“I’m in a twelve-step program for recovering ascetics,” I explained to my missionary nephew. I knew he’d “get” it.
More than a little conversant in theology and church history, Ian had joined his dad and uncles last spring at the old “home place” at Robert Lee, Texas. We had been dining quite well out by the fire pit when I felt led to confess.
In case the humor misses you, let me explain. To greatly oversimplify, may I just say that “asceticism” is a kind of over-reaction to “hedonism.” That helps, right? No. Okay.
“Hedonism” is an approach to life that says, “Get all the gusto! Deny yourself nothing!” (Solomon is the most famous of the jillions who’ve tried it. See Ecclesiastes 2.)
Asceticism, on the other hand, says that the way to be really holy is to strictly and religiously deny yourself all comfort and pleasure. If you’re a monk given to asceticism (and by no means all monks are or were), you might wear a hair shirt, sleep on the cold floor, fast for days on end, whip yourself, etc., to try to put to death all physical desires.
With medium rare steak juice trickling down my beard and in the midst of kinsmen all busily eating too much, I told Ian, “I’m in a twelve-step program for recovering ascetics.” Ascetics Anonymous.
Truth be told, I’ve never been even close to asceticism. But also true, in my early life I spent way too much time feeling guilty about enjoying God’s good gifts and that amazing blessing, life itself. I should have known my Father better.
I was teaching a Sunday School class on “Moderation” (now that’s funny!) when I remembered my quip to Ian.
Yes, Jesus says that his disciples must deny themselves and follow him. Denial of “things” may at times enter in to that, but the deeper denial is far harder. We must deny our very selves, our “right” to be our own, our claim to salvation, and our desire to take center stage with our own rule-keeping “holiness.”
The Apostle Paul issues a stiff warning in Colossians 2. He says that rules such as “Touch not! Taste not! Handle not!” have “an appearance of wisdom,” but in reality “their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body” lacks “any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” They’re just one more way of focusing on us and our sham of “goodness” rather than on God and the real thing.
The Scriptures make it clear that we may well choose on occasion to give up for a time some things or activities as a spiritual discipline, but we must not feel haughty or be loud about it or bind our way on others.
Most of the time, the best way to honor God is to enjoy his multitude of gifts at the right times, in the right amounts, and to overflow in thanksgiving as we live balanced lives eating, sleeping, working, playing—all to God’s glory. Moderation is a key to balance.
Funny though, we need to be moderate even about moderation lest we take ourselves too seriously and God not seriously enough. Folks who pat themselves on the back about how moderate they are end up tired and tiresome. Such contortion always produces a pain in the tail section.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
God's Grace Is Amazing, But It Is Not "Easy"
God’s grace is wonderful. But if we think grace is easy, we need to think some more.
One of Jesus’ most famous stories was told in response to a religious lawyer’s question: “Teacher, who is my neighbor?
The question was blatantly self-serving. Luke prefaces the lawyer’s question: “But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked . . .”
The greatest temptation we all face is to try to “justify” ourselves rather than accepting by faith the justification that comes only through grace. We understand the question’s tone all too well.
“And who is my neighbor?” (10:29).
Let’s make a law about this so I can be very sure I’ve done what is required and no more. After all, love is costly business, and I’d hate to waste a lot of time loving someone with no claim on my love. Let’s clear this up so I can check this off the “to do” list, present the completed list to God, and expect to be paid a wage for services rendered.
We’re all expert in religious accounting. It’s easier to count than to worship. Trusting ourselves rather than trusting God is humanity’s default mode. And it’s easy to find a religious group that is more of a “religious” accounting firm focusing on our effort to keep the law rather than being the worshiping Body of Christ focusing on blood-bought salvation we in no way earn.
Ah, but that “all-about-me” question hangs in the air: “Who is my neighbor?”
Remember the story? A foolish traveler, a Jew, is waylaid by robbers, beaten senseless, and crumpled by the side of the road. In turn two religious men, a priest and a Levite, see him and walk on by, willfully blind to his need. But a Samaritan, a man whose race and religion all Jews, including this lawyer, would despise, stops, helps the man, and even pays for his lodging and care.
