Is It Foolish To Believe?

 

One of my favorite authors is C. S Lewis. Most know Lewis from his Chronicles of Narnia series, especially The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. But Lewis also write essays and books on Christianity and Christian living. His insight has made a major impact on how I view Christianity. For one of the best arguments for belief in God and Jesus you need look no further than Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity.

Many people think Christians must be mindless to accept the Bible or Christianity. How can anyone with half a mind believe any of that?  Lewis knocks that thinking on its head. He was a great thinker, who began as an atheist arguing against Christianity as pie-in-the-sky belief. But God wore Lewis down, and his writings reflect someone who has thought long and hard about his faith and why he believes what he believes. I used to enjoy introducing his amazing mind to my students and then revealing he was a Christian theist.

Lewis writes that he came to faith in God, “kicking and screaming” (my words, for his see Surprised by Joy). He didn’t want to believe. He wanted his earlier presuppositions to be true, but they eventually failed him. He argues that it’s really mindless not to see God in the world around us, or to accept His plan and purpose for His creation.

I like to believe I have at least a “half a mind”, and I use it in understanding why I believe what I believe, about God, faith, salvation, Christianity. I know there are Christians who think people like me over think it all, and maybe we do. But I’d rather approach something rationally than strictly by emotion/feelings. Don’t get me wrong. I think emotions play a part in our belief. I think my faith touches all aspects of who I am. And I also believe that simple faith plays a huge role. We can only use our human reason so far. There is always a point where we have to accept and take hold by believing in, what to most seem like, crazy ideas. But God did give me my brain, and I feel I need to use it.

One of the primary writers of the New Testament, Paul, was also a very rational Christian. Read his book Romans and see how he logically presents a case for Christianity. Paul also writes that the things of God seem foolish to the average man (see I Corinthians 1:18-30). We shouldn’t be surprised that people think the ideas of a created universe, or a baby born to a virgin, or that baby growing up and dying on a cross, let alone rising from the dead, are foolish, crazy ideas. It all sounds pretty strange, out of some ancient lore.  And in a sense, it is a story from 2000 plus years ago, so plenty ancient. But why believe anything as crazy as that? Foolishness.

Yet we’ve talked about the wonderful diversity in the universe, and how incredible it is to think it all just happened by chance.  How is that any more “foolish” than believing there was a Designer behind it all? And we don’t have to look too far to see how broken our world is, how broken we are as people. Why haven’t we evolved into something better? Something perfect? Why do we keep killing each other, with weapons and words? Why do we feel so alone, even in a crowd? Why do relationships fail to meet all our needs?

Where do these ideas of brokenness, perfection, morals even come from? Even today in our “anything goes” society, there are still some things we label “wrong” – murder, child molestation, any attack on our person. Is “wrongness” arbitrary, merely a society thing? And if it’s all relative, why do we even care? Why have laws at all, and what gives a law its power? Why did western culture keep going back to the 10 Commandments while at the same time going farther from God?

We can probably agree our world is a mess. Why can’t we fix ourselves? It’s not for lack of trying. Look at all the self-help books out there. Why don’t the answers in those books fix us?  Maybe that’s the wrong question. Why do we even need fixing?  I think a lot of us feel that others need fixing, even if we don’t.

Let’s face it, though, we all need fixing. We need a fixer. We’ve tried everything, and we just can’t get it right. When we look at it that way, it doesn’t seem so foolish that we need outside help. It all starts with God – until we can wrap our mind around a Creator God, it will be difficult to see Him as the Fixer. But once we open the door to the possibility of God, the rest can fall into place. God gives morality a source, an absolute to hang on. God then sets the standard that we continually fail to meet. And God provides a way for us to meet His standard that doesn’t require us to “be good” when we just can’t. He gave us Jesus.

