Thursday, March 26, 2015

The Worth of One

A wise man named Sir Laffy Taffy once posed this question and answer:  How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

I was reminded of that question as I pondered the challenge we heard from Nathan Kollar on Sunday morning.  See, there’s a problem that I have become aware of in myself — a problem I’m sure many of you have encountered, as well.  This problem is called paralysis justified by scale (a term I made up just now, as I typed it).  Perhaps an example will be helpful.

Several months ago, Anna and I were enjoying a nice dinner out in Corktown.  As we exited the restaurant, we passed a grizzled man huddled on a doorstep, clearly not dressed properly for the bitter cold of this particular evening.  He asked if we could spare a few dollars, and I replied with my near-reflexive response of, “Oh I’m sorry man, I don’t carry any cash.”  I’ve learned that this is a great way to shut down these interactions and not put myself in a position to lie, because truthfully I don’t often carry cash.  So we walked on and my conscience was still intact.  However, as we slid into our car and desperately grabbed at the knobs which would direct heat onto our frozen noses, Anna started to question if we should’ve done something to help.

“Maybe we could go back and buy another burger to give him,” she said. 

I thought about it and replied, “Perhaps if there was a McDonalds nearby or something, but we can’t go buy him a $15 burger from Mercury.  We can’t feel responsible for every homeless guy we see in Detroit.  I’m sure there’s a shelter he could go to if he wanted to.”

And we drove home.

This is a classic example of the issue I mentioned above.  I had used the scale of the problem of city-wide homelessness to justify my inaction to help just that one man on just that one night.  By scaling up the problem to every man, I was able to make it so I didn’t feel so bad about betraying the sense that I should help that man.

I think that somewhere inside of us, we often do this same thing when it comes to sharing the love of Jesus with the world around us.  We have a sense that we should help these people that are a part of our lives by showing them The Way of Christ, but we often scale up the problem to help justify our inaction.  We say things to ourselves like,

“Well, I can’t honestly be expected to be sharing Jesus with EVERYONE around me right?  How would I ever get anything done?”

When you scale the problem of people not knowing Christ to global proportions, of course you’re going to feel like you can’t do anything to make an impact.

But what if we started scaling down the issue instead?  What kind of impact would that make?

The other day Anna and I were walking to our car as a man approached us asking if we could help him with bus fare.  I started to respond in my usual way, but for some reason I felt a shift in my heart. I began to scale the problem down instead of up.  I thought,

“You know, I actually have some cash in my pocket and it’s not going to hurt me any to just give this guy five bucks and help him out.”

So I did and then we went on our way.

I thought about this on Sunday when we were challenged to make sure we are making room in our lives for the lost people around us.  I may not be able to get to know every person in my condo complex, but I bet if I tried I could get to know that one guy I pass on the sidewalk most days.  You might not be able to show the love of Christ to everyone in your workplace, but I bet if you made an effort you could find an opportunity to invest in the person who occupies the cubicle next to yours.

See, I think if we start to scale the problem down to one, we can humanize something that once seemed so daunting and let our hearts be moved to action.  Perhaps Jesus understood this about us when he gave us the parable of the lost sheep.  He didn’t say that the shepherd would give up everything to find every lost sheep in the world, did he?  No.  He simply said that he would give up everything to find the one.

You can’t feed every hungry person, but you can feed one.

You can’t help every friend with a broken marriage find healing, but you can help one.

You can’t mourn with every person in your neighborhood who’s experiencing a crisis, but you can mourn with one.

You can’t invite everyone from your school to dinner, but you can invite one.

You can’t introduce everyone you encounter to your community of loving Christian friends, but you can introduce one.

How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.


Written by: Pastor Travis Buerky
Edited by: Tamara Sturdivant

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Epaphroditus

On Sunday, the lessons of a man buried in the pages of Philippians 2 offered some insight on the way we should live as Christians.

Epaphroditus.

He is described by the Apostle Paul as a brother, a fellow worker, a messenger, a minister, an empathizer, a comforter and an honorable man. Paul wanted to let him (and everyone else who would be reading this letter) know how he felt about Epaphroditus.

This particular message gave me a little Holy Spirit anxiety because I possess a couple of troublesome traits: 1.) I’m intensely task oriented and 2) I play my cards very close to the vest.

You probably already know this about me because 1.) I’ve flown past you in the hall without saying “hi” while carrying a binder or a “to do” list and/or  2) I’ve given you a blank stare or some other cold, stand-offish reaction after you’ve shared a deep thought with me.

To say that I don’t love these particular aspects of my temperament would be a gross understatement. In fact, they have caused me immeasurable amounts of relational trouble over the years. I have often wondered if there was some type of therapy or a procedure – like a personality transplant – that I could undergo to help me in these areas.

On Sunday, to my great delight, I discovered that help is probably much easier than I originally thought. I don’t need to change my personality (which is a huge relief, because I’m fairly certain this is impossible). I just need to adjust some behaviors.
First, I need to tell the Epaphrodituses in my life what they mean to me!

