Rivers Bring Life

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit created life.  And then, they began to spread life everywhere.  God the Father created the heavens and the earth.  He did so through God the Son, as the book of Colossians says: “For by him (Jesus Christ) all things were created: things in heaven and on earth.”  But the Holy Spirit is also active in the creation of the world, as Genesis tells us when it says, “and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”  The Triune God loves life, and let me tell you, I do too!  And I just love the way that this Triune God bring us life.

The focus of waters right from the beginning gives us an indication of the way that God was going to use water as that which brings us life. Genesis 2:10-14 says, “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx are also there.) The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.”

The river flowing from Eden gives life to all that God has created.  The river separates into four headwaters which signify the four corners of the world as the ancients understood it.  God simply used four rivers to bring life to the entire creation.  From the beginning, water was life.  And water is best delivered by way of a river. 

Later, in a seemingly hopeless time for God’s people, the prophet Ezekiel was given a vision of a river flowing from the altar in the Temple.  Though it started very small it was soon a great river with many trees growing on the banks.  The river flowed into the Salt Sea and there everything turned sweet with swarms of living creatures everywhere.  People were fishing on the banks of what once was a barren body of water.  This is a great picture of a river giving life to flora, fauna and folks everywhere.  Don’t we just long for the vision of Ezekiel to become a reality in our lives?

Ezekiel’s vision is repeated in the last book of the Bible.  In the last chapter of Revelation, when heaven has come down to earth and eternity is about to begin, we see a river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God.  As it flows there are trees that line the river producing fruit every month of the year.  The leaves of those trees are for healing the brokenness of the world.  So once again, as in the beginning, the river is the way that God brings life to the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Right in the middle of these beautiful images of rivers giving life to all God has created, Jesus takes this image several notches higher.  In John 7:37-39 it says, “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”  Jesus is the ultimate life giver, but with this unbelievable promise he tells us that all who drink of him will become rivers of life-giving water.  Imagine that; out of me and you there will be a river of life wherever we go!

I so want that to be true of me.  I long to be a river of life flowing all over the place, giving life to whomever wades into my waters.  This is also why I find caring for rivers and streams so very important, especially in the context of a church ministry.  Rivers bring life to all the creation.  The church is called to bring life to all creation.  And when we can combine the two in a visible way that helps the world see how much we value bringing life to creation, that is truly a beautiful thing, and something that gets the attention and appreciation of our community.

Rivers are essential for our environment so we need to care for them.   It does not matter if they are the mighty Mississippi or little Rush Creek.  But whether we are restoring badly degraded waterways or simply appreciating the life they give, each one of us is called to be a river of life spreading God’s life in some way wherever we go.  Are we doing it?

Church on Mission

               

I can remember my mother talking with enthusiasm about a young man in our town, “That boy is going somewhere someday; he’s a man on a mission!”  The reason why people have equated success with being on a mission is that to be on a mission you must be very focused and determined.  This is true in most every aspect in life.  To go someplace it is important to be on a mission.  This is also true of the church.  The church, from the very beginning, has been on a mission.  However, over time it seems like other concerns divert us from the mission, and instead of going someplace the church becomes stagnant. 

                I think there are a couple of reasons for this.  First of all, I think we have all grown up in a church where mission is seen as something only done in another context and by other people.  This false understanding that mission is something done “overseas” has been very detrimental to the church.  When we think of the church primarily as a place for the care and fellowship of the saints or the members, we have lost the biblical understanding of what the church really is.  Jesus Christ did not die for a club but for a church, which was left here on earth to carry out the mission which he began: to seek and to save the lost EVERYWHERE.  There are people who need Jesus all around us.  More than half of the people who live in Georgetown Township do not attend church.  Many of them were once members of a church but came to resent the church or see it as irrelevant.  Additionally, God has brought many refugees into our community and this is a tremendous opportunity to be on mission for Jesus.

