Black Lives Matter

Yesterday hundreds of people peacefully assembled in Mansfield to protest the senseless killing of George Floyd.  Some held signs, some shouted slogans such as “I can’t breath”, while others gathered in groups to kneel and pray. 

As I looked around me, I was filled with emotions.  I hurt with those that were hurting.  I had to fight back tears over the tears I saw.  My soul longed for a day when such protest won’t be necessary. 

As I looked around me, the bell tower from a nearby church started playing a hymn. 

     I come to the garden alone

     While the dew is still on the roses,
     And the voice I hear falling on my ear,
     The Son of God discloses

     And He walks with me and He talks with me,
     And He tells me I am his own;
     And the joy we share as we tarry there,

     None other has ever known

As the father of 5 sons, I have had to deal with a lot of concerns over the years.  At times I haven’t known how we were going to pay our next rent, or how we are going to afford to buy food.  I’ve had sick boys, and expensive hospital bills.  At one point, we went for more than half a year without a vehicle that could carry our family.  These concerns were real.  They are no respecter of persons in that anyone can experience these problems. 

As a white man there are questions I don’t have to ask myself on a daily basis, that others do.  Will my sons be unfairly treated due to the color of their skin?  Will they be targeted by law enforcement, such as being pulled over for driving while black?  If they choose to go to college, or get a promotion at work, will people look at them and question if they only got where they are due to their skin color? 

This does not mean that all families of color will deal with all the same concerns I and other whites have dealt with.  Some may be affluent and not have the financial concerns, but still will have to deal with concerns over their children being targeted because of the shade of their skin.

As a young man, I could go just about anywhere day or night and I didn’t have to worry that my presence along would be considered a threat.  I could jog (who am I kidding, I never ran unless I had to) without my parents worrying they would receive a phone call that I had been shot ruthlessly by men for the only crime of jogging while black.  I could go and buy Skittles without having to worry about being perceived as “up to no good” just for “walking around, looking about”, and then shot even after the 911 dispatcher told the shooter to back off.  I feel confident that my sons are likely to have the same liberties that I had, as they grow up.  Liberties that their POC peers may not be granted.

At the Black Lives Matter protest I observed young and old, blacks and whites, peacefully raising their voices together as if to say enough is enough.  I saw senior citizens and young children.  All wanting a better world for themselves, their children, their grandchildren, or maybe just for the youth in their neighborhood.

It is so tempting to say not my fight, hug my boys and blame all ill that falls on others as something they must have brought upon themselves.  But while it is tempting, I am reminded of the final stanza of the hymn that chimed out as noon struck during the protest.

     I stay in the garden with Him,

     Though the night around me is falling.

     But He bids me go; through the voice of woe

     His voice to me is calling.

It would be easier to go to a protest saying it is my biblical right to refuse to wear a face mask, or go to a protest that says that being told we cannot meet in a building on a Sunday morning is a violation of the command to “not forsake assembling together” (which, by the way, it isn’t).  We could cry persecution when Hobby Lobby or Chic-Fil-A are told they aren’t welcome.  All of those are much more self-centered and easier than stepping out of our comfort zone to stand with our friends and neighbors and other POCs who are often denied the liberties we take for granted.

But He bids me go.  While I may prefer to stay in the garden with Him, He wants me to go and be His hands and feet in this world.  Jesus said that the greatest commandments are to love God and love my neighbor.  The Apostle John says we cannot say we love God if we don’t love our neighbor.  So I will stand with my neighbors of color.  I will cry with them.  I will demand that the injustices lobbied against them stop.  I will use the voice I have, as a person of privilege, to tell my fellow whites to stop blaming the blacks for all the troubles that befall them, when you haven’t taken the time to listen to them and understand why some reach the point of rioting.  I will say that history has led us to where we are, and until we acknowledge our own sins and the sins of our ancestors, it is disingenuous to pick the speck out of the eyes of the POC’s around us.

Get angry.  Call me out.  I can handle that.  But, take the time to listen to the cries and hurts of our neighbors who are not listened to by those of us in white America.  Just as my young boys at times will act out to get my attention, maybe just maybe people acting out through rioting is the only way we will listen to them.  Yes, it may be necessary to deal with the actions (rioting) but if we only focus on the action and not the underlying reason that led them to that point, we have missed the whole point.

I stand with those around me and will say, unashamedly, black lives matter.  And until our society acts in such a way that makes that statement true, the whole society around us is a house of cards and false promises.  When black men aren’t granted life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness the same way I am, then we have a problem, one that all of us need to work together to remedy.

Was Jesus OK With Adultery?

A few years ago I came across a video clip of the late singer/songwriter Rich Mullins.  In the clip, Mullins said that the Bible says ye must be born again, which is true.  Jesus made the statement to one individual, and yet we believe it to be universally true.  But Jesus also told one individual to sell all of his possessions and give the money to the poor, and we disregard that teaching.  Jesus did say both of these things, yet one is taken as being of utmost importance and the other is dismissed as a one-off.