It seems very rational to me, but in the end my mind isn’t what saves me. My rational thinking just gets me to the crossroads – to believe and accept God and His plan or not. A student of Lewis’, Sheldon Vanauken, in his book, A Severe Mercy, talks about his journey to faith. He compares it to climbing a mountain, every step another piece of evidence towards belief in Jesus. He imagines when he gets to the top of his rational journey, the pieces finally all together, he will know for certain all he needs to know about God, Christianity and Jesus. But when he reaches the top, it’s not the end. He stands on the edge, ahead of him a crevasse and on the other side stands Jesus. He realizes all his thinking and learning has brought him here, but it is not enough. He now has two choices, take the leap of faith into Jesus’ arms, or turn around and go back. For Vanauken, going back wasn’t possible, he knew too much to return to his previous way of thinking. He stood and looked across the void. I guess he could have just stayed where he was, but that wasn’t what Vanauken was looking for. He jumped.

We all face the same choice. Whether we use our minds or our emotions or some combination of both, our search for fulfillment and peace leads us to that same chasm. All of us make the choice, whether we realize it or not. Paul says God’s wisdom is foolishness to most people. Who in their right mind would throw themselves into the void? Yet, when I look at all the other alternatives, throwing myself into Jesus’ arms was the best decision I have ever made. If that’s foolishness, then so be it.

Sharing My Story

 

Sharing my faith has been an interesting process. How am I supposed to do it? The Bible is very clear that we are to share our story, to evangelize (share the good news), but the puzzle is how? What works? And is it even a product that can be taught and have a result? And is the idea of a “result” even to be our concern?

Most churches offer classes on the topic. The church I worked for offered a class on how to “cold call” – go door to door sharing their faith throughout their neighborhood and inviting people to church. I never saw these very successful in accomplishing anything, and what with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Latter Day Saints also going door to door (with, quite frankly a lot more training and experience), door to door evangelism really isn’t that successful for Christians.

I’ve mentioned before the guy who would drive past my husband’s bus stop every morning and toss out biblical brochures for anyone to pick up and read. Not sure how many did think much of it other than the littering. But I believe he drove away believing he’d shared his faith.

Years ago, while serving as a youth director, we’d been talking about inviting friends to youth group. On one of the rare Sundays I wasn’t there, a couple of the kids’ friends came. When we next met with the group, they were all agitated. It seems these friends had asked some great questions and our group didn’t feel like they had the answers. What happened? “We got mad at them for asking the questions.”  My takeaway was that there was some work to be done.  Not giving them all the answers, because many great questions have no answers, but how to respond to difficult questions, beginning with knowing what you believe and why you believe it.

All the training in the world can’t help us get over the nervousness of speaking our story. Any time we share a piece of ourselves we open up vulnerabilities, and that’s always scary. This anxiousness keeps a lot of us from talking about faith. We’ve seen how the emotions can rise (like in the youth group) and we just don’t want to be in that discomfort.

Yet we are told to share.

Through the years I’ve learned a couple of things about faith sharing: it needs to be personal, genuine, honest; it needs to come out of relationships, and someone’s belief, or unbelief, doesn’t depend on what we do at all. Sharing my faith is really just sharing my life; a life I seek to live following Jesus’ model. It should be organic, natural, not forced. Sharing our faith is not a quota system. We don’t receive notches in our belt for numbers won. The fact is, we can’t “save” anyone. We are told to share, and disciple, not save.

 Jesus took 12 men and walked with them for 3 years. He taught them, individually and in groups, and they watched him teach and share with others. Even those 12 closest to him struggled with believing what he had to say, and they knew him best. He walked with them, ate with them, shared space with them, and out of that close relationship, with most of them, belief was born. Jesus was God, and not everyone he talked with believed him. What special powers do we think we have more than he? But, he models for us a way to share, and that was sharing his life, not throwing brochures.

I have had so many occasions when, in the midst of talking with a student, or lunching with a friend, they have asked a question that leads to an opportunity for me to share my story, or a piece of it. Sometimes I don’t take the opportunity, later to my regret. Regret, because I’ve come to believe that God gave me those opportunities to share. Sometimes I’ve over shared, and that isn’t great either. People don’t need to be hit in the head with our metaphorical (or literal) Bibles. Answer the question, don’t give a sermon.

And when I’ve blown it, I’ve come to understand that God isn’t dependent on me. If I fail in some way, I haven’t condemned that person to life without God because I didn’t share, or shared and turned them off.