                The second reason why the church today is not on mission is that we simply do not know how.  For many established suburban CRC churches the only prerequisite to growing has been to have a nice building, a halfway decent preacher and a very good organist.  There was never any need, and perhaps not much concern, about reaching the lost.  In fact, if churches in the suburbs wanted to reach the lost they would start at “chapel” and the new believers could go there, but not to our churches.

                Today this is still what draws people to church: beautiful and useful buildings, strong preaching, excellent music programs and exciting kid/youth programs.  But this still does not mean that a church has a mission other than to collect people from other churches that are already believers.  What is really rare today is a church on mission, where the people attending are there because of their love and calling into the mission of Christ to save the lost.

                The movement that is needed to enter into the mission of Christ is one which requires us to submit all of our own desires to His and all of our own personal missions to His mission. It means singing with sincerity the hymn, “Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord to thee…Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold. Take my intellect and use every pow’r as Thou shalt choose…Take myself and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.”  When we understand the sacrifice that is required to be on mission with Christ, we will be able to do some amazing things for Him because of Him.

                Being a man or woman or boy or girl on a mission is really the only way to live.  This is why Christ created us and redeemed us in the first place.  And when we are on mission with Christ, we are living the live we have been given to live.  It simply does not get any better than that.

                On a personal note to the church I pastor, I would like to emphasize that I believe that this is the time, today is the day, that Trinity CRC must strengthen its resolve to be the church we are called to be, a church that marches forward with confidence on a gospel-proclaiming, world- redeeming mission.  And we are in a position to do this, God helping us, as we keep our mission aligned with his mission.  We need to be a body of grace-embracing, love-motivated, Spirit-filled people who can put aside some previous notions of the role of the church and of the place of missions and follow the command of Christ to follow God on his mission to redeem and restore the world, near and far, wherever that takes us.  I hope this describes each one of us, and I invite you to a great adventure of mission with Trinity CRC.

Diverse Leadership in the Early Church

The level of racial tension in the U.S. right now is very high.  And I am afraid that even Christians have not become immune to this deadly virus.  We can so easily respond by cocooning in our own ethnic environment.  But this is certainly not the Lord’s will and destructive to our mission and calling in the world.  The Lord has taught us how very important collaboration is between different ethnic groups by revealing to us the ethnic make-up of the leadership in the church in Antioch.  The disciples were very intentional about keeping a multi-ethnic church together in the face of Jew and Gentile tensions.  They were not willing to let each ethnic group start their own separate church.  If you look at the leadership of the church in Antioch you will see the face, or faces, of integration.

Acts 13:1 says, “In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.”  The names that are given here actually tell us a lot about the people who formed the leadership and teaching team of the church in Antioch.

Barnabas is really quite well known.  We are introduced to him in Acts 4:36, 37.  His name was Joseph and he was a Levite from Cyprus.  The apostles called him Barnabas which means “son of Encouragement,” or simply an encourager.  Being from Cyprus we was a Hellenistic Jew which meant his principle language was Greek and he was immersed in the Greek culture.  If I would put a face on Barnabas it would be this one: 

The next leader of the church mentioned in this passage is Simeon called Niger.  Because there were probably other men named Simeon they distinguished him by calling him by a Latin name, Niger, which means black.  Now to call somebody black in a location and place where most everybody had a darker skin tone, probably means he had very dark complexion.  So Niger was a black man most likely from Africa.   If I would put a face on Niger he would look like the portrait to the left.

The third person listed on the leadership council of the church in Antioch is Lucius of Cyrene.  Once again the name Lucius was common in the Roman world so they added where he was from in order to distinguish him.  He was from Cyrene.  This is a place in North Africa close to where Libya is today.  Before the Arab invasion of North Africa in the 600’s almost all of the inhabitants would be from African descent.  So I think the picture to the right would look at lot like Lucius:

Next we read about Manaen.  The explanation that the text gives is that he “had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch.”  Literally this means that he shared the same wet nurse as Herod the Tetrarch.  As was often the case in wealthy families, mothers did not nurse their own children but got a servant to do that.  In any case, Manaen was very close to a very wealthy family and a close personal friend of Herod the Tetrarch, the person who had John the Baptist beheaded.  Yet Manaen went down another path as God called him into leadership of the church in Antioch.  Manaen would have been ethnically similar to the Palestinians today.  He might have looked like the picture on the left.

