In the Middle

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

    Maybe you’ve heard this one. Stop me if you have.

     Two brothers came and presented themselves to the Lord. Each had an offering. The younger brother and his offering were regarded well by the Lord. For the older brother and his offering the Lord had no regard. The older brother got all honked off and his face fell. “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?” the Lord asked him. He gave no answer, but went to his brother to ask a few questions of his own.

    “Why did the Lord have regard for you and not me?”

    “I don’t know exactly,” the younger brother replied.

    “Well, how did you know what to take as an offering?”

    “It was the best I had,” little brother beamed, “I was hoping he’d like it… and he did!”

    “You know, that sounds like a great idea. I’ll go to the Lord again. Oh, and thanks!”

    So the older brother, his face lifting, gathered up the best of his goods and gladly offered it to the Lord, who regarded him well. On returning, he stopped by his brother’s place and suggested they throw a big party with all that was left.

     Good thing you didn’t stop me. You haven’t heard this one. It was the biblical account of Cain and Abel from Genesis 4 – until it wasn’t. It became a great and haunting What If? What if Cain hadn’t done what he actually did? In Cain’s case, what does it matter now? It doesn’t, but if we’re willing to take more than a passing glance at Cain-ish tendencies in ourselves, we would do well to study and learn from what really did happen.

     Earlier this week there was yet another mass shooting in a school. Experts are trying now to piece together the motive of the shooter, who died in a firefight with police. Motive – what an odd riddle. Is there an answer to it? Yes, but not the one we want to hear.

     Take a look. What letter lies smack in the middle of sin? The i in sin has the ability, left to its own devices, to rationalize anything. It’s only a matter of scale. One rationalization builds on the one before. A firecracker slight draws a bazooka response because i is driving the stampede along.

     Cain, firstborn of the original sinners, murdered his brother Abel. In the seventh generation after, Cain’s descendant Lamech became the second murderer. Of all the words Lamech may or may not have said, these are the only ones history records:

    Lamech said to his wives:

    “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
        you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
    I have killed a man for wounding me,
        a young man for striking me.
    If Cain's revenge is sevenfold,
        then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold” (Genesis 4:23-24).

    Count them up, the occurrences of “me” and “my”; note the arrogance of “listen to what I say,” the audacity of referring to himself twice in the third-person. Did I mention that Lamech was the first polygamist, as far as we know? Reckon it was his idea. What a sorry account: for seven generations, the i in the middle of sin had gone unchecked. Lamech killed a young man for simply striking him. A sorry account indeed, and yet…

     Today, this very day, you and I will do something self-centered – just like Cain, just like Lamech, just like the shooter in Nashville. It’s only a matter of scale.

     Take another look. What letter rests at the center of faith? Cradled, we find the same i.  Swaddled in letters more prominent, set in quiet spaces, i doesn’t even say its name.

     By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks (Hebrews 11:4).

     Will we listen? Will we get the heck out of our own heads? Will we, as Cain might have done, look to his brother’s faith – that unassuming and unexplainable faith by which Abel simply hoped to be blessed in God’s presence? Better still, let’s look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Though Abel never met Jesus in this walk-around world, he greeted him from afar (Hebrews 11:13). It’s the only escape from our own craniums.

     Someone, lamenting the heartbreaking loss in Nashville, will ask, “How did we get here?!” Answer: the same way we always have. Except in our day, the crush toward self-centeredness is almost irresistible. Forces combine, within and without, to make selfishness nearly the only option. The i in the middle of sin, poking its head up, will deliver the only valid manifesto. Almost. Nearly. But not really. “And if you do not do well,” the Lord said to Cain, “sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7). He wouldn’t have said “you must” if you couldn’t possibly.

     Keeping i on a short leash is key, recognizing the wild potential of self to hurt others in a hurry. In the garden of Eden, the first Adam chose his own way. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the last Adam said, “not my” – “yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42), and became a life-giving spirit (1Corinthians 15:45). Given the separate outcomes recorded in history, ours is to choose the way that brought about redemption.

     The old-timers position the believer standing with Christ to one side and sin to the other. Sin doesn’t go away, but the more resolutely the believer turns to Jesus, the less influence sin has. In his novel East of Eden, author John Steinbeck sets us wondering about the “you must” spoken by the Lord to Cain, rendered from the original Hebrew, timshel. Scholars are called in, who, after much deliberation, translate it “thou mayest.” If you’ll accept my homier rendition: “This won’t be what you want, and you won’t pull it off all the time, but you can.” Looking to Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, according to the will of the Father, ruling over sin is entirely possible.

     So now we’ve heard it, and it must not be unheard.

