My Twitter alert went off yesterday, informing me of a breaking headline: the Vatican had just announced a new set of canon laws, called “the Apostolic Constitution,” whereby disaffected Anglican priests and parishioners, in fact entire Anglican congregations, can now be welcomed into Rome’s embrace and communion. The decision, “reached in secret by a small cadre of Vatican officials” (Associated Press), apparently caught even the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, by surprise. What is no surprise is that growing segments of conservative Anglicans in both the East and West—distraught over the blessing of same-sex unions and openly gay clergy—have been seceding from the Anglican communion. Rome’s move is an unsubtle gesture, in spite of the Vatican’s esprit de corps of ecumenism, to draw all to her. As the Associated Press writer noted, “The Vatican move could be taken as a signal that the ultimate goal of ecumenical talks is to convert Anglicans to Catholicism” (SBT 10-21-09). But is anyone surprised?
And in our quiet corner of the world we gather to celebrate Creation Sabbath, a liturgical festival that joyfully reminds the worshiper we are children of the loving Creator, who after shaping our planetary home into existence in six days then rested on the seventh day, bestowing it as a gift day—the Sabbath day—to the human race exclusively for the enjoyment of our friendship with him. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy,” he later etched with his finger into his granite Decalogue (Exodus 20:8). Why? “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (v 11).
The seventh-day Sabbath remains the greatest ecumenical gift ever entrusted to the human race. For what more tangible and periodic bestowal could the Creator have conferred upon humanity—to unite his children to each other as one, as well as to bind them to him in strong ties of love—than the universal bestowment of the seventh day of the week as the divine-human Rest Day for all earth inhabitants? If on every seventh-day Sabbath humanity gathered to worship our Creator, celebrate our unity and remember our destiny, would we ever need secretly-formed canon law to make us one? The truth is, if we hadn’t forgotten our Creator and abandoned his Sabbath, the only breaking headline these days would be, “Peace on earth.”
Television is huge on hospitals lately, have you noticed? “Three Rivers,” “House,” “Trauma,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and of course the ubiquitous “ER” reruns—the entertainment industry is in the health care business, it seems. Why? Because everybody loves a healing. Third millennial life on the edge (the real thing) can get as messy as an emergency room, can’t it? So what’s not to like about a fifty-eight minute show that ends (more often than not) with a fractured life put back together, a broken body (or heart) healed just before the final credits roll? Do you suppose that’s why people go to church, too? Hoping against hope for a healing, a mending, a broken life reset, a heartsick spirit rejuvenated and cleansed? Having spent a few nights with my mother-in-law in an emergency room, I’ve learned—though I don’t have a medical bone in me—that ER’s can be messy places, sort of the soiled and stained “living room” of the hospital. It isn’t hard to figure out why. Because people who come to emergency rooms are in the grip of a crisis. That’s why you can experience the coagulating odors of vomit and urine and blood and Lysol-like antibacterial agents wafting in the frenetic air of that saving place. Gurneys and beds once wrapped in sterile white sheets are now splattered and contaminated. But that’s OK, because everybody that works and lives in a hospital knows: “This is why we exist—why we’re here—to get dirtied and stained and exposed, while we scramble to save another life.” Isn’t that true about the church, too? The well-worn yarn about it being a hospital for sinners more than a haven for saints still rings true, worn or not, doesn’t it? Because the community of faith is also a community of love. Radical believing is matched by a radical and sometimes countercultural kind of loving that doesn’t insist on political correctness, but rather embraces the broken life and the fractured soul for who he, for who she is—another earth child of the Father in desperate need of healing and wholeness. So of course we or they come to this community in the grip of crisis—that’s what an ER is for. Who defines crisis by esthetic beauty? The non-virtual reality of human life is defined by its urgent need for urgent care. Which was Jesus’ point: “‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12, 13). Heterosexual sinners, homosexual sinners, all of us in the grip of life’s survival crisis are the very ones for whom Christ raised up this healing community we call church. That we come as we are but do not stay as we are is simply a shining tribute to the transforming power of the Physician who drew us to him and to each other in the first place. Which still makes this the best place for the Doctor in the House to practice his healing work, doesn’t it?