Finally we come to Paul.  Paul was a Hebraic Jew, born in Tarsus and raised in Jerusalem under the tutelage of Rabbi Gamaliel.  Paul was a Jew of Jews, being extremely well-versed in the teachings of the Law.  I would imagine Paul looking something like this:

Now, if you put these five faces together as the leadership of the church in Antioch, you can see how diverse the leadership actually was.  But this diverse leadership was exactly what was needed for a multiethnic church and a mission to all the ethnic groups in the Roman Empire.  Jerusalem, on the other hand, was still largely Jewish in its outlook and, in fact, sent envoys to Antioch trying to make them become more Jewish and not simply be followers of Christ in their own ethnic way.  I believe this is exactly why God used the church in Antioch to be the missionary church to the entire world. You might say that because of Antioch’s diversity, they were well equipped to be able to bring the Gospel to a diverse world.  They were able to let Jews be Jews, Romans be Romans, Greeks be Greeks, and Cyprians be Cyprians, all being transformed by the Spirit of Christ.

It is my strong belief that what the church of Jesus Christ needs today are diverse congregations that, because of their diversity, are more easily able to bring the Gospel to every nation, race and ethnic group in the world.  May God bless us with more and more churches of diversity.

Between an In-law and an Outlaw

I love camping.  We have a great tent, sleeping bags, and cooking equipment.  But what I love the most is the opportunity to find some solitude and be outdoors for several days at a time.  Having grown up in a camping family, I have been pleasantly surprised as my wife Laura’s family has gotten into camping.  In fact, they now have a family camping trip every summer in Vermont, where they are from. 

This past summer we tried a new campground on a beautiful lake.  We pulled into our campsite just after noon on Thursday and got our tent, tarp and outdoor kitchen all set up.  It was a great place under some majestic white pine trees.

 

Later that afternoon Laura’s family began to set up camp just to the south and west of our campsite.  Fifty-three of them arrived in all.  It was good to see her family again after about a year had elapsed.  Interestingly, the campers to our east and north started arriving about the same time.  First one Harley, then another, and another, and then some trucks until there were about fifty-five members of the Devil’s Desciples (spelled wrong intentionally) motorcycle club from Boston, MA, occupying the rest of the campground.  For four days our little campsite was surrounded on one side by fifty-three in-laws, and on the other side by fifty-five outlaws.  In fact the Devil’s Desciples consider themselves one of the 1% of motorcycle clubs that pride themselves on not being so law abiding.  They did their share of drinking, fixing their Harleys, and smoking pot.  In Vermont, possession of an ounce or less is not a criminal offence and, I guess, once you smoke the first ounce you can possess a second ounce…and so on.  Anyway, needless to say, we got to smell our share of second hand pot smoke for four days.

Now you might think that being a tent sandwich between so many in-laws and so many outlaws could ruin a vacation.  We certainly did not plan this.  However, our son Jesse resurrected the weekend by showing hospitality to everybody all weekend long.  He was very comfortable to be with his cousins by our campfire and to be with the Devil’s Desciples at their picnic table.  In fact, he was so accepting of the Devil’s Disciples, that when we were about to leave, they gave him an honorary member’s t-shirt: a black T with an ugly white skull and bright red letters saying, “Devil’s Desciples.”  There was no giving it back.  They even threw in a black neoprene beer cooler with the same skull on it to show how much they loved Jesse’s hospitality.

I wish I could be so hospitable.  Oh, maybe you could simply chalk it up as being Jesse’s Down Syndrome that makes him so accepting of others.  But if is it Down Syndrome, I think I would like a little of it!  I often ask, “How can I be as attractive to and accepting of others as Jesus Christ was?”  I think the first step is seeing people as Jesus sees them, not as enemies, or outlaws, but people created in the image of our Heavenly Father and for whom Jesus came to earth.  

