A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

Okay, so organic food is not new, but “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” a non-fiction book by novelist Barbara Kingsolver, was really eye-opening for me.

Kingsolver tells about the year her family spent eating home- and locally-grown food, rather than supporting the food industry. I was struck by the descriptions of how industrial farming is detrimental to the soil, unhealthy and inhumane to the animals being raised for food as well as the animals that live among the crops, and produces food of inferior taste and nutrition. Furthermore, the process from seed to grocery shelf consumes significant amounts of fossil fuels.

“If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week.”

The impact of the food industry, in striving to make available to everyone any food in any season, illustrates one of my concerns with a capitalist society. We become accustomed to getting whatever we want, whenever we want it, whether it’s good for us or anyone else.

Where are our priorities? Perhaps it’s worth putting more investment in diversified farmers, in teachers, in what truly makes the world a better place. Sacrificing convenience and affordability for quality.

You get what you pay for. You are what you eat.

Does God care how we affect the world and all its creatures? I think so. I’m not saying I’m going organic tomorrow, but it certainly gives me pause.

What would the world be like if we were conscientious stewards of His creation?

On the morning of February 23, 2008, those of us who were privileged to be at PACC heard an excellent address by Sterling Stuckey titled “Paul Robeson: Christianity, Commitment and Radicalism.” Sterling, a retired professor of history (Northwestern and University of California, Riverside) is an acknowledged expert on Paul Robeson, one of the most commanding figures in the American 20th century, if not in the world’s 20th century.

In anticipation of that talk, I looked last week more deeply into the life of Paul Robeson through the means of that great library, the Internet. I had known about Robeson on a cursory level, having first been told about him by my father, and much later having seen a PBS program about him in the American Masters series. (Sterling Stuckey, by the way, was one of the experts interviewed for that production.)

As I studied Robeson, I began to see some similarities between him and Jesus. But listening to Sterling made Robeson come even more to life, made him even more human, and both my admiration for that great man, who died in 1976, and how he reminded me of Jesus, who died 2000 years ago, were deepened.

The important question for all of us is this: Do we remind people of Jesus? When people look at our lives, will the greatest Life of all be remembered? A man like Paul Robeson only comes along once or twice in any generation — possibly not even that often. So I’m not saying we should be famous, that we should have a place on the world stage, or even the Broadway stage. Our audience may be smaller, but our influence, our being like Jesus, can and should be just as big.

Under the mercy,

Lewis

My sister’s house burned down, and I didn’t know it for a week.

I’d been camping-playing-hiking in Death Valley National Park with my son and his Boy Scout troop. We were having a sweet time out of cell phone range admiring God’s colorful handiwork on Artist’s Drive and Mosaic Canyon, golfing through salt formations, sniffing the Desert Gold flowers, tumbling down sand dunes, sliding over waterfall-polished stone, and checking out the dark night’s lunar eclipse and constellations. Meanwhile, my sister’s home was in ashes.

She lives with her family among people who are lost spiritually, socially, educationally, physically, and economically. Most of her community is illiterate. With no personal access to the religious literature that shapes their lives, they rely instead on the interpreted say-so of the local powerful person. Wife beating is an accepted and expected form of social behavior there, as is polygamy. Impoverished by a corrupt government, the people endure starvation and pain, unable at times to afford food or medication.

Although death is commonplace, these people are not apathetic about it. They work hard for the little they have. They make lots of babies, hoping a few will survive. They dance and sing, scraping up joy wherever they can. They have become friends with my sister, who doles out ibuprofen and vitamins to those who need it the most.

On Sunday, when they saw flames devouring my sister’s home, they rushed to help rescue her possessions. Many of them cried over her losses, and some even wailed and tossed dirt into the air to prove the depth of their sorrow. They returned hand-me-down clothing that my sister had previously passed on to them, and they shared food from their meager supplies.

