Pastors' Blog | Pioneer Memorial Church

By Pioneer Pastors

Jan

January 13, 2016

By Dwight K. Nelson

Nothing like a Powerball jackpot frenzy to warm a frigid winter’s night! Americans (and Canadians) are still queuing up by the tens of thousands for a chance to win a record $1.5 billion-plus at tonight’s 10:59 Powerball drawing. Chances of winning the grand prize? One in 229,000,000. And yet by Monday this week Michiganders were spending $156,000 per hour on lottery tickets!

In case you were wondering how to spend $1.5 billion, USA TODAY offers five suggestions. (1) Buy a fleet of Gulfstream G650 private jets (@ $65 million apiece you can take home 23 of them). (2) Match the gross domestic product of the island nations of St. Vincent and Grenadines combined (spend the remaining $200 million on that large stone mansion for sale in the Windy City). (3) Buy the new Tesla Model S ecofriendly electric car for $71,100 (then do the same for 21,096 of your closest friends). (4) Rent the royal two-bedroom suite at the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah Hotel in Dubai for $34,555 a night (with $1.5 billion you’ll be able to stay for 42,320 nights or 116 years—if you have the time!). (5) Purchase a flotilla of five “super yachts” (100-meter-long cabin cruisers with an onboard staff of 50 for roughly $275 million apiece). (usat.ly/1Pr96MF)

But let’s get serious. Uncle Sam will take 25% (30% if you’re Canadian) off the top, with Michigan state receiving an additional 4.25%. Then consider this laundry list of warnings from financial investors and previous lottery winners: (1) your friends will take advantage—“Once word gets out that you have the winning ticket, you can expect everyone to try to cozy up to you, from the college roommate you haven't heard from in 20 years and the kid who tortured you on the kindergarten playground, to fellow carpool parents and ‘friends’ you barely recognize”; (2) your relationship could fail—the unimagined stresses of managing windfall money, as records show, place immense pressures on heretofore happily married couples; (3) you’ll have an increased risk of bankruptcy—"Winners are much more likely to make significant impulse purchases far beyond their previous means. So the purchase amounts will be much higher, making the interest accrued on those credit cards much higher. And because they don't stop to think the money could run out, winners don't generally think they need to create or live by a monthly budget,” says Scott Dillon, a senior bankruptcy attorney at Tully Rinckey in Albany, New York; (4) you’ll have to fight off a host of long-lost family members—even distant family members with credit card, medical or foreclosure bills will learn of your largesse; and (5) you’ll be a target for a litany of lawsuits and scams—“Hoping to carve out a chunk of your fortune, financial advisor Jeff Motske says lottery winners are often targets for bogus lawsuits because everyone starts to come after them” (for more details see bit.ly/1mVGlRo).

Still want that easy money? Consider some sage counsel embedded in this personal testimony: “For I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (Philippians 4:11-12). Paul was onto something, wasn’t he? Or rather he was onto Someone. “For I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (v 13). When my life focus shifts from gaining to giving, from easy money to hard work, there is an inner quiet that all the money in the world can’t buy. “Contentment” is what Paul called it. “Peace” is what Christ calls it: “My peace I give to you—not as the world gives do I give to you” (John 14:27).

70% of lottery winners lose or spend all their winnings in five years or less. Apparently you can go broke trying to buy happiness. So here’s the winning ticket for your New Year: “Godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).

Jan

January 6, 2016

Curating Ourselves to Death?

By Dwight K. Nelson

Have we all become curators? You know who they are—directors at museums who skillfully arrange the contents of the gallery to be as attractive and appealing as possible to visitors. Curators decide what eye-catching exhibit gets prominent display, and which collections with less pizzazz need to be pushed to the back. Do we do the same?

Consider Walt Mueller’s critique of this generation’s identity-formation: “. . . for digital natives living out their lives in the online world, the identity options from which to choose are virtually limitless. [People] are able to perform through a growing multitude of social media sites by choosing the words they post (true and false), and by posing and photo-shopping themselves into images that don’t come close to who they really are. As media critic Quentin Schultze has observed, ‘The digital world suffocates virtue by allowing us unbridled freedom to be all things to all people . . . to give ourselves over to the highest bidder or to the most persuasive master’” (YouthWorker Journal Jan/Feb 2015 pp 16-17).