 I had a student who really nailed this point home to me. He returned to school after a period of time and shared that he’d found Jesus.  When I asked him to share his story, he told me that at an extremely low point in his life, while he contemplated taking his life, he shouted out to the universe, “if you exist God, now is the time to let me know.” And, miraculously, this kid with no Christian background at all, met God In that moment, and it turned his life around. From that moment, he sought out people who knew God and Jesus and began to gain the knowledge he lacked. As he shared his story with me I truly grasped that God doesn’t need any of us to “save” anyone. He can do it all without us, but he gives us the privilege to share our stories and contribute along the way.

I know a lot of people are offended if Christians start talking about their faith. The belief is that we should keep our religion to ourselves, private. If they want to know they will ask. Some of this resentment is born out of having had a “brochure” or two thrown at them, with no connection (or very little) developed with the “thrower”. I understand, at its best, people want to share their faith because they believe it is real. Jesus said he is “The Way, The Truth and The Life”. If that is true, then we’d be remiss not to share – because any other way leads away from God.  But, even believing the seriousness of that, I should be sensitive to how I do the sharing. If I just choose to love people, enjoy being around them, listen to their stories, develop relationships, God has opened up conversations so I have opportunities to tell my story. I don’t have to force anything. I’m just me.

Evangelism then, at its best, is simply being a friend, a friend who happens to know Jesus.

 

 

What does Jesus have to do with Easter?

 

We are now in the Lenten season on the Christian calendar, the 40 days leading up to Easter. When I was teaching, I found myself surprised every time a student asked what religion has to do with Easter, and other areas of Christianity that are also cultural heritage. We have lost the Christian meaning but kept the cultural celebrations. Christ on the cross dying for the sins of all humankind  and then rising from the dead – very few outside churches have heard the original story – but everyone knows about egg baskets and Easter bunnies. In a Hallmark store one time, buying Easter cards, I heard a woman say to her friend, “the Christians are even trying to take over Easter.”  Mind you, I have no problem with Easter bunnies, or Santa Clause for that matter. I do still rattle when people don’t know the difference – or even that there is something different to be known.

In Deuteronomy Moses exhorts the people of Israel to teach and remind their children the why’s of their religion, Judaism. He reminds them that their children were not there when God gave Egypt great signs, brought the nation of Israel out of Egypt and helped them through the Red Sea. It had been 40+ years since then. The children might even have been there at Mt. Sinai when the law was given, but many would not remember the experience. So Moses warns the people to teach their children about God and their relationship to Him. He compels them to tell the stories and give their children all the memories. In doing so, they could make decisions for themselves based on something.

I had a student once who was frustrated with her parents for not giving her something to go on regarding religion. She knew her grandparents on one side had been Christian, but she knew nothing about Christianity. Her parents didn’t want to persuade her one way or another – it was her decision to make. But she asked how can you make a decision among things you know nothing about? How can you make an informed decision without information?

Other friends were surprised when their teenage kids began asking questions about Easter and its meaning, other than baskets and bunnies. Was there another reason? They wondered how their children could not know. Later these same kids, now adults, told their parents they’d had to go elsewhere to find out. “You never taught us.” The parents thought they had, they celebrated Easter and Christmas, and assumed their kids knew the deeper, Christian meaning. For the kids, however, there was no deeper meaning or reason beyond Santa and Easter bunnies.

I was raised in a Christian home. My parents and their parents had been raised in Christianity also. My paternal grandfather was a pastor. My maternal grandfather, though raised in Christianity, had rebelled against it until my mom was in late elementary/Jr High. But once into Christianity, that grandfather was as much, if not more, gung ho than my pastor grandfather. My father was a pastor. We went to church, it seemed as a kid, every day. (It was probably only all day Sunday and Wednesday evenings, but who’s counting?) I knew all about the birth of Christ and Christmas, as well as His death and resurrection and Easter. I became a pious, legalistic pseudo Christian until I was in High School. Even with knowing and hearing the facts behind the celebrations I wasn’t a true believer. I wore the trappings (to the annoyance of anyone around me, I’m sure) until I met Jesus on my own, apart from the family legacy.

