If Not Equality, Then What?

Yesterday, I began to make the case that God is not overly concerned about equality.  While some attribute this to the culture and time in which the events of the Scriptures occured, what we actually find is that God really hasn't created us to be all equal.  Sure, when it comes to sin, we're all equally guilty, and Jesus' forgiveness and blood cover us equally, but outside of that, God doesn't seem overly concerned with equality.

So, if that's the case, then what is God concerned with?  Does He want to see abuses practiced upon those who have more, or does He want to see those without a voice or without "rights" abused and mistreated?  Well, no.  In fact, throughout His revealed Word to us, God makes it very clear that His expectation of His people (and that does mean that it covers all people of the world) is that they love their neighbors as they love their own selves.

So, if God happens to give some set of spiritual gifts to one individual, it doesn't mean that God is exalting that person above others.  It means, instead, that this person, in love for neighbor, is to utilize those gifts in service to others.  He or she isn't to keep them wrapped up, or to use them to exalt oneself.  They are to be used to build up and grow others around them.

In fact, that's the design that we see with our God and His creation.  He doesn't give equally, or else we would not have to rely upon and live in community with each other.  But God created us to have to rely upon others.  He created the people of this world in a way that some would raise crops, others would transport the crops, others would sell the crops, some would have the skills to make clothing, others would be builders, and the like.  Instead of equality, God created a system in which everyone has to rely upon each other (and upon God) for the needs and necessities of life.

God is concerned with love for neighbor, and with our interdependence upon one another.  If one is lazy, it affects all the rest.  If one exalts oneself over others, it affects all the rest.  If one part is missing, it affects all the rest.  St. Paul paints this picture beautifully using the illustration of the body.  The various parts all work together, even though they are not created equally, but all are equally needed for the body to operate as it does.

God is less concerned with equality, and more concerned with love for neighbor and reliance upon one another.  That cuts to the heart of an individualistic society such as we live in, but that's also why we acknowledge that following God's will and design truly is a counter-cultural thing.

Is God Concerned about Equality?

Equality is a buzz word in our current day and society.  We seem to be truly concerned about equality (and yes, I say we seem to be concerned with it, as I will explain in a moment).  Recent events like the Supreme Court ruling on homosexual marriage has the word "equality" attached to it.  We hold to things like an equal right to vote, or to an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That sounds really good.  In fact, I would dare say that if you went and asked your average Christian in the USA if God is for equality, he or she would probably say yes.  And yet, there are a large number of sections of God's Word that truly challenge this notion that everyone should be equal.  (And as a bit of a side note, think about it from this standpoint.  What does it truly mean to have equality?  Does it mean that everyone gets the same?  Does it mean that everyone's voice is heard the same?  Does it mean that everyone gets the same opportunities regardless of education, intelligence, opportunity, and the like?  Challenging questions to consider in this discussion.)

So, is God concerned with equality?  I would venture to say that He is not.  Sure, He created us all to be equally loved and cared for by Him, and He has equally purchased and redeemed us from sin, death, and the devil through His Son Jesus.  But that seems to be about the extent to which God concerns Himself with equality. 

Think about some of the topics that would create a controversy in a congregation.  Women's rights is one that jumps to mind for many.  Some would say that women deserve an equal right to serve as pastors.  Yet, from the pages of Scripture, you have a rather challenging time to hold that argument up.  So, what do those who support such a notion do?  They try to change the context.  "It was a cultural thing," they say.  And yet, the idea that God may not be a great promoter of equality may not seem to cross their minds.

Think about it this way, too.  When the various gifts of the Spirit are given out, does it say that all are given them equally?  No.  Rather, it quite pointedly shows that some get one or two gifts, others get one or two gifts, and that means that there are those who get less, or practically none, of a particular gift.  God is not so much about equality when it comes to spiritual gifts, it seems, or else all could heal equally, speak in languages equally, discern spirits equally, teach equally, and the like.

Tomorrow I plan to post about why I believe God isn't about equality.  But for today, I've given us enough to chew on.

Life as Community, or as Individual?

Years ago, I watched a fairly forgettable movie entitled "Bend it like Beckham".  As a young man playing soccer at the time, it held some appeal to me.  The movie wasn't quite what I was expecting, but there is a subplot that occurs during the movie that has stuck with me for some time.

