Just Can’t Get Over It!

Posted on July 30, 2010 by Robert Franklin

During yesterday’s Bible reading I ran across this Psalm again.  It is familiar to me, but in this day it echoes in the depths of my soul.

How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!  How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit! (Psalm 32.1-2, NASB)

So often I succumb to the idea that in order to be “blessed” my life needs to be one of affluence, or at very least, ease.  When days are difficult, it is easy for me to become grouchy and depressed, to focus on my perceived lack.  How shameful!

Long before the revelation of God’s love in the person of Jesus Christ, the Jewish King David knew enough of God’s character to loudly proclaim where true blessing is found: being forgiven.  When I look at the landscape of my life and see the scars of all the self-choices I have made, and then consider God not only forgave but also covers those wounds with His grace, I am in speechless awe.

How can this be?  How is it that a man who willfully followed his own drives and desires to his own hurt and hurt to others can possibly be cleared?  How can a spirit that so quickly self-justifies wickedness be transformed to be a spirit without deceit?

I shout with David, “O how blessed!”

I live in a world full to troubles.  In my line of work, I am more aware than most of what kind of trouble people are facing.  How wonderful it would be if my day began shouting the blessing of forgiveness and if my ears heard in reply the shouts of neighbors, coworkers and friends likewise proclaiming God’s forbearance.

A world where blessing begins with forgiveness would be a blessed world indeed.

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Word of the Day: Mitheist

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Robert Franklin

For those who are wondering, mithiest [pronounced me-thee-ist], is not the result of my latest foray into Rodale’s Synonym Finder.  It is my simplistic answer to the rising tide of self-proclaimed atheists. 

During the years of my existence I have met many who claim to be “atheist” but who are really either angry-theists (which I suppose is a-theist) or now a newer category, mirror-theists (mi-theist). I recently commented on a WordPress post, Raising a Churchless Child.  My comment was only one of many.  Most of those commenting were supporting a viewpoint that spirituality should be left up to a child and whatever the child chooses, or chooses not to choose, is acceptable.  I challenged that line of (lack of ) reasoning and received the typical postmodern response: incredulity and personal attack.  The general gist of the original post and the response to my comment is each individual should determine for themselves exclusive of any truth claims about life and spirituality.

In other words the person in the mirror is the final word.

This doesn’t work.  It never has.  Culture depends on mitheism being no more than a minor part of the whole.  In places and times when the individual brazenly and openly exercises personal diety, the end is consistent degradation and eventual destruction.  Let me illustrate.

Several years ago I was shopping for a musical instrument for my kids at a well-known local “hip” music store.  I was in the middle of the store and a fellow was loudly bending the ear of one of the proprietors at the front counter.  This fellow was explaining to the shop owner how he didn’t believe in any religion and how religious people were ignorant and how everyone should do what they thought was right, what gave them pleasure, or made them happy. 

Many who know me, think I am waiting for this kind of opportunity, but I actually hate listening to other people’s conversations and it makes me sick to my stomach to even think of actually intruding.  However this shop guest was carrying on at length and the poor guy behind the desk was an acquaintance of mine and kept making eye contact with me.  He knew I was a pastor and I could tell by the look on his face that he just wanted me to come make the guy shut up.  I ignored the repeated non-verbal requests for at least ten minutes when at last I could tolerate no more.  In all honesty, I just could not find a place in the whole sizable shop where this fellow’s philosophy could not be heard clearly.

I strode to the front, walked straight up to the amateur metaphysician and asked him quietly and politely,  “How about if I put a bullet in your head?”

“What?”

“I said, ‘How about me going out and getting a gun out of my car and coming back in and putting a bullet in your head?’ ”

Both the proprietor and the guest were now ashen-faced.

“Wha-wha do ya’ mean?”

“What if I told you it would make me happy to shut you up by blowing your brains out right now?”

I honestly don’t know what got into me.  The fellow was a lot bigger than me and, who knows, maybe he had a gun.  I didn’t even own one at the time.

“You can’t do that!”

“Why not! You just spent the last fifteen minutes telling the whole store how everybody should do what makes them happy or brings them pleasure and how people shouldn’t force their idea of right and wrong on other people.  What if I told you it would bring me intense pleasure to shoot you in the head right now because I believe it is the right thing to do?”

“Well what I meant was that we should be able to do whatever we want so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.”

“And who determines whether or not what I am doing actually hurts somebody or not?”

Silence.