You don’t become a Christian by osmosis. Just because you have a family legacy you are not ushered into the fold. Whether your parents walk the talk or not, doesn’t mean you automatically become a believer or not. The people I spoke of above all came to faith, without help from their parents. With all the teaching you could wish for, I resisted the faith for years (and even beyond my initial belief I struggled for years to really claim it and live it). No excuses and no free passes. We all have to come to faith on our own.

But, that isn’t to say it becomes harder when parents stop teaching and children grow up not knowing there is even something to seek. Those children go on to have children of their own, and today we have a lot of people who know nothing about who God is or how God works. They are left to the presentation of the media and the horrible examples of the Christian far right.  Christianity, if thought of at all, appears to be a religion of judgmental, legalistic busybodies, who can’t even live it out as they push it on others. But mostly, beyond politics, Christianity is lost. Like the Israelites who forgot Moses’ command to teach their children and remind themselves on a continual basis what God had done for them, we have an entire generation today totally ignorant of the Christian God.

I don’t want to oversimplify. I know it is more complicated. But certainly we who call ourselves Christian should make sure the stories get told, the evidence is presented and our lives reflect the message. We each have a story to tell, our own leaving Egypt and crossing the wilderness story. Let’s make a more concerted effort to remind ourselves of our journey and God’s grace, and then find a way to share our story with someone who hasn’t had the same experience.

Rules

 

I was reading today about the religious leaders during the time Jesus was on earth. Jewish law isn’t a simple set of rules. They are detailed ways to live and worship. To those rules, the religious leaders had added many additional rules, just to make life more difficult. Originally the Jewish Law was set out to help bring order to the people, legal issues like how to handle arguments and debt and crime. These rules are important in any culture. The religious laws were there to help the people know how to approach God. These laws taught the people the need for a sacrifice in their place for forgiveness of their sins, whether giving up of some portion of their wealth or livestock, or the death of one of their animals. All of these rules pointed to their need and dependence on God for His acceptance and forgiveness.

The major focus of Jewish Law was the Ten Commandments, beginning with our relationship to God and ending with our relationship to each other. Jesus made it even simpler by summarizing the Law into loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (the worship perspective) and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Do that and you will fulfill the Ten Commandments.

There is a great picture of the people of Israel in the wilderness (after fleeing Egypt), being called near to Mt. Sinai to hear what God had to say to them. At first this seemed exciting, but as they drew near they began to feel the huge difference between them and God. They began to feel their unworthiness. They became frightened.  So instead of humbly approaching God, recognizing their sin nature, confessing their unworthiness, they tell Moses, their leader, “you go and talk to God and then come tell us what He said. Whatever He wants us to do, we will do.”  It’s understandable to feel the gap between us and God, and to feel uncomfortable and even afraid. But God had invited then to come near. All God had done for the nation, including bringing them out of Egypt, was to show them when they couldn’t accomplish something, God could. They couldn’t get free of being Egyptian slaves, but God could free them. They couldn’t cross the Red Sea or find water in a rock or bread when there wasn’t any to be found, but God could and did. By the time they arrived at the mountain they should have been well versed in how God wanted to do things for them they could not do for themselves, like approach him. He wanted a relationship with them.

So rather than trust God and approach Him, they asked Moses to do it for them, and made a promise they could never keep, “whatever He asks we will do.” And sure enough, while Moses was up having an amazing time with God, the people grew restless and decided to construct an idol, a golden calf. Idols are so much less demanding. They are created by our own hands, ask nothing of us and we can make up what goes with them. And without even hearing it, they broke the first commandment of having no other gods before God.

It’s not like God expected them to perfectly follow his Law. He understands our nature better than we do. What He wanted was for them to trust Him, and admit that they couldn’t do whatever He asked. He wanted them to ask Him how they could be obedient to Him. He had shown them many times before how coming before him humbly and in faith is really all He wants. He will fill in the missing pieces, not because they or we deserve it, but because of His grace to make a relationship with Him possible.