And as a consequence we have a generation of youth and adults who are curating ourselves to death. Mueller goes on: “. . . we constantly are revising and tweaking the exhibit known as me. In effect, we do whatever it takes, including sacrificing our true identities and selves, to capture the gaze of the crowd. . . . We carefully choose our clothing, words, photos, the food we eat, the places we go, how we spend our time—virtually everything in an attempt to style ourselves in the best way possible” (17).

Turns out “virtual reality” is more virtual than perhaps we first thought. A friend gave me Michael Horton’s newest book, or-di-nar-y: Sustainable faith in a radical, restless world. Horton quotes psychiatrist Keith Ablow, who on the basis of recent studies warns of “‘the toxic psychological impact of media and technology on children, adolescents and young adults, particularly as it regards turning them into faux [false] celebrities—the equivalent of lead actors in their own fictionalized life stories. . . . On Facebook, young [and not so young] people can fool themselves into thinking they have hundreds or thousands of “friends.” They can delete unflattering comments. They can block anyone who disagrees with them or pokes holes in their inflated self-esteem. . . . Using Twitter, young [and not so young] people can pretend they are worth “following,” as though they have real-life fans, when all that is really happening is the mutual fanning of false love and false fame’” (60).

Are we curating ourselves to death? Consider Jesus’ New Year invitation: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Tired of playing this silly game? Weary of propping yourself up into someone else’s wannabe that isn’t even the you God uniquely has chosen you to be? Who says social culture or online community (which is a very lonely community anyway) has the right to dictate your self-worth, let alone your self-image?

Want to know what the “nearest and dearest” Friend you’ll ever have thinks of you? “The relations between God and each soul are as distinct and full as though there were not another soul upon the earth to share His watchcare, not another soul for whom He gave His beloved Son” (Steps to Christ 100). As far as He’s concerned, it’s as if it were only you and God in this universe. Talking about infinite worth! Just you and God—that’s how much He loves you. So why not drop the curating this New Year and pick up the communicating, this “talking to God as to a friend” (96)? Begin your day alone with Him, and I promise you you’ll never have to curate your museum again. You’re too attractive just the way He made you.

Happy New Year indeed!

Dec

December 30, 2015

Amazon's New Year's Resolution

By Dwight K. Nelson

“Return that gift before you get it.” Leave it to Amazon.com to “solve” our gift-receiving woes! The mega online mail-order giant reportedly has come up with a solution to those gifts from “Aunt Mildred” you’ve never known what to do with—from “The Stallion Stable Music Box” that must have been a beauty on the computer screen but turned out to be a White Elephant under the Christmas tree, to “The Thread and Bobbin Sewing Kit” that, truth be known, will never see the light of day. “These gifts sent via some warehouse many miles away are not only unwanted, but also a multimillion-dollar headache: They have to be repacked, labeled, dropped off and shipped back to Amazon’s Island of Misfit Toys.” After which a new present will have to be “packed, labeled, and shipped again. Efficient, the process is not” (South Bend Tribune 12-28-2010).

So Amazon has “quietly patented” a way whereby you can return your gifts before you even get them. This new option, apparently planned in time for next Christmas, will allow you to designate individuals who consistently send you what you don’t want or need—so that if they order another gift for you through Amazon it will be “vetted before anything ships.” I.e., you’ll have the option to “convert” the gift to one of your liking. The patent says: “The user may specify such a rule because the user believes that this potential sender has different tastes than the user” (Ibid).

You can imagine the uproar from the etiquette crowd! Anna Post, the great-great-granddaughter of the proper-manners queen, Emily Post, warns of a major backlash, and hopes Amazon abandons the notion: “This idea totally misses the spirit of gift giving. The point of gift giving is to allow someone else to go through that action of buying something for us. Otherwise, giving a gift just becomes another one of the world’s transactions” (Ibid). Well put, Miss Post.