What if praying were as contagious as the swine flu? My newspaper, South Bend Tribune (10-7-09), did a piece (replete with graphics), tracking an imaginary family (John, Karen and Billy) through the hazardous world of the H1N1 virus. John’s feeling great, as he heads out of the office for lunch. But while he’s gone, an office worker sneezes in her hand and then picks up his phone to make a call. (66% of office viruses can survive for an hour—33% surviving for up to eighteen hours.) John lunches at a fast food joint, paying for his meal with a contaminated five dollar bill. (Flu viruses can survive for up to ten days on paper currency if someone sneezes on it.) John spends the evening with his family, unwittingly passing on to them the viruses he’s picked up from the phone and money. Billy hurries off to school the next day, contaminating his classmates. Kissing John good-bye, Karen is now a virus carrier. You get the picture. In less than 24 hours, John and Billy have come down with flu symptoms, spending three miserable days in bed and waiting to be symptom-free for another 24 hours before returning to school and work. Oh the joys of contagion! (BTW—to avoid living that story, keep the 3 C’s in mind this flu season: clean your hands with soap or a sanitizer often; cover your cough/sneezes in your sleeve—if you use your hands, wash them immediately; and contain the flu by staying at home until you’re 24 hours past your fever.) Wouldn’t it be great if praying were as contagious as sneezing . . . if whenever you prayed, those all around you caught that spirit and began praying, too? Maybe prayer is infectious! I got an email from one of our university coeds this week who told me about a prayer group that she’s started with friends at 5:30 every morning. That’s right—5:30 a.m. I won’t be surprised at all if that contagious faith in Jesus through praying spreads. Because sometimes, all some people need is an invitation from a friend or colleague to join them for a few moments of prayer. It can be that contagious. And it doesn’t have to be at 5:30 a.m. every day. It could be at noon once a week. Or at 5:30 p.m. when the office is closed for the day. It could be a Friday evening gathering with a few kindred spirits in a living room or a dorm room. And what should we pray for? Why not claim God’s promise: “I will pour upon you a spirit of grace and supplication” (Zechariah 12:10). If we banded together to seek that spirit of asking, of petitioning God, can you imagine what would happen if prayer groups sprang up all over the campus and around the community? Can you think of one reason why God wouldn’t want that spirit of prayer to be as contagious as the flu? So go ahead—spread your prayer virus—and see how many you can infect for Christ.
Some people aren’t afraid of anything! Take 92-year-old Jane Bockstruck from Concord, New Hampshire, for example. A few days ago, with her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren all watching (no doubt in almost disbelief) this little lady leaped out of a plane at 13,000 feet and plummeted to the earth in a 120-mph free fall. Her jump instructor and tandem partner, Paul Peckham Jr, was so impressed that he cut out his thirty year old parachutist silver wings and presented them to her. I’m afraid it’d take more than some sewn silver wings to get me to jump from a plane! But then, some people aren’t afraid of anything. You can’t say that about the devil. For there is one human act that he fears above all others. Which explains the stupor that lulled the disciples to sleep in Gethsemane when they could have been, should have been on their faces with Christ in prayer. “There is nothing that Satan fears so much as that the people of God shall clear the way by removing every hindrance, so that the Lord can pour out His Spirit upon a languishing church” (1SM 124). Keep reading: “If Satan had his way, there would never be another awakening, great or small, to the end of time.” Afraid that we will pray and afraid that God will respond, he pours his dark energies into distracting us. What now? “A revival of true godliness among us is the greatest and most urgent of all our needs. To seek this should be our first work” (p 121, emphasis supplied). As we move deeper into the heart of this new series, “The Temple,” and come to grips with the realization that we are living in God’s final strategic chapter of salvation history—as we ponder the reality of the judgment that is transpiring in his throne room even as these words are written and read—I am sensing more deeply the urgent need I and we have to be immersed in earnest prayer before God as never before. Can our tepid business-as-usual praying possibly be sufficient for so critical a time in history? Can we assuage our consciences with hours before the television or a good book and a handful of minutes on our knees before the throne? Should the midweek hour of prayer be the most deserted time in churches across this land? Are we daring God to try to save his church, when his church is passionless and powerless in her prayings? Do we really believe that Christ will return for a generation that is too busy for him? And even if we “force” God to raise up another generation in order to complete his mission, do we really think that our own souls will be saved while prayerless and powerless? At some point the rubber must meet the road in “The Temple.” This is that point. And how you and I respond will tell the story one day. For that reason I need you to know that I am pleading with God to grant to you and me a heart burdened for him in prayer. I don’t know what else to do. “A revival need be expected only in answer to prayer” (ibid).