Our nature is so perverse in these matters. Tell us not to do something and we can’t wait to do it. Even better, tell us what to do, and we’ll add 15 other steps to it, because we could make it better. By the time Jesus walked on earth, the religious leaders had become masters of adding more burden (more things we cannot do). Most of their additional laws totally stripped any compassion out of their religion, losing all the emphasis God placed on loving Him and loving others. 

Take the Sabbath law, for instance. The law was to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, set apart for rest and worship. The religious leaders felt that needed a bit more explanation so they added 39 much more specific Sabbath rules. These were not God’s rules. It’s hard enough to set aside one day to rest and worship, let alone have specified in minute detail what signifies labor. Jesus had the audacity to heal people on the Sabbath, when it was a day of rest, which the leaders took to mean a day not to do anything, and healing was something.

Interesting thing, however, is the creators of these additional, oral traditions also had multiple ways to get around them (our nature at work). So they said you could only take so many steps beyond your property on the Sabbath. But, if on the day before, you happened to take some of your property and leave it along a path you’d like to take on Sabbath, you could walk the ordered steps to your prearranged property, and because it was “property” you could walk an additional set of steps. 

That’s a problem with making our own rules. We can rig them. We can come up with rationale why we needed to stretch them, on occasion. The reason we even need to rig them is because following rules just isn’t in our wheelhouse. We are natural rule breakers, even ones of our own making.

Yes, God set up Laws, rules for living. Many were specific to the needs of the time – to help Israel become a healthy, functioning nation. The Ten Commandments specifically are rules even for today. If we could follow them, the world would be a better place. But, we can’t, any better than the Jews could. So we try adding additional rules on to the original, as if adding more would make it easier??

Many Christians grew up with their own set of Sunday/Sabbath traditions to “help” keep the day set apart and holy. These could include no cleaning on that day, no non-church activities (youth group, yes; community soccer, no), and so on. However, mom was expected to make a big Sunday lunch for everyone, and afterwards clean-up was required, but somehow that was different than laundry or vacuuming.  I grew up with other rules around me, no dancing for example. I’m not sure which commandment that evolved from, but it certainly ran up against obeying my parents when I was asked to my first dance.

Jesus illustrated what was important to him. He had made the laws, and He showed everyone that Sabbath didn’t mean sitting at home twiddling your thumbs. It also wasn’t to be used as an excuse to not help people in need, “because that would be work.”  Jesus did a lot of healing on the Sabbath, much to the religious leader’s dismay.

The biggest pitfall with our additions to God’s Law is that they most always are designed to make us look better. And when we look better we can look down on anyone who isn’t doing what we do. So If I don’t clean on Sunday, I can thoroughly judge someone who uses that day to clean. If I don’t go to dances, I can totally judge the spiritual weakness of those who do. And we are blinded from our own sin of judging those others.

In the book of Romans, chapter 8, the writer proclaims that “the righteous requirements of the Law” was fulfilled in Christ Jesus on the cross for us. What we could not do, God did for us, making it possible for us to come before Him without fear. We don’t obtain this gift by doing or following anything. We just accept it, taking God’s grace offered to us, admitting that without that, no matter how “good” we are, we fall far short of God’s requirements.  Romans 8 goes on to say that once we take God’s grace gift, the requirements of the law are now fulfilled through us, not by us. Beyond finding relationship with God, we also can now live as God intended, through His working in us. We can learn to be less judgmental and more compassionate.

The church today isn’t that much different from those religious leaders in Jesus’ day. The church has created a multitude of human rules and conditions that have nothing to do with salvation and everything to do with trying to look good, earn a place, be better. And we can’t even see that’s what we’re doing, any more than those religious leaders. We need to stop trying to earn our way to heaven. We need to stop making other people clean up their act before they can begin to earn their way. There is no “earning”, and heaven isn’t a payment for services rendered to God. We are told that “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” We need to admit that we are at our very core “rule breakers” who can do nothing to fix ourselves. We need to accept God’s gift, and come humbly to Him, thankful for His grace.