“Just another one of the world’s transactions.” Which, of course, can’t be said for the Gift Heaven gave Earth long, long ago, can it? That Gift first borne on a barnyard trough . . . and eventually spiked to a Roman cross. Return the Gift to the Giver? And yet the small print of this intergalactic struggle still called “the great controversy” includes an opt-out proviso— a provision acted upon, sadly enough, time and again: “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). I.e., they turned down the Gift.

On this New Year Sabbath we gather at the foot of the cross, at the feet of the Gift. Because it surely dawns upon our collective consciousness that in the words of F. F. Bruce, “the total adequacy of Christ” is our truest vision in the year before us, and our only hope in the life that is left.“ But God forbid [this New Year] that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).

Since mine eyes have gazed on Jesus
I’ve lost sight of all beside
So enchained my spirit’s vision
Gazing on the Crucified.
—Oswald Chambers

Dec

December 16, 2015

Apocalyptic Peanuts

By Dwight K. Nelson

Some time ago Charles Schultz’s syndicated Peanuts cartoon went apocalyptic. Frame 1: Lucy to Charlie Brown, “I don’t worry about the world coming to an end anymore.” Frame 2: She continues, “The way I figure it, the world can’t come to an end today because it is already tomorrow in some other part of the world.” Frame 3: Lucy turns and asks Charlie Brown, “Isn’t that a comforting theory?” Final frame: Lucy smiling but Charlie Brown muttering, “I’ve never felt so comforted in all my life!”

What do the end of the world and Christmas have to do with each other? One word: Advent. Which being interpreted, of course, means the Messiah’s coming. First time. Second time. Both times, “God with us.” Advent.

The American lawyer and social activist, William Stringfellow, in his essay, “The Penitential Season,” bemoans the loss of meaning of this Advent season in America: “For all the greeting card and sermonic rhetoric, I do not think that much rejoicing happens around Christmastime, least of all about the coming of the Lord. There is, I notice, a lot of holiday frolicking, but that is not the same as rejoicing.” Why the loss of a deeper joy in this season? “The depletion of a contemporary recognition of the radically political character of Advent [i.e., “that message that in the coming of Jesus Christ, the nations and the principalities and the rulers of the world are judged in the Word of God”] is in large measure occasioned by the illiteracy of church folk about the Second Advent and, in the mainline churches, the persistent quietism of pastors, preachers, and teachers about the Second Coming. . . . Yet it is impossible to apprehend either Advent except through the relationship of both Advents” (in Watch for the Light 104, 105). Did you catch that? “It is impossible to apprehend either Advent except through the relationship of both Advents.”

In all holiday candor, it makes me wonder—not just about Americans, but about those of us who bear the name “Advent-ists.” Have we inadvertently (and no doubt, innocently) abandoned the apocalyptic connection between the two Advents, between Christmas and the Second Coming? And yet in this season’s most beloved and lauded of compositions, George Frederick Handel’s The Messiah, the composer powerfully and convincingly weaves together the theme of both Advents in his magnum opus. Isaiah’s grand prophecy—“For unto us a Son is given”—is inseparably joined with the Apocalypse’s mighty Hallelujah chorus—“For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth!” Because it is impossible to comprehend either Advent “except through the relationship of both Advents.” Stringfellow was right.

Then shall we not join him, and this Christmas set ablaze the candle of our joy, not only for the Advent that is past, but also for the One who is coming? “Oh that today the human family could recognize that song [“Glory to God in the highest”]! The declaration then made, the note then struck, will swell to the close of time, and resound to the ends of the earth” (Desire of Ages 48).

Dec

December 2, 2015

Where's The Baby?

By Dwight K. Nelson

The two young women, sisters, were out for a late afternoon stroll along the popular walking path in Compton, south LA. “Do you hear that cat?” one of them stopped. Both listened. Sure enough—from somewhere not so far away came a faint whimper. “Gotta be a cat.” They strained to listen. “Sounds more like a baby to me.” Impossible. Nothing there but the asphalt bike path and a chain linked fence. But they heard it again. “It’s gotta be.” They dialed 911.