 Grace and Peace (in all the bright possibilities),

 

John

Come

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     Every book you’ve ever read, or not read, on the topic of prayer can be summed up in three words. Every publication, podcast, and coffee conversation – if it had anything at all to do with approaching the throne of grace to find help for yourself or someone else – can be distilled into a trio of first-grade sight words:

     “Come to me.”

     It makes me groan to see a shelf full of paperbacks, minimum 200 pages each, competing for allegiance to a very particular form and pattern of prayer. “You gotta say this!” “No, you gotta say that!” I groan even more when I picture us standing before such a shelf, feeling the onset of paralysis-by-analysis, afraid of doing prayer the wrong way.

     “Come to me.”  

     If there’s one passage of Scripture that is covering and congealing everything we’re doing as a church in these days… well, here it is:

    “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus speaking).

     Yes, there are different forms of prayer. First Timothy lists a few: First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people (2:1). But read on: For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (verse 5).

     “Come to me.”

     Yes, we just heard a rousing sermon – and solid, too – on how to pray for one another, followed by a prayer practicum Sunday night. By all means, preach! By all means, practice! But all of it is going nowhere unless we first accept the invitation Jesus extends.

 “Come to me.”

     Lest I stand convicted of writing the first several pages of my own 200-page book, I will finish making this one point and forthwith shut up. Three one-syllable words, eight letters total – in the mind’s eye and the heart’s understanding, we don’t even need the punctuation. Only hear his voice…

     “Come to me.”  

 

 Grace and Peace (on your way there),

 

John

Overcome Evil

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     What’s your plan for overcoming evil? Uh-oh, did you start the day without such a plan?

 So did I.

     In keeping with the pattern of this “Equip” series of letters, I’ll present, from the second half of Romans 12, this week’s biblical mandate in four words or less:

…overcome evil (Romans 12:21).

     When my older grandson was still very young, he jumped unexpectedly into an adult conversation around the dinner table one evening. The three generations ahead of him were fussing over some global issue gone sideways when he interjected, “There’s only one way to fix this.” Forks were suspended, and puzzled looks cast his direction. “Air strike,” he said, and went about eating his dinner. The rest of us wondered what we had done to paint the conversation into such a corner, until the realization dawned on us: we hadn’t yet applied the wisdom of Scripture to the problem.

     “Overcome evil” could be a stand-alone sentence. With the implied “you” for a subject, “overcome” for the verb, and “evil” for the object, it easily qualifies: “Hey, you! Do this to that!” The instruction is active – imperative, even. This must be done. But without further instruction, the conscientious hearer is left with a boatload of legitimate questions. Overcome evil? By what means? Where do I start? What’s my timeline? What happens if I don’t?

     Far be it from our Father to leave us without sufficient instruction. In just one sentence, he meets the most pressing questions:

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (the rest of Romans 12:21).

     What happens if I don’t overcome evil? I’ll be overcome by it. Scary proposition, no? But remember: God doesn’t do unfunded mandates – if he says something must be done, there must be a way to do it. To be overcome is passive; something else, in this case evil, is active and dominant. To this scenario, the Father says, “Do not.” The active role just switched.

     By what means, then, shall I overcome evil? Well, I’ll admit, at times an air strike is mighty tempting. But in practical terms, A WalMart drone and a water balloon may be the best I can manage. I’d say your prospects aren’t much better. Besides, God says the perfect tool for overcoming evil is good. That’s gotta be solid divine inspiration, because none of us would have come up with it on our own.

     Speaking of air strikes, I’ve heard that it costs about $400,000 to shoot a high-flying object out of the sky – and that’s just for the missile itself. If we obey the Word and good is our weapon of choice in overcoming evil, then we may reasonably ask how deep this resource is, how much it costs, and how often we may launch it. In other words, we’re dealing now with some of our other legitimate questions, such as Where do I start? and What’s my timeline? Answers to these are found in the rest of the paragraph we’ve been considering in Romans.

     There’s no place to start but here. Without the divine attribute of omnipresence, you and I will be in precisely one place at any given time. A quick survey of Romans 12:9-21 reveals a startling pattern: every instruction therein makes a way for manifestation that is entirely local – it gets done or doesn’t, right-the-heck here. There’s no provision for going “out there” somewhere to make “somebody else” straighten up and fly right. And that is exactly as it should be. God is with us, everywhere.

     There’s no time to start but now. Funny thing about time: it doesn’t rewind. To “go back” and make amends is actually to move forward in repentance and reconciliation. There’s no bad time for love to be genuine. And again, a defining feature of all the instructions in our study passage is their immediacy – some are even proactive: seek to show hospitality (verse 13). To push off overcoming evil until sometime later is to clock out altogether. As descendants of Adam, we live with the same reality as his firstborn, Cain: “…sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7, God speaking). How immediate is that?

