Month: January 2025

“I wish what every addict wishes for: that what we love is good for us.”

the late David Lynch on cigarettes

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Righteousness is an acquired taste. But I get ahead of myself.

Years ago, on one of my many trips to India, I and one of my ministry directors were the guests of honor at a private home in a rural area. In order to get there, we had to hike along dirt paths that meandered across muddy patches occupied by scrawny goats and despondent cows tethered in place. As we came over a low hill, our destination came into view. It was a humble abode with the patina of mildew common to the area, but not unwelcoming. Unfortunately, in order to get there we would have to ford a wide flooded field, whose brackish waters reeked of bovine byproducts. My partner and I exchanged glances, removed our sandals, rolled up our pant legs, and gingerly waded through the foul broth.

We were heartily welcomed and after rinsing our feet under a hand pump near the door, we were ushered into the small dining space. The table was dressed with an aged, formerly white table cloth and a collection of dinnerware that was clearly their very best. We sat and enjoyed tea as the fare was brought from the kitchen to the table. Back then I was a vegetarian, which meant that India was one of my favorite stops. Since beef was generally off the menu, I settled easily into the flavorful cuisine of the region.

The dishes kept coming, and we ate until we were full. Just as we thought that the feast had come to a blissful (but welcome) end, a large bowl was ceremonially brought to the table. In it was a heap of what looked like meatballs. The faces of our hosts glowed with pride. This was clearly meant to be the showpiece of the meal, a luxurious dish worthy of august visitors such as we. I didn’t want to dishonor my hosts, and recalling Paul’s instructions to eat whatever is put before you, I determined to try one of the meatballs. Our host proudly announced that these were fresh fried goat hearts as he dropped three huge cardio-balls on my plate.

I locked eyes with my partner who was sitting next to me. A former Army Ranger and trained to eat anything, he saw my panic and subtly nodded. As soon as our hosts were distracted with serving duties, I slipped the goat hearts to his plate. When they returned, I sighed deeply, smiled, and pushed away my empty plate (with a few morsels strategically remaining). Delighted, my host lunged to serve me a few more goat hearts, but I quickly—maybe a bit too quickly—declined. I found out later that my partner wasn’t all that thrilled with the goat hearts either, but, being a literal trooper, he politely swallowed his aversion (and mine too) and saved us from committing an unforgivable cultural sin. I still owe him.

As a rule, we tend to like our native cuisines, amusements, and customs—those broad cultural aesthetics we grew up with. We also tend to pull back from what is foreign to our sensibilities. Even the adventurous among us, who like to try new things, assess their experiences through the filters of an already ingrained disposition. According to the health proverb, we are what we eat. With regard to our inclinations, however, it’s the inverse: we eat what we are—and shun what we aren’t.

Consider goodness and its biblical analog righteousness. Most people, religious or not, would insist that we all fundamentally desire the good and that problems are simply the result of competing ideas of what the good is. This is not how the scriptures view it. John’s gospel summarizes the situation this way: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. The world loves darkness because darkness is its own nature. In his psalm, David bluntly indicts the wicked: You love evil more than good. Some 250 years later, the prophet Micah levels an even harsher charge: You hate the good and love the evil. Evil is not only a moral abyss; it is an object of profound desire.

The prophet Amos offers a simple solution: Hate evil and love good. Simple, yes; but not so easy. The apostle Paul often writes of the conflict of desires between the new man and old man, and Peter speaks of sinful desires which wage war against your soul. The upshot is clear: There are things that we love that we should not and things that we do not love that we should.

Learning to love righteousness, of course, begins with Jesus who did it himself. The Father testifies of his son, “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.” In him is birthed the new man created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. This new nature is animated by the Holy Spirit who inclines the believer toward righteousness. Those who live in accordance with the Spirit, says Paul, have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. Christ gives us his own nature whose native soil is righteousness; the Spirit gives us the innate desire for righteousness.

To become a gourmet of the good, however, demands deliberate engagement. Many Christians seem satisfied to be saved but appear uninterested in righteousness as a way of life. It shows. We have to practice loving righteousness and hating evil. We must train our affections to joy in what is good and be repulsed by all unrighteousness. As the writer of Hebrews notes, anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. They are the connoisseurs of the Kingdom.