If the outlaws, or the in-laws for that matter, got a glimpse of Jesus Christ that weekend, it was not through me, unfortunately, but through my son, Jesse Ryan, a man after God’s own heart.

The Big Bad Book

I can remember getting quite worried over what was going to be revealed when I stood before the judgement seat of God and all the books were opened and every sinful thing I had ever done would be read off for the entire world to hear.   I could only think about how terrible this would be and I wished that I might be able to skip out on this.   I was often told that you cannot skip out on this exercise, but that everybody had to go through it.  I thought about how embarrassing this would be to have my mother, who I knew was going to be there, listen to everything I had so carefully concealed from her.  That was scary!   In fact, the whole reason that eternity was going to be eternal was to give enough time to read everybody’s list – that is how long eternity will have to be.  I am sure it would take several weeks just to get through mine!

Lately I have been looking at the book of Revelation anew.  I came to that passage that says, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened.” Then it says that the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.  I have spent some time thinking about this.  Something that helped me understand this is an exercise called blackout poetry. 

Blackout poetry is when a person takes a newspaper or a book and, using just one page, blacks out all the words that they do not want to be in the poem.  The result is a poem consisting of only the words that the person has left uncovered.  I have a good idea that this might be what will happen to everything that we have done wrong.  It will be blacked out by the grace of Christ.  Or, you might say, that his blood will completely “red” out the sin and leave only three simple words. 

I decided I would try this.  So I got the book East of Eden, by John Steinbeck.  I took that book because it really examines sin as it takes root in a family relationship, something that happened after the fall of Adam and Eve when they were cast out of the Garden of Eden to the east.  Well this is the blackout poem that I made from page 42 of the book East of Eden, and that I believe Jesus creates in our books: 

Everything is gone except the most powerful three words in the world: “I love you.”  That made so much sense to me.  I recall the great words from Psalm 103:12, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”  Another beautiful passage that comes to mind which gives me such great assurance is I Corinthians 13:5, which says that love “keeps no record of wrongs.”  If the Lord is instructing us to demonstrate this kind of love, you can be sure that he is modeling this kind of love for us every day.

I have greater comfort now that when the books are opened at the last judgment, what each of us who have found forgiveness in Christ will see is a blackout poem with nothing but the wonderful words, “I love you,” –Jesus.

Palm Power

Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.  Martin Luther King (1958)

We live in an ever-increasingly violent society.  It seems that violence has a price tag and people are making their living off violence.  From electronic video games and YouTube clips that display violence, to the weather reporters who try to make every storm violent, and ultimately to groups like ISIS who film terrible atrocities, we are surrounded by violence.  Even when you read the Bible there are some times when you run into a great deal of violence.  People are beheaded, taken as slaves, and maimed.  Children are mercilessly killed, even sacrificed over the fire.

And then Jesus comes on the scene.  In a world of darkness and violence, here comes light and peace.  He absolutely refuses to fight fire with fire or violence with violence.  When he was about to be pushed over a cliff after his first sermon, he just walked away and never raised a fist.  He encouraged his followers not to resist an evil man; and even if somebody might require something from them, offer that person more than their unreasonable request.

But the power of peace was fully realized when Jesus defeated his longtime nemesis, Satan.  When Jesus was taken to the cross he did not resist for one minute.  He was, as Isaiah says, a “Lamb led to the slaughter.”  At a time when anyone else would have clenched his fists, Jesus opened his palms and let them drive the nails through his hands.  It was in this most unexpected way that the most powerful dark force in the universe was defeated.  It was Palm Power which broke the Devil and set the prisoner free.  In a day when we are told that the only way to defeat a bad man with a gun is to find a good man with a bigger gun, I really wonder what Jesus would do.  Perhaps we should reflect on our preferential strategy of defeating evil with overwhelming force.   Jesus defeated overwhelming evil with love.

