Knit Together

Science has invested a lot of its energies into showing us just how similar we are to other creatures in God's creation. Man, they say, shares something like 96 or 97 percent of his genes with other primates. On the other hand, there are those who argue intensely that man is an entirely unique creature. 

Close.

The truth is...every man is an entirely unique creature. Each and every human being, regardless of how many components of DNA we share, is his own man, her own woman.

Consider this: medical technology has come a long way in the past several decades. We're at a place now where a little boy just received a double hand transplant from another child, and now, this young boy has two functioning hands of his own. ...except they're not his own. And his body knows they're not his own. They're made of the same components of DNA as the rest of him, but not the same structure. So for the rest of his life, he will take medication to prevent his body from rejecting his new hands. Because we have figured out how to stitch man's pieces together, but we have no idea how to knit.

See, that's what God does. He knits us each together in our mother's womb. He makes us uniquely who we are. Each man may be made from the same threads, but the pattern is unique. What is woven into me is woven in a way that makes me who I am; you couldn't weave another pattern into me. This one's mine. And what's woven into you is the same. It makes you who you are, and you can't just pull in a new pattern.

It's amazing, right? That's why it's so easy to look at science and say, yes. Maybe I do share almost all of my DNA with the monkeys, but I'm nothing like them. I share even more with Bill, and I'm nothing like him, either. I know because if you took one little piece of Bill and tried to stitch it into me, I'd spend the rest of my life rejecting it. By nature. Because inherently, I know that what is sewn is not knit.

You'd think, as each of us walks around our own unique man, our own unique woman, that it would be difficult to find the common ground between us, then. But there is something that flows between us. Always has, and always will. 

It's blood.

If we're made of the same type, you could course my blood through your veins, and your body wouldn't know any different. You could pump your blood through mine, and my heart wouldn't even miss a beat. It doesn't know any different. Because blood is neither you nor me; blood is life itself.

The Bible tells us as much. God warns His people repeatedly about the blood of their sacrifices, about blood among them. Blood is life. Be careful with it. Respect it. Honor it. And then God has poured this life into us, into all of Creation, and it's the one thing that binds us together. It's the one thing that we can share. It's the one part of me I can give to you - the life that God gives. It's the one part of you that you can give to me - life. As God has given you. 

So here we are, trying to figure out how each of us can be our own man, our own woman, and yet share between us the life that God gives. How I can be me and share with you life abundant, and how you can be you and share the same with me. It's tricky. It's hard to figure out how every little thing about each one of us, even the things that seem to be so similar, can be so incompatible with each other that we instinctively reject it and yet, this shared life churns inside our entirely unique hearts. What do we even do with that?

It's hard to know.

And it must be said that it's not merely our blood that flows between us, but also Christ's blood. Not just life, but life eternal. Life abundant. Maybe that's what makes this whole thing work. Maybe that's what makes me look at the pattern God has knit in you and know that no, it's not my pattern, but it's beautiful. Because I see the life flowing through it. So you're beautiful. And I hope that you can look at me and see the same. The threads are the same - simple little strands of human DNA - but the pattern is perfectly unique. It's not your pattern, and it wasn't meant to be; this one is mine. But life flows through it just the same. So I'm beautiful.

So we're all beautiful in this most incredible way.

And isn't that something?

Faithful Sinners

Yesterday, I noted that this world is holding us to the standard of the Pharisee - expecting of us not to follow the example of Jesus, but merely to quote His words and to embrace this world's interpretation of them. I hate to break it to you, but as Christians, we're doing this to each other, too. We're holding each other to the standard of how we interpret Jesus, not how we witness Him.

In the 90s, the catch phrase was WWJD: What Would Jesus Do? But we have all but abandoned that entire idea in favor of WWJS: What Would Jesus Say? 

Or worse yet - WDJS: What DID Jesus Say?

The trouble is that we're very good at quoting Him in word, but not in spirit. And we're very good at quoting half-words at each other, trying to get other Christians to interpret Jesus precisely the same way we do. Trying to get them to buy into our understandings and traditions. We, too, are the Pharisees. We can't understand how anyone thinks about this God thing differently than we do. 

Here's perhaps one of the greatest troubles we get into - the idea that Jesus is not for everybody. No, most of us probably wouldn't say it so brazenly, but we're in the habit of judging not sin, but sinners, and determining who we think is so far outside the will of God that there's just not place in our church, or in our community, for persons such as them. 

Yes, I'm talking about homosexuals. 