In the movie, a young British girl is playing soccer, and on her team, there also comes to be a young lady whose family is from India (I believe).  The family of the girl from India is very adamant that she not play soccer, and she is willing to lay aside what she personally wants for what her family sees as good for her.  Of course, to a Western society focused on the individual over the community, this makes little sense, and so, of course, we cheer in the end when the family relents and the young lady is free to do what she wants, which is, of course, to play futbol.

In recent years, I've come to see this dynamic in a different light.  Our western focus on the individual has its strengths, no doubt, but it also comes with its great weaknesses.  A focus on community (or on family) means that a person always has a place where they are welcome (which makes the parable of the Prodigal son much more understandable in that light.).  However, a focus on the individual means that we often only welcome others as long as they "do" something for us.  If we encounter conflict, we run away to another place where others, hopefully, won't be in conflict with us.  When hard times come along, it's easier to leave when you don't have a community to be answerable to, and so we fail to grow and mature in our lives as we fail to stick it out with our community.

Sadly, this reality has greatly infiltrated God's Church.  How many people look around for a church that fits their needs, rather than asking how they can work themselves into the church?  How often do we look for what we want in the church, rather than asking what would be best for the family overall?  How often do we treat each other as family (yes, even with the quarrels and the good times)?  How often do we sacrifice what we want for what is good for the family overall?

God has created this wonderful gathering of His people called the Church, a place where God's people are renewed in the image of the sacrificing God who sacrificed for His people.  Should we be surprised that our lives, as we are renewed in Christ each day through our baptism, should actually look the same?

Asking the Questions

I recently read a very interesting book, entitled "Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling", by Edgar H. Schein.  No, this isn't a theology book.  If we classified it, it might be more of a business management style book at heart.  However, the author does indeed raise some very intriguing points that I believe we are wise to think about as Christians.

Basically, Dr. Schein writes about how we live in a "tell" society.  Think about your conversations.  Don't we spend more time telling others what we think, what we have seen, what our thoughts are, and the like, rather than asking what others think, or how others percieve things?  Truth be told, I have even seen this in myself, where I am part of a conversation, and as someone else is talking, I'm already thinking about the next thing I want to say rather than listening to what they are saying.  I really do believe this is one of the signs of being raised in a "tell" culture.

Instead, what Dr. Schein proposes is to be more inquiring when it comes to conversations in any and all situations.  Instead of a "tell" culture, he calls for developing an "ask" culture.  Okay, so what does that look like.  Imagine having a conversation where the other person genuinely is interested in what you are saying, is asking questions that show that they are truly paying attention, and aren't interested in telling you what they think or what their experiences are.  That would be something like what Dr. Schein would propose.

Sounds good, right?  Who doesn't want others to have a genuine interest in what they say or think?  And here is where I think this connects with our Christian faith.  Instead of "telling" others what we have that they are missing, or "telling" them where they are straying from God's will and design, what if we asked questions with a genuine interest in discovering what led them to the place in life that they happen to be in?  We might discover a lot of connection points with our God and our Christian faith.  We might discover that they aren't as far "out there" as we might think.  We may even discover that, since we have shown a genuine interest in them, they may also return the favor and show interest in us.  What possibilities might that hold for us to speak of our Savior, our God, and our faith?

As I read through the Gospels, I find Jesus asking a lot of questions and listening intently to the people He conversed with.  In this instance, I would suggest that scientific study and research has done nothing more than uncovered what God has shown us all along.  Listening and building the relationship will go much further than pretty much any form of us "telling" them what they are missing.  And who knows?  That just might create a new relationship between that person and their Savior, Jesus, as we open our ears and show genuine interest in others more.

It's Startling

It doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while, something actually does catch me by surprise.  I say it doesn't happen very often because there is one significant part of me that always expects human beings to be the sinful beings that they are.  I'm not really surprised when an upstanding person suddenly is revealed to have a dark side to them, or a hidden lifestyle, or something along those lines.  Part of me actually expects that, since we are, by nature, sinful and unclean.  It will come out.

