1.21 blog

This post will conclude our consideration of the church’s worship. Here we’ll look at the fact that worship exists in two dimensions: gathered and scattered.

I’m not sure who first said it, but it’s become almost an axiom in the evangelical world that “worship is a lifestyle.” In other words, worship is not just what Christians do together for an hour or so on Sunday mornings. It’s what we do throughout the week. 1 Corinthians 10.31 opens up the possibility for all of life as worship by admonishing us, “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” No aspect of our life is exempt from the imperative to worship Jesus. And that’s because all of life is worship: whether of Jesus or of something else (idols).

Probably the frequently asked question in this regard is: what does that look like? I’ll be honest, I’ve never been a fan of that question. And I think the reason why is that it assumes that the answer is going to be something more than what we already know. I’m convinced it’s not. God has told us the sort of life that’s pleasing to him (the ten commandments). Worship looks like living the way he calls us to. It looks like loving God, and loving our neighbor (and letting the commandments shape our definition of love). It looks like Colossians 3.17, “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” A lifestyle of worship is a lifestyle of grateful obedience. The problem is not that we don’t know what it looks like. The problem is that we want it to look like something else. It’s as simple as this: if you’re a stay at home mom, you manage the house, love and teach your kids, and you do it in gratitude for what Christ has done for you. If you sell cars, you sell good cars for a good price with a grateful heart. And so on. Nothing mystical. Nothing supernatural. Nothing outside the ordinary. Scattered worship.

Anyway, the text we’ve been reflecting upon for these considerations has been Revelation 5. And it’s not silent on this issue either. In verses 11-14, we see an ever-widening circle of worship, as praise for the Lamb expands until it includes every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the sea. We’re given a vision of all-encompassing worship that includes every aspect of life and the whole of the created order (incidentally, this is symbolized by our bringing bread and wine into our worship in the sacrament of Communion). This is worship expanding beyond the four walls of the church building (or brewery in our case).

Something I love here is that verse ten identifies the people of the Lamb as a kingdom of priests. One of the fruits of the Protestant Reformation was this idea of the priesthood of all believers. While there have been some pretty bad distortions of this in popular evangelical piety (and some of the Radical Reformers), it’s still a treasure of biblical Christianity. We are all priests: in other words, we all have access to God. As we’ve seen, worship doesn’t just happen on Sunday morning with the gathered church. We can worship and enjoy God all the time, anywhere.

However, we’d be fools to read that and think that all we need is this worship-is-a-lifestyle-scattered-type-worship. Remember, this heavenly worship scene happens specifically in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and not apart from the church. If Jesus has purchased himself a church, our worship ought to include them. The trajectory of this passage is for more and more to be brought into the circle of worship, not less. The circle of praise is expanding, not contracting.

If we won’t worship Jesus throughout the week, thinking that our hour of time on Sunday is “enough,” then we don’t really love Jesus as we ought to or understand redemption. At the same time, if we think it’s “enough” to worship Jesus on our own throughout the week, or even with our small group of Christian friends, without also gathering with the whole church on Sunday, then don’t really love Jesus as we ought to or understand redemption.

Who needs the church? We do.

So gather with the church this Sunday, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because Jesus is worthy of the church’s worship. And don’t stop there, worship him throughout the week because his worthiness far exceeds what can be given him in that brief hour.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

A couple of Sundays ago, 1.21 Church had the priviledge of installing two new deacons to serve the Body of Christ. God has given the church deacons in order to protect the unity and mission of the church by meeting important needs whilst keeping the elders free to devote themselves to the ministries of the Word of God and Prayer (Acts 6).

So now it’s my pleasure to introduce our two newest deacons to you.

Allison Callahan

Allison currently serves the church by helping us stay organized. She makes sure that we have any and all  printed materials ready to go, as well as helping to organize volunteers for any events the church has (if you’ve ever eaten at a 1.21 event, Allison was probably involved). Allison is also helping us to find ways to enter into and serve our city incarnationally. Allison writes,  “I love experiencing different cultures and encountering different people groups, whatever they may be.  I love being able to see what God is doing in those groups and how He is using the gospel to draw those groups to himself.  I have realized that in order to be effective in ministry you need to be completely immersed in the culture in which you live…I feel as if God has given me a huge heart for foreign missions, but have realized that God has put me in this place right now.  I would love to help other people have a better understanding of what God is doing overseas as well as equip them to minister to the people around them where they are.”