That's it for most of us. But I'm also talking about persons with other stories. I'm talking about divorced men and women, who still aren't welcome in some congregations. I'm talking about persons who have fought hard battles, be they medical or emotional or spiritual, who come back to their churches to find there's barely a place left for them. They can come to the church, but they can no longer be a part of the church. Don't expect the church to help them any more. I'm talking about young women who have had abortions and young men who...ah, who's kidding? We only care about the impure young women; the impure young men are far more redeemable. 

I'm talking about everyone we look at and decide that the church is not for them. I'm talking about the people we decide God cannot possibly love, and then declare that we don't have to, either. I'm talking about the way we can read a half-story of Jesus and justify our position on this, without looking at the rest of the story and the rest of His ministry. And I'm talking about the way we denigrate anyone who would let such sinners into their churches, who would go against our understanding and our righteous authority and dare to disagree with us about how Jesus did it. 

There was a woman, a Canaanite woman, who once came to Jesus, begging for the life of her child. She fell at Jesus' feet and pleaded for His healing power, and Jesus turned to her and said, "Sorry. I came for these people, not for you people."

And that's where we stop. That's what we look at and say, see? Jesus didn't come for all sinners. He came only for faithful sinners. Then we feel all good about ourselves because we are the faithful sinners. 

Faithful sinners indeed....

But look at the rest of the story. The woman continues to plead for her child's sake. She humbles herself, declaring that she is the lowest of the low, even calling herself a dog. A dog! Were anyone in our outcast groups to call themselves a dog today, we would look right at them with unflinching eyes and declare, "Yes you are! I'm so glad you finally see it, you wretch!" But Jesus said nothing about her canine status. What He said was an affirmation of her faith - your great faith has secured for you what you ask. It turns out...this woman, this wretched woman, this disgusting Canaanite, this outsider...was the faithful sinner after all. 

And what of the other faithful sinners our Lord encountered? What of the woman caught in adultery? The serial bride by the well? The skim-off-the-top tax collector? The paralytic on the mat (whose sins, you'll remember, are forgiven before his iniquity is healed)? What of you, you faithful sinner? What of me? 

If you want to read half-stories of Jesus, you can justify just about anything you want to do. You can preach yourself blue in the face to other Christians and berate them for not holding dear your interpretations. You can pretend that you have the moral high ground. After all, is this not what Jesus said? 

But it's not about what Jesus said. It's never been about what Jesus said. Because Jesus never spoke the greatest of all things; He demonstrated them. He showed them. He gave them. How can you put words to something so amazing as grace? You can't. Grace is not something you speak; it's something you give. Generously. How can you simply say you're redeeming the world? You can't. You walk to Calvary, a cross on your shoulders. How can you say something so wonderful as love? You can't. You live it. 

We have to stop harping on each other about what Jesus said, or what we think Jesus said, or how we interpret what Jesus said. The story isn't about what Jesus said. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John - the never set out to tell us what Jesus said; their Gospels are about what Jesus did. And He didn't spend a whole lot of time talking about it.

So you want to think you're getting this Jesus thing right? You want to believe you hold the secret? Stop talking the way Jesus talked and start loving the way He loved. Start serving up grace like it's free. Because it is. Start dishing out mercy like you're drowning in the stuff. Because you are. Start loving like there's nothing better you can do with your life. Because there's not.

Standard of the Pharisee

Discovering the humble nature of our God is all about how you read His story. Honestly, discovering anything about our God is all about how we read His story.

There's this interesting movement in broader culture that has just about everyone commenting on what it means to be a Christian. Atheists, especially, and those heavily involved in social movements that strike against God's Word, are quick to call out "so-called Christians," quoting (or misquoting) Jesus and Scripture at them in an effort not only to mock the faith, but to discredit it.

But it's the standard of the Pharisee. 

It's interesting to say that because the modern-day Pharisee is no religious man at all. In most cases. The Pharisees were men who were very learned in the Scriptures. They seemed to know everything the Bible had to say, or at least claimed to know it. On top of this, they added their own interpretations and traditions, and held the faithful to these, as well. And often, what they added from their own interpretation came from the word, not the spirit, of the Scripture. And often, this pulled the people away from true faithfulness. 

This is what we're facing today. Not from the learned, but from the twisted. Not from the interested parties, but from the parties with their own interests. The people who are so quick to quote the words of Jesus at us are the same people who turn their back on the Man Himself and refuse His example in deference to their own "learning." To their own interpretations of what the words mean.

They say, Aren't you not supposed to be judging people? Isn't that what your Jesus said? And yes, our Jesus said that. But our Jesus also called out the Pharisees, called to the sinners, and named sin for what it is. He looked at the woman caught in adultery, covered her in grace, and also told her, "Sin no more." Were we to do the same, were we to name adultery for the sin that it is, they would scream at us Do not judge! Because the word of Jesus is more important to them than the example of Him. 