But over the past half a year plus, I have actually been surprised.  My wife and I celebrated the addition of a little boy to our family just days before last Christmas.  As we started to figure out what this new addition meant to our family and our life, I knew that it would call for some extra time on my part, time I was truly happy to give.  After all, one of the primary commands that God has given to men, husbands and fathers in particular, is to care for their families and to make sure that their needs were met.

Truth be told, I was surprised that there are those who found it strange that I, the husband and father and head of the household, would take the time to make sure that all was well within the household.  Undoubtedly, that required a few sacrifices on my part, but thankfully, God also has blessed me with a number of awesome people who were able to fill in gaps.  Sure, things went undone as the demands of time and commitment called me to my family, but overall, I would like to think that, in the grand scheme of things, relatively few things of significance were impacted.

As Christians abiding in the nation in which we live, have we so bought into what our nation and culture teaches that we find it odd or even distressing that a husband and father would want to spend a little extra time with his family?  Have we become more Americanized, as in thinking that the father has to spend hours on end outside the household and that the mother has to assume all the working duties of the house, than we are Christianized, where care and concern for others is our highest command?  Do we take it that, when God commands that the head of the household should care for his family, that this only means in going to work, and not in actually being present with them, especially at challenging transition times like sleep and lunch and dinner and the like?

I don't know.  I guess the reason I was so startled and surprised was that I truly would hope that a father caring for his family wouldn't be so odd, but then again, so many of the things that God would have us consider as we live as His people truly are countercultural. 

Creating Connections

Okay, time to debunk a myth before I really get into my point today, though debunking the myth helps set the stage.  There is this thought out there that people want a friendly church.  Now, to some degree, this is an understandable thing.  Very few people want to go somewhere where the people are unfriendly.  If a person goes to a church and is basically ignored or made to feel a stranger or an inconvenience, then there is a problem.  As God's people, we do want to be friendly toward others.

However, the myth says that people want a friendly church.  Why is this a myth?  Simply being friendly is not enough.  I've encountered people that are friendly at various places such as the DMV, the dentist's office, and a variety of other places.  That doesn't mean that I want to regularly go there and hang out.  Sure, they may be very friendly, but I'm not going to come back just because the people are friendly.

So if it's a myth that people want a friendly church, what is the reality, then?  It's more along these lines.  People don't want a friendly church, they want a church where they can find friends.  Yes, there is a significant difference in that statement.  Friendly means you greet them with a smile, but you don't lose anything if they don't come back.  Being friends means that it matters to you that they are made comfortable, that they know what to expect, and that you want to see them again, repeatedly.  Being friends means you care about them, that you want to get to know them better, and want to spend time with them.

Okay, so we've debunked the myth.  But the thing is, what I've just typed could easily be said about the country club, the fitness center, or any other place that you go to regularly.  The reason we connect with those who make their way into our places of worship and fellowship is not merely to become friends, but to become connected together in Jesus.  We connect as friends, but we connect in the one who has connected us to Himself.  We connect in worship because we are refreshed in the one who is the vine for all of us varied branches.  We connect in fellowship because Jesus sharpens us and strengthens us for His work as we come together, and as we are then sent back out into the community.

Think about that the next time you see someone outside of those 30 that I had you name yesterday.  How can you connect with them as a friend, and as you do that, how do you also see God working to connect them even deeper to the one who is the vine for their branch?  Tomorrow, we'll think a bit about what this might look like.

How Connected Are You, Really?

For a moment, think about your typical time going to worship.  As you get out of the car and walk into the church, who are the people that you notice?  Who are the people that you expect you will spend some time talking with?  Now, let's look at a few other questions, and I encourage you to think about these and really be brutally honest with yourself.  Are there those that you sort of slink around to avoid?  Are there those that you would feel awkward talking with?  Are there those that you hope you don't run into?  (If we are honest with ourselves, we are going to have some of each of those.)

Now, another vein of thinking.  Approximately how many people do you anticipate that, on any given gathering time, you will spend time talking with?  Or, perhaps you can think of it another way.  Who are the individuals that you will spend 75% of your time talking with?  If you are like most people (and chances are, you are!), you will spend a majority of your time conversing with a much smaller group than you might think.  Outside of that group, you aren't really sure what to talk about, or you feel some level of discomfort in talking with them or listening to them.