If you’d like information about serving in any of these areas, please contact Allison.

Melissa Stone

Melissa and her husband Daniel moved to Winston-Salem from Tempe Arizona this summer in order to be a part of 1.21. Melissa currently serves the church by coordinating our childrens’ ministries (1.21 Kids). This includes recruiting, training, and administrating volunteers, teachers, curriculum, the whole nine. Melissa writes, “1.21 Kids is just one of the ways in which individuals from our church express their worship and celebration of Jesus. Every Sunday, we are given the privilege to serve Jesus by providing some of the 1.21 children with biblical teaching and opportunities to interact with other 1.21 Kids. In no way do we desire to replace the discipleship that parents are called by God to provide to their children. However, we do recognize that Jesus delighted in ministering to children who are just as much sinners in need of His grace.”

If you’d like to help serve in any of these capacities, please contact Melissa for more information.

Please join me in welcoming these two godly servants into their new offices!

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

In a previous post, we looked at some biblical features of corporate worship from Revelation 5. In this post, we’ll take a look at another aspect of our worship that is commonly neglected: the communion of saints. As Christians, we confess the truths of the Apostles’ Creed, which near the end states: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.” Two closely related ideas in the creed are the holy catholic church and the communion of saints.

By the catholic church, we mean the church of Jesus Christ as it has spanned geographic and generational distance. It is the union of all believers in Jesus across the world and throughout time. We here on earth are the church militant, while those who have left this life are now the church triumphant. And, as members of Christ, we are all members of one another (Romans 12.5). Our union with all who are united with Christ is referred to as “the communion of saints.” (See also Hebrews 11.1-12.1). With that background in mind, I want us to take another look at the church’s worship (especially in Revelation 5).

The Book of Revelation consists of a vision that John received “in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day [i.e., Sunday]” (Revelation 1.10). And in that vision, John is caught up to the worship of heaven (Revelation 4ff.) The scene in Chapter 5 is the unfolding heavenly liturgy. Among the cast of characters in chapters 4-5 are twenty-four elders. As best as I can tell, these twenty-four elders represent the people of God throughout the ages, the holy catholic church (12 Tribes of Israel, 12 Apostles). Elders, after all, are one of the church offices established in Scripture. Which leads me to believe that in the normal Sunday worship of the church, believers take part in the worship of heaven, like John did in Revelation 4-5.

We see this playing out as well in Hebrews 12.18-29, and First Corinthians 5 (especially verse 4). Both passages work with the assumption that the gathered church is participating in something much larger than just their own gathering. They are united with worshipers in heaven and on the other side of the world by the power of the Holy Spirit.

There is far more happening in our churches’ worship than we realize. If we could capture this wort of realization, I believe it would transform the way we approach Sunday mornings. It wouldn’t be a burdensome chore. It wouldn’t be blasé or commonplace. It would be shot through with importance, dignity, and joy. Here we are before our God, and joining us are countless other brothers and sisters whom we’ve never met, but nevertheless love, with whom we are bound together in ties that transcend our cultural/geographic distance, and with whom we will one day sit at the Wedding Feast.

As our church enters the Season of Lent (beginning Ash Wednesday), we will be begging God to show us our dependence on him, and his utter worthiness of our worship and adoration. Might I also suggest that we beg him to open our eyes to the communion of saints, adding new depth to our conception of worship, and giving us one more reason to praise his Name.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

Yesterday Pastor Craig preached a sermon from Revelation 5, which depicts a scene of the worship in heaven (I’ll have more to say about this in a subsequent post). The burden of the sermon was that Jesus Christ, the Conquering Lion, the Lamb who was Slain, is worthy of all worship: in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.

Jesus is worthy of our worship. We’ll be worshiping him throughout eternity. It behooves us, then, to learn how to worship well. There are several features of worship that I noticed in the text.