Two deputies from the LA Sherrif’s Department arrive. “Can you hear it?” The deputies nod. Nothing but asphalt and a chain linked fence, until one of them notices a crack in the paved pathway. Stooping over he pulls on the cracked asphalt—easily dislodging a piece of it, disclosing a crevice filled with debris. Scooping aside the debris, he spots the edge of a hospital blanket. And wrapped in the blanket a still breathing but cold to the touch newborn. Paramedics arrive, treat the tiny little girl at the scene, race her to the hospital—where she’s doing fine! Although truth is, covered with debris and asphalt the baby would’ve perished had someone not scooped the rubbish aside.

What a grand narrative for Christmas!

Or rather, what a provocative metaphor for this season of Christ’s birth—a season that begins with the advent of Black Friday, followed by Cyber Monday, followed by Discounted Tuesday, followed by Wholesale Wednesday, followed by Slashed-prices Thursday? Et al. What is the Christmas season but twenty-four days of interminable shopping—credit-carding, lay-awaying, savings-spending, buying-buying-buying—until Christmas? But where’s the Baby?

Shoppers in this nation spent an estimated $12.1 billion on Christmas shopping this Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Add to that the more than $3 billion spent online on Cyber Monday, and Americans have already forked over $15 billion-plus shopping in this season that celebrates the birth of Jesus. But where’s the Baby?

Could it be the Baby now grown up wonders the same? Covered over with the asphalt of consumerism and the debris of materialism and got-to-have-it-ism, are we the nation that boasts “In God We Trust” on our currency?

And are we the Americans who have declared to the planet we can’t afford to allow even a 1000 Syrian refugees onto our shores or into our states for fear they might threaten our way of living and spending? Emma Lazarus’ words inscribed inside the Statue of Liberty surely don’t mean us—not this Christmas—do they?

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning
to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of
your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless,
tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

What difference can you personally make this Christmas? #1—You can cast your vote against our rampant consumerism by ramping back your investments at Walmart, Target, Macy’s and their like. #2—You can choose to spend a comparable amount of money assisting a needy family in this community (mark your donation to Neighbor to Neighbor on a tithe envelope before Christmas). #3—You can decide to assist a refugee family even before they are granted asylum somewhere on earth (maybe not here) by giving a Christmas gift through ADRA.org (Adventist Development Relief Agency). #4—You can save the money you would spend on Christmas and set it aside for your “My Student Missionary Fund” so you can put legs on your compassion and go somewhere on earth to help this suffering world. You can do something!

Where’s the Baby? “‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me’” (Matthew 25:40). That’s where He is.

Nov

November 23, 2015

Pilgrims All Are We

By Dwight K. Nelson

Nathaniel Philbrick, in Mayflower, his acclaimed history of the Pilgrims, recounts how William Bradford, the intrepid leader of that courageous band of Puritans, years later described “that first morning in America.” Recalling with wonder their landing on the salty, windswept shores of Cape Cod Bay on November 15, 1620, Bradford wrote: “But here I cannot stay and make a pause and stand half amazed at this poor people’s present condition. . . . They had now no friends to welcome them nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies; no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek for succor. What could sustain them but the spirit of God and His Grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: ‘Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity’” (46).

His words are appropriate, not only because we celebrate the nearly four-century tradition of the Pilgrims’ thanksgiving this week. But in Bradford’s description—“they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity”—perhaps we also hear the faint hint of a day of adversity yet coming upon this land of the Pilgrims. Who wants to be a naysayer on such a blessed and bountiful holiday weekend like this? But the gyrating marketplace, the mad scramble of consumerism, the insufferable political debate over this proud nation’s responsibility to the weakest and poorest (and sickest) among us, the yawning chasm between the haves and the have-nots in America—one perhaps could be excused, even on a holiday weekend, for wondering if this Land of the Free has already seen her best days.

Scribbled on the page of Revelation 13 in my Bible are these words written a century ago: “The Lord has done more for the United States than for any other country upon which the sun shines” (Ms 17, 1906). Hardly a prideful claim of superiority or grounds for national arrogance, this quiet observation simply declares a common truth that this country has enjoyed the uncommon blessings of Providence. And in the sunlight, how easy is the spirit of thanksgiving.