How connected are you, really?  If you are like the typical person, you have room in your life for about 8-10 really good, close, deep friendships.  You have room in your life for about another 15-20 acquantainces with whom you regularly interact.  If we go with the bigger of those numbers, that means that you may have a group of about 30 people with whom you would regularly interact with when you go to worship.  Yes, there are others outside of that with whom you will interact, but you will likely spend the majority of your time within that group of 30.

So now think back to the answers you had as you read through the first paragraph.  Are they mostly within that group of 30?  Or maybe I could ask it this way.  If you had to list out 45 people that you know within your gathering of the saints, could you readily list them out and say that you know them pretty well?  Chances are, as you get toward the end of that list, you may know the person, but you may not know them well.

How connected are you, really?  We sometimes have an overinflated sense of our influence and role within the body.  The reality may very well be that we aren't as influential as we think we are.  If our gathering is of any appreciable size, we actually may not know more people than we actually do know. 

So what do we do about this?  Well, that's an answer for another blog post.  So tune in tomorrow and we'll start to unpack some of what we can do to be a bit more connected.

Connecting With Generations

I'm going to admit something right up front.  I am, in a lot of ways, a kid at heart.  In fact, I think there is a decent chance that my three year old daughter is actually more mature than I am (you could ask my wife and probably get a pretty honest answer!).  I love kids, and I love playing with kids, working with kids, and simply being around kids.  Kids are great.

I've also discovered, over the years, that I also enjoy working with older people.  They have a view on life that you can just sit back and revel in.  Sure, they may have their moments where they talk about the aches and pains of life, but is that any different than hearing about the skinned knees and other boo-boos that little ones get?  Plus, I have come to the conclusion that both young and old simply love a good story, or to tell a good story.

While I love connecting with both old and young, I've also learned that it takes some effort to create such connections.  Being a fairly tall male, there are times when I can tell that kids are a little frightened of me.  In a way, that's good, as it shows that they have a respectful fear of strangers.  So it takes work and effort on my part to show them that I am someone they can trust, and that I want to be their friend.

That same dynamic can also be found working with older adults.  I don't know if I personally frighten them, but I do know that there are things that I regularly make use of (such as technology and vocabulary) that they seem to be a little frightened of.  They have a respectful fear of such things, especially if they aren't regularly connected with it.  So it takes work and effort on my part to show them that I can be trusted, even as I regularly make use of these new gizmos and gadgets.

It takes work to connect with different generations.  Sometimes it means that we set aside the fears that we may have about them (I don't know what to talk about with them, I don't know what they like, I don't even know how to talk to them, etc.).  Sometimes it means that we simply show them that we want to care about them, even if we have a difficult time understanding where they are coming from, or what they are involved in.

What can you do in the next week or so to make a connection with someone who falls either 10 years younger or older than you?  What fears do you have of attempting such a connection?  What would you like to see happen from such a connection?  Oh, and one final question.  Who is that person that you will connect with, and when will you do that?

Generational Ministry and Intergenerational Ministries

In preparation for a number of different ministry ideas that I have been pursuing for a while, I have had cause to give a lot of thought to how many churches conduct the ministry that God gives them to do.  Traditionally in our day, age, and country, there has been a tendency for several decades now to seek to minister to age and stage groups.  Not a bad emphasis at all.  After all, the needs of the more senior adults in God's church have different ministry needs than do young families, children, or youth.  Each one of these ages and stages have different challenges they face, and the effort is there to have some form of ministry for them according to their need.

Again, this is a good thing.  However, many have started to realize that this also creates certain "problems" within God's people.  In one book I was reading, the author shared how, upon a visit to a congregation, a young lady in her early 20s was interviewed.  She had shown up once to a funeral.  Upon being asked, the young lady acknowledged that she didn't know the person who had died, an elderly member of the congregation.  When asked why she would come to the funeral of a person she didn't know, the young lady remarked that she had never been to a funeral.  She wanted to know what one was like.  Upon further questioning, she also shared that she had never held a baby, or even really worked with children, other than those who were her age when she herself was a child. 

This points to one of the problems that can arise when age and stage groups are created.  They rarely interact with one another.  (Oh, and if you think that this isn't an issue in your congregation, go ask the young people how often the older people interact with them, and vice versa.  You may be shocked at just how isolated each age and stage can get.)  We would like to think that the ages come together and interact more than they do, but the reality is that we humans tend to be found with those like us, in mindset, in age, and in stage of life.  It takes intentional effort to cross those generational boundaries.