They say, Forgive people. Aren't you supposed to forgive people? And yes, we are called to forgive. But forgiveness is not a blank stare. Forgiveness is not forget-ness. Forgiveness is not changing our minds about whether something wrong has been done; forgiveness is changing our mind about how we respond to that wrong. Forgiveness is naming it first, then covering it in grace. Yet the minute we name sin, the world calls us out on it. That doesn't sound very forgiving. Oh, but it is. The first step to offering forgiveness is knowing what needs forgiving. 

They say, Who are you to claim such authority? Why do you get to say what sin is? Or grace? And this is the very question they always asked Jesus. Just who do you think you are? It's the question we face every time we speak God's truth into the world. Every time we take a stand on His foundations. Every time we adopt an "unpopular" opinion. Who are we to get to decide? Who are we to think such a thing? Who gave you that authority?

The questions Jesus faced from those who considered themselves the religious elite are the very same questions we are facing today from those who still consider themselves elite. They have studied our Scriptures just enough to quote them, but they cannot cite them. They can throw the words of our Jesus at us, but they have lost sight of His spirit altogether. They have added onto this their own interpretations and traditions, as fits their social cause (usually), and they attempt to hold us, the faithful, to their standard of the faith. 

Then they stand in the streets and boldly and loudly proclaim, Oh, thank heavens I am not like these Christians.

While we Christians kneel and weep. O Lord, forgive me, for I am not so good at this not-judging thing, for I am not so quick to forgive, for I sometimes overstep Your authority and invest too much in my own.

Because we get it. We're not perfect. We're doing our best to do this Jesus thing; we're doing our best to get it right. We're taking in the example of our Jesus, in addition to His words, because it is only by watching Him do it that we understand anything at all about what grace is. 

But as we struggle to get it right, as we struggle to live the way God has called us to live in this world, as we try to weave our way through difficult issues and tough situations and all the social pressure of...well, look at society right now...we have to recognize the Pharisees for who they are. These people are not teaching us about Jesus; they're coercing us into their interpretations. They're masking the faith with so-called faithfulness, which has nothing to do, to them, with following Christ. 

And this is where we're at. Being a Christian means something different today than it did 2,000 years ago. In the early days, Christians were mocked for their faith; today, they are called faithless. Today, they are told they're just phantoms, just figments because they're not faithful. Back then, the words were twisted to keep people from believing in Him; today, they are twisted to keep us from behaving like Him. 

Beware the yeast of the Pharisees, for in such a time as this, it's starting to rise. 

A Humble God

Yesterday, I argued that God is a lot of things, but one thing He cannot be is 'fair' (primarily because 'fair' does not exist without explanation, justification, and God never wanted to put us in the place of justifying Him; He justifies us). Recently, I was reading something and the author referred to God as 'humble.' That one stopped me.

Is our God humble?

Now certainly, of course, we know our God humbled Himself (Philippians 2:5-11). We know it took a considerable amount of humility to come as a man, to be born in a stable, to grow up in the Temple, to minister on the seashores, to walk toward Golgotha, to die, to be buried. I get that. Jesus was a humble man, for sure. On all accounts. 

But God?

Humble is not the first word anyone reading through the Old Testament would come up with for God. After all, this God created an entire world just for Himself, just for His own glory. Humble persons don't do anything for their own glory; God did literally everything for it. God made rules forbidding His people to consider any other Gods; He declared Himself the one and only for them. Humble persons don't require such devotion. God destroyed countless human beings for turning against Him; humble persons don't take their own revenge. He ordered the destruction of many more, and for what? For the importance of His people, His plan, His mission in the world. He's not sounding very humble, at least in human terms....

But God was not human; God was God. This is where humility comes in.

There were plenty of gods in the ancient near east around this time. We encounter some of them in our Scriptures - Baal, Astarte, Molech, and many others. What's interesting about these so-called gods is that they existed to serve the needs of the people. These gods were responsible for fertility, of men and of fields; they were responsible for the weather; they were responsible for the sun and the moon and the stars. These gods literally ran the day-to-day for the people who believed in them. But they required that these people serve them first. You want fertility? Bring me something in exchange. You want good weather? Perform a pleasing rain dance. You want the sun and the moon and the stars? You got 'em...as long as you give me what I want. People were so interested in pleasing and appeasing these gods that they would even burn their children alive as sacrifices to them, in exchange for...whatever it was they wanted from the god. 