As I have been reading and studying the book of Revelation this winter I have often thought about the amount of violence that is recorded there in the vision of John.  One thing I know is that since Jesus has already defeated Satan with Palm Power, there is no reason for him to have to now resort to violence to finish him off.  It seems like an insult to the power of the cross to say that Jesus could deal Satan a mortal blow by Palm Power, yet then have to pick up a sword to finish him off.  What John sees in the book of Revelation is simply the rebellion of a defeated foe.  When all the power Satan can muster faces off against Christ, Christ only has to show up and the evil armies will simply crumble when he speaks the Word.  Why would Christ, who called the world into existence with his Word, have to use a sword to defend himself?  It is beneath his dignity.  The sword which comes from his mouth is simply his Word, which is so powerful that he was able to call the stars into existence and give life to man.  He would never use man’s weapons to do God’s job. 

So it is Palm Power which conquered Satan and it is Palm Power which brings his ultimate destruction.   Jesus met the forces of hate and conquered them with love.  We can too.

The River of Life

“We must begin thinking like a river if we are to leave a legacy of beauty and life for future generations.” ― David Brower

Genesis 2:10 says that “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.” God was the source of the river which gave life to all of creation.

Revelation 22:1 reads, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.  On each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month.  And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”  The Bible concludes with a picture of another river flowing from God, who is its source, down the middle of the community and which gives life and healing to all.

And in between the first book and the last book of the Bible there are numerous other references to rivers and water. In Psalm 46:4 we read of a river whose streams make glad the city of God.  In Isaiah 41:18 God speaks of making rivers to flow on barren heights and of turning deserts into pools of water.  In Ezekiel 47 we get a very beautiful and detailed description of a great and mighty river flowing from the Temple of God that contains swarms of fish and other living creatures and that provides a sanctuary for fruit trees of all kinds to grow -- fruit trees which provide a continual  source of fruit for food and of leaves for healing. The references to rivers and water is perhaps climaxed in the words of Jesus Christ when he says to the woman at the well, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Living water is generally  understood to be running water because it is clear and clean and drinkable, while stagnant water is stale, dirty and impure. Clear, running water is a symbol of life --  life for our bodies and our souls.

Water has always fascinated and inspired me and I would love to be able to really explore in-depth the importance of rivers as a source of life -- life for our local ecosystems, health for our environment, and renewed life for us as stewards of God’s creation. Particularly important to me is understanding and even participating in the cycle of life that is found in rivers and streams. The Trinity Stream Team's work in Rush Creek these past several years has already taught me a lot about how the life cycle of a stream works.  I know that a healthy stream must have a good population of invertebrates. Invertebrates affect the nutrients of a stream by consuming and transforming various organic matter. They also are a food source for fish that inhabit the stream.  One thing the invertebrates are dependent upon is plant life in and around the stream. So a stream that is polluted and full of chemicals that kill or diminish plant life will not support a healthy invertebrate population and thus will also not be a good habitat for fish. This in turn means the stream will not be a good habitat for animals and other wildlife that are looking for fish to eat. 

I have already hinted at the negative role that man can play in the life cycle of a stream as a prime polluter; yet people can, of course, be part of the cycle in positive ways too.  But in order to do so, I believe they will have to spend some time in rivers observing the beauty of the life cycle and really understanding how it all works.  One of the best ways to do this, I think, is by fly fishing. Unfortunately, I cannot say that I speak of this from a whole lot of personal experience (something I hope to change in the near future), but from what I do know, fly fishing puts you right in the water with the fish and other river life and forces you to take to time to observe what is going on around you while you quietly wait for the fish to grab your fly.  And then when the fish finally does jump through the air and grab your fly, you realize that you yourself have become part of the life cycle of the river too, and it is a beautiful experience!

I believe spending time on rivers and seeing how life flourishes in the running water is something that would give me renewed life. In fact, I am thinking about how I might be able to spend several months exploring rivers as part of a pastoral sabbatical -- a sabbatical by which I, and also members of Trinity Church, can ourselves become better rivers of living water, for the benefit of all those we come in contact with in our cycle of life.