I once wrote a blog post that was kind of Paul and Epaphroditus-y. Here it is if you’d like to read it.

Check that off my to-do list. Last year, I let my Epaphrodituses know what they mean to me. So, I’m good, right?

Nope. This needs to be a regular part of my life. So help me, if I need to write “Tell your Epaphroditus what she means to you” on my to-do list in order to get it done, then I will. Has someone been a fellow laborer in the Lord’s work? I should let her know. Did someone deliver a timely message in my season of need? She needs to be encouraged in that. Have I enjoyed someone’s comfort or empathy? They need to know. I can’t just mentally stockpile these occurrences and then write about them all at once on the internet. More importantly, I can’t assume that each person just knows how I feel. I have to purposefully tell each one.

Second, I need to be an Epaphroditus – a sister, a fellow worker, a messenger, a minister, an empathizer, a comforter, an honorable woman. All of those can be accomplished by doing three things:
1. Love God
2. Love God’s people
3. Love God’s work

As I work each one of those items out in my life, it’s impossible for me to remain physically and emotionally isolated. Biblically, those three things can’t be done in a vacuum because loving God will automatically result in loving people. If I don’t love His people, then I need to seriously evaluate my love for Him. Jesus’ teachings are full of these truths. And because I love Him and I love His people, I will naturally want to serve His people and do His work.


I am greatly looking forward to modeling some Paul and Epaphroditus-like behavior today. I hope you are, too. Let’s do this together.

Written by: Jaime Hlavin
Edited by: Tamara Sturdivant

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Samuel- Part 6

If you think of the Bible as a love letter, a tome about God’s passionate heart for you as his creation and his ongoing relationship with us as His people, then maybe 1 Samuel is narrating that stage of a romance when you get to meet the parents.


I say that because this is not only the first really multi-generational narrative of the Bible since Genesis, but one of only a few where we get an introduction to at least one parent or child of every major character. And the results are unsettling.

Pastor Aaron has recounted a few of these meetings in service the last few weeks: Hannah encountering Eli before she becomes Samuel’s mother (1:9-19), the wickedness of Eli’s sons (2:12-24), and later the shortcomings of Samuel’s sons (8:5).  This is one of my favorite books of Scripture, and the teaching on it has been rewarding. However, the writer in me wishes we’d tackled two sticking points:

1) Why do we have two whole books named Samuel when the title character is already dead three-quarters of the way through the first book (and pretty inactive halfway through that book?)

2) Why do so many great men of God seem to be poor fathers?

Literary scholars would call this father-son theme a motif, because it repeats throughout 1 Samuel. Eli is earnest in his priestly duties, but his sons are so lecherous and corrupt that God has Samuel prophesy as a child against them (3:11-17). Likewise, they die in battle (4:11). Yet God redeems Eli’s legacy, in a way, by letting him raise Samuel into one of Israel’s most righteous judges.

But Israel’s elders ostensibly want a king to succeed Samuel because, blameless as he is, his own sons are unfit for his role (8:4-8). Samuel still gets to anoint David, arguably Israel’s greatest and godliest king. Do all of David’s sons prove worthy of his legacy?  In fact, you could make a case that the only man in 1 Samuel who raises a righteous son is Saul, because Jonathan befriends David and his faithfulness helps him to rout a camp of Philistines with his armor-bearer (14:6-14).  Yet Saul is the same king who starts out insecure, grows disobedient, and eventually deteriorates into killing priests and consulting a witch; only to have his and his sons’ deaths foretold (28:15-19). Rough stuff.

Wouldn’t it be easy to infer you can either be a godly man, or a good father, but not both? I can even feel a twinge when my daughter tells me, “You’re the best Daddy,” and fear my judgment is coming! (OK, not really, but after reading 1 Samuel I’ve had to wonder if I seek the best gifts as a father).

But this of course isn’t Samuel’s message at all.  Consider how easy it would have been for God to strike down Saul but spare his righteous son. Then Jonathan is king, and no wars or civil unrest are necessary--the easiest transition yet to a godly leadership for Israel. Right?
    
Maybe that’s easier on Jonathan, but not the best way to build character and faith in God’s people. What God has tried to make so simple and clear is the fact that we cannot arrive at His perfect will through human institutions and conventions. This is not a book about godly men being terrible parents, so much as learning to trust that God alone decides where the lessons we learn and teach pass down beyond our own lifetimes. There is always an anointed leader in God’s design to carry out His plan, even if the next voice of leadership does not come where we would expect it.


God can, and often does, pass the mantle from a righteous father to an equally righteous son like David to Solomon or Abraham to Isaac. But maybe He doesn’t make a habit of it, because we’d get dependent on the tradition or a preordained lineage rather than seek His will for the future. We may each get to have spiritual descendants as well as biological ones, in that sense – just as long as we don’t err by assuming we get to build our own legacies without Him.

Written by: Chad Halcom
Edited by: Brigit Edwards