#Occupy Zimbabwe

The irony of the Occupy Wall Street (and other iterations) has been well documented. They decry Wall Street and Corporations yet are more than willing to film and promote their actions using iPhones (made by the biggest corporation in the world), computers and other forms of technology. Up to now I have hesitated to tackle this topic but I just read an excellent blog post by Frank Turk of the Pyromaniacs blog.

Mr. Turk writes an "Open Letter" to the Occupy movement that does a great job of pointing out just how inconsistent–and silly–the movement is when you consider the wealth of the poorest parts of America with the rest of the world. He even uses data and graphs to back up his point. This one is particularly good:

The circles show the income levels and life expectancy of different countries. America is way up on the far upper right of the graph which means that we are rich and healthy compared to the rest of the world. The black line is our "poverty" line. 80% of all Americans live above that black line. Compared to the rest of the world we are rich...really rich.

Mr. Turk goes on to call this movement exactly what it is. It is not about any injustice. It is about greed.

That's right: the problem is not that "they" are greedy - whoever "they" are (the bankers, the capitalists, the stock traders, but apparently not the movie moguls, the actors, the politicians and pop stars) -- but that we are greedy. We want things we didn't earn, and we can't imagine that we might have to live on less than we think we are entitled to. We certainly couldn't live on what the average Englishman lived on in1800, and may God forbid we have to live on what the average Russian or South African lives on today. There was a time when we would say it isn't "fair", but today we say it's actually an injustice -- as if "justice" has anything to do with us getting something we didn't actually earn.

The one thing that Mr. Turk does at this point of the letter is to subtly change from writing to the protesters (using the language of "I" and "you") to writing to all of us in America (using the language of "we"). The greed isn't just a problem for those protestors. It is not just that they don't have all that the Jones have; the problem is for all of us.

We are all greedy. And that is sin.

We all have things that we think that we need that we really don't need. Having things and luxuries are not sinful in and of themselves.

Rather the problem is when we start to define poverty and need based upon how many luxuries one can or cannot afford.

Christian Ethic vs. Karma

The story of Jacob and Esau is a fascinating tale and yet at the same time not very surprising. Anyone that has a brother or has seen brothers in action knows that the potential for conflict is great. As a bit of self-disclosure I must admit that my brother and I have had a pretty good relationship all things considered. Neither one of us–as far as I know–has tried to steal or trick the other out of their birthright or blessing as Jacob did to Esau. Nor has either of us–again I am assuming here–has plotted to kill the other as Esau did with Jacob.

But there has been some sibling rivalry. For example I was a better student in school while he was always the superior athlete. Jacob and Esau's rivalry far surpassed that. After Jacob cheated Esau out of Isaac's birthright and blessing Jacob took off to find a wife...and escape from Esau's murder plot.

Jacob went back to the "old country" to find a wife because his parents decided that they didn't want a Hittite or Canaanite for a daughter-in-law. Esau overheard the "Don't marry one of those Canaanite women" comment from his father. Unfortunately for Esau he already had two Hittite wives.

Talk about things not going right. Esau is the older brother and has lost all of the privileges that go with being the older brother and he finds out that his parent's don't approve of his wives.

So what does Esau do?

He marries a third woman who is not a Canaanite in order to try and make amends.

Not that divorcing his wives would have been the right thing to do, but Esau tried to make things better by putting a patch on to his old mistakes. And I think that we can often do the same thing.

We can fall into the trap of functioning under an ethic of karma rather than a Christian ethic which is an ethic of righteousness and grace. An ethic of karma is when we try and amend for our past mistakes by doing more good things. We are trying to balance out the scales. It is as if we say to ourselves, "Well I didn't get to church this Sunday so I will make sure that I say an extra prayer, put a few extra dollars in the offering and go to the midweek service. That will more than make up for missing church." And that may soothe our soul in our own eyes and maybe even in the eyes of others.

But that is not how it works in God's eyes.

In a Christian ethic when we make a mistake we ask for forgiveness and God forgives our mistake. That is the grace part. We don't get the forgiveness because we have made up for it in some way. No, God forgives us not because we deserve it but because he wants to forgive us. But there is another part to a Christian ethic. There is a righteousness part as well. After we make our mistakes we do try and right any wrongs that we have committed but more importantly we try and not make those same mistakes again. We try and live a righteous life not by simply adding a patch onto our old mistakes but by trying to avoid them all together.

In Esau's case marrying a non-Canaanite woman (or even divorcing his Hittite wives) does not make his relationship with his parents or his brother right. What ends up making Esau's relationship right with Jacob is when the two of them meet up again many years later is that Esau puts the past behind them.

Further Reading

The story of Jacob and Esau can be found in Genesis 25:19-36:43

The relationship of the Old and the New.