Then Jesus asks his own question: Who was a neighbor to the man in need? And the lawyer stammers, “The one who had mercy on him.” “Go,” Jesus says, “and do likewise,” indicating that the lawyer will never run out of neighbors and never be able to check this item off his religious “to do” list.
Salvation by law, by rule-keeping, which is no salvation at all, says, “How little can I do and be saved?” Salvation by grace through faith says, “How may I joyfully honor the God who has already saved me?”
So here are a few religiously legal questions for us, though you could add a thousand more: How often must I go to church? How much of my money do I have to give? How much can I play with sin in action or attitude? When can I say I’ve completed all the “right” rituals, worshiped enough and just “right”? When can I look down on others of God’s children who are not as “right”? How many miles away from my own front door does my responsibility to show God’s love extend?
If you think these are law questions and not grace questions, not the kinds of questions God wants us to waste time asking, I think you’re right. A legal approach to religion is not only cold, shallow, and barren, it is far too easy.
Grace? Now that’s another thing entirely!
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
One of Jesus’ most famous stories was told in response to a religious lawyer’s question: “Teacher, who is my neighbor?
The question was blatantly self-serving. Luke prefaces the lawyer’s question: “But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked . . .”
The greatest temptation we all face is to try to “justify” ourselves rather than accepting by faith the justification that comes only through grace. We understand the question’s tone all too well.
“And who is my neighbor?” (10:29).
Let’s make a law about this so I can be very sure I’ve done what is required and no more. After all, love is costly business, and I’d hate to waste a lot of time loving someone with no claim on my love. Let’s clear this up so I can check this off the “to do” list, present the completed list to God, and expect to be paid a wage for services rendered.
We’re all expert in religious accounting. It’s easier to count than to worship. Trusting ourselves rather than trusting God is humanity’s default mode. And it’s easy to find a religious group that is more of a “religious” accounting firm focusing on our effort to keep the law rather than being the worshiping Body of Christ focusing on blood-bought salvation we in no way earn.
Ah, but that “all-about-me” question hangs in the air: “Who is my neighbor?”
Remember the story? A foolish traveler, a Jew, is waylaid by robbers, beaten senseless, and crumpled by the side of the road. In turn two religious men, a priest and a Levite, see him and walk on by, willfully blind to his need. But a Samaritan, a man whose race and religion all Jews, including this lawyer, would despise, stops, helps the man, and even pays for his lodging and care.
Then Jesus asks his own question: Who was a neighbor to the man in need? And the lawyer stammers, “The one who had mercy on him.” “Go,” Jesus says, “and do likewise,” indicating that the lawyer will never run out of neighbors and never be able to check this item off his religious “to do” list.
Salvation by law, by rule-keeping, which is no salvation at all, says, “How little can I do and be saved?” Salvation by grace through faith says, “How may I joyfully honor the God who has already saved me?”
So here are a few religiously legal questions for us, though you could add a thousand more: How often must I go to church? How much of my money do I have to give? How much can I play with sin in action or attitude? When can I say I’ve completed all the “right” rituals, worshiped enough and just “right”? When can I look down on others of God’s children who are not as “right”? How many miles away from my own front door does my responsibility to show God’s love extend?
If you think these are law questions and not grace questions, not the kinds of questions God wants us to waste time asking, I think you’re right. A legal approach to religion is not only cold, shallow, and barren, it is far too easy.
Grace? Now that’s another thing entirely!
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
A Good Laugh at Ourselves Is a Good Sign
We humans are so full of ourselves. We incessantly strut and preen, spout and sputter, spew and spray forth all manner of self-important nonsense, and the Father hearing his kids so solemnly hold forth must laugh.
One day the curtain will be pulled back, and we’ll see clearly for the first time. I suspect our reaction to our own pomposity will be something akin to perusing our old high school pictures. We thought we were so cool, but good grief!
Much we consider so normal and ordinary that we hardly think about it at all is proof, on the rare occasions when we actually do stop to think, of how puffed up we are.
We talk, for example, about “owning” land. And I suppose for keeping land-grabbing barbarians at bay, supporting the good order of commerce, gorging the government on taxes, and contributing to supposedly civilized bean-counting on any number of levels, that’s necessary. (Hey, I’m all for free enterprise!)