But should the days turn dark and the supernal blessings wither away, what shall we be grateful for then? A year after their landing, the Pilgrims gathered for that first thanksgiving—half of their band already buried beneath the Massachusetts sod. Yet they gave thanks to God. And so must we—no matter the uncertain voyage that spreads before us, nationally or personally. The Almighty is still that. And in the darkest storm His mercy will yet triumph. Just look at Calvary. “Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (Psalm 136:1 NKJV).

Nov

November 11, 2015

Taking Pictures of Angels

By Dwight K. Nelson

Can you believe some individuals are actually paid to take pictures of angels? In fact there are five photographers who have been granted three-year stints to take as many pictures of angels in the air as they possibly can! I’m not kidding.

I don’t suppose telling you I read it in the news helps a whole lot. So let me quickly add that the angelic photo subjects are the Blue Angels, the crack U.S. Navy flight team that performs its high air acrobatics for gaping (and sometimes gasping) crowds the world over. Five Navy petty officers are granted the privilege (wait till you read what they have to go through before you agree it’s a privilege) of sitting in the cockpit seat directly behind the pilot of that trademark blue and yellow-streaked F-18 Hornet. Their mission? Capture heart-stopping images of the six-fighter jet team of Blue Angels in twirling spinning action.

Want to enlist for the chance? All you need is a working camera and a working faith in the combat veteran pilot who’s sitting in front of you, executing split second decisions at 700 mph while flying in formation with three other blue and yellow fighter jets roaring beside you six inches away! You’ll also need an iron stomach, because during spins, turns and other maneuvers you and your pilot will experience 7.5 times normal gravity, turning your 10 pound camera into what feels like 75 pounds in your hands. And by the way, Blue Angels pilots and their cockpit photographers do not wear g-suits, “designed to keep someone from passing out by pushing blood toward the head using inflatable bladders in the legs” (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/photographers-capture-landmarks-skylines-blue-angels-35124758). Because of the very tight maneuver formations, the pilots must maintain total control of the flight stick without being interfered by the bulky suit bladders. And so both pilot and photographer to remain physically fit and learn breathing techniques to avoid passing out. Navy photographer Andrea Perez, who has thrown up and passed out in the back seat, observes: “‘It helps to be focused on the lens and not worried about what is going on outside—whether the ground is above your head or whether you are spinning in circles’” (ibid).

So much for the Blue Angels, but what about the White Angel that flies in formation with you 24/7 (see Matthew 28:3)? The angel that, according to Jesus, was assigned to you at birth (see Matthew 18:10). The angel that, according to the psalmist, has been your personal guardian for just as long (see Psalm 34:7). The angel the Bible describes as “a flame of fire” just beyond the veil of human sight (see Psalm 104:4). What about your celestial companion right now, standing beside you as you read these words? Will you ever be close enough to take that selfie with him?

In this year’s devotional book, Maranatha, Karen and I read this week: “Every redeemed one will understand the ministry of angels in his own life. The angel who was his guardian from his earliest moment; the angel who watched his steps, and covered his head in the day of peril; the angel who was with him in the valley of the shadow of death, who marked his resting place, who was the first to greet him in the resurrection morning—what will it be to hold converse with him” (314). To come face to face at last with this Being who has selflessly devoted every waking (and sleeping) moment of your life to provide supernatural care and protection exclusively for you—can you imagine the thrill of meeting your Angel one day!

The only greater thrill will be to come face to face with the King of Angels, whose nail-scarred hand on the day you were born pointed your angel to you with this two-word mission: “Save him” “Save her.” The King and His angel—one day sooner than you think you will be in the presence of both. And can you imagine the pictures you’ll be taking!

Nov

November 4, 2015

Does America Still Believe?

By Dwight K. Nelson

On Tuesday the Pew Research Center released its 2014 Religious Landscape Study, a survey of over 35,000 Americans. Coming seven years after Pew’s previous such study, the new survey offers some intriguing comparisons.

According to Gregory Smith, Pew’s associate director of research: “‘We should remember that the United States remains a nation of believers with nearly 9 in 10 adults saying they believe in God’” (USA Today 11-14-15). But that statistic represents a three point drop from 92% in 2007 to today’s 89%, leading Pew on its website to ask: “Is the American public becoming less religious?” In response to its own question Pew offers a two-part answer. “Yes, at least by some key measures of what it means to be a religious person. [This] new survey . . . finds that the percentages who say they believe in God, pray daily and regularly go to church or other religious services all have declined modestly in recent years” (www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/).

