» A favor: one of my assignments for Hannah & Adam’s wedding (June 1) is to line up men to grill marinated chicken-skewers a day in advance (we’ll use the church’s food-warmer to reheat them the day of the wedding). If there’s any way you can bring a grill to the church on Friday May 31 around 11:00 a.m. and join me in a grill-fest, I will be in your debt. We could put a fire in the pit outside the kitchen and talk/fellowship/eat. Thanks!
» After last Sunday’s sermon, a wise friend advised me to say that you don’t have to leave town, quit your job, or sell your house to fully serve God. Certainly. Most of the recipients of Paul’s letters were people who lived in one town, maybe in one house, and worked a trade most of their lives. My intention was to attack the fears and illusions that exert greater force on us than the calling of God. And by the way, in a day of confusion over the role of women in society, motherhood seems to be one of the most under-appreciated callings. A mother in Christ holds the hearts of her children — and as God permits the future of her family, her church, her culture, her nation — in her own hands. Think of the influence of Timothy on the Church in his day, and how Paul accounts for that influence in 2 Tim. 1:5 — “ I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.”
» Reading Exodus, and recognizing that the call of Moses is God’s response to seeing the affliction of Israel, I was struck by further explanation in Exodus 5-7. God delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt that they might worship him (5:1) and “ serve me in the wilderness” (7:16). Since Paul uses Israel’s bondage and deliverance as a metaphor for our redemption (1 Cor 10:1ff), this works for us, too: we were redeemed to worship and serve him. In this moment in time, certainly in this culture, the test of a religion is taken to be how it relates to, helps, and enhances human life, as though the ultimate beings were human beings. In Scripture, the ultimate test of religion, and of a human life, is how it worships, serves, and loves the God of creation and king over all the earth.
» Listen for this distinction in gender and other “equality” debates: so much of the talk is about power and “ rights,” as though the real issue were how much influence and respect I have relative to you or someone else. In Christianity, the real issue is how much power, influence, and respect — how many of our rights — we are willing to lay at the foot of the Cross. Our hero was the One who “made himself nothing.” By the time equality debates enter the Church of Jesus Christ, the truth is already deeply buried. If we are to be “ of the same mind” as Christ Jesus, we will recognize the false note of demands to be treated equally. Yes, we must defend the poor and oppressed, but the oppressed themselves must say, “ when reviled we bless, when persecuted we endure” (1 Cor 4:12).