But, when you think about it, a human arrogantly boasting about all the land he owns is ultimately as comic as a bloated flea pompously expostulating on owning its dog. Had Heaven not raised us to the higher view of reality, even the six-foot holes we buy for the eventual disposal of our carcasses might more truly be said to own us. And, in Heaven’s ironically humorous economy, that’s every bit as true whether we presently own Microsoft or beg for a bed at the homeless shelter. This “owning” business is fraught with both frustration and humor.
Someone might say that I “own” my dog. I know better. It’s far more accurate to say that she owns me. I come when she calls. I open the door at Her Highness’ bidding. I bathe her (unless I procrastinate long enough that my wife breaks down and bathes the little beast herself). I feed her, pay for her grooming, pet her, talk baby talk to her (I red-facedly admit), take her to the vet, welcome her out of her pet carrier in the morning, and obediently go through the routine she has prescribed for her care in the evening. I own her. Yeah, right.
Most of the stuff I own owns me. And most of it gives me far less pleasure than the aforementioned furball.
What makes me wealthy and what makes life worth living are things I could never truly own, never truly control (and that’s the real issue). My family, my friends, the sunrises and sunsets God keeps on giving.
I bustle about, rush around, stress out, focus on folderol. I spend so much time looking through the wrong end of the telescope. No wonder my view is so distorted.
And in what may be Heaven’s best blessing and biggest joke on humans—whether we’re captains of industry, Fortune 500 CEO’s, garbage collectors, folks who flip fortunes or folks who flip burgers—eventually we all have to lie down and sleep. We all have to trust the One who truly owns this world to keep the globe spinning, our heart beating, and time marching on.
Our eyelids droop, we nod off, and Heaven smiles, or laughs. It’s a good sign if, thinking about that, we do, too.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
One day the curtain will be pulled back, and we’ll see clearly for the first time. I suspect our reaction to our own pomposity will be something akin to perusing our old high school pictures. We thought we were so cool, but good grief!
Much we consider so normal and ordinary that we hardly think about it at all is proof, on the rare occasions when we actually do stop to think, of how puffed up we are.
We talk, for example, about “owning” land. And I suppose for keeping land-grabbing barbarians at bay, supporting the good order of commerce, gorging the government on taxes, and contributing to supposedly civilized bean-counting on any number of levels, that’s necessary. (Hey, I’m all for free enterprise!)
But, when you think about it, a human arrogantly boasting about all the land he owns is ultimately as comic as a bloated flea pompously expostulating on owning its dog. Had Heaven not raised us to the higher view of reality, even the six-foot holes we buy for the eventual disposal of our carcasses might more truly be said to own us. And, in Heaven’s ironically humorous economy, that’s every bit as true whether we presently own Microsoft or beg for a bed at the homeless shelter. This “owning” business is fraught with both frustration and humor.
Someone might say that I “own” my dog. I know better. It’s far more accurate to say that she owns me. I come when she calls. I open the door at Her Highness’ bidding. I bathe her (unless I procrastinate long enough that my wife breaks down and bathes the little beast herself). I feed her, pay for her grooming, pet her, talk baby talk to her (I red-facedly admit), take her to the vet, welcome her out of her pet carrier in the morning, and obediently go through the routine she has prescribed for her care in the evening. I own her. Yeah, right.
Most of the stuff I own owns me. And most of it gives me far less pleasure than the aforementioned furball.
What makes me wealthy and what makes life worth living are things I could never truly own, never truly control (and that’s the real issue). My family, my friends, the sunrises and sunsets God keeps on giving.
I bustle about, rush around, stress out, focus on folderol. I spend so much time looking through the wrong end of the telescope. No wonder my view is so distorted.
And in what may be Heaven’s best blessing and biggest joke on humans—whether we’re captains of industry, Fortune 500 CEO’s, garbage collectors, folks who flip fortunes or folks who flip burgers—eventually we all have to lie down and sleep. We all have to trust the One who truly owns this world to keep the globe spinning, our heart beating, and time marching on.
Our eyelids droop, we nod off, and Heaven smiles, or laughs. It’s a good sign if, thinking about that, we do, too.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
God's People Need to Have a Large View
I wonder: Does almost everyone walk around with some sort of song playing in their head during their day, or does that just go on in the heads of lovers of music? The former, I think.