“Well society, I suppose.”

“Well, what happens when society decides that it is ok to kill Jews or Blacks or loud guys in music stores?  Is it ok then?”

“Well, um, I guess not?”

“Then wouldn’t it make sense that in order for there to be a right and a wrong that someone, I believe God, must say so?  And wouldn’t it make sense that if there is a God, and I believe there is, that it would be necessary to “force” God’s view of good and evil and right and wrong on those who don’t agree?”

Long silence.  Quick retreat without surrender.  Quiet shop and one relieved shop owner, “You really weren’t gonna shoot him were ya?”

If I were a mitheist, why not?  True mitheists are ones who perpetrate the greatest evils and often are the most successful at convincing others that they are “in the right” as they do it.  I have heard again and again that religion is the source of genocides and other abominations.  In years past I had no retort.  As I learn more and more of human history, I am increasingly convinced that mitheism is the source of evil, not religion.  Yes, a strategic mitheist will draw from a spiritual/religious well, but not as a source of absolute truth.  Mitheists need religion only to justify their own conclusions and if their “religion” makes claims contrary to the mitheist act or belief, that religion is quickly abandoned.

For my part, I regularly ask the God I believe in, revealed once for all in Jesus Christ, to destroy the mitheism in me and to infuse in my secret place a fully yielded heart.

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Book Review: Letters and Papers from Prison

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Robert Franklin

I have had this book for a long time.  I have picked it up and put it down more times than I care to admit.  After reading it this past week, I am ashamed that I did not read it years ago.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor, scholar, educator, and political dissident.  When the Church in Germany remained silent to or acquiesced to the political and social policies of the Nazi party, Bonhoeffer and his colleagues stood up in protest.  There is much of the history of WWII wrapped up in these pages as well as the perspective of a man who knew his government was wrong, but who also viewed those who were dropping bombs on his beloved city as “the enemy.”

Contained in the editor’s forward is a brief description of the controversial nature of the collection of Bonhoeffer’s writings and a brief description of the objections different groups had to his work.  As I read, I wondered at what the fuss was all about.  I read a man’s letters of love to his parents, his best friend and to the church.  His devotion to the confession of the church did not waver, nor did his expectation the good news of the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin and the restoration of the bent and broken.

As Bonhoeffer languished in prison, unsure of his fate, the questions he asked of himself and his faith become more and more pointed.  He questioned whether or not the forms of contemporary religion would be able to engage a post-war society.  He even advocated, in a fragmentary way, a recasting of the gospel for the “modern” ear.  Most of what he suggested the church do has actually happened in evangelical world, howbeit differently than he could have guessed.  His last letters contained undeveloped thoughts and theological directions which may be seen as a threat to Christian orthodoxy.  They may also be seen as the real challenge that orthodoxy answers.

I have so many quotes to share from this work, for now I will share only one:

Nothing sticks fast, nothing holds firm; everything is here today and gone tomorrow. But the good things of life–truth, justice, and beauty–all great accomplishments need time, constancy, and “memory,” or they degenerate.  The man who feels neither responsibility towards the past nor desire to shape the future is one who “forgets.”  And I do not know how one can really get at such a person and bring him to his senses.

Letters and Papers from Prison.  1968 edition, pg. 46.

May I never forget and join the long line of followers of Jesus who anxiously await his return by working for the advance of his kingdom today.

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Running errands and other regular things.

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Robert Franklin

There are things we do in life with barely a thought. Those of us graced by living in the United States travel about; drink safe water from free public fountains; go to sleep reasonably confident of being undisturbed by violence. For most of the world these simple acts are either unattainable or unthinkable and yet the world still seems to be able to make life happen, day to day.

I find it disturbing that Americans are growing increasingly incapable of accomplishing some of life’s most basic tasks. I could (and intend to) write extensively on the subject of American incompetence facing life’s banality, but today will limit my comment to the subject of spiritual growth. Any aspiring “Christian” can easily acquire so-called spiritual growth aides without much effort and with little cost. Yet, in spite of all the print, visual and audio encouragements of the saints in history and the giants of today, most would-be followers of Jesus are unsure of what to do, unmotivated to do what they know and unconcerned as to the consequence of maintaining their present spiritual infancy.