Cheers.

And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.”

Revelation 10:4

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Dealing with a god can be notoriously tricky. No matter how many cards you hold, the god always seems to have one more tucked up his sleeve. Apollo, the Greek god of prophecy, was especially cagey. One story tells of the Cumaean Sibyl, a prophetess and favorite of the god. Apollo offers the Sibyl a wish, and she asks to live for as many years as the number of grains of sand that she can hold in her hand. She forgets, however, to ask for eternal youth. Apollo (for once playing the literalist) grants her wish. Unfortunately, as she ages, her body withers to a detestable husk. When she is asked what she desires most in her old age, she replies, “I want to die.”

Apollo could be downright vindictive too. To win the favor of the beautiful Cassandra, he grants her the ability to see the future. But when she later spurns him, he curses her so that no one will believe her predictions. This had disastrous consequences. Cassandra’s prophecies foretell the fall of Troy to the Greeks—which nobody heeds, and in the process she herself is captured and killed. She didn’t even get the meager satisfaction of an “I told you so.”

There is no job as fraught with peril and frustration quite like that of the prophet. The biblical prophets had more headaches than even their mythological counterparts. Ostracism, persecution, and retribution were part and parcel of the prophet’s experience. If that weren’t bad enough, the task sometimes required outlandish antics which stretched the prophet’s compliance to the breaking point. This is not to mention the sheer terror of being employed by a deity who often was not in the best of moods.

Of course, there are certain perks that come with prophethood. One is a measured approval from your employer, which, it might be noted, appears somewhat dependent on job performance. As long as you’re doing what you’re told, you get to keep your camel hair suit. Another perk is an uneasy courtesy from the few who recognize your shiny badge. You’re not likely to be invited to the neighborhood kegger, but they’ll respectfully quiet down as you walk by to pick up your mail.

The biggest prophetic perk is access to inside information. The prophet often knows what’s coming down before it comes down. As Amos tells us, “The Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.” This privilege comes with status. The prophet gets to be the distributor of esoteric knowledge. Others will hold you in mild awe as you offer nuggets dug from mines deeper than they can plumb. Granted, most of them won’t actually listen to you; it’s more a matter of entertainment. You’re a song and dance man. Even so, a little applause is kind of nice.

Things get interesting when the prophet becomes privy to things that he cannot share. Sometimes it’s merely a translation issue: there simply are no words to convey the experience. Peter, for example, speaks of a joy inexpressible, and Paul tells us that the Spirit intercedes for us with groans that cannot be uttered. Even Jesus struggled to find ways to communicate spiritual realities. “What is the kingdom of God like?” he asked. “What shall I compare it to?” The fact that he once settled on a mustard seed to make his case gives you an idea of how challenging it can be. One can only imagine how much confusion might have been prevented if, instead of describing his wheels within wheels, Ezekiel had just shrugged and called it a day. Sometimes a picture is worth no words at all.

Then there are those things revealed to the prophet that come without the necessary access key. As in the case of Daniel, sometimes the meaning of a vision is withheld. “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.” Daniel is shown the cards but not what the game is. In such cases the prophet may feel as clueless as the non-prophet gallery. Among other things, this situation makes it difficult to write an effective newsletter.

But the big ticket conundrum is when the prophet learns something that he is expressly forbidden to disclose. An event of John’s revelation is a most tantalizing instance. John beholds a mighty angel who straddles both land and sea. The angel loudly calls out and is answered by what John refers to as the seven thunders. John prepares to record what the seven thunders said but hears a voice from heaven command, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.” Clearly, John understood what the thunders said (or he wouldn’t have attempted to write it down) but he was ordered not to. The prohibition comes without explanation, and the cosmic vision moves on without pause. The seven thunders—and what they said—are never referred to again. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Perhaps that’s all there is to it. Apparently, whatever the thunders said is unessential for us to know in order to overcome at the end. Maybe the thunders gave utterance to the wordless cry of the angel. Maybe their voices set in motion some vital mechanism that operates far beneath the surfaces of judgment, not unlike the inner-workings of a watch or the invisible lines of code that bring these very words to your eyes. Perhaps we will never know.