The Old Testament book of Isaiah predicted what the messiah (God’s chosen one) would do in the “year of the Lord’s favor.” Besides preaching good news to the poor, binding up the brokenhearted, releasing prisoners from darkness, and comforting those who mourn, he would

bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

It’s fascinating to me that while my sister has longed to help these people who are in desperate need, God has used her own newly humbled state to level the playing field between them. Now she can speak with them from a mutual sense of loss and need. Her need for the fundamental things is as great as any person’s, reflecting the deeper reality of their mutual need for grace.

In the coming weeks, months, years, I’ll be looking to see what beauty God will evoke from the ashes of a burned-up house and from the kindness of a malnourished community.

Mia is indeed a blessing. And, can she sing.

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Waaa!!!

She can do it around the clock, too.

More often than not, she just needs to be fed, changed or just cuddled for reassurance that all is well with the world.

It causes me to wonder about what it was like for Jesus when He was a newborn. Was He so helpless? Did he sing, too? Did he have tiny hands? Did he respond to the soft voice of his mother and deep voice of his earthly guardian, Joseph?

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When I told a friend of mine I was going to speak on the topic “Aliens and Strangers,” she suggested that I show something from the movie “E. T.” That was an excellent idea, and although I didn’t use it Sunday it certainly could have worked.

The movie’s full title is “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” and I saw it shortly after it was released in the summer of 1982. Now, almost 25 years later (will there be a 25th anniversary edition?), the movie and its famous “phone home” line still gets to me.

Somewhere along the way I realized that E.T.’s story had many similarities to my own story as a Christian. E.T. was here on earth as a botanist, exploring the flora and fauna of this little blue planet with some other botanists. But his group was almost discovered by some humans, and in their rush to take off they left E.T. behind. It was E.T.’s choice to come to earth on this mission, but it was not his choice to stay. He wanted to get home in the worst possible way.

As children of God we are sometimes looked on by the rest of the world as aliens. In one very real sense we are aliens, because while we may be citizens of the United States or some other fine country, our real citizenship is in the Kingdom of God. Once upon a time we were citizens of earth and therefore aliens to God, but now our roles have reversed and we are aliens to this world.

So we have that in common with E.T., but there is one thing that we usually do not have in common with him — we have little desire to get home.

And why should we? We speak the language of the world, we understand how to get along in the world, and, for the most part, the world wants us to stay. But more and more I “feel” the truth in the statement that this world is not my home, and as I await my transportation my longing for home grows.

Under the mercy,

Lewis

As we walked from the 10th green to the 11th tee, I asked my friend about his friend Pete. I had just met Pete a couple of hours earlier and liked him right away, but he was in one of the two foursomes behind us so I hadn’t had a chance to get to know him at all. Mostly I wondered if he was what we Christians call “a believer.”

My friend said that Pete was not a Christian, although he might think of himself as a Christian, that he was recently married, and that he was an excellent athlete and very competitive.

“Is there an opportunity to talk to him about his faith?” I wondered.

My friend thought about that and said he thought there probably would be an opportunity for that — or more specifically that Pete would be open to such a conversation — around the time that he and his wife started having children.

My friend, by the way, is a long-time and very mature Christian who has spoken to many people personally and publicly about their need for Jesus. So he wasn’t putting this off because of any sort of fear, but he was putting it off (at least for now) until a more opportune time.

I marveled at my friend’s patience, and told him so.

Most of us have a sense of urgency when it comes to this kind of thing and if someone doesn’t listen to us the first time, we keep after them and keep after them until we “get them in the water” or (too often) drive them away forever.

There is little question that patience (part of the fruit borne in us by God’s Spirit) is a good thing. And I don’t wonder whether or not I have it, I wonder where I should be using it. Perhaps with some patience, I’ll find out.

A high percentage of the people who call PACC their home church have
traveled to other countries. A number of people in this body were not
born in the U.S., and so are actually living in a foreign country.