1. Worship is Affective. In verse 4, when no one can open the scroll, John weeps loudly. This shows us that worship is holistic, it includes our affections and our emotions. Now, I have a pretty deep distrust of the way some churches basically manipulate and manufacture emotion, or the ways that Christians sometimes associate worship exclusively with emotion (such that they’ve not “really worshiped” unless they reach a certain level of fervor).  But still, it’s inescapable, that worship involves our affections.
2. Worship is concerned with God’s purposes. The main action of this scene is the opening of the scroll that contains God’s purposes for history and the church. John weeps because it seems God’s purposes will be thwarted. The heavenly host worships because the Lamb will be able to open the scroll. Therefore, in worship, our focus should be primarily Godward, and on his purposes, rather than inward/selfward, and with a view to our own purposes (e.g., what we’ll get out of it).
3. Worship is embodied. In verse 8, we see the living creatures and the elders prostrate themselves before the Lamb, and burning incense. They realize that we aren’t just free floating souls. And while worship is primarily a matter of the heart, that does not mean that what we do with our body is inconsequential. God created humanity with bodies, and he’s not changed his mind. We’ll have bodies throughout eternity. Physical stuff (even smells and bells) matters. That’s part of why our corporate worship is sacramental, because we want sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell to be involved in the worship of God. So does God.
4. Worship is orderly. This is not a chaotic scene. Everyone has their appropriate parts and responses, and they say them at the right times. In fact, in Chapter Four, we read that they are frequently repeating the same lines (from memory? by rote? from a book? we don’t know). Some traditions place a high value on spontaneity and lack of planning. There are times when that is appropriate. But that doesn’t seem to be what’s happening in this scene. The worshipers here are no less “led by the Spirit” than our more charismatic brothers and sisters, but they seem to be using (dare I say it?), a fairly liturgical/ritualized form of worship. At its best worship is both orderly/liturgical and free flowing/non-restrictive.
5. Worship is focused on the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. The whole scene centers about the Lamb who was slain, and how he purchased a people for God by his blood. I’ve noticed that a good bit of contemporary worship music (and many “traditional” songs) sings truth (“I am a friend of God”), but fails to give any sort of context or basis for it (“because Jesus Christ died for me”). In my humble (but accurate) opinion, that sort of approach eviscerates worship of its true meaning and purpose. Our worship should never assume the gospel. It should proclaim it, revel in it, and marinate in it. Only Jesus is worthy of our worshipful response. And only in the cross do we understand why that is the case.

Well, I’ve probably alienated enough people for one post. In our next post, we’ll take a look at worship and the “communion of saints.”

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

Continuing our theme of baptism, I’ve thrown together a few great quotes about this sacrament of initiation.

Rather, in baptism, we are subsumed into a story of water and the word. A story of creation formed out of dark waters. A story of a God so righteous that he was willing to make war on the world he created, only to hang up his bow and to promise never to give up on us again. A story of a people, created out of nothing, by a God determined to be worshipped [sic] rightly, led through waters into the desert as imperial chariots foundered. A story of a Jewish woman visited by God in a way that confounded her fiance but caused her to sing. A story of a crazy man out in the desert proclaiming a new kingdom coming in water and fire. A story of one who saved by an issue of water and blood…Christian preching brings out or brings inot view the mystery inherent in the waters of baptism. Baptismal preaching names the reality to which we have all been exposed, that is, the peculiar salvation of theis crucified God. Therefore baptismal preaching is not so much a matter of being didactic, of explaining something, as it is of testifying to something, struggling to describe an event that has already happened to the congregation, bringing into view the significance of our baptism with words. (William H. Willimon, Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized p. 5).

By the way, while we’re dealing with Willimon, this essay is gold.

Then we’ve got:

We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water. Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation. Through it you led the chidlren of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land of promise. In it your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.