I wonder, though. Among the many unimaginable things that John beheld in his vision on the island of Patmos, I wonder if he ever brooded over what the seven thunders said. I wonder if he regretted not being allowed to write it down, knowing that this knowledge would pass from the world with him. And I wonder, too, if I could ever be trusted to keep such a secret.

“You always resist the Holy Spirit.”
Acts 7:51

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I am an American. My cultural DNA is native to this soil. I bleed red, white, and blue. I love big and bold. I am repulsed by monarchies. I am a son of the Declaration of Independence with an unassailable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If something doesn’t affirm me, I reject it utterly. If it gets in the way of self-actualization, I will discount it, disarm it, or destroy it. I will not surrender. Under my wrist beats the pulse of the free world. I am the measure of human potential, the template for triumph.

How can I be otherwise? God himself ordained it. It is he who appointed my time in history and the boundaries of my homeland. I do not apologize for what I am. I resonate with righteousness and will not be denied. My native prophets cry out in one accord. Trust thyself, proclaims Emerson. Believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men. We are our own masters. Self-reliance, he preaches, is the height and perfection of man. And Thoreau, our more grounded cousin, declares that what a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate. I am my own means and destiny. My personal fulfillment is the whole point. Whatever satisfies the soul is truth, declares that most American of bards, Walt Whitman. I am the arbiter of my own certainties.

The American self is inviolable; it cannot be infringed upon by law or creed. Government, social practice, religion—all must approve and enhance the sacrosanct self. Here there is no authority but the self or those authorized to advance the self’s interest: of the people, by the people, for the people. The great American project is to subsume everything into the rubric of free and singular individual. For Americans, the White House, the Great White Way, and the little white church all raise the same anthem, whose lyric was penned by Whitman himself: I celebrate myself, and sing myself. The American anthem is a hymn of self-exaltation. Each American, whether religious or not, believes Emerson’s gospel: The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me. I am part or parcel of God. The American self is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.

This vein runs so deeply within us that American Christians do not recognize how profoundly un-American biblical Christianity actually is. The enemy of the glorified self is the wholly (holy) other. The holy shatters the illusion of a self-centric universe and obligates deference—which to the American self is a form of subjugation to be resisted.

Ground zero is the Cross where the Absolute Other challenges all pretense of human—let alone American—self-reliance. Of course, American Christians cannot disavow the Cross; it is the very emblem of salvation. However, its devastating implications can be deflected by making the Cross only about Jesus. The American believer can then embrace the free gift of salvation and maintain the sovereignty of the self at the same time. The late Harold Bloom, a famous literary critic and keen observer of the cultural landscape (and an agnostic Jew) put it this way: Our sacred frenzies are directed towards ourselves or towards the resurrected Jesus; the American Religion takes up the cross only as an emblem of the Risen God, not of the crucified man, if indeed it takes up the cross at all. The American gospel is about saving the self, not losing it. Jesus died so that we don’t have to.

Jesus sees it differently. “If anyone would come after me,” he tells his disciples, “he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Jesus frames discipleship in the strongest possible terms. To follow him, he insists, means to renounce the self. “Whoever would save his life will lose it,” he explains. “But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” Christianity is not about the salvation or sanctification of the self; it is an utter repudiation of it. To be a Christian is to disown the self for the person of Christ. Paul is speaking quite literally when he declares: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The enshrined American self is the sworn enemy of the Cross.

If this were simply a matter of armchair theology, we might shelve it alongside other biblical curiosities—like the Trinity or the Nephilim or predestination—as mildly intriguing but without practical urgency. But the conflict between the sovereign self and the Sovereign Lord is no mere theological invention. The American Christian, whether conservative or charismatic, passive or passionate, is by nature and nurture diametrically opposed to the lordship of the crucified Christ.

And I am a quintessential example.