Again, I want to re-iterate that there is a place for age and stage ministry.  However, if that comes exclusively at the expense of the ages and stages interacting, then something has gone wrong.  God's people of all ages and stages are supposed to be living life together.  The family doesn't each get sent to their age/stage room, but are supposed to gather around the dinner table all together (think the Sacrament of the Altar here).  They are supposed to have family time together (think of the fellowship of the saints here).  They are supposed to pray together, play together, and know each other.  Even if they separate to be challenged and to grow according to their age and stage, it should never be at the expense of the whole body.

Yes, this presents a rather significant challenge.  How do you bring the ages and stages together, and at the same time, let them have their needed time on their own?  I won't say that this has any particular answer, but I do know that it is something that we will be working toward in the congregation I am part of.  Sure, we will have our ups and downs, and I will pray for patience and understanding as we try and learn from failures and successes.  And I will ask you to please remember, while it may be easy to point out what is wrong with what we do, if you don't have a suggestion for improving it, then please keep it as constructive and positive as you can.

Introducing Intergenerational

I have been blogging about a number of different things lately, as we have had a lot make its way into the news that has some direct impact on our Christian faith and life.  I've discovered that it is relatively easy to get drawn into extended discussions about some of these topics, which sometimes can come at the expense of actually getting into the meat and potatoes of doing God's work among God's people and the communities in which we find ourselves placed by God.

So I'm taking a bit of a change today.  I want to start introducing something that we will be working on this fall in our congregation here in the 'burbs of Atlanta.  For lack of something more clever to call it, we'll simply call it intergenerational ministry.  It is related to the family ministry model that we are putting together, but seeks to also go beyond what we will be doing there.

(I should also mention that this is a part of what I am working on as my project toward my Doctor of Ministry degree in Missional Leadership.  It is a project to be conducted within the life of the congregation that demonstrates missional leadership as we seek to be taking God's Word and the forgiveness that God gives in Jesus out into our communities.  So this isn't just some knee-jerk, hey let's try this kind of thing.  It is a detailed, thought out, researched plan that we will be looking at as a ministry model for years to come.)

Basically, the essential element of intergenerational ministry is to connect the generations with each other.  We have much about faith and life that we can learn as we connect older adults with younger adults, children, college students, and even toddlers and infants. 

The plan that we will undertake this fall will be the creation of three of these groups that will commit to meeting weekly for a period of three months.  They will follow a booklet curriculum that I will develop, which will seek to grow them in their relationships and faith with each other, though with the ultimate goal of becoming more confident in talking faith matters with people from different generations.  At the end of the time together, the groups would then be encouraged to reach out to people they know, invite them to come learn more about the faith that we share, and to create additional groups who would then follow the same curriculum.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing some of the background that goes into why we will venture in this direction.  As we do that, I would encourage you to prayerfully consider how you might be a part of this as we move toward it this fall.

What's the Worst Case Scenario?

Okay, I know I've been touching on a lot of different facets of the recent Supreme Court decision, as well as how we, as Christians, need to take a good look at what we believe biblically about ourselves and not just those whose lifestyle is deemed sinful according to God's Word.  I know that there are many out there who are truly frightened about what this may mean, especially for clergy and churches who hold to the Biblical definition of marriage.

So today, I simply want to think through what the worst case scenario would be.  Perhaps you would see it different, but that's okay, because the reality is, no one knows right now what is going to happen with all of this.  But this is some form of representation on what the worst case scenario could look like.

Since clergy hold the authority to officiate marriages for both their faith and the state, the state declares that no exceptions can be made toward whom clergy choose to wed.  That means that, regardless of belief, if the clergy are going to hold the authority to marry civily, they will have no grounds upon which to deny marriage to anyone who fits the legal definition of those who can be married.  They must perform the ceremony if asked.

Should a clergy refuse, they would face legal ramifications of discrimination.  That could involve fines, jail time, or any other of a variety of punishments for not upholding the law.  Very likely, this would cause clergy of many faiths to give up the authority of conducting a civil marriage. 