I came across an illustration by John Phillips from Exploring Hebrews shared by Jared Wilson on his blog The Gospel Driven Church. The illustration does a wonderful job of showing how the New Testament both fits into the Old Testament as well as provides an even better way to God. It is something that I will file away for future reference.

Imagine with me a Moabite of old gazing down upon the Tabernacle of Israel from some lofty hillside. This Moabite is attracted to what he sees so he descends the hill and makes his way toward the Tabernacle.

He walks around this high wall of dazzling linen until he comes to a gate and at the gate, he sees a man. “May I go in there?” he asks, pointing to the gate where all the bustle of activity in the Tabernacle’s outer court can be seen.

“Who are You?” demands the man suspiciously.

“I’m from Moab,” the stranger replies.

“Well, I’m very sorry, but you can’t go in there. You see, it’s not for you. The Law of Moses has barred the Moabite from any part in the worship of Israel until his tenth generation.”

The Moabite looks so sad and said, “Well, what would I have to do to go in there?”

“You would have to be born again,” the gatekeeper replies. “You would have to be born an Israelite, of the tribe of Judah, or of the tribe of Benjamin or Dan.”

“Oh, I wish I had been born an Israelite,” the Moabite says and as he looks again, he sees one of the priests, having offered a sacrifice at the brazen altar and the priest cleansed himself at the brazen laver and then the Moabite sees the priest enter the Tabernacle’s interior. “What’s in there?” asks the Moabite. “Inside the main building, I mean.”

“Oh,” the gatekeeper says, “That’s the Tabernacle itself. Inside it contains a lampstand, a table, and an altar of gold. The man you saw was a priest. He will trim the lamp, eat of the bread upon the table and burn incense to the living god upon the golden altar.”

“Ah,” sighs the Moabite, “I wish I were an Israelite so that I could do that. I would so love to worship God in there and help to trim the lamp and offer Him incense and eat bread at that table.”

“Oh, no, the gatekeeper hastens to say, “even I could not do that. To worship in the holy place one must not only be born an Israelite, one must be born of the tribe of Levi and of the family of Aaron.”

The man from Moab sighs again, “I wish that I had been born of Israel of the tribe of Levi of the family of Aaron,” and then, as he gazes wistfully at the closed Tabernacle door, he says, “What else is in there?”

“Oh, there’s a veil. It’s a beautiful veil I’m told and it divides the Tabernacle in two. Beyond the veil is what we call ‘the Most Holy Place’… ‘the Holy of Holies.’”

“What’s in the Holy of Holies?” the Moabite asks.

“Well, there’s the sacred chest in there and it’s called the Ark of the Covenant. It contains holy memorials of our past. Its top is gold and we call that the mercy seat because God sits there between the golden cherubim. Do you see that pillar of cloud hovering over the Tabernacle? That’s the Shekinah glory cloud. It rests on the mercy,” said the gatekeeper.

Again, a look of longing comes over the face of the Moabite man. “Oh,” he said, “if only I were a priest! How I would love to go into the Holy of Holies and gaze upon the glory of God and worship Him there in the beauty of His holiness!’

“Oh no!” said the man at the gate. “You couldn’t do that even if you were a priest! Only the high priest can enter the Most Holy Place. Only he can go in there. Nobody else!”

The heart of the man from Moab yearns once more. “Oh,” he cried, “If only I had been born an Israelite, of the tribe of Levi, of the family of Aaron. If only I had been born a high priest! I would go in there every day! I would go in there three times a day! I would worship continually in the Holy of Holies!”

The gatekeeper looked at the man from Moab again and once more shook his head. “Oh now,” he said, “you couldn’t do that! Even the high priest of Israel can go in there only once a year, and then only after the most elaborate preparations and even then only for a little while.”

Sadly, the Moabite turned away. He had no hope in all the world of ever entering there!

. . . Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:19-22).

Here it is, a tremendous word of welcome, extended to Jew and Gentile alike, to come on in and worship, not in the holiest place of the human tabernacle, but into the Holy of Holies in heaven itself "by the blood of Jesus."

Source: The Gospel Driven Church

Noses with legs...

This past weekend was my niece's first birthday. So to celebrate my brother and sister-in-law decided to have a costume party that coincided with their town Halloween parade. It was great fun. My niece was the star of the show...at least our part of the show. She was absolutely adorable in her little strawberry costume.

Not only was the costume bright red but her nose matched as well. The problem is that her nose wasn't red due to her costume but due to her cold.

And she decided to share that cold with both my wife and me. Fortunately I had the last couple of posts written early. However this one has been called due to inclement weather and post nasal drip.

Oh, and noses with legs just keep on running.

How Should Christians Think About Halloween?