Then Pew offers a second analysis of its numbers: “But [this] study also finds a great deal of stability in the U.S. religious landscape. The recent decrease in religious beliefs and behaviors is largely attributable to the ‘nones’—the growing minority of Americans, particularly in the Millennial generation, who say they do not belong to any organized faith. Among the roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults who do claim a religion, there has been no discernible drop in most measures of religious commitment. Indeed, by some conventional measures, religiously affiliated Americans are, on average, even more devout than they were a few years ago” (ibid).

Intriguing, isn’t it? The number of religiously affiliated Americans is down, but numbers measuring the depth of devotion among the religiously affiliated are up.

How do these numbers inform our faith community’s mission to share the Bible’s hope-filled message of Jesus and His return?

#1—We need a proactive strategy to connect with America’s “nones.” As noted above the Pew Center finds a growing number of Millennials populating this turn from organized religion. And yet notice their openness to spiritual themes: “The study also suggests that in some ways Americans are becoming more spiritual. About six-in-ten adults now say they regularly feel a deep sense of ‘spiritual peace and well-being,’ up 7 percentage points since 2007. And 46% of Americans say they experience a deep sense of ‘wonder about the universe’ at least once a week, also up 7 points over the same period” (ibid). How can we connect with this latent spiritual dimension of this generation’s psyche? Clearly our personal witness, as well as our public evangelism, need to touch America’s “nones” at the place of their heart-longing. We need to tell the story of Jesus all over again in the language of a new generation. We cannot expect our tried and true 20th century strategy of front-loading as many doctrines as possible into as few nights as possible to be the sure-fire method of effectively reaching America’s “nones” and its young.

#2—But at the same time this new research reminds us America’s religiously affiliated are “even more devout than they were a few years ago.” Pew observes: “The portion of religiously affiliated adults who say they regularly read scripture, share their faith with others and participate in small prayer groups or scripture study groups all have increased modestly since 2007. And roughly four-in-ten religiously affiliated adults (41%) now say they rely mainly on their religious beliefs for guidance on questions about right and wrong, up 7 percentage points in seven years” (ibid). For this segment of the populace the overt public proclamation of and witness to the Bible and the Three Angels Messages (evangelism) can strike a responsive chord. They are Bible believers, after all. And of all faith communities, we bring a relevant Bible message whose time has come. We must share it even as we share Him.

The numbers are in. America is still open. But time is short. Let us then respond with prayer-bathed, old-time, cutting-edge faithfulness to Jesus’ call: “Go and proclaim the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

Oct

October 28, 2015

Adding Insult to Injury

By Dwight K. Nelson

Talking about adding insult to injury—figures released this week indicate that the top 100 CEO retirement packages here in the United States now equal the retirement account savings of 41% of all American households with the lowest retirement wealth. Go figure! So let’s do. The accumulated wealth in the retirement packages of these top 100 American executives is $4.9 billion. “The CEO nest eggs on average are worth more than $493 million, enough to produce a $277,686 monthly retirement check for life, the [Center for Effective Government and the Institute for Policy Studies group] report said” (USA Today 10-28-15). An average monthly retirement check of $277,686? Compare that to the 2013 median average in a 401(K) retirement account of $18,433, yielding $104 a month! Then compare that to the 31% of the “bottom economic group of American families [who] have nothing saved for retirement”(ibid). Go figure indeed.

Of interest is the retirement nest egg of David Novak (no relation to the much poorer chemistry professor David Nowack here at Andrews University), CEO of Yum Brands (the conglomerate that runs Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut). Novak’s retirement package (including deferred compensation) is the largest of all Fortune 500 CEOs and is valued at $234 million. Compare that with what Novak’s fast food workers are able to save for their own retirement!

