• The article I mentioned on Sunday, Same-Sex Science, is up on the website. Go to www.cpcissaquah.org and click on the first slide (photo). Or, you can click on “sermons and resources” in the left column. Then, when the menu expands, click on “ resources” and you’ll see “ Sermon Links” on the right: “ Same-Sex Science.”
• Here’s a guess why the last election seemed so divisive: political views have come to embody the highest order of belief for most Americans, church-goers included. As long as ultimate hope and rest lie in a realm that transcends all the rancor, pettiness, and shallow thought that characterize American politics, we are able to engage the process with a healthy detachment and sober judgment. But once the process represents all we have — our ultimate hope and finest expression of values — it becomes the hill on which we must die. Let the bloodbath begin.
• Not persuaded? Well, I hope you’re not. I hope I’m not speaking for you. But if you follow the trail left by your deepest emotions, your strongest passions, your anger, and it takes you to the doorstep of a candidate, a policy, a piece of legislation, or a Supreme Court vote — I’m probably describing you. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Mt 13:44). Wherever your treasure lies, there will you find your heart.
• Here’s some practical help on living in the Kingdom. Below is part of a letter the Scottish minister Robert Murray M’Cheyne wrote to a young man leaving home for university. The kid was sort of playing around on the fringes of the faith; M’Cheyne was trying to center him:
“ You read your Bible regularly, of course; but do try and understand it, and still more, to feel it. Read more parts than one at a time. For example, if you are reading Genesis, read a psalm also; or, if you are reading Matthew, read a small bit of an epistle also. Turn the Bible into prayer. Thus, if you were reading the 1st Psalm, spread the Bible on the chair before you, and kneel, and pray, ‘O Lord, give me the blessedness of the man,’ etc. ‘Let me not stand in the counsel of the ungodly,’ etc. This is the best way of knowing the meaning of the Bible, and of learning to pray. In prayer confess your sins by name — going over those of the past day, one by one. Pray for your friends by name — father, mother, etc. etc. If you love them, surely you will pray for their souls. I know well that there are prayers constantly ascending for you from your own house; and will you not pray for them back again? Do this regularly. If you pray sincerely for others, it will make you pray for yourself.”
• Yes, I’m urging you back to your Bible and prayer. “Your word is truth.” Here’s that thought from Chesterton again: “ If the truth is relative, to what is it relative?” All our thinking and speaking, whether we like it or not, is possible only because of shared assumptions about what is ultimately true and real. Pluralism wants us all to get along by pretending we can get rid of any truth over which we might disagree; Jesus calls us to get along by loving even those with whom we disagree. Jesus is both more intellectually honest and more helpful. Hold fast to the truth; love people.