We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit. Therefore in joyful obedience to your Son, we bring into his fellowship those who come to him in faith, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. (The Book of Common Prayer)

Then from the Archbishop of Canterbury [then Bishop of Monmouth]:

The actual shape and rhetoric of sacramental actions [depicts]… a process of estrangement, surrender and re-creation…Baptismal identity is given, not chosen…[The baptismal liturgy] begins…[by] telling us that all are born in sin, and that the gift looked for in baptism is something ‘which by nature [we] cannot have’; and it proceeds to rehearse stories of transition and rescue – Noah and his family, ‘the children of Israel thy people’. The apparently neutral condition of the infant [yes, he's talking about infant baptism...there's still something to learn here even if we disagree] is thus redescribed as on of danger or unfreedom, liability to divine ‘wrath’; what is necessary is incorporation into the society that is within the ark, where it becomes possible to be ‘rooted in charity’. Prayers are said for the ‘death’ of the child’s existing human identity and the distorted affects that go with it, and God is petitioned to number the child among his chosen. After the immersion or affusion, the child is said to be ‘grafted into the body of Christ’s Church’, and prayer is further made that the child may share Christ’s resurrection as it has already, symbolically, shared his death. In conclusion, the duties of the baptized are spelled out, reiterating the theme of death and resurrection: what is symbolically done here, the putting to death of ‘corrupt affections’, is to be renewed daily in concrete behavior…

Both the kinds of belonging evoked here – the condition of sin, belonging with Adam, and the new life of belonging in or with Christ – are not elective matters, not things over which the subject has any control. First there is the unsought and unwelcome solidarity of being in danger, then the ‘grafting’ into a new reality. The danger is associated with misdirected ‘affections’…we want, are drawn by, are moved by, what will kill us; so that, by contrast, the new life is implicitly associated with new attractions, a new sensibility…We must receive grace to want the endlessness of God. But…this has nothing to do with being educated into new perception: there is a gift bestowed…which orients us in a certain way, and what must follow is a discipline to ensure we do not lose sight of it… (Rowan Williams, “The Sacraments of the New Society,” in Christ: The Sacramental Word, pp. 90-91)

And finally:

For [Christ] dedicated and sanctified baptism in his own body in order taht he might have it in common with us as the firmest possible bond of the union and fellowship which he has deigned to form with us…Thus we see that the fulfillment of baptism is in Christ, whom also for this reason we call the proper object of baptism…For all the gifts of God proffered in baptism are found in Christ alone. Yet this cannot take place unless he who baptizes in Christ invokes also the names of the Father and the Spirit. For we are cleansed by his blood because our merciful Father, wishing to receive us into grace in accordance with his incomparable kindness, has set this Mediator among us to gain favor for us in his sight. But we obtain regeneration by Christ’s death and resurrection only if we are sanctified by the Spirit and imbued with a new and spiritual nature. For this reason we obtain and, so to speak, clearly discern in the Father the cause, in the Son the matter, and in the Spirit the effect of our purgation and our regeneration. (John Calvin. Institutes of the Christian Religion 4.15.6)

Yesterday I preached about baptism from Romans 6.1-11. In the sermon I noted that Paul speaks of baptism as though it actually does something. He says that all who are baptized into Christ are baptized into his death, and that through baptism, we are buried with Christ.

Most evangelicals get nervous when they hear that sort of language. Isn’t baptism just a symbol? Isn’t salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone? The answer to the first question is no. Baptism is not just a symbol, it’s a sacrament. The answer to the second question is yes.

Let’s just be clear and unequivocal: our salvation depends entirely on God’s grace and the work of Jesus in our place. We appropriate this salvation by faith alone. Alright, now let’s move on.

The fact is, the Bible uses language like the language we saw in Romans 6, or like we see in Colossians 2.11-12; or Galatians 3.25-29; or Acts 2.38; or Acts 22.16, which depicts baptism as bringing about forgiveness of sins, union with Jesus in his death and resurrection, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. We have to deal with this and take it seriously.

There have been several unsatisfactory attempts to do so. For example, the Roman Catholic view holds that baptism is necessary for salvation, and brings it about simply by being applied (ex opere operatum). However, when faced with the fact that in the Bible some people are saved without being baptized (e.g., the penitent thief), they come up with categories like “baptism of intent,” where the person would have been baptized if they’d known about it. That’s not a very satisfying explanation.

On the other hand, evangelicals have developed a category of Holy Spirit baptism as separate from water baptism (not to be confused with the Pentecostal view). In this view, the effects of baptism listed in the Scriptures are linked to “Spirit baptism,” while water baptism merely testifies to Spirit baptism. So, basically every time baptism is depicted as doing something, we are to understand that water baptism isn’t in view. It must simply mean Spirit baptism. Again, it’s not an especially satisfying explanation, and seems forced and artificial.

