A Fresh Perspective

From the earliest time I can remember I was in the church house on Sundays. It did not always go well for me on Sundays. I can vaguely remember one Sunday when my parents and my best friend’s parents let us sit together during Sunday worship by ourselves. We decided to take the foil wrapper of a piece of chewing gum and make a little paper football. We had a whole side pew to ourselves so Keith went to one side and I to the other. We made goal posts with our hands and thumbs and kicked field goals. One of my kicks deviated from its intended path and landed inside a curl of the lady sitting in the pew directly in front of us. She was hard of hearing so we didn’t worry too much, but my buddy got tickled and I got tickled. Well, that was the last time we got to sit together for a while. For the next several weeks we were back at the side of our parents.   I can also distinctly remember as a kid sitting in worship as the preacher droned on and on thinking what a terrible way to ma...

John Pierce, the executive editor of Baptist Today , shared a story his friend told him about a coworker who was enjoying a visit from her sister and her two young nieces. They began running and screaming more so than usual so their mother went into the guestroom to check on them. The excited little girls shouted that a bug was after them and they were afraid of being bitten. The false alarm was over a small moth, floating lazily around the room. Their mom assured them, “Moths don’t bite people, they only eat clothes.” The next morning the girls were found sleeping peacefully in their bed – and naked. Their clothes were piled together away in the corner.  Our fears obviously affect our attitudes and actions. And this is true of all of us, not just little kids. Isn’t it obvious today how much our fears shape our attitudes and actions? Fear is guiding a lot of political speech today and bringing out the worst in people. When the angel first appears to Mary the angel sa...

It seems like every day we listen to the news we learn about some act of violence somewhere. It may be the act of a terrorist group on the international scene or it may be some crazy kid with a gun on a college campus – an endless cycle of shootings and violent reactions. In our own network of people connections how often do we encounter someone who is angry with us or someone who for whatever reason no longer wants to be in a friendly relationship with us? Is peace possible in such a world? Is peace possible in our families, in our schools, in our places of employment, among churches and diverse religious communities, between races and groups that have different political and social agendas, among those with different educational attainment and economic status. Can we make a way for peace? Can we come together? This second Sunday of Advent highlights the longing and need for peace. Our Scripture text today has been traditionally called the Benedictus. It is Zechariah’s canticle o...

What did Jesus mean when he said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not from/of this world” and how does this relate to the way Christians love their country? Certainly Jesus did not mean that God’s kingdom is heavenly while the kingdom represented by Pilate is earthly. I suppose one could try to make a case for that interpretation based on readings in John’s Gospel, but it certainly would stand in opposition to its meaning in the Synoptics. The kingdom envisioned in the model prayer is about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven. Also, Jesus is certainly not suggesting that Pilate’s kingdom is a political kingdom while God’s kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. In fact, that is an impossible distinction to make because all governments, businesses, economic systems, politics, and institutions of all types express some kind of spirituality. In some cases (perhaps many) the spirituality exhibited may be a demonic kind of spirituality that is oppressive and destructive, but it is a...

One of the five principles necessary for Christian belief according to the Conference of Conservative Protestants that met in Niagara Falls in 1896 was the physical, bodily return of Jesus (the other four being biblical inerrancy, the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, and substitutionary atonement). These five beliefs have become central to Christian evangelicalism. Many Christians today, even more progressive types, anticipate some kind of divine intervention to close human history as we know it and to begin something that looks very different than life on planet earth looks like now. Many of the early Christians connected the climax of this present age with the revelation of the resurrected Christ from heaven, which would result in the resurrection of all humanity. Paul called this Christ’s “coming” (see 1 Cor. 15:21-24, 1 Thess. 4:12-18). Of course, these early Christians just as confidently believed that this “coming” (Greek, parousia ) would happen soon. For example, P...

What are we to make of the Gospel story of the poor widow who put in the temple treasury all she had to live on? (Mark 12:41-44). In the previous Markan paragraph Jesus denounces the self-righteousness of the scribes who seek the best seats in the synagogue, places of honor at banquets, and “devour widows houses,” that is they take advantage of the most vulnerable in their society. Some interpreters see the story of the widow as further indictment against the scribes. They ask, “What sort of religious system would encourage a poor widow to give all she has to live on so that the system’s leaders may continue to live lives of wealth and comfort?” One commentator writes, “The scribes are like leeches on the faithful, benefiting from a religious system that allows poor widows to sacrifice what little they have.” While that may be true, Jesus commends the poor widow who drops a couple of small coins in the temple treasury. Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put...

See what you see. This is the meaning of a Jesus saying in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, “Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.” Not long ago I went into the kitchen to fix a piece of toast for breakfast. I opened the pantry door and looked in the basket where we keep the bread. No bread. So I looked around in the pantry. Couldn’t find it. I opened the cabinet where we keep the cereal. It wasn’t there. So I did what many people do. I blamed someone. I’m thinking, “Ok, where did my wife put the bread?” In the meanwhile I cracked my boiled egg, peeled it, and as I tossed the last piece of shell in the trash, I glanced around in the pantry one more time and guess what? There was the bread. Guess where it was? In the basket where it was supposed to be. So how did I miss it? How did I not see what I was obviously looking at it? While this may be a rare kind of experien...

For many chapters God has been silent and that perhaps as much as anything is basic to Job’s agony and dilemma. In our text today God finally responds. God speaks. But God does not speak to a single question Job agonized over. Instead of answers God responds with more questions. Basically God asks: Who are you to question how I do things? Where were you when I created all these different forms of life? What do you know about all of this? Can you influence the elements of this vast creation? Do you have the wisdom to run things? So instead of answers, Job gets more questions that seem to be aimed at putting him in his place. But the amazing thing about this is that this seems to be enough. I will say more about that later. But first note how God speaks. God speaks out of a whirlwind. What’s the significance of that? Maybe it’s a way of saying that you can’t hold God down, you can’t limit the way God works to four spiritual laws, or the Nicene creed, or the Baptist faith and messag...