Barney Wiget's Blog, page 39

How God Makes Friends

While Peter did his Lancelot imitation on a man he perceived as a threat, Jesus saw him as a man in need. Being more concerned about Malchus’ welfare than his own, Jesus reached out and made him well––evangelism the Jesus way.

Jesus’ “enemy love” is always a better apologetic than the sword-swinging aggression of Peter. Compassionate service wields a power to affect people in ways that argumentative tactics never can. Jesus delayed his arrest to heal an enemy and later put a pause on dying in order to welcome a thief into his kingdom! That’s how God makes friends.

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

“Put your sword back in its place!”

Since we Christians are more often identified by what we hate than by how we love, it’s not entirely shocking that terms like: “Christian, Church, and Evangelical” in the pre-christian’s lexicon are pejoratives. We’ve made it quite clear what we are against but we haven’t shown them what we’re for. Jesus wasn’t identified as “that sin-hater.” When he asked his disciples what people thought of him, Peter didn’t say: “Some think you’re against the Romans, others think you hate the Samaritans, others think you can’t stand gays!”

Our rallying call is never to be “Man your battle stations!” Dan Kimball asks, “When you are studying apologetics, does your heart break in compassion for the people you are preparing to talk to? Or are you stockpiling ammunition to show them that they’re wrong?”

Though sometimes we have to debate the truth and even don the prophet’s robe, but when we do, we must leave our sword at home. “No more of this!” Jesus scolded Peter. “Put the sword back in its place.”

Calamitous evangelistic strategies notwithstanding, how might we proceed to persuade people in the general direction of our Friend?

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Simplicity and Stuff (Part 1)

From where I sit, a lot of supposed disciples of the vagabond, homeless preacher named Jesus have confused their net worth with their self worth.

This 12-minute audio podcast is Part 1 of 3 episodes on Simplicity and Stuff. You can find a blog post on this topic here.

Our Religion Can Beat Up Your Religion!

It starts when they pull out the clobber questions. “How could Jesus be the only way? What’s up with you Christians and gays? How do you explain the crusades?” We can’t seem to let those go unanswered and we pull out our best rebuttals. Block the left jab and respond with a right cross. “Our Religion Can Beat Up Your Religion!” isn’t the best header for your church sign.

Argumentative mode usually does more harm than good. We might just be derailing them rather than putting them on the right track that leads to Jesus. Plus, just when we think we’ve locked the argument down with our bullet-point logic, someone comes along with more logical points and better debating skills. That’s a lose-lose.

“If evangelism by frontal-assault works,” suggests Jim Henderson, “then let’s all start carrying large signs that say, ‘You are lost. You are bad! Ask me for help!’”

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Help for Trafficking Survivors!

While I was stumbling around in the dark the Spirit secretively stuffed my pockets full of unsuspected blessings. I say “blessings,” yet not necessarily the ilk you might suspect. Not all of God’s blessings feel good. In fact some of them feel downright unpleasant, especially the ones where you feel someone else’s pain in your heart, otherwise known as empathy or compassion. I want compassion, and I do seek it, but I don’t always like it when I get it. Identifying with the hurts of another human means you hurt with them, so I tend to seek other blessings before this one.

Although we could be talking about human suffering in general, the hurt to which I refer in particular is the helplessness and hopelessness that an enslaved human being must feel. As hard as I try, or try not to as the case may be, I can only wonder how an abducted child must feel when the lights go out in their world with no promise of ever turning back on. What would it do to a woman’s psyche to be bought, sold, and raped multiple times a day for years? I make no claim to know, but I do seem to care about them more these days.

As this unsolicited empathy grew inside me I began to feel that I had to find some achievable outlet for it. Some abolitionists do prevention, some are involved in intervention, while others perform aftercare. Soulless traffickers throw human beings into a sewage-filled river to drown in human waste. For mere financial benefit they rent out the bodies of women and children to perverse men, not caring if they live or die. Prevention is upstream justice and intervention is mid-stream justice yanking victims from slavery. Those who do aftercare find comatose souls downstream on the riverbank, perform CPR, and bring them to a safe and therapeutic environment. Even after victims escape the sewer, the stench of it remains in their smeller. Only the Maker can repair that kind of damage done to his beloved, but he nearly always uses people to help people.