At times we disregard Jesus’ direct teachings, such as turn the other cheek and the responsibility we have to care for the poor, but at other times we take Jesus’ lack of words to mean something. 

After years of studying the gospels, I had a change in thought and belief regarding Christians and the use of violence.  I believe Jesus, as well as the rest of the New Testament, teach the ethic of non-violence, non-retaliation, and that followers of Jesus should not use physical force as a offensive or defensive weapon in this world.  Most American Christians I’ve encountered disagree with my understanding of this subject. 

One of the most common responses I’ve been given is that Jesus’ encounter with the centurion.

Matthew 8:5-13

…when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, ⁶ and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.” ⁷ Jesus *said to him, “I will come and heal him.” ⁸ But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” ¹⁰ Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. ¹¹ I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; ¹² but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” ¹³ And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed that very moment.

As the argument goes, if being in the military and using force was against the ethic Jesus was promoting, why didn’t Jesus use this encounter to tell him to stop?  After all, Jesus had the opportunity, and since He didn’t, the assertion is made that Jesus was giving silent endorsement of his military career. 

What if we were to use the same logic, or hermeneutic when it comes to other encounters Jesus had in the New Testament?

John 4:7-30, 39-41

⁷ There *came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus *said to her, “Give Me a drink.” ⁸ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. ⁹ Therefore the Samaritan woman *said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” ¹¹ She *said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? ¹² You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” ¹³ Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman *said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” ¹⁶ He *said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” ¹⁷ The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus *said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” ¹⁹ The woman *said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” ²¹ Jesus *said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman *said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” ²⁶ Jesus *said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

²⁷ At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?” ²⁸ So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and *said to the men, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” ³⁰ They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.

…

³⁹ From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. ⁴¹ Many more believed because of His word; ⁴² and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.”

From the passage we see that Jesus acknowledges that the woman He encounters is living with a man whom she is not married to.  Jesus even says this to the woman.  However, Jesus doesn’t tell her to stop sleeping with her man.  If we were to follow the same logic used by those arguing Jesus’ lack of admonishment regarding the centurion is His condoning of his actions, then a parallel argument can be made that Jesus wasn’t opposed to her continuing to sleep with this guy.

But, but, but, some will say, Jesus spoke out against adultery and fornication elsewhere.  So, they will continue, it is illogical to say that He was endorsing this woman’s sinful behavior.  Ok.  But Jesus also spoke against the use of violence and force elsewhere, and yet those passages seem to be dismissed because individuals view the centurion story as a silver bullet.

May I suggest a different way to view these stories, by adding a third story into the mix?

Luke 19:1-10

He entered Jericho and was passing through. ² And there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich. ³ Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. ⁴ So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. ⁵ When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” ⁶ And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly. ⁷ When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” ⁸ Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.” ⁹ And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰ For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Nowhere in this story are we told that Jesus told Zaccheus that his actions were wrong.  Yet, after encountering Jesus, the man was changed.  The purpose of the story isn’t that Jesus gave him a list of corrective measures needed to fix his mistakes, but rather that being accepted and loved by Jesus changed Zaccheus and the change is evidenced by his actions.

I believe the same is true about the woman at the well.  Her evangelistic zeal shows that her encounter with Jesus affected her.  Things were different after she encountered Jesus.  That’s the purpose of the story.

And as for the centurion, the purpose of the story isn’t meant to be a commentary on his military position.  The purpose of the story is to show that he was powerless to do what he desired to happen, his faith drew him to Jesus, and Jesus acknowledged his faith by healing his servant.  That’s the purpose of the story.

When we read the Bible, we should be asking ourselves what is the purpose for this being included?  If we find ourselves extrapolating things that vary from the overall purpose of the story, then we need to make sure we aren’t injecting our own beliefs and thoughts into our interpretation of the text. 

Paul, Patron Saint of American Christians?

Over the nearly 25 years that I have been trying to follow Jesus, I have taken great comfort in the portrayal of the heroes of the faith recorded for us in the Bible.  If I were inventing a religion, I would use the power of the editing floor to soften or eliminate the less than desirable attitudes and actions of those who are being used to help build up and spread the faith.  My version of David, for example, may emphasize the giant killer, sensitive songwriter, and highlight his given description as a man after God’s own heart.  The voyeurism, adultery, murder and lousy parenting probably would not been included, unless they were to show how bad he was before God changed him.

There are some individuals in the Bible we readily acknowledge their flaws and failures, and yet still acknowledge their contributions to advancing God’s work on earth.  Peter may be one of the prime examples of this sort of individual.

On the flipside, there are others that their flaws are often overlooked, or even admired, which may lead to warped thinking in today’s world.

Real quick, tell me one of the Apostle Paul’s flaws after his Damascus Road experience?  Did you think of any? 

