A Christian Worldview from Silicon Valley

When we are small we have little, if any, say on what we wear. As we grow we begin to make our own choices, and sometimes we choose poorly. Or at least it seems we do, based on what we hear from our parents.

“It’s raining, put on your boots.”

“It’s cold, put on your coat.”

“Put on a clean shirt before you go out.”

“Young lady, you are not going out looking like that!”

In every one of those cases (as I imagine them) the parent is trying to protect the child. Clothes can offer protection from inclement weather, protection from criticism, and they can even offer protection from unwanted sexual advances.

The problem is, we don’t always want the protection. Little boys run out into the rain without their boots because it’s more fun to splash in the puddles barefoot. And sometimes young women, who may not understand what they are inviting, dress to be noticed and desired.

I wonder if we fail to “put on the whole armor of God” for similar reasons. We don’t think we’ll catch a cold for a lack of boots or find ourselves in a dangerous situation because we dressed seductively, so we go for the short term pleasure at the risk of longer term pain. And we don’t think Satan will really bother us much if we sometimes leave the belt of truth at home, or “forget” to lug along that heavy shield of faith. Sometimes we don’t even want to carry the sword, which is the word of God. After all, we rarely use it even when we do have it with us.

Perhaps we need God standing at the door, reminding us to dress well, and not letting us go out until we are properly attired.

Polishing my armor….

I’ve been thinking for many years about the idea of freedom, and I’m certain that there are nooks and crannies I have yet to discover, as well as many rooms into which I’ve only glanced.

One of those rooms is human slavery, a condition in which one person becomes the legal property of another and is forced to obey that person. On my own I can only explore this room intellectually, having never been a slave or a slave owner. I can explore it emotionally with the help of those who have known slaves or been slaves, and one who has helped me do a little of that is the poet Elma Stuckey, mother of my friend Sterling Stuckey. Her work in The Collected Poems of Elma Stuckey has touched me and taught me.

But there is one room at the intersection of freedom and slavery that I do know something of, and that is the spiritual room. The apostle Paul knew about it too, and what a person to write about it! He was, of all men, most “free.” He was an Israelite, a Pharisee, highly educated by the best of Rabbis, and he was also a Roman citizen. In his culture, in his time, no one could be his master.

Except that he made himself a slave to Christ, because he realized that otherwise he was a slave to sin.

There is amazing freedom in being a slave to Christ, and it is a condition I highly recommend. Most of us don’t, of course, think of our relationship to Jesus Christ in that way. We think of him as our brother, our savior, our friend. We sometimes even say that he is our Lord or our Master, but that doesn’t mean we are his slaves.

Or does it?

I was fairly young when I first heard someone say, “The only way to be free is to be a slave.” The person saying this was someone I trusted, but I didn’t understand what he meant. Let me correct that — I understood all the words, but I didn’t understand how his statement could be applied in my life, or in anyone else’s life, for that matter.

The idea that to be free you must be a slave is what is known as a paradox. My first encounter with that word was in the old joke, “What do you get when you put Dr. Harrell and Dr. Brickman together?” The answer, of course, is “a pair o’ docs.” Eventually I grasped the real definition of paradox as a seemingly self-contradictory statement that when understood proves to be true.

Being a slave to be free certainly fits that. I had read Huckleberry Finn, and I knew that Jim was running away from slavery because slavery was bad. I also knew that Jim eventually got caught by a “slave catcher,” and that Uncle Silas (who would be Jim’s master) was the embodiment of evil. So why would I want to be a slave, and how could that make me free?

Paul writes about this in several of his letters, including a passage in Ephesians we examined in part last Sunday. I’ll come back to this topic, but for now let the paradox of being made free by becoming a slave roll around in your mind and in your heart.

Paul writes to the church in Ephesus (and, by extension, to all churches) that they should be about “redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Just what does that mean, and how do we redeem the time?

Let’s start with two phrases that are common to our vernacular. The first phrase, which corresponds closely to redeeming time, is “buying time.” We use that in all kinds of ways, and what we usually mean is that we are holding off some undesired outcome for a while. A judge may order a cooling-off period for a union, for instance, before they go on strike, thus “buying time” which might be used to reach a settlement. A student may have a paper due but not be ready, and may “buy time” by seeking an extension.

The second phrase is “spending time,” and that is one we know well. Most of us prefer to spend time in the presence of people we like, and in activities that we like. I’d rather spend time reading, walking with my wife or playing golf than I would paying bills, being yelled at, or listening to bad music.

The common thread in both buying time and spending time is that they are often centered on our own desires. Redeeming the time, at least in a Biblical sense, is far less self-centered and far more God-centered. What Paul is encouraging us to do is to use time to do things that God wants us to do. Many of those can be found throughout scripture, but they include encouraging one another, teaching one another, being filled with God’s spirit, acting wisely in all things, and being thankful in all things.

You see, redeeming the time is not about a particular activity, it is about a particular attitude. With the right attitude, even spending time can be redeeming.

Under the mercy,

Lewis

For two years in the late 1970s I was the tennis pro at a small club in Quincy, Illinois, a town on the Mississippi River not far from St. Louis, Missouri. One of the best tennis players in the world at that time, and certainly one of my favorites, was an Australian named John Newcombe, and when I learned that “Newk” was going to be playing in St. Louis, I arranged to take some of my better students and go see him.