But even if you haven’t been to other countries, you can imagine
something about it. For instance, it is likely that you would not know
the language, or at least not know it well. It is likely that you will
not know all the customs of the country, not the cuisine. All those
things can be overcome with time, of course, but until you do learn them
you are likely to stick out to the native population as a stranger -
because that is what you will be.

In fact, even though you “speak the language and know the customs, that
is what you are on this earth. No one who is a Christian belongs here,
although there are times when we Christians like it here very much.

The old song says, “This World Is Not My Home” and it is my prayer that
we will understand that more deeply as time goes on and live like the
intruders that we are, for we are indeed in a Foreign Land!

Every blessing,

Lewis

After our service on Sunday morning I was asked by a “seeker” if good works were different than simple works (see Ephesians 2.9, 10). An excellent question! His reason for asking though, was a different question. He wanted to know if God was involved in, or possibly even the cause of, all good works.

This fellow has been involved in many noble causes and has witnessed many others. Most of those were not done on behalf of God, although God’s name was often invoked as though his support of these activities was certain.

Do you think Paul is making a distinction in Ephesians between “works” and “good works?’ The phrase “good works,” or some form of that phrase, appears 19 times in the New Testament. The first person to use the phrase was Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount he says, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

That may give us a hint as to the nature of good works — they bring glory to God.

Luke writes in Acts 9.36 that there was a disciple of Christ in Joppa named Tabitha, and “this woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity, which she continually did.” Perhaps there is another clue there — deeds of kindness and charity constitute good works.

Finally, in Paul’s first letter to Timothy he says, “The sins of some men are quite evident, going before them to judgment; for others, their sins follow after. Likewise also, deeds that are good are quite evident, and those which are otherwise cannot be concealed.”

So it would seem that we can clearly see the difference between good works and “those which are otherwise.” That answers the first of my friend’s questions, but does it answer the second? Is God involved in all good works?

Under the mercy,

Lewis

Two weeks ago I said that mercy was not getting what you do deserve while grace is getting what you do not deserve. It may be that we all experience a little of both of those every day without recognizing them, but today we experienced some grace and we could see it as it happened.

As a church we have said, both with our words and our actions, that we want to grow both spiritually and numerically. Part of the action we have taken to encourage growth is a postcard-mailing campaign in which we are inviting 5,000 of our closest neighbors to join us on March 9 for a “fresh start open house.”

On the surface, a program like this seems to address only numerical growth, but look just under the surface and you’ll see a whole lot of spiritual growth taking place as well, and that is happening before even one visitor comes to our church’s home in response to our invitations.

People have been praying for the mailings and for those who will receive the cards, and those who are praying are growing. People have been volunteering time to put labels on cards, and those who are peeling and sticking are growing. People have pledged funds to help pay for this outreach, and those who are giving are growing. People have been getting the building ready for an influx of visitors, and those who have been preparing are growing. People have been planning Sunday school classes and worship services to accommodate larger numbers, and those who are planning are growing.

The first group, those who are praying (and I hope that includes you), got a good answer today and it came in the form of grace. Some of the postcards we received, you see, were printed with incorrect mailing information. We received the cards on Saturday and (to keep to our schedule) needed to mail them today. But could we? Would the post office accept them? If not, our mailing would delayed enough to disrupt the timing of the whole campaign schedule.

And so it was that we received grace today, because we were allowed to mail the cards with the error, and we give God the glory. After all, it was God’s grace that we received through the post office, and specifically through a man named Abraham.

God is good!

Lewis

We all have our favorite verses. Our preacher has a couple of hundred of them. To be fair, we have different verses that appeal to us depending on our mood, our circumstances, the challenges we are facing, the promises we hope will be kept.

How about a least favorite verse? Usually a least favorite verse is the one that hits home, strikes a nerve, the one we understand all too well.

My favorite verses of the Bible are at the end of Mark 7. My least favorite verses are Mark 14: 33-36.

We looked at the latter this past Sunday morning in our weekly study.

The terror of the cross exceeded what Jesus had anticipated. It was going to be worse than even he imagined. (more…)