Not to minimize the horrific PTSD our soldiers suffer from when they return from the battlefield, but at least they signed up for combat. Trafficked individuals are victims of force, fraud, or coercion. Empowering survivors in their journey of moving out of their past trauma to a future of independence and self-sufficiency requires a live-in holistic approach. One such ministry in our Bay Area is called Freedom House.

– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway (the profits of which go to Freedom House).

“Destiny” Doesn’t Do It For Me

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If I never hear another sermon on “Divine Destiny” it’ll be too soon!

Prepared For Destiny, Destiny By Choice, Five Destiny Killers, Three Steps to Obtaining Your Destiny, Fight For Your Destiny…

Too many Christians spend too much time, too much energy, and too much money trying to discover their destiny. They’re more rapt to find their destiny than intent on knowing God and doing his will. The former is abstract, the latter practical.

It’s not so much a theological objection to a Calvinistic view of a fixed future that I’m talking about here. I have some serious objections to that system of theological reflection, but we could debate that another day.

Aside from the ostentatious sound of the word “Destiny!”, I have a problem with how it is commonly framed in super-faith sermons. You know the kind, the ones preached to rally the troops dosed with spiritual meth: “You have an awesome destiny, one with of plenty and power and productivity! Live into your destiny!”

I get it. Really I do. We all need a sense of divinely ordained future; nevertheless “destiny” just doesn’t do it for me. Not only is it too glitzy for my taste, it’s not exactly biblical, at least not in the sense that it’s typically employed by mega-crowd preachers, the sort that Thomas Merton calls, “Preachers of sunshine and uplift!”

If you search the term on your Bible App you might want to brace yourself for some disappointment. It isn’t used the way the guy in the $10,000 suit uses it. I’m not trying to be a downer here, but I think it’s as important to know what God hasn’t prescribed as it is to know what he has.

“Destiny” appears in the NIV Bible ten times, and in no case does it refer to the spectacular future you hear about in Discover Your Destiny conferences. Each time it speaks of the destiny of the disobedient, the “destination” for those who jump on and stay on the wrong flight!

“Such is the destiny of all who forget God…

“Death is the destiny of everyone…

“Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame.”

Not exactly the pre-game pep-talk you’d expect from Sunday’s sermon on destiny-finding.

The most disturbing selection among them is from Isaiah’s rebuke to his people:

“But as for you who forsake the LORD and forget my holy mountain, who spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny, I will destine you for the sword, and all of you will fall in the slaughter!” (Isaiah 65:11)

Some other versions say:

“You have prepared feasts to honor the god of Fate and have offered mixed wine to the god of Destiny…

“You offer to the gods of luck and fate…

“You have prepared a table for the god of good fortune and offered cups full of spiced wine to the goddess of destiny.”

Apparently in those days, destiny had its own god and goddess!

Though it doesn’t include the term itself, the go-to verse for destiny preachers is Jeremiah 29:11 (“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”)

I know of no verse in the Bible more quoted and more often misused than this one, but I’ll leave you to read my posts on it if you want to take the time.

Okay, if destiny-seeking doesn’t connote a biblical value, what’s the alternative?

I’m partial to terms like “calling” and “purpose.” While they might not be as glamorous as destiny, it’s my opinion that they convey something more in keeping with God’s way and his Word. Of the dozens, if not hundreds of passages on this topic, I call your attention to just one. It comes to us as an excerpt in one of Paul’s prayers for his friends in Thessalonica:

We constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. (2 Thessalonians 1:11)

Allow me to highlight three pieces that stand out to me.

May God make you worthy of his calling…

There’s a general calling to salvation and a personal calling to service. To be “worthy” of either can only be attributed to grace! God’s grace is more than sufficient to forgive our unworthiness and transform us into worthy vessels into whom, and through whom, he pours his love.

“Calling” is a pregnant word, which brings to mind a God who appeals to us, calls out to us––sometimes shouting, sometimes whispering. He invites us into what he’s up to. Could there be anything loftier than being welcomed into God’s grand plan?