I’ve been thinking about a flaw of Paul’s that seems commonplace in today’s western church.  Starting in Acts 21 we see that Paul didn’t listen to Spirit led council, relied upon his own understanding/gut and demanded his rights as a citizen of Rome. 

Acts 21:4, 7-14

After looking up the disciples, we stayed there seven days; and they kept telling Paul through the Spirit not to set foot in Jerusalem.

…

⁷ When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais, and after greeting the brethren, we stayed with them for a day. ⁸ On the next day we left and came to Caesarea, and entering the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, we stayed with him. ⁹ Now this man had four virgin daughters who were prophetesses. ¹⁰ As we were staying there for some days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. ¹¹ And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands, and said, “This is what the Holy Spirit says: ‘In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’” ¹² When we had heard this, we as well as the local residents began begging him not to go up to Jerusalem. ¹³ Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” ¹⁴ And since he would not be persuaded, we fell silent, remarking, “The will of the Lord be done!”

Paul doesn’t explain why he felt compelled to go to Jerusalem.  He doesn’t say that the Spirit led him to do so, or not.  However, this passage tells us that several godly individuals, controlled by the Spirit, were telling him not to go.  The passage says that those discouraging Paul were telling him “through the Spirit not to set foot in Jerusalem” (vs. 4), as well as warning him of “what the Holy Sprit says” that if he went, he’d be bound and turned over to the Gentiles.  And yet, in spite of their warnings and those of the disciples and towns people not to go, Paul insisted that he was ready to face arrest and even death in Jerusalem. 

One part of me admires Paul’s willingness to pay the ultimate price for the cause of Jesus.  But another part of me wonders if his ministry and mission was cut short by following his own path, and not listening to the message the Holy Spirit was sending his way through many Spirit filled individuals.  In the end, those seeking to warn Paul were unsuccessful, and Paul proceeded with his plan of going to Jerusalem.

Once in Jerusalem, the Jews seized Paul wanting to kill him (25:30).  The Romans came to his aid, sparing him from a beating that may have led to Paul’s death.  The Roman commander eventually orders him “examined by scourging” (25:24). Paul, literally being prepared for a beating, pulls the citizen trump card:  “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned?” (25:25).  The same Paul who told those trying to warn him “I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem…” (21:14), the same Paul that told the church at Phillipi “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phillippians 1:2), demanded his rights when push came to shove.  Scholars debate when Philippians was written, which means Paul may have written them while in prison or before his arrest and appeal to Rome.

How does this compare to Jesus and the other Apostles when they were arrested? 

When Pilot and others questioned Jesus, how did Jesus respond?   ^“And while He was being accused by the chief priests and elders, He did not answer. ¹³ Then Pilate *said to Him, “Do You not hear how many things they testify against You?” ¹⁴ And He did not answer him with regard to even a single charge, so the governor was quite amazed.” (Matthew 27:12-14 see also Luke 23 where Jesus did not answer Herod when questioned).  Granted, in the case of Jesus, a case can be made that He did this to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth.  Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). 

But, what about Paul’s fellow Apostles?  What about the early church leaders?  We are told that when Peter and the apostles were arrested and jailed, they stood boldly saying that ultimately they were not bound by human authority that was trying to sway them from obeying the Holy Spirit’s leading.  Peter and the others responded to orders from the governing authorities “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).  We are told these Apostles, arrested, jailed, questioned, flogged, and so forth, after all was said and done, they were “rejoicing” that they “had been considered worthy to suffer for the shame of (Jesus’) name” (5:41).  Not too long after, when another early church leader was being oppressed, Stephen, whom we are told was “full of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:55), willingly accepted the wrath of man against him, and even prayed that God not hold the atrocities being committed against him against his attackers (7:60).  Stephen’s martyrdom took place in the presence of Paul, named Saul at the time (7:58). 

Paul seems to be the exception when it comes to the early church in regards to imprisonment and or death for obedience to God.  While others were remaining silent or rejoicing at being found worthy to suffer or praying for their attackers, Paul wasted no time in claiming his earthly citizenship when it was expedient.

Maybe my assertion here is unfair.  Maybe it was God’s will for Paul to claim his Roman citizenship for a greater purpose.  I struggle to see this in light of all the Holy Spirit filled people prophesying to Paul not to go to Jerusalem.  But I acknowledge that I may be wrong.

What I find interesting is that Paul’s call for his rights to be honored is something I see repeatedly in many members of the American church, sometimes over things that ultimately are not of eternal importance.  Yet, the cry of the other Apostles that they rejoiced to be found worthy to be persecuted for following Jesus, is downplayed.  I see Paul’s accusation against his would be floggers to be more in line with American Christianity today than Stephens begging God with his final breaths to not hold his murders’ sins against them.

As we consider our testimony and witness in our society today, will we live out our faith in a way that points people toward Jesus?  When difficult times come, as we are told they will (2 Timothy 3:12), will we demand our rights or will we praise God that we were found worthy of suffering for the name and cause of Jesus Christ?