The trip was great fun, the tennis was excellent, and I absorbed it all with excitement and joy. It was late at night when we got home to Quincy, but I was anxious to get back on the court myself, and fairly early the next day I did just that. Now here is the good bit… no one could touch my serve!

Normally my serve was adequate, but after watching John Newcombe serve in the tournament, my serve became instantly (though temporarily) far better than it had ever been. For the rest of that day and even part of the next, I was a reflection of John Newcombe. And I loved it.

In Ephesians 4 Paul writes that we are to help each other grow up into Christ, and then he tells us to “walk no longer as the Gentiles walk.” How can we do that? By setting a John Newcombe kind of example in areas where we are strong, and by watching for John Newcombe examples in areas where we are weaker.

If you want to walk in the way of the Lord, if you truly want to “walk the walk” of a disciple of Christ, then follow Christ’s example. Perhaps if we watch closely enough we will learn to serve like Jesus.

Under the mercy,

Lewis

On Easter Sunday I said in my message that Easter was the most important Christian day, more important than Christmas. Christmas is a big deal to me (not just for the presents), and I don’t mean to relegate it to some second class status, but I think it is important for us to recognize the differences in these two incredibly significant events in human history.

At Christmas we celebrate the coming of God to earth in human form as Jesus. At Easter we celebrate the return of Jesus to heaven to sit at the right hand of God. At Christmas we marvel with the shepherds who are told by angels that Jesus is here. At Easter we marvel with those at the tomb who are told by angels that Jesus is no longer here. At Christmas we are filled with joy because of a birth. At Easter we are filled with hope because of a resurrection. At Christmas we know that Jesus is with us. At Easter we know that we can be with him.

Christmas is comfortable, Easter is comforting. In religious terms, Christmas is fairly non-threatening. It is all about the baby and the wise men and the miracle of the virgin birth. Who, other than Herod, is threatened by the babe of Bethlehem? Oh, yes, it is also about Jesus, but only in the sweetest, gentlest way.

Easter is not so comfortable, preceded as it is by the terrible flogging of Jesus, his crown of thorns, his torn flesh, his blood, and ultimately his horrible crucifixion, including nails in his hands and feet and later a spear in his side. But for those who believe, all of that pain leads to something that is amazingly comforting.

So which would you have? Some say that without Christmas there would be no Easter, but the truth is that without Easter there would be no Christmas.

In the “funnies” yesterday I saw a comic strip called “For Better or For Worse” by Canadian Lynn Johnston. In the first three panels the family is headed off to church, with the focus on a little boy who is perhaps six years old. In the last three panels, Mom is helping him with his jacket when he asks her, “Is church open every Sunday, Mom?” and she replies, “Yes, Michael” as he looks around. And as they are walking out, within earshot of his father, the minister and a few others, Michael asks, “Then how come we only come twice a year?”

Frankly, I’m glad that Christmas and Easter both bring people to church. It’s a start. And it shows that somewhere in their hearts is the realization that church is a place where they should be, the realization that Jesus means something and has something to do with their lives. My hope is that even those who only come to church on those occasions — whether it is out of a sense of obligation or duty or respect for family wishes or the direct calling of the Holy Spirit — will benefit from being with the body. Perhaps they’ll also hear something in the songs or prayers or message that works in their lives to bring them closer to God.

But I’m also glad that those of us who attend church on Sundays other than Christmas and Easter get there on those days. It deepens our appreciation for the gifts that we have received, it deepens our fellowship with other believers, and it deepens our faith. Easter, especially, does that for me as I focus on the resurrection and see my life in its glorious light!

I hope that you had a marvelous Easter, and I hope that the wonder of the resurrection lives in your heart every day.

I’ve spent much of the day today reading about and thinking about three men who lived out their belief in Jesus and in a Father who is “able to do abundantly more than we can ask or think.” Perhaps I’m more sensitive to that topic because of the last two sermons I’ve delivered at the Palo Alto Church of Christ, or perhaps God is just trying to tell me something.

Whatever the reason, I share this with you partly as a warning. I cannot read about these people and how they lived their lives without some influence on my own life, and that undoubtedly means that I will try to influence you in those same ways. If you are comfortable being a part-time Christian or if you think that the church can somehow be separatist and still be the church, be afraid, be very afraid!

Of course I’ve already tried, and will continue to try, to convince you that your life has to be different if you are a follower of Jesus. Different than the world, I mean, and for some of us different than it is. More trusting of God. More extremist against injustice. More patient with each other. More urgent for the lost. More desirous of a deep and real relationship with the creator of the universe, including us.

Just who are these departed saints who have invaded my sunny afternoon and challenged me from the grave? Larry Norman (take a look at the PACC blog to see the entry I just posted about him), Martin Luther King, Jr., and Francis Schaeffer. It may be that you have only heard of King among those three, but what they all had in common while they walked on this earth was a willingness to be counter-cultural for Jesus. All of them gained some measure of prominence in their lives, using the gifts God had given them in ways that honored God, but not a single one of them sought fame and fortune — they sought to please their Father. One did it with protests, one did it with a school in Switzerland, and one did it with rock and roll music.

May we do the same — with whatever God puts in our hands!

Under the mercy,

Lewis

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

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