However, there’s another option open to us: the Reformed view (for whatever reason a lot of people talk about Reformed theology as if it simply means predestination, or the “five points of Calvinism,” but there’s so much more to it). In this view we understand that while there is a distinction between the sign (the application of water in the name of the Trinity), and the thing signified (new life in Christ, forgiveness of sins, reception of the Holy Spirit), so that a person can be baptized but not be saved, or be saved without being baptized; there should not be a separation of them. They are closely related and mysteriously united. This view allows us to maintain the Bible’s language about God accomplishing something through baptism without losing sight of the fact that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. It has the benefits of the Spirit baptism view without devaluing and regulating baptism to a mere symbol.

It’s more than a symbol. It’s a sacrament. A sign and a seal of God’s promises in the gospel.

For more detail about how this plays out, see questions 65-73 of the Heidelberg Catechism.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

I feel morally obligated by starting this post with caveat lector, here there be spoilers.

Alright, with that out of the way, and my conscience clear, let’s proceed. Last night, several friends and I were gathered to watch the premiere episode of the final season of Lost. It’s been a long strange trip as we’ve explored themes like redemption, connection, fate, faith, science, time travel, relativity, etc. etc. As the evening proceeded, we got into one of those ever popular discussions of morality.

Last season, having traveled back to 1977, one of the characters, Sayid, became convinced that his purpose was to kill the child-version of one of the show’s “villains,” Benjamin Linus. Sayid knew that Ben would grow up, commit mass murder, lie, manipulate, and generally make life miserable for a wide variety of characters. And so, in cold blood, he shot the boy. And our discussion turned upon whether or not Sayid’s actions were morally right. I maintain they aren’t. Several others disagree with me.

This question comes up in a variety of other pop-culture settings. If Elrond can decisively defeat the Dark Lord Sauron by throwing Isildur into the fires of Mount Doom along with the One Ring, should he? If Jack Bauer can prevent an explosion from killing the innocent, but in order to do so, he must torture someone, should he?

And then, it comes up in the real world. Is it justifiable to attack another country because we think they might attack us, and we need to get them first? If you can prevent the Holocaust by throwing two year old Adolf Hitler down a well, should you? Is it the right thing to murder a doctor who performs abortions, thereby preventing the further killing of the unborn?

Interestingly, the idea that these actions would be morally good is a philosophy called “utilitarianism,” which was propounded by a man named Jeremy Bentham. Lost-philes will recognize that this was the name adopted by John Locke when he left the Island. Students of philosophy will appreciate that Jeremy Bentham and John Locke were philosophical rivals. Anyway, utilitarianism basically says that what makes an action right or wrong is its usefulness. What is right is to bring the greatest amount of pleasure, to the greatest number of people, and avoid as much pain as possible. On this account, then all of the scenarios mentioned above would be “right.”

As much as I’d love to have avoided tragedies like the Holocaust (and as much as I enjoy 24), I’m still convinced that they’re wrong. The reason J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t have Elrond throw Isildur into the fire (There’s a scene where he could have in the films. I can’t recall whether or not there is in the books. I’ll know soon enough, as rereading them is next on my fiction docket), is that, as a Roman Catholic, he inhabited a moral universe where some actions are right or wrong in and of themselves, irrespective of their results. As a fellow member of the same broadly Christian heritage, I agree. So does Paul, in Romans 3.8, he denies the viability of a moral theory suggesting we do evil so that good may come.

As John Milbank demonstrates in his Theology and Social Theory, the modern world is founded on a myth of violence and scarcity. As a result violent struggle is inescapable, and Machiavellian actions are quite justified. Friedrich Nietzsche especially laid this bare. However, the alternative is the Christian conception, which sees reality as founded upon the Trinity, who is peace-full coexistence and love. If there is such a God, whose nature is Good, then goodness derives from him. So long as we believe in such a God, we’re with Tolkien in his assessment of right and wrong. This often leaves us with a universe stained and strained with tragedy. But our hope is not to fix what’s wrong. Instead, our hope is in the one who, on the cross, took tragedy upon himself, who rose from the dead, and who one day will return and be sure that all things are set right.