I have long resisted any program promising to guide a new follower of Jesus toward mature emulation of the Savior, or enhancing the “seasoned” believer’s life of obedience. It has been my contention that such efforts produce mostly unprincipled clones instead of genuine disciples. Without surrendering my objections, I have come to realize the error of my prior and the necessity of a clear, sequential, and foundational effort to obey Jesus’ command to “make disciples…”

The idea I will introduce to my friends at Main Street (and to the listening world by ITunes™) is one of spiritual growth as the mundane “errand run.” True Christian spirituality must be, in my estimation, no less complicated or necessary than getting groceries, filling the car with gas, going to school, spending a day at the park or “vegging” in front of the television at home. We have made far too little of the basics of Christianity and far too much of Biblical charts and supposed modern-day “prophetic” fulfillment.

This upcoming weekend we will together wrestle our own hearts as we attempt to respond to Jesus’ command to love God, heart, soul, mind and strength. This is the essence of worship and the genesis of our spiritual “errand run.”

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Married to the Job

Posted on June 7, 2010 by Robert Franklin

I had the privilege of working for United Parcel Service while in college.  I enjoyed the work immensely and found myself promoted to the bottom rung of the management ladder.  I was introduced to the inner workings of the company; I knew a lot of what happened “behind the curtain.”  I was intrigued by what I discovered and quickly found ways to be a contributing factor.

I attained my bachelors degree and informed my superiors it was time for me to leave the company.  Because of a few accomplishments the Lord had allowed me to achieve, upper management really went out of their way to retain me.  I was flattered, but even though the employment offer would have immediately doubled my salary with guarantees of doubling it again within a few years, I knew working for UPS was not an option for me.

A few months earlier my superior’s superior took time out of his day to laud the benefits of staying on with the company.  One financial incentive after another rolled off his tongue.  Promises of being able to pursue my graduate education at company expense were added for good measure.  Then he said something off-hand that arrested my heart. 

“You gotta know, however, that every manager here is a polygamist.”

“How’s that?” I replied, thinking his odd statement was a lead in to a joke.

“Well, you’ll have the little lady at home and you would have ‘Mrs. Brown.’  You got to keep them both happy.”

I knew exactly what he meant: If I took the promotion, I would have to “marry” the job.

Po Bronson, in What Should I Do with My Life relates an anecdote about the ubiquitous ice-breaker question, “What do you do?”  The question is as if value is associated only with our occupation, our job.  No one ever asks the opening question, “What kind of person are you?” or “What kind of family are you part of?”  We want to know first what people do and then privately make assumptions about who they are.

Since I am the eldest son of a groceryman, I believe I can speak with authority to this idea.  While my father knew nearly everything needed to be know about the grocery business, his occupation was not his vocation.  Dad was not defined by his job.  Dad is defined through relationships, particularly the relationship he found with God as a young adult.

The word “vocation” actually is a great-grandchild of a word meaning “to summon.”  It’s earliest recorded usage in the English language dates back to 1426 and references God’s special call upon a person to enter into His service.  It is my firm belief that every human stands to gain by responding to the promise of vocation.  It matters less what we do, much more whose we are.

My friends at Main Street will be considering this question this upcoming week.

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Give Me a Break!

Posted on June 1, 2010 by Robert Franklin

June is arrived and talk of vacation is as heavy as the hot and humid air outside.  One of the phenomena I have witnessed is that often a “vacation” after a vacation is necessary.  For most people vacation is going and playing hard for a week or two or packing our “unlabor” times with activity and travel.  We then feel cheated when we return home exhausted from “taking a break.” 

Rarely are we ready to head back to work.

This common scenario is actually testimony to our rebellion against God.  God created work and yet he also commands regular labor stops.  In fact God commanded a lot of labor stops.  Long before forty hour work weeks and the invention of the “weekend,” God told his people that they must take a complete break every seventh day.  In addition to the required weekly break, there were at least three other annual “rest days.”  Even more alluring, to my mind, is every seventh year was to be a “rest year.”  Furthermore every fiftieth year was to be a jubilee of rest:  rest not only from the normal labors, but rest (through complete forgiveness) of all debts.

I hear regularly how all God does is tell us what to do and keep us from having any sort of fun.  It is a fact in evidence that, as God, God is bossy.  What is often overlooked is God uses his authority to actually lead us to grace.  The grace of a weekly break, the grace of annual breaks, the grace of a seventh year break, the grace of forgiveness of all debts.  

My friends at Main Street will be considering how best to obey God’s command to take real breaks.  It may be a surprise to many to hear how concerned God is that we have regular, uninhibited access to rest.   

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