Reuters comments: “The figures are stunning and cast a harsh and troubling light on soaring retirement inequality. The report offers yet another indication that runaway income inequality is producing grossly unfair retirement outcomes” (www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/28/us-column-miller-pensions-ceo-idUSKCN0SM09C20151028). Or as Sarah Anderson, the economy project director at the Institute for Policy Studies, observed: “‘The CEO-worker retirement divide has turned our country’s already extreme income divide into an even wider economic chasm’” (USA Today).

Jesus’ step brother James once wrote: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth” (James 5:1-4). A bitter lamentation from the God who historically has sided with the exploited poor and the socially marginalized.

Jesus Himself warned: “Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15).

So what does all of this have to do with the rest of us who are squeezed somewhere between the middle and the bottom end of this economic chasm? Jesus’ words remind us that greed and covetousness are not the exclusive domain of the wealthy. You don’t have to be filthy rich—in fact we can be dirt poor and succumb to the strangulation of greed. Jesus’ parable of the rich fool, which follows his warning, ends with the solemn observation: “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:21). The rich fool died suddenly without spending a single penny of his nest egg. While we are very much alive, Jesus reminds us, is the right time to be “rich toward God.”

So have you been rich toward God lately?

Oct

October 21, 2015

How Does God Stomach The Headlines?

By Dwight K. Nelson

Let’s see—at the time of this writing the Cubs are down 0-3, Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama have flying aces bumping into each other over Syria, down on the ground Palestinians and Israelis are at it once again, half a world away North and South Korean families are reunited after being separated for 65 years since the Korean War, Wall Street is keeping its fingers crossed about any significant upsurge in the stock market before the end of the year, the latest rumor for the Vatican to squash is about the Pope having a small brain tumor, though the press has tired of reporting the immigration hemorrhage into Europe from the Middle East it still flows unabated, autumn is turning glorious here in the St. Joseph River valley, and did I mention the Cubs?

Life is filled with stuff we simply get used to, isn’t it? And when a little four-year-old girl is caught in the deadly cross-fire of two cars dueling it out in a tragic case of road rage in Albuquerque, we pause, catch our breath over the stab of sorrow for so short a life snuffed out so insanely. And we go on. Because life does just that. Goes on.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? How does God handle the headlines? Think about it—He’s the only One in the universe that has to live with them all, all the time, night and day, forever now it seems (to us at least). Poor God. How sad He can’t quietly dismiss or callously forget the way we humans do. Instead He remembers. It all. All the time.

And what’s even more astonishing is that God not only monitors our stories, He monitors the story of every life form that exists. “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?” Jesus asked. “Yet not one of them is forgotten by God” (Luke 12:6). And not only does He monitor, He cares. “Yet not one of [those sparrows] will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care” (Matthew 10:29).

In John Peckham’s very new book (Peckham teaches at the theological seminary here at Andrews University), The Love of God: A Canonical Model (InterVarsity Press), he offers up this lengthy definition of God’s love: “At the risk of oversimplification, God’s love is virtuous, kind, generous, unmerited, voluntary, faithfully devoted, evaluative, profoundly affectionate and compassionate, intensely passionate, patient and longsuffering, merciful, gracious, just, steadfast, amazingly reliable and enduring but not unalterably constant, preferential but not arbitrarily exclusive, relationally responsive, desirous of reciprocation, and active” (65).

It takes a lot of words to define the love that courses through the heart of the Creator of this universe, doesn’t it? A universe, and particularly a planet now held hostage by a sin-crazed rebel angel. Whose insane hatred of all that is divine or even reflective of the divine spews forth the headlines we’ve grown dangerously accustomed to of late. Even in Lucifer’s backyard, God is still love.
Which means that “not a sigh is breathed, not a pain felt, not a grief pierces the soul, but the throb vibrates to the Father’s heart” (Desire of Ages 356).
Or as the ancient prophet expressed it, “In all our affliction He is afflicted” (see Isaiah 63:9). Love feels the pain.

Divine love. As Peckham described it, “profoundly affectionate and compassionate, intensely passionate, patient and longsuffering . . . and active.” God’s love. For you. For me. For Putin and Obama. For the reunited families. For the four-year-old’s heart-broken parents. For disappointed Cub fans. For the tiny brown sparrows.

“God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Turns out it’s the only headline that lasts.