“Destiny,” with all its glamour, has the ring of a theoretical path on which God places us and from there we go it alone! Truth is, he’s “calling” us to himself and into an adventure that we experience with him!

Then there’s…

By his power may he fulfill every good purpose of yours…

I’m partial to the word “purpose.” It conveys one of the first things I experienced after getting born again. I realized almost immediately that I was here on purpose. There’s a reason I am on the planet. Not only did I feel clean, but clean for something!

God made me on purpose, saved me on purpose, and calls me into the purposes he conjured in eternity. I still wake up most mornings looking to tap into that grand purpose and how I can live on purpose today.

I would’ve expected Paul to say “every good purpose of God’s,” but he doesn’t. He refers to “every good purpose of yours.” It’s not “our purpose” in the sense that we get to make it up and God will fulfill it. He’s saying that there’s a fellowship with God that is so intimate and our devotion to him so complete that his purpose becomes ours. When our hearts beat in sync with his heart his purpose for us migrates into our souls and becomes literally ours!

You can call it divine “destiny” if you want, but divinely inserted purpose makes more sense to me.

One last thing…

And every act prompted by your faith.

Faith prompts action. The way God leads us to do something is to insert faith in our hearts for it. When I am wondering if God is asking me to join him in some activity I assess whether or not I can see myself, by faith, doing it. It’s faith that “prompts” me to take some particular action. I’m not looking for my destiny, but identifying the faith necessary to do the thing I’m called to do today!

To my mind, Paul’s prayer reflects a process quite different than some airy notion of “living into your destiny.” Granted, destiny has more pizzazz, but for my money, it communicates something at which you arrive and leaves the Spirit out of the equation and removes the day-to-day adventure of walking closely with him in faith.

So rather than spinning your wheels trying to reach your destiny, I encourage you to accept God’s invitation into his purpose for you. Sidle up so near him that you can hear his whisper and the pounding of his heart. If you’ll let your heart begin to beat in sync with his you’ll know how he wants you to live and what he wants you to do.

Then do it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Light at Last!

I said at the beginning that though this is my story it’s not just about me. It’s about all of us and about how all of our stories intersect under the influence of the creative genius of the Writer of his grand narrative. No matter the chapter in which you currently live, the plot he’s developing for you and with you is clearly incomplete. You and he are still writing, rewriting, editing out the unnecessary, and adding in the indispensable.

I hope you glean from my story that whatever darkness we enter with Jesus at our side, someday and in some way he will lead us to the other end of it. If that end doesn’t come sooner – as in this life – rest assured it will arrive later in the next. That’s the difference between a tunnel and a cave. There is, to coin a phrase, light at the end of every tunnel.

– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway (the profits of which go to Freedom House).

Hoping for the End of the Rope

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We try to show God’s love in practical ways and then make an effort to tell people how they can access that love for themselves by reaching up as he reaches down.

The end of the month in the Tenderloin could be compared to the end of one’s rope or the end of someone’s life (many die in that neighborhood of overdoses, cirrhosis, hepatitis, and all manner of other diseases common to the addict and indigent). This is when God usually shows up – at the end – at the end of our plans, the end of our devices, the end of our lives, and eventually, at the end of time. Jesus saved the thief on the cross at the end of his life, the father embraced his prodigal son when he “came to the end of himself,” and God made Jacob into the Prince of his people at the end of his strength after a night of wrestling.

Though their extremity is most obvious at the end of the month we go throughout the month, hoping that they’ll let go of the end of their ropes and that Jesus will catch them and carry them to a place where they don’t have to expend all their strength holding on for dear life.

– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway (the profits of which go to Freedom House).

Get Your “Man Card Re-issued” Here!

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Not again! Another murder spree with semiautomatic weapons in the hands of a crazy person, and in this case a white supremacist crazy person.*

Of course, no one in his or her right mind would be less than outraged by mass shootings proliferating around the world, whatever motive. First and foremost on our mourning minds is the loss of futures of the dead and the unbearable grief of their surviving friends and families. But, again, I will express how impossible it is to accept in a “civilized” world the legality and prevalence of semiautomatic weapons.