My reputation as a sincere and serious follower of Jesus is established. Like Apollos mentioned in Acts, I present as eloquent, fervent in spirit, and competent in the Scriptures. I have traveled around the world in service of the Kingdom of God and, for the past decade, have devoted myself to prayer. It is in the prayer closet where my resistance to the lordship of Christ is disturbingly apparent. As I am kneeling in prayer, I often become aware that am managing God. As I offer heartfelt praise or earnest petition, I am working quietly in the background to keep him within the invisible boundaries I have set for the encounter. Even amid the throes of rhapsodic worship, I find that I am maintaining against him a transparent but protective wall around my deepest self. My implied surrender isn’t surrender at all; it is a diplomatic assertion of terms: You may come this far but no further. Please maintain a safe distance. Even in the Holy of Holies the sovereignty of the self must be preserved.

And so I once more say amen and, having offered my reasonable service, rise, absolved and humming:

I’m proud to be an American

Where at least I know I’m free

But free from what? And at what cost?

And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
Mark 13:2

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Enthroned atop a knoll overlooking the 205 just south of Portland rises a massive church complex. Commuters are hailed by a modern, multi-storied construction that could be mistaken for the campus of a giant Oregon tech company if it weren’t for three crosses boldly crowning the facility. The impressive façade, strategically angled toward the freeway, is intended to capture the 65mph attention and signify an attractive, thriving, and well-funded Christian enterprise. The statement is clear: this is a big, successful congregation—a brand unto itself.

The precedent for grand religious architecture goes way back, of course. There are the shrines of ancient Egypt, the pagodas of Asia, the stately sanctuaries of Greece, and, perhaps greatest of all, Solomon’s magnificent temple in Jerusalem. The Christian contribution culminated in the many cathedrals erected across Europe during the Middle Ages. These imposing cathedrals were expressly designed to exhibit the grandeur and glory of God. As Pope Benedict XVI observed, “All the great works of art, the cathedrals—the Gothic cathedrals and the splendid Baroque churches—are a luminous sign of God, and thus are truly a manifestation, an epiphany of God.” Edifice as epiphany. Lofty appraisal indeed.

By comparison, church buildings in the New World are far humbler. With the exception of a few notable examples in the big east coast cities, American’s tended to embrace smaller, simpler houses of worship. The Puritan spiritual identity found its expression in the plain white meeting hall which evolved westward into the iconic little steepled churches that still dot the rural American landscape. Although modest, these unassuming structures assumed the same divine manifestation as their ostentatious kin. Whether in a backwater village or on the vast, open prairies, a little white church visually signified the very presence of God.

The advent of the American megachurch renewed the pursuit of gargantuan religious splendor. New titanic sanctuaries, dwarfing even the greatest Old World cathedrals, vie for dominance. Their jaw-dropping size overwhelms the eye, and for awestruck acolytes these proud glass and steel behemoths are proof-positive that the God of Grandeur is present and accounted for.

For most of us, however, the most recognizable symbols of American Christianity are the neighborhood church buildings found in virtually every city and town. Functionally adorned, they have long signified, to believer and unbeliever alike, that God and his sanctioned tabernacles dwell in our midst. Though less commanding than Europe’s imperial cathedrals, Pope Benedict’s observation holds true for these commonplace tabernacles too: the edifice is an epiphany.

But something has changed. Whenever I pass by a church building these days, a strange awareness emerges. Instead of perceiving a familiar testimony of divine reality, I am struck by a profound sense of vacancy. The structures that for so long had served as a “luminous sign of God” now seem to manifest only absence. The building is a house of bones; the edifice is empty.

I sense, too, that this is not simply a reminder that church is the people, not the buildings in which they meet. No, this is something else. It is about the face of Christianity. This is an intimation of judgment, of a divine visitation marked by abandonment. And it’s been a long time coming.

The scriptures illustrate God’s willingness to abandon the edifices associated with his presence, even those he himself ordained. In one instance, when the army of Israel is being defeated by the Philistines, Israel sends for the Ark of the Covenant, which they believe will save them. But Israel not only loses the battle; they surrender the Ark as well. The Holy Box, it turns out, is just a box. The prophets also learn this hard lesson. Years later, as Ezekiel sits among the exiles in Babylon, he envisions the glory of the Lord withdraw from the great temple. Jeremiah beholds the destruction of Jerusalem and laments, The Lord has rejected his altar and abandoned his sanctuary. The city of God and the temple bearing his name lie in ruins. The edifice is erased.