     Oh, but how much does it cost? (Now there’s a deadly question.) Evil has the upper hand, the better strategic position. It’ll take more good than I have on hand to knock it down. What if I run out of funds? Overcoming evil is no small engagement – by comparison, the half-million-dollar air strike seems quite the bargain. To answer the question – or more precisely, to blow it to smithereens – consider an old story about the billionaire J. Paul Getty. Lounging on his yacht, a friend asked, “How much does something like this cost?” Getty’s reply: “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.” In overcoming evil, considering the cost is the most disabling consideration of all.

     Jesus paid the account full-up for all time: Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you (John 15:13-14). We simply make withdrawals, as need arises in the moment.

     Now that we have a plan, do not be overcome by evil, dear Church. Meditating on Romans 12 might give us the notion that the first adversary to engage is the tendency in ourselves to do precisely the opposite of what the passage compels. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord (verse 11) might be the best way to break out of passivity and gain the high ground. Overcome evil with good, dear Church. Like overcoming hunger with food or fire with water, it makes total sense, once we’ve abandoned the tactics that have done us no good ever before.

     “Air strike” has become an inside joke around my table, and came up in a subject lately. As soon as my grandson looked my way and grinned, I knew it was coming. But now, it reminds us to not let evil have its way. Instead, we do our Jesus-powered level best to apply good for evil’s demise.

     And the cool part? Evil never sees it coming.

 Grace and Peace (to overcome),

 

John                 

So Far

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     

Lately, I heard a friend say, “There’s power in simplicity.” I’m trusting he’s right, and that his words are even somewhat prophetic. In this “Equip” series of letters, I’ve selected simple instruction from Scripture – no more than four words at a time – from the second half of the twelfth chapter of Romans. In keeping with the pattern, here comes the next installment:

 …live peaceably with all (Romans 12:18).

     Have you stopped blinking yet? Have you returned from the various byways your mind just traveled, considering certain relationships and how unlikely it is that they’ll ever come into a peaceable state? If you need a moment, the rest of us will wait.

     There’s an unfair thing we preachers do. We ask, “What does ‘all’ mean, Church?” And you’re expected to respond, “All!” as if “all” always refers to all times, all places, all examples, and all circumstances. Sometimes it does… but not all the time. When God breathed out the words we know as Romans 12 in the Bible, he knew we would need better instruction than what the preachers give, in and of themselves. Let’s get some context:

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all (verses 16-18).  

     One thing is certain: if we, the people of God, diligently live in harmony with one another, turn away from haughtiness, and do what is honorable, we will for daggone-sure live peaceably with more than we are at the moment. It’s appealing. It triggers a snowball effect. Will it appeal to everyone all the time? No. Some might even be resentful. But remember: Repay no one evil for evil. Best of all, the Father, in his infinite wisdom, gives us the proper framework and scale: so far as it depends on us. We do what we’re able to do – in the power of the Holy Spirit.

     Yes, there is power in simplicity, when simple is applied correctly. So we really ought to face a simple fact about simplicity: simple doesn’t do global. Global is automatically not simple. God does global and universal; the rest of us are outta luck. With the world’s population having surpassed eight billion, there are potentially that many different opinions on how to solve the same problem, each of them declared simple by its lone proponent. As I’ve written before, life is lived in this walk-around world pretty much within arm’s length. Our points-of-engagement are to be found on the patch-of-earth the Lord of heaven and earth gives us to tread. And simple is drained of power whenever we try to launch it out there much beyond line-of-sight.

     Sometime today, you and I will be given at least one (maybe several) opportunities to live in harmony – or not. To associate with the lowly – or not. To do what is honorable – well, I think we have the idea by now. Each of those opportunities will have a face, a name, and a story. There will be nothing stratospheric about these encounters. The fate of our race will not hang in the balance. These are but a part of the “all” – in particular, the part we are expected (and equipped) to live peaceably with. “So far” is a well defined territory when you think about it, excluding only the reactions of others to our sincere and Holy Spirit-guided efforts at living peaceably.

     Scripture is many things, among which it is altogether practical. If present your bodies as a living sacrifice is a little out of reach intellectually, keep looking. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep (12:15) brings it much closer to the bone, and opens a way to set mind and body and soul and spirit working together. By being alert to the rejoicing and the weeping, we make a way for Scripture to be worked out in the here and now. Let no one convince you Scripture isn’t practical.