The New Zealand shooter used two such killing implements to gun down 49 beloveds, an attack he referred to as “against the invaders,” referring to the Muslim population in New Zealand. Not for nothing, I find this an interesting choice of words. 

The Australian terrorist published a manifesto in which he hailed a certain U.S. president as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” It’s not so good when admitted white supremacists consider you part of their group! Just sayin’

On December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children between six and seven years old, and six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Some of the families of the victims have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Remington gun manufacturer of semiautomatic weapons, including the AR-15.

To be honest, though I am, and have been in favor of banning all assault type rifles and melting them down to make garden tools, my first reaction was less than supportive of the suit. It seemed misplaced and possibly financially motivated. I can’t speak to anyone’s motives, but when I heard that part of their case against the gun company had to do with the ads that they run for the AR.

Check out this ad:

“When you need to perform under pressure, Bushmaster delivers… Ready for Anything. Prepared for Everything.”

What “anything” or “everything” are we talking about here? Elephant stampedes? (Before firearm aficionados object, I know one doesn’t use an AR for elephants. It’s satire. Or is it hyperbole? Either way.) Or maybe it’s the horde of “rapists and criminals pouring through our southern border” that requires all Americans to own AR-15s! (Now that’s satire for sure. Although unfortunately some people actually think this way.)

But seriously, what does one need to be “prepared” for? Those who answer, “I have to protect myself and my family,” read this.

But the vilest ad run by Remington in my opinion is the one shown above, baiting men to prove their manhood by owning a Bushmaster. Get one of these and then you can:

“Consider your man card reissued”!

Are you kidding me? Your “Man card”?! Seriously now, if you need a card to prove you’re a man, you’re not a man to begin with! To say nothing of needing an assault-type rifle to qualify for the card for manhood. Could you, as they say, be compensating for something?

A man who needs an AR rifle to play “I’m A Man” is like the 6-year old boy who runs around with a cape and a big “S” on his chest. The difference is that he knows he’s not from Krypton and can’t really run faster than a speeding bullet.

Remember the old TV ads for cigarettes? The epitome of the manly man was the cowboy Marlboro Man of Marlboro Country on his horse out on the range taking a huge drag from a cig. Men working in offices fantasized being out there with him, not to mention their woman at their side. Boys may be boys, but real men smoke Marlboros!

Mercifully they banned cigarette companies from advertising on TV or radio for public health sake. Yet, now it’s a gun that will make a man of you! It’s not OK to promote cancer sticks that can kill only you (second hand smoke notwithstanding) but OK to promote an AR-15 that can kill a lot of other people, all in the name of proving you’re a real man?

I hope they win the suit!

*I’m aware that there are other factors involved in mass shootings like this recent one in New Zealand. It’s not all about the “gun debate” itself or even just about semiautomatic weapons. Other factors involved include the rise in, or if you prefer, the persistence of violent forms of white nationalism, otherwise known as racism, as was clearly the case of the New Zealand shooting. Also involved is the issue of better gun registration laws so that mentally ill people can’t buy weapons. There’s the Second Amendment debate that needs to be included, focusing on its original intent. One could bring up the role of bug money gun lobbying groups such as the NRA and its bank rolling of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. I address some of those things in other posts, but in this one my main concern is what I consider to be a no-brainer that semiautomatics should be banned in our country as they have been in other countries and used to be here.

Read also: Tired of Waiting for the “Right Time” to Talk About Guns!

Read also: How US gun culture compares with the world in five charts

Ready also:  Advent Declaration on Gun Violence

 

A Lesser Known Way to Defeat Satan

Demons, whose boss is the most conceited being in the world, seem to feed on pride. “Pride,” wrote C.S. Lewis, “is the complete anti-God state of mind.” The devil’s way is the opposite of the way of Jesus, so the best way to defeat the wrong way and advance the right way is to supply what’s lacking in the wrong way with what is provided in the right way!

What I mean is, the enemy creates a vacuum and the Lord counteracts it by filling it. When we display humility, it disarms the spirit of pride and momentarily neutralizes the adversary’s efforts to control people’s hearts and heads. It lifts the spiritual barrier like venetian blinds and lets a little sunshine in.

– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway (the profits of which go to Freedom House).