Trouble in paradise? Having just returned from a weekend of preaching in Honolulu, Karen and I were reminded once again of not only how warm and gracious the Hawaiian people are, but also how strikingly beautiful is their island home. The perhaps perfunctory flight attendant’s “Welcome to paradise” certainly isn’t far from the truth. In fact, islanders in our community of faith recall that a mainland visitor to Honolulu over a century ago stood atop the 1,200-foot Pali lookout and commented how the lush green valleys of blossoms and palms spreading northward toward the white beaches and azure sea reminded her of scenes of heaven. We walked to that same Pali lookout on Sunday with my cousin, Ralph Watts III, and his wife Sharon, who serve our church as president of the Hawaii Conference. Reveling in that paradise moment, we missed the posted warning sign that potential trouble lay ahead. The trade winds that blow off the Pacific onto the north shore are steady and strong as they sweep up the valley to the Pali cliffs. So you can lean into the winds as you stand at the railing and gaze over the emerald floor below. That’s why nobody noticed the tiny yellow and black creatures that were “surfing” the same trade winds, darting low to avoid being swept away in the wind, but quickly resurfacing high into the air again. Nobody noticed, that is, until one of them found refuge from the blowing in the nook of Sharon’s finger, stinging her when she tried to brush it away. We’d been warned—but we had ignored the posted sign in the parking lot: “CAUTION—BEES.” Why even in paradise there can be trouble! Because, let’s face it, as breath-taking as the Hawaiian islands are, this earth home of ours is hardly the paradise it was once created to be. The sting of economic downturn and job losses, of unexpected health crises, of unanticipated family and marital troubles—the stinging of personal sin and painful guilt—it isn’t that we weren’t warned. It’s just that we keep hoping the warning won’t apply to us. CAUTION—BEES. But alas we get stung with the ultimate sting. “The sting of death is sin” (I Corinthians 15:56). Is there no hope for us in this paradise lost? “But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (v 57). Good news for all the stung. The God of the universe entered into our fallen paradise, and by taking into himself the ultimate sting of sin and death at the cross he delivers all who want to be saved. That’s the critical truth underlying our new series “The Temple” (download podcasts at this website). Yes, “the hour of his judgment has come” (Revelation 14:7). But when the entire Court is on your side, judgment turns out to be the best news of all! For when the gavel falls and court is adjourned, then will come the words we’ve spent a life time awaiting: “Welcome to Paradise.”
How about a non-Labor-Day story for this Labor Day weekend? Several years ago I received a letter from one of our television viewers who is a Pentecostal pastor ministering in a city near us. He informed me that from his Bible study he had come to the conclusion that the Scriptures plainly and clearly teach that the seventh day of the week is the divine Sabbath for humanity, that it has been so from the creation of earth and remains so today. Needless to say he got my attention! “Moreover, I have written a book defending the seventh-day Sabbath,” his letter went on, “and am enclosing a disk with my manuscript.” As I read his manuscript, I was astounded at how articulately he built a strong biblical case for God’s Sabbath. The reason he had written was because he had discovered our telecast and wanted to be in communication with another pastor who shared his convictions. A few weeks later we met together in my office, along with one of his congregation members. The pastor had been teaching the Sabbath to his people, and several had joined him in beginning to honor the Lord of the Sabbath on the seventh-day. That was the first of many visits, the rest of which took place in his church in his city. In fact just this week we met again, this time with one of my members. But we met at a new church setting. And it was then I learned that recently one of his elders had led an effort to remove him as their pastor because of his decision to honor the Bible Sabbath. With a heavy heart he left his congregation. And after much prayer over the summer, he began a new pastorate in a for-sale church building across town. He told me last evening that his courage was strong, his confidence in God’s Word unshaken and his determination unchanged to teach and preach Christ as Lord of the Sabbath. As it so happened, this last Sabbath here at the Pioneer Memorial Church I met a Baptist pastor after our second celebration, who himself has been studying the Bible teaching of the Sabbath, all because he met another one of our members, who has begun studying the Bible with him. Two pastors from the same city making the same discovery—an affirmation, I believe, of the promise: “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day” (Proverbs 4:18). The secret for them, for you, for me is that we continue to step into the light that God graciously shines upon our pathways. As we do so, he promises that the light will grow brighter and brighter, as with every step our discovery of his will and truth deepens. It’s that way with God’s restful non-labor-day Sabbath. It’s that way with all his truth. Keep stepping into Christ’s light and you will never walk in darkness.
How would you like to begin the new school year with a loan this big? If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed with your higher education expenses right now, you might find a small measure of comfort in meeting somebody who owes a bit more than you do—the United States. Today’s headline was an eye-catcher: “U.S. is facing tidal wave of red ink.” And underneath it followed these words: “In a chilling forecast, the White House is predicting a 10-year federal deficit of $9 trillion—more than the sum of all previous deficits since America’s founding. And it says by the next decade’s end the national debt will equal three-quarters of the entire U.S. economy” (South Bend Tribune 8-26-09). I’m not very good with big numbers, but does 9,000 billions of dollars strike you as a bit excessive? And what kind of monthly payment plan do you suppose they’ll need in order to make up that staggering deficit and pay off the resultant debt? “Tidal wave” seems an appropriate metaphor, doesn’t it? But never mind the government right now. Think kingdom instead. For once upon a faraway time in a faraway kingdom, the God who still rules it made a promise that, while it wouldn’t solve our national deficit or debt, is the solution to your own new year worries. Tapping into the latent fears of us all, he spoke this quiet but profound reassurance when he was here among us: “‘Not even a sparrow, worth only half a penny, can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows’” (Matthew 10:29-31 NLT). Did you catch that? “Don’t be afraid—you are more valuable to him.” More valuable than a flock of sparrows, more valuable than the tidal wave deficit and debt of this nation, or of all the world—truth be known (and it is), you and I are more valuable to him than even his own life. Just look at the cross! So if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed (or even underwhelmed) just hours into the new university year, cheer up and take heart. There is Someone in “The Temple” who will take care of you. In the words of that old gospel song—“I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free—for His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.”