Should Christians celebrate Halloween? It's another one of those questions that will have Christians taking all sides. There will be vehement assertions one way or the other as well as those that simply say "meh..." I have usually approached it from a theological standpoint regarding both the explicit and implicit messages contained within. And usually while I am not generally opposed to the holiday there are certain things that are being glorified within the holiday that I strongly dislike.

That being said, I came across a very different take from one of my fellow seminary graduates. Jeremy Dowsett, pastor of Blacksoil, approached the holiday from an angle that I had not considered. His view is from the social aspects provided by Halloween that have been quickly disappearing in our society:

Our culture is almost completely devoid of spaces where it is socially appropriate to interact with neighbors. The evenings of sitting on front porches, talking with whoever is out for a walk have been replaced with evenings scanning the 300 channels of cable or running on the treadmill listening to an ipod. I don’t even live in an “attached garage” community, and the only people I ever see outside are kids and moms calling kids to come inside.

Halloween is the one day of the year that it’s not only appropriate, it’s actually expected you will go onto your neighbors porches and interact with your neighbors. Not only that, but their is some remnant of generosity and hospitality in this ritual. People are actually giving gifts to strangers and expecting nothing in return (albeit gifts loaded with high fructose corn syrup, but hey its something).

The neighborhood streets near our church were absolutely filled–comparatively speaking–with kids and parents Halloween afternoon. In the past, when I lived in a house where I would actually get trick-or-treaters, it was one of the very few times that I would interact with people from the neighborhood. And I would often sit on my front stoop in the evenings.

Yes there are things about Halloween that are the antithesis of the Christian faith. It has the tendency to glorify demons, vampires and witches which all stem from the evil side of the scale. But there are also aspects of Christmas and Easter which, when we dig deep enough, have their root in things that also tend from that same evil side. But as Christians we have had no problem overlooking them in order to "redeem" those holidays.

Pastor Dowsett goes on to say:

Now why on this one day of the year that’s brimming with potential for meeting and blessing people Christians want to take themselves out of their neighborhoods and do “safe” activities with their kids at some church building somewhere else is beyond me. In theological lingo, Halloween is full of missional potential.

There seems to be this trend that I have observed in many Christian circles where we want to insulate ourselves from evil rather than separate from it. Just before going to the cross Jesus prayed:

I have given them (the Disciples) your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

We are not supposed to try and insulate ourselves form all things evil. Jesus asked the Father to protect us from evil while we are interacting with the world. Halloween is an excellent example where we can interact with the world while shunning the less savory parts of the holiday. It is a good opportunity to interact with people that we may otherwise never interact with.

What do our relationships with each other say about our relationship with God?

Every relationship finds its focus in God. And not just marriages or other romantic relationships but every relationship that exists.

In geometry a focus point is the point in which a curve is defined. Each point of the curve is a set distance from the focus point. It is not always the same distance but there is a relationship in the distance that can be measured by a mathematical equation. And while I am not saying that relationships can be reduced to some sort of mathematical equation, it is this sense of the word focus that I am using. In the same way God is the focus point that defines our relationships with each other.

Let me demonstrate what I mean with a couple of images:

From Wandering Journey of Faith

Let's pretend that I can actually draw a triangle.

In this image we see that God is (ignoring my poor drawing skills) the top of a triangle that is drawn using two other people. Think of the points as the people and the line between them as the relationship. The line is the representation of the relationship and not the definition of it. This means that the line is the result of the placement of the points of the people. So when one person grows closer to God the point moves and the lines change.

In the scenario where one person has a closer relationship with God the resulting triangle would look like this:

From Wandering Journey of Faith

Notice the length of the line between Person A and Person B. The distance between them grew noticeably longer. (Or it should have if I had any drawing skills.) This greater distance can be very obvious in some instances but not so obvious in others. We also do not usually see dramatic quick changes in relationships like we do between the first and second drawings. It usually happens over a long period of time.

Now this is not to say that you cannot have two people grow closer together without growing closer to God as in the following example:

From Wandering Journey of Faith

It is entirely possible. It is also possible for two people to grow closer to God without actually growing closer together.

What I am saying is that it is very difficult maybe even near impossible for one person to grow closer to God and to another person without that other person growing closer to God at the same time. As a matter of fact we see the Bible warning against these types of things.

Paul warns in 2 Corinthians 6:14 about the imbalance found in relationships between believers and unbelievers. And the beginning of Proverbs does so as well albeit in more graphic terms. (I don't know that any of my non-Christian friends have recently said: "Let us lie in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without reason.") The problem is that we will aways be separated by one major thing: our allegiance to God. It doesn't mean that we cannot have good relationships with non-Christians. We just need to look at the life of Jesus for an example.

Rather when our relationships with other Christians start to grow distant and our relationships with non-Christians start to grow closer we need to examine our relationship with God. These changes in relationship probably have more to do with our own relationship with God than anything else.