And it is happening again. Our church buildings communicate nothing to the current culture, except, perhaps, a tired, irrelevant piety. Our liturgies—the conservative to the charismatic—have become, as Isaiah prophesies, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little. The structures that once housed and manifested the reality of Christ are being abandoned by the Spirit and exposed as the shadows they have always been.

This should come as no surprise. Divine judgment is increasingly apparent to those whose eyes are open. But it not only is coming upon the kingdom of the world. As Peter declares, It is time for judgment to begin with the household of God. And begin it has.

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“Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
Hebrews 12:26-27

“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”
2 Kings 2:10

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Hezekiah was a superstar among the Hebrew kings. He took over a kingdom rife with war and paganism, destroyed idols all over Judah, and reinstated lawful temple worship. He strengthened the defenses of Jerusalem by digging a tunnel to ensure access to water during the siege by the Assyrian king Sennacherib. And when the Assyrian armies taunted Jerusalem’s cowering citizens, he fervently prayed to God, who answered him with a miraculous deliverance. To top it off, when Hezekiah fell deathly ill, his appeal to the Lord resulted in a fifteen-year extension of his life. Hezekiah was one impressive ruler. Indeed, as the scriptures declare, there was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him. Hezekiah ranks right up there with David, Jehoshaphat, and the boy-king Josiah.

But I recently stumbled on a passage that I had forgotten. Hezekiah had just proudly displayed his wealth to some Babylonian envoys when the prophet Isaiah showed up:

Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my days.”

That stopped me dead in my tracks. Isaiah divulges the upcoming judgment upon Judah and even on Hezekiah’s own sons, and all the king is concerned about is his own welfare? It’s like he figures he’s already done his thing for God; the future is now somebody else’s problem. It seems that all Hezekiah wants now is a nice life and a peaceful ride into the sunset.

How different from Elisha. Apprentice to the great Elijah, Elisha reveals his true colors when it is revealed that his master is soon to be taken away. The account, recorded in 2 Kings, is almost comical. Elijah keeps telling his apprentice to stay put while he moves on to the next place, but Elisha will have none of it. He insists, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” This happens three times. Along the way, companies of local prophets—you know, the people with all the right answers—they confidently inform Elisha that God is going to take his master away that very day. “Yes, I know,” he snaps at them. “Be quiet.” Finally Elijah and Elisha cross the Jordan (with a little help from Elijah’s magic cloak) where Elijah asks his apprentice the ten-thousand-dollar question: “What can I do for you before I am taken from you?”

The boldness of Elisha’s answer is astonishing: “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit.” This takes some serious chutzpah.

The sheer audacity of his request is underscored by Elijah’s reply. “You have asked a difficult thing.” No freaking kidding. Elijah’s the one and only God’s-not-in-the-whirlwind-or-the-earthquake-or-the-fire-but-in-the-small-still-voice guy. Elijah’s the guy who calls down fire from the sky and who lends his name to none other than John the Baptist, the very guy whom Jesus himself calls the greatest prophet of all. Elisha wants twice whatever that is? Whoa.

Surprisingly, Elijah assents to this outrageous petition—with one important condition: “If you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.” Elisha’s tenacity is rewarded. He sees the chariot of fire and gets what he wanted.

It strikes me that Hezekiah and Elisha reflect two different kinds of Christians and even different kinds of churches. Some, like Hezekiah, have great track records of faith but have essentially retired from the fray. They see what’s coming down the pike but are content to glide into the Promised Land. As long as they are undisturbed, they are unconcerned. In my experience, most believers and too many churches are like Hezekiah.

A precious few, however, are hungry. Like Elisha, they recognize that something earth-shattering is upon us. Unlike the crowd of prophets who know all the right answers (but keep at a comfortable distance) these unsettled believers are not satisfied with the status quo. Their track records mean little to them. They know that the visitation of God will not be awarded equally to everyone. They know that receiving is for the askers, finding for the seekers, and open doors for the persistent knockers.

And thus comes the word of the Lord to many of us: “I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.” This is serious stuff.

This new year I renew my commitment to call upon the Living God. I do not ask for comfort or contentment. I search for neither reassurance nor commendation. I do not seek even my own salvation. Famished beyond reckoning, I will cry out with Elisha, “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?”

Nothing else matters.