I am a terrible rule follower. I always have been. I do like making the rules for others, but that never goes as I’d like. Either way, rules are not what God’s about. He isn’t keeping track of the ones I keep and the ones I mess up. He probably rolls his eyes at our silly attempts to please Him (and others) that way. God just wants us. He went to great lengths to make a relationship possible. How remarkable is that?

 

 

Breathing the Ocean's Air

 

We just returned from a midwinter trip to the Oregon Coast. The weather was unseasonably warm, sunny, delightful.  I sat wrapped in a blanket on our room’s deck and watched the ocean. I never get tired of watching the ocean.

Years ago I found a t-shirt that said, “I come to the beach to breathe.”  I realized that was my truth. The ocean calms me like nothing else. I love beach combing. I have jars of seashells and sand dollars. I’ve grown picky because I have so many, but still can’t resist a beach treasure or two.  I brought one back from this trip. We have a place near the beach in Washington. We can walk about a quarter mile to the ocean. But most of our beaches, though lovely, don’t have the amazing rock features you can find on Oregon beaches.

When the tide was out we walked to some tide pools. Those are mysterious places full of alien creatures. You can find hermit crab racing round carrying their “RV” on their back, a shell they acquired from somewhere or someone. Sea anemone of various sizes and colors cling to the rocks. We even found some sea stars, though not too many. Some disease has been eating them away. But here we saw a couple huge stars, one orange and one purple. There were thousands of mussels of various sizes and shapes clinging to the rocks. At high tide these creatures are all under water, but for brief, low tide moments we are allowed to visit their homes. I love tidal pools.

The beach was littered with jelly fish of varying sizes. High tide will come and carry them off again, living or not. There were not a lot of shells to be found, but fun to look as we walked along. It was unseasonably warm, perfect for a beach walk. And I was breathing it all in.

I have never doubted that there is a God who created the universe and all we see in it. My worldview has always been based on that fact. I have had only one moment of faith crisis, where I wondered if it was all a big story my parents fed me. But in the middle of that moment came one of the most powerful experiences of God I’ve ever had. He met me in my crisis. There were many moments in my younger years when I put God on the back burner, or tried. I could never get very far. I tried, but God wouldn’t let me get away.

So sitting at the beach, watching the ocean, my thoughts always go to God. I see Him everywhere. The dependability of the tides, the huge expanse of water that is teeming with life, and life of abundant variety and color. As I sat on my deck there were hundreds of birds out fishing, diving into the water with wild abandon. There was also a rather plain, brown bird singing his heart away on the shore. I see God in it all, and wonder why others cannot. How all of this could be by chance. Just the numbers of different species, and varieties within those groups – why do we need purple and orange and brown and red sea stars? Why so many different fish?  I see a Creator who loves variety and whimsy, who wasn’t satisfied with just one type of fish and one shape of shell.  I can never watch the ocean or walk a beach without seeing God’s creative hand, and feeling the awesomeness of my Creator. And it all reminds me of the Bible verse speaking of God “in Him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28).

The diversity of creation is all around us. The Bible also tells us that we really have no excuse to deny God, “since what may be known about God is plain” to us because “God made it plain. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so the people are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19,20) So standing at the ocean’s edge, or hearing a bird sing, or experiencing the wild, diverse, beauty of our planet, should make it obvious there is a Designer. Why would chance, coming out of some intergalactic explosion, need such diversity? Why so many different types of everything? Why wouldn’t one or two types of birds or beetles or flowers be sufficient? But we have a feast of diversity and beauty in nature. All this screams design, not chance.

So why is God so hard for many to see? Why is it easier to believe in creation by chance rather than creation by design? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t deny the presence and work of evolution in our development. But I do deny that all of this was put into motion by a mindless Big Bang.  I find it amazing that I stand at the ocean and see God and the person next to me just sees a lot of water. It’s my worldview. And at the base of every worldview lies presuppositions. I presuppose a Creator God. The person next to me presupposes that all this came about by chance.  I’ve spent my adult life exploring and testing my presuppositions, and I am still where I started.

For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if only you would hear his voice.”  Psalms 95:2-7