In addition, since particular beliefs no longer are recognized according to the state, the state also decides that the customary tax exemption that churches enjoy is no longer applicable.  Churches are then taxed for their property.  That also means that offerings are no longer considered as "charitable contributions", and thus, no longer carry a tax break on the part of the state. 

One final strike could be that churches would also no longer be considered nonprofit (for the record, I doubt that this particular one would come to pass, but who ultimately knows?).  That means that churches also have to pay taxes such as any business would upon income.  That means that the offerings that people make would be considered taxable income.  Suddenly, for churches, the cost of doing ministry is much greater, as they have to pay their taxes, from which they have been exempt for centuries in our nation.  As you can perhaps imagine, that would cause a rather significant change in how God's people go about gathering, ministering, and operating within the state. 

Civil, Religious, Both, or Neither?

All right, I'm going to start off today with a question to which we will not know the answer until we have been ushered into the eternal kingdom.  When were Adam and Eve married?  As soon as God woke Adam up from his sleep?  Was it when Adam named Eve, calling her the mother of all the living?  Did the LORD God oversee a ceremony that declared them to be one flesh?

I know, this is a bit of an unfair question.  We don't know the exact moment, just like we would be hard pressed to say for sure when that exact moment is that a man and a woman go from being two different people to one flesh.  Is it when they commit to marry one another?  Is it when they are declared husband and wife?  Is it when they make their vows?  (I have known people that stand by each of these as the time when the two become one.)

I think, in general, we see two different issues at work here.  One is the commitment of a husband to a wife, and a wife to a husband.  God makes it clear that this commitment is the utmost, vital element to the marriage that He creates.  Just as God is commited to His people, His people, when joined in marriage, are to be commited to one another. 

So that's the first issue.  The second issue is having a "moment" in which we recognize that something has changed for the husband and the wife.  We typically call this the ceremony.  We have an occasion which celebrates what God is doing in the lives of the man and the woman as they are joined together in a one flesh union.  The ceremony gives us a clear picture that there was a "before", when they were two, and at the conclusion of the ceremony, the "after", they are now one.  So we recognize that the ceremony exists for the sake of good order, even as we recognize that God does something in the midst of that ceremony.

In case you think I am just rambling on this, I do actually have somewhere I am going with this.  One of the realities we have faced in the nation and time we live in is that a marriage has been recognized as the joining of a man and a woman at the conclusion of the ceremony, both by the Church and by the state.  In fact, most clergy are vested with authority by the state to marry people, which means that, in some respects, there are two ceremonies taking place; one faith oriented, and the other state oriented.  At the conclusion of the ceremony, both the Church and the state would recognize the man and woman as being married.

I'll get to a point here to keep this from being too long a post.  If the state were to declare that marriage can consist of something other than what a faith deems marriage, could the two (state and religious) ceremonies then be separate?  If a clergyman were to be required, by the state, to civily marry any two people who desired marriage, could the clergy "give up" the right to conduct ceremonies recognized by the state, and focus exclusively on the religious ceremony?  If the couple then decided that they wanted their marriage to be recognized by the state, they could then arrange for a civil authority to do what their clergy would already have done religiously. 

As we look at the day and age that we live in, is this an option for clergy who hold to particular beliefs about marriage?  It's a question that I believe we will have to be addressing fairly soon in our nation.

God, Rights, and the Church

"Am I not free?...But I have made no use of any of these rights..."  1 Corinthians 9:1a, 15a

If you search through the Bible for the word "rights", you may be surprised to learn that you won't actually find the word occurring very frequently.  That may be somewhat surprising to us, especially in the context of North America and the United States.  Here, we hear quite often about our rights as citizens, about equal rights, and the like.

The surprising thing is that God doesn't seem so much interested in our rights as people.  It's not that God doesn't value us as people any less.  God is a God who created us and who desires that we would recognize the dignity that belongs to every person as a part of His creation.  In a way, we could almost say that God is an idealist.  After all, if every person recognized the dignity that God gave to every other person, would we ever have to worry about rights?

Yet, we do face the fact that we live in a fallen, sinful world.  That sinfulness has us turn inward on ourselves, so that we find ourselves demanding our rights.  That might not be such a bad thing if we did that in a way which honored the dignity of the other as much as we sought that dignity for ourselves.  Yet, the history of humankind reveals that we fail at such an endeavor far more than we succeed at it.