We just heard the song on the radio, we sang the hymn at church, we listened to the tune on our iPod, played the CD in the car, and the song lingers unbidden between our ears. It may even be an unwelcome tune or a musical atrocity, something akin to Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Achy Breaky Heart.” What really breaks your heart is that the sorry song is stuck so firmly in your head! (Rats! I wish I hadn’t thought of that one. Now it’s lodged in my brain.)
I think the same thing happens to people who read books. I don’t know when I read the following words of D. Elton Trueblood, but they’ve been replaying in my head for the last few days: “The major danger of our contemporary religion . . . is that it makes small what ought to be large.”
Trueblood goes on to write that if we wall up our faith and make it small with regard to “place or time or personnel,” we make it “relatively trivial” when it “ought to be concerned with the whole of life.”
What he’s saying, of course, is that real faith is a very large thing encapsulating, enfolding, enlivening every aspect of our lives. If we relegate our faith to just an hour or two a week (when completely convenient) at a particular time and place and leave religion just in the hands of a few religious professionals, we’ve made small what should be very large indeed.
If our view of Christ’s Kingdom includes only those who look just like us, worship just like us, share all of our supposedly holy hang-ups and pious scruples . . .
If our view of Christ’s Kingdom only includes Christians presently drawing breath on this globe and not also the “great cloud of witnesses” who’ve gone on . . .
If our view of our responsibility for sharing Christ’s message and love extends just around town and not around the world (and if we deceive ourselves into thinking we can’t and shouldn’t do both if our eyes are open to see and our hearts are big enough to care about both) . . .
If our view of living the Christian life has to do only with Sunday in the sanctuary and not with Monday at the workplace . . .
If our view of Christian ministry doesn’t include valuing Mrs. Johnson’s work teaching at the school as highly as Pastor Jones’ proclamation in the pulpit and doing everything we can to strongly affirm and recognize the gifts of both--and of all God’s people . . .
Then we’ve trivialized and devalued real and strong faith. We’ve made small what God has made large. And we probably make that mistake often and in a thousand ways.
We need to think about that. It’s a good question to have playing often in our heads.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
We just heard the song on the radio, we sang the hymn at church, we listened to the tune on our iPod, played the CD in the car, and the song lingers unbidden between our ears. It may even be an unwelcome tune or a musical atrocity, something akin to Billy Ray Cyrus’ “Achy Breaky Heart.” What really breaks your heart is that the sorry song is stuck so firmly in your head! (Rats! I wish I hadn’t thought of that one. Now it’s lodged in my brain.)
I think the same thing happens to people who read books. I don’t know when I read the following words of D. Elton Trueblood, but they’ve been replaying in my head for the last few days: “The major danger of our contemporary religion . . . is that it makes small what ought to be large.”
Trueblood goes on to write that if we wall up our faith and make it small with regard to “place or time or personnel,” we make it “relatively trivial” when it “ought to be concerned with the whole of life.”
What he’s saying, of course, is that real faith is a very large thing encapsulating, enfolding, enlivening every aspect of our lives. If we relegate our faith to just an hour or two a week (when completely convenient) at a particular time and place and leave religion just in the hands of a few religious professionals, we’ve made small what should be very large indeed.
If our view of Christ’s Kingdom includes only those who look just like us, worship just like us, share all of our supposedly holy hang-ups and pious scruples . . .
If our view of Christ’s Kingdom only includes Christians presently drawing breath on this globe and not also the “great cloud of witnesses” who’ve gone on . . .
If our view of our responsibility for sharing Christ’s message and love extends just around town and not around the world (and if we deceive ourselves into thinking we can’t and shouldn’t do both if our eyes are open to see and our hearts are big enough to care about both) . . .
If our view of living the Christian life has to do only with Sunday in the sanctuary and not with Monday at the workplace . . .
If our view of Christian ministry doesn’t include valuing Mrs. Johnson’s work teaching at the school as highly as Pastor Jones’ proclamation in the pulpit and doing everything we can to strongly affirm and recognize the gifts of both--and of all God’s people . . .
Then we’ve trivialized and devalued real and strong faith. We’ve made small what God has made large. And we probably make that mistake often and in a thousand ways.
We need to think about that. It’s a good question to have playing often in our heads.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Freedom Is Never Free
Freedom is never free.
