks ago, deliberately endorsed political candidates from the pulpit. (It was a protest against a 54-year-old law prohibiting non-profits from endorsing candidates. These churches may now lose their tax-exempt status.) As a citizen and private individual I certainly care who gets elected, and I'm happy to banter politics with anyone who would like to engage me about it on the side. But when I get into the pulpit I am not merely a citizen but a proclaimer of the gospel of Jesus Christ endowed with the sacred trust of exalting his name and making him known. To get distracted in the pulpit by these lesser things of politics is sin. Old-school preachers used to scotch-tape to their pulpits the text John 12:21: "We would see Jesus." They knew the temptation of taking the focus off Christ and fixing it on the relatively inconsequential, like political heroes and villains.
Rather than striking a blow for free speech by the civilly disobedient act of endorsing McCain or Obama in their September 28 sermons, it would have been better if these 33 preachers had raised their right hands and sworn, "I will not allow my political convictions to veil Christ from those who need to see him." Even from their perspective, even if they knew without error that one of these candidates was good and the other evil, how could they know whether the cause of Christ would flourish more under an Obama or a McCain administration? None of us can know that. Look at the world: western Europe has freedom of religion but nobody goes to church, while China enforces policies hostile to the faith and its churches multiply.
I have preferences, but you won't hear them in the pulpit. Part of that is because I have a Bigger Name to exalt and don't want lesser names to obscure it. Part of it too is because I seek first the kingdom of God, and am fully convinced that that kingdom can advance just as easily whether the Oval Office is occupied by humble St. Francis or Attila the Hun.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
October 7, 2008: The Least Of These
There is a joy that smart, independent, capable people will never know: that of being rescued from befuddled predicament by a kind and resourceful person. Only a confused idiot can really experience that pleasure.
I know because I have been that confused idiot. Three years ago I invited friends and family over for Thanksgiving, which was a problem because I had no table. The fact weighed on me - not simply that I didn't have a table, but that I knew in my heart that normal people knew how to get one and I didn't. I did know enough to go to Goodwill and find a serviceable table for only 10 dollars, but now, how to get it home?
God in his grace sent me a Mexican auto mechanic. Juan saw me struggling to disassemble the table in the Goodwill parking lot, came over, and just did it for me - squeezing all the parts into my small car like a contortionist into an aquarium. What joy! I hope I was grateful enough. I found out where he worked and called his boss to laud him for the kindness he showed to me, a total (and hapless) stranger.
Haplessness is no stranger to me - it haunts me like the ghost of Hamlet's father. Like when my lawnmower stopped working a few weeks ago. I did not know how to dispose of it and get a new one at an affordable price. I last bought a lawnmower in 1998, which required some assembly, which I did myself. It broke of course, literally broke - the frame snapped in two - the first time I used it. A kind friend assembled the replacement. This time though I just let the grass grow, hoping that with fall coming I wouldn't have to worry about my lawn until May. Wrong. Warm autumn rains left my untended lawn overgrown and unsightly, and I didn't know what to do.
Then yesterday a friend said, "I have three lawnmowers. Which one do you want?" More joy! Now my troublesome lawn is clipped tidy and short, and it cost me nothing more than grass stains on my gym shoes. Glory to God, and gratitude to my friend.
It can be embarrassing and demoralizing to be the fool in need, but there is redemption in it. In Matthew 25:35-36 Jesus casts himself in the role of the needy person that capable people do nice things for: "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." It seems that when we talk about being Christlike to people, we usually mean doing good things to them with our talents and time and resources. That is true, but it can also mean just being the poor luckless schmo that other people help out. This is a good thing, because it brings joy to us, and credit to them, and glory to God.
There is a joy that smart, independent, capable people will never know: that of being rescued from befuddled predicament by a kind and resourceful person. Only a confused idiot can really experience that pleasure.
I know because I have been that confused idiot. Three years ago I invited friends and family over for Thanksgiving, which was a problem because I had no table. The fact weighed on me - not simply that I didn't have a table, but that I knew in my heart that normal people knew how to get one and I didn't. I did know enough to go to Goodwill and find a serviceable table for only 10 dollars, but now, how to get it home?
God in his grace sent me a Mexican auto mechanic. Juan saw me struggling to disassemble the table in the Goodwill parking lot, came over, and just did it for me - squeezing all the parts into my small car like a contortionist into an aquarium. What joy! I hope I was grateful enough. I found out where he worked and called his boss to laud him for the kindness he showed to me, a total (and hapless) stranger.
Haplessness is no stranger to me - it haunts me like the ghost of Hamlet's father. Like when my lawnmower stopped working a few weeks ago. I did not know how to dispose of it and get a new one at an affordable price. I last bought a lawnmower in 1998, which required some assembly, which I did myself. It broke of course, literally broke - the frame snapped in two - the first time I used it. A kind friend assembled the replacement. This time though I just let the grass grow, hoping that with fall coming I wouldn't have to worry about my lawn until May. Wrong. Warm autumn rains left my untended lawn overgrown and unsightly, and I didn't know what to do.
Then yesterday a friend said, "I have three lawnmowers. Which one do you want?" More joy! Now my troublesome lawn is clipped tidy and short, and it cost me nothing more than grass stains on my gym shoes. Glory to God, and gratitude to my friend.
It can be embarrassing and demoralizing to be the fool in need, but there is redemption in it. In Matthew 25:35-36 Jesus casts himself in the role of the needy person that capable people do nice things for: "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me." It seems that when we talk about being Christlike to people, we usually mean doing good things to them with our talents and time and resources. That is true, but it can also mean just being the poor luckless schmo that other people help out. This is a good thing, because it brings joy to us, and credit to them, and glory to God.
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