That's why I find it interesting, especially if you read through the chapters around the verses quoted above, that Paul "gives up" his rights in service of the Gospel.  Sure, he could bear the claim that he had founded the congregation in Corinth.  Sure, he had taught them what they knew about Jesus, and could assert that authority over them.  Yet, in a stunning move (especially in their eyes), Paul chose to give up those rights.

In fact, in another letter to another group of Christians, Paul actually points out what God's preferred way of dealing with one another truly should be.  In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes that God's people should "[submit] to one another out of reverence for Christ."  (Ephesians 5:21).  Mutual submission to the other actually fits far better with God's will and design for life than a clamoring for our rights.  Instead of looking to our rights, we are to be looking to what best serves our neighbor, the "other" among us.

As you can perhaps see, this often serves to place us in a direct contrast with what we have been raised to believe in the context of our nation and time.  Especially as others are celebrating that they have their rights recognized, we face the question of what are appropriate rights and inappropriate ones. 

But perhaps, for us as Christians, our question should be a little bit different.  Rather than worrying about rights, what if we were to instead ask ourselves, how can I submit to my neighbor to demonstrate God's compassion and grace to them?  Rather than making issues about rights, what if we looked at ways to serve them?  Sure, it is possible (and likely) that they would misunderstand and even abuse such service.  But then again, who fully grasps the service and compassion that our Lord Jesus has toward us, even as He faced the cross?

The Church and The State

Okay, today I'm going to change gears a little bit.  I dearly love digging into the Bible and unearthing the things that God says in there, which we did a little bit yesterday.  I honestly believe that we Christians actually don't get the severity of God's commands, will, and design often enough, and therefore, we have a lessened understanding of just how amazing God's grace is.  But I will dwell on that a little more in a couple of future posts.

But for a moment, let's change gears and think about something that I honestly believe gets highly confused in our nation and in our day and time.  As Americans, one of the sayings that is consistently brought before us is that there is a separation of church and state.  The state (i.e., the ruling authorities) cannot dictate what people are to believe.  The church (i.e., the gatherings of all religious groups) does not rule according to their particular tenets of faith and belief. 

Now, I put this before us for this reason.  If we truly believe that there is to be a separation between the church and the state, then that means that the law of the land may not necessarily be in line with what a faith gathering believes.  As an example, I lived for a good amount of time in Utah, where there are many who belong to the Mormon faith.  This particular emphasis on the difference between the church and the state affect many who adhere to that particular faith.  Mormons, at least traditionally, held to the idea of polygamous marriage (that is, a man having more than one wife).  However, the state in the past has only recognized the union of one man with one woman.  While this stance may have had an impact on the legal definition of marriage for those of the Mormon faith, there are those who held that their particular beliefs meant that a man could marry additional women, but only one would be recognized by the state.  The others would be practiced in the context of their religious union.  What the Mormon would believe would be contrary to the law of the land, and would have an impact on how they legally live in the land, even if they would find alternatives to live out their faith in the context of the state.

What I want to put out here for us to think about today is simply this.  If we truly do believe that there is and should be a separation of church and state, then that means that we shouldn't be overly concerned when the state defines things differently than the church does.  Yes, it may have a great deal of impact on how we have to do certain things, but because there is a separation, we honestly should not get too up in arms when the state changes how it views certain matters.  Yes, we pray that the state will see the wisdom of God as He outlines things.  Yes, we pray that the state would work to preserve the value of life and protect its citizens.  Yes, we pray that God will work to influence the state in positive ways.  We do all these and more because we are citizens of the state, even as we realize that we are only temporary citizens here.

As we think about the state re-defining what constitutes marriage, we realize that it will affect us personally in some form or fashion.  We also realize that the state is not mandated to hold to the particular beliefs of the church (even while we would hope and pray that they would see the wisdom of doing so).  They are, after all, two different entities.  So if the state changes the way something, such as marriage, is defined, we realize that there will be an impact on us, but we don't lose heart.  After all, our hope is not in how the state defines things, but in the fact that our God has forgiven us and given us a permanent home through Jesus.