As Americans are about to celebrate another national birthday, it’s good to think about the nature of freedom. Wrapped around all of our thoughts concerning the Fourth of July are, I hope, thoughts concerning the price that untold thousands of men and women have paid to obtain and perpetuate the freedom we enjoy in this country.
If you’ve heard the late Paul Harvey’s famous account of the very real price that the founding fathers of this nation paid simply by signing their names to the Declaration of Independence, you know what a costly commodity freedom for this nation was and is.
Many of those courageous patriots lost personal fortunes. More important, many lost families and loved ones. All lost their comfort and security at least for a time—if not forever. They paid a high price so that we could live in freedom. Freedom, you see, is never free. It is always costly and precious.
Of all people, Christians should know that. We serve a Lord who died on a cross to purchase our spiritual freedom.
I know, of course, that justification by grace through faith in Christ is the gift of God freely offered to all. It is given as a gift and can only be accepted as such. In that sense, it is most certainly and most beautifully free and completely unearned.
But, like any gift, someone had to buy it, and God’s Son paid the price. More costly to him than we can imagine, salvation, freedom from sin, was anything but free.
We have freedom in this nation today because our forefathers were courageous enough to pay the price for it. Our best tribute to them is never to forget what freedom cost as we do our part to keep the dream alive.
By the way, the loss of Paul Harvey earlier this year was the loss of a national treasure. We need to remember his oft-repeated warning: “Self-government without self-discipline will not work.”
Freedom is not a gift beneficently bestowed by any government. It is the gift of God to all, a gift we must cherish, and it is a blessing to live in a land where, for most of our history, that gift has been recognized and honored.
As Christians, we have spiritual freedom because the Author of our faith was willing to take all the sin of the world to a cross to defeat Hell itself.
As his followers, our best tribute to our Lord is to live our lives in light of the cross as we reflect to the Father and to our neighbors the unselfish love illustrated by his prayer on the night before he died: “Not my will, but Thine be done.”
Freedom. It can only be bought and nurtured by those who care more about what is right than about their rights.
No one else will pay the price. And freedom is never free.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
As Americans are about to celebrate another national birthday, it’s good to think about the nature of freedom. Wrapped around all of our thoughts concerning the Fourth of July are, I hope, thoughts concerning the price that untold thousands of men and women have paid to obtain and perpetuate the freedom we enjoy in this country.
If you’ve heard the late Paul Harvey’s famous account of the very real price that the founding fathers of this nation paid simply by signing their names to the Declaration of Independence, you know what a costly commodity freedom for this nation was and is.
Many of those courageous patriots lost personal fortunes. More important, many lost families and loved ones. All lost their comfort and security at least for a time—if not forever. They paid a high price so that we could live in freedom. Freedom, you see, is never free. It is always costly and precious.
Of all people, Christians should know that. We serve a Lord who died on a cross to purchase our spiritual freedom.
I know, of course, that justification by grace through faith in Christ is the gift of God freely offered to all. It is given as a gift and can only be accepted as such. In that sense, it is most certainly and most beautifully free and completely unearned.
But, like any gift, someone had to buy it, and God’s Son paid the price. More costly to him than we can imagine, salvation, freedom from sin, was anything but free.
We have freedom in this nation today because our forefathers were courageous enough to pay the price for it. Our best tribute to them is never to forget what freedom cost as we do our part to keep the dream alive.
By the way, the loss of Paul Harvey earlier this year was the loss of a national treasure. We need to remember his oft-repeated warning: “Self-government without self-discipline will not work.”
Freedom is not a gift beneficently bestowed by any government. It is the gift of God to all, a gift we must cherish, and it is a blessing to live in a land where, for most of our history, that gift has been recognized and honored.
As Christians, we have spiritual freedom because the Author of our faith was willing to take all the sin of the world to a cross to defeat Hell itself.
As his followers, our best tribute to our Lord is to live our lives in light of the cross as we reflect to the Father and to our neighbors the unselfish love illustrated by his prayer on the night before he died: “Not my will, but Thine be done.”
Freedom. It can only be bought and nurtured by those who care more about what is right than about their rights.
No one else will pay the price. And freedom is never free.
Copyright 2010 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.
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