Israel's God was no such god, however. In Israel, this paradigm was turned on its head. This God, too, was responsible for fertility, of men and of fields; He was responsible for the weather; He was responsible for the sun and the moon and the stars. But this God...this God embraced His responsibility and simply set these things in motion. He didn't create an exchange for them. He didn't hold them hostage. He created the world for Himself, yes, but then He gave that world to His Creation. He has, yes, exercised His control of these things from time to time, just to remind His people of the grace in the gift. But this God gives first, without having received. 

The sacrifices this God requires are not bribes; He won't do anything in exchange for your rams, lambs, or male goats. He won't do anything for your wine. In fact, He has no use of these things at all. The sacrifices this God requires are measures of thankfulness. What He's done is create a way for His people to recognize His generosity with their own. We sacrifice because He first sacrificed. We give because He first gave. Not the other way around. Remember that the vast majority of the offerings of the people...went back to the people. Only a small, small portion went into the flames. Only the tiniest little bit became the aroma pleasing to the Lord. The choicest meats were given to the priests; the offerings of grain were piled in the storehouses; the bread was broken and shared. Where the other gods were taking sacrifices for themselves and creating emptiness in the world where good things once had been, the God of Israel was sharing sacrifices across Creation and creating fullness. 

All of a sudden, it starts to come into focus, this idea of our God as a humble God. He gives without receiving, and releases His portion to His people. When you desire to honor Him, He takes your sacrifice and spreads it across Creation, giving again instead of taking for Himself. In a surface reading, it's easy to say that everything God's done is for Himself, for His own glory, but if you look at what God truly has done, everything He does is for His Creation. The story of God is one of Him continually pouring Himself back into His world. He empties Himself for our sake, but His fullness never runs out. 

That is the true mark of humility.

So of all the things our God can be, things like just and loving and righteous and faithful and holy, let us not forget also that He, unlike the other gods of the ancient or modern worlds, is truly a humble God, too. And let us humble ourselves. 

Is God Fair?

This morning, I was reading in the book of Nehemiah, chapter 9, about the returned Jewish exiles gathering around the Temple and reaffirming the promises of God. As they recount the history of what God has done for His people, they make the declaration that God kept His promise to Abraham because He is "fair."

And I cringed.

"Fair" is such a non-word. And such a muddled word. And such a cheap word. Is this the best we can come up with to describe our God? And would we even want a God who is fair?

To understand the painful reaction I had to this choice of word, you have to understand what fair is. And what it isn't. It's nothing...and it's everything. It's yes...and it's no. It's this...and it's that. And that's why it's troublesome.

Let's say you have three children, ages 10, 7, and 4. Let's just say. And let's say you have six cookies to split between them. It might be fair to give two cookies to each child and declare that each has received exactly the same portion as the others. That might be fair. But it might be equally as fair to give three cookies to the oldest child, two to the middle, and one to the youngest child, on account of the size of their stomachs and their sugar-processing abilities. It might also be fair to give three to the youngest, two to the middle, and one to the oldest, accounting for how many calories each is likely to burn in the course of his/her average day. Three possible options, each of which could be called fair to one degree. Which is fair? How do you decide?

The Scriptures say God sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. This might be fair. After all, everyone gets the same rain. Everyone gets the same chance to deal with the weather. Everyone gets the same measure. But it might also be fair to send more rain on the righteous, thereby blessing their crops in exchange for their righteousness while letting the crops of the unrighteous struggle. But it might also be fair to send more rain on the unrighteous and drown out their crops, forcing them to pay the price for their unrighteousness, while in the right measure of rain, the crops of the righteous thrive. Which is fair? How do you decide?

And what about grace? Is grace ever...fair? 

See, fairness sets up this paradigm where we have to start making justifications. We have to start making explanations. We have to start making sense of things, and it's not so easy. We could argue fairness one way, and justifiably so, but someone else could argue fairness must mean something else entirely, and they could be equally right. Then we're left questioning whether God is fair at all, and worse, we're left trying to defend Him. 

There are so many other words that would be great to describe God here. God is just. Justice is actually something. God is faithful. Faith is something, too. God is good, God is gracious, God is loving. All of these things are actually things. They mean something. But is God fair? I hope not. 

Because I never want to be in the position of defending Him. 

God has never asked us to defend Him; it is He who defends us. We don't have to fight for Him; He fights for us. We don't have to make rationalizations; He's perfectly rational. And we don't have to justify His actions; He justifies us. 

So God is a lot of things, but He's not fair. He never has been. Because fair isn't really anything at all. And the God who is our everything can never be not anything. So pick a different word. 

Almost any different word.