     One last thing we’ll have to come to terms with, one more attribute of simple we’ll have to accept as fact: simple is rarely fastest. Simple is powerful, effective, and sustainable; simple is the best tool for overcoming inertia and starting movement in the right direction. But the work is somewhat glacial, and requires careful measurement to see progress over time. It’ll be OK, according to God’s promise: Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand (Proverbs 19:21). No reasonable person would stand barehanded in front of a glacier, declaring, “That’s as far as you go, buddy!”

     It’s a long game, living peaceably. Just about anybody can pull off absence-of-conflict for ten seconds, or a tenuous cease-fire for a minute or two. Peace is proven over time. If my friend’s words carry any prophetic value, we might not know for a while – we’ll simply have to wait for the benefits of simplicity to come back around.

 Grace and Peace (received, then conveyed),

 

John

 

 

 

  

Asbury Thoughts

 

For all of us who weren't able to be on the campus of Asbury University -- maybe also for those who were -- I've asked my daughter, Shena Ashcraft, to give her eyewitness account. Enjoy!

Glory to God,

John

    Mama taught me to cook. And while I’ll never don the apron of perfection as she does, I have learned a thing or two. Ingredients and flavors and temperature all matter. But Mama taught me the stirring matters too. I know brownie batter likes to be mixed with as few strokes as possible. Frantically whisking cream into a roux is the best way of turning out a smooth gravy. And meatloaf, it can’t be stirred. It must be mushed. Blend and beat. Whisk and mix. It’s when the ingredients are rightly stirred up that a recipe really begins to take shape.

    Cooks or not, the author of Hebrews prompts Christians to do some stirring (as translated in the English Standard Version).

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)

    The instruction to consider how to stir up one another is given to a Hebrew audience—the ones who for centuries had followed the law and repeatedly, endlessly, year after year made sacrifices for their sins. But in the verses ahead of 10:24-25, Christ came and said to God, the Father, “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offering and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am – it is written about me in the scroll – I have come to do your will, my God.’” The will of God that Jesus desired to do was that we would be “made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (verse 10).

    In establishing that new covenant, we now have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus. We get to draw near to God with a sincere heart. We get to hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

    In the days following February 8, the students at Asbury University delivered an incredible invitation to the Church—Join us…in repentance, in worship, in a longing for more of God. The world began talking about the students’ worship. As videos and reports swirled the internet, I was first curious. Then I was compelled to join the students in repentance, to meet together with them and worship the Lord who is the sacrifice once for all. So I went.

    On February 20th, I stood in line in Wilmore, Kentucky for nearly five hours. Alongside thousands of Christians from around the world, I worshiped on the lawn of Asbury University. We talked and prayed and sang. We marveled at the ones who’d come from Venezuela, Brazil, and Ecuador. We were moved by the family who sold their car to come and see what the Lord was up to in Kentucky. And in God’s goodness, we were admitted into Hughes Auditorium where we joined the generations making music and singing Scripture to God. And in the front kneeled about thirty young people ready to receive and pray for anyone who came. Thank you, Lord, for hearing the prayers of your children.

    As the last hour of the last public day of worshiping with the Asbury University students was closing, a woman with a grateful heart came to give instructions for our exit. She began, “God is good, isn’t he? I’m going to…” But the response to her rhetorical question, isn’t God good?, began to crescendo. It went from a low hum of agreement to verbal acknowledgments, “Yes! All the time!” to shouts of “Hallelujah!” and “Jesus saves!” Clapping and shouting and crying and singing erupted throughout the room. And for several minutes it showed no signs of stopping. Lady-with-the-instructions was forgotten and God’s goodness was being proclaimed.

    God is good, isn’t he? If she asked me the same question in a place where I hadn’t come to meet together with other believers, I would have smiled and quietly said, “Yes. So good.” Perhaps I would have even shared how I’d seen his goodness earlier in the day. God is good to me, and to my family, and to my church. But in that room full of God’s people, full of the Church, each cry was a testimony: God is the Sacrifice for all.

    My heart began to imagine and fold in all the ways God had been good to the people behind the voices. Maybe God soothed that woman’s self-doubt. Perhaps he had restored that family’s relationship. Had God offered freedom? Answered prayers? Alleviated addictions? These praises and proclamations began to stir together. Could it be that we were no longer celebrating God’s goodness in our individual lives, but were now pouring out gratitude for the way he had worked in the lives of the sisters and brothers around us? My voice caught. I let out a short sob, then joined the jubilee.

    This. This is what I came and saw: Christ is the Savior of the WORLD! Jesus Christ is the Sacrifice for his Church. Once for all.

    And the testimonies whirling through the Hall, stirred me up to love him more.

    And when I gather with you, Church, I feel the same.

Grace and peace (and a mighty stirring),

Shena