I’m not telling you what moral theory you should adopt. I’m not dictating what political policies should be. But I do recommend serious consideration of what our moral theory, and the actions that arise from those theories say about what we believe about God.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

Due to the weather and road conditions, the pastors have decided that we won’t gather corporately tomorrow. The national weather service is advising that no one drive in our area unless it’s an emergency. We want everyone to be safe. However, this doesn’t mean that we’re cancelling church. The church is both a place where certain things happen (preaching, sacraments, etc.) and a people who belong to Jesus by grace through faith. We are the institution through which God brings himself to us through word and sacrament, and the community of people who respond to God in loving worship to Jesus and service to our neighbors.

So the church won’t meet as an institution tomorrow, but as the people of God we’ll still be active. We want to be sure that Jesus is still worshiped by his church tomorrow, and so we encourage you to take some time to read and reflect on the Scriptures, perhaps sing some hymns to Christ, and to pray with your family. The Book of Common Prayer, for instance, has some nice suggestions for devotions to use as individuals or with families (you’ll find them under the “Daily Office.”). To help with this, we’re posting Pastor Stephen’s thoughts regarding the sermon he’d have preached if we’d gathered. We hope you’ll enjoy reflecting on and discussing them. In addition, we want to encourage you to take some time to love and serve your neighbors tomorrow. For instance, you may offer to shovel their walk, or have them over for a hot drink, perhaps you have snow “toys” you could lend them. Be creative, but be loving. The theme we’d have explored this week was God’s great compassion on the people all around us. You have the chance to be instruments of that compassion!

But without further ado, here are Pastor Stephen’s concluding thoughts on the Book of Jonah. You might want to take a minute to reread the book as a whole, or at least chapter four.

Over the last three weeks we’ve explored this book, and the consistent theme to emerge has been the compassion of God. This isn’t a story about you and me, or even about Jonah. It’s a story about a compassionate God, who will do anything (from sea storms, to Giant Fish, to idiots like Jonah and the rest of us) to bring his compassion to people who need it. In this last chapter, we see a final “showdown” between God and Jonah, as they have a Q and A session about God and his ways. Through it we learn about God’s heart, as well as Jonah’s, and hopefully our own.

At the end of chapter three, God relents of the disaster he was going to send upon the city of Nineveh. They had turned from their violent ways, and so he had mercy on them. But in verses 1-4 of chapter four, we see that Jonah’s not happy about this at all. He broods and complains because he’s sure that Nineveh should be burned to the ground instead of spared (bear in mind, these were enemies of Israel, who would ultimately destroy them). So he prays/complains to God and says, “This is exactly why I ran away to begin with, because I knew you were merciful, and I didn’t want that for Nineveh.” Think about the heart behind that statement. Jonah loves the mercy of God…for himself (see chapter 2). But when it comes to anyone else, he hates it. Jonah knows wonderful truth about God, but he hasn’t let it seep into his heart and transform the way he sees others.

You and I do the same thing when we keep the wonderful news of Jesus to ourselves.

Anyway, Jonah’s so upset that he’d rather die. It’s better for him to die than to live in a world where the city of Nineveh is spared. He’s getting a bit melodramatic here. He’s like the racist southerner who doesn’t want to live in a world where he has to drink from the same water fountain as a black man. God doesn’t just leave Jonah to himself, though. He asks him, “Do you do right to be angry?” (This is a question we should all ask ourselves from time to time.)

Apparently Jonah misunderstands things. God has basically told him that he has no good reason for anger, which must mean that the Ninevites are going to be destroyed after all. Because if they aren’t going to be destroyed, he does do well to be angry. This shows how easily we can assume that God is on our side. That he agrees with whatever it is that we think. Jonah assumes God’s with him on this thing after all: “Good move God, lull them into a false sense of security and then strike when they least expect it.” So he heads up east of the city, sets up a nice booth and sits down in the shade, waiting for the fireworks to start. It’s going to be a good show when these terrorists burn (the Ancient Near Eastern version of 24), and he doesn’t want to miss it. But God doesn’t pull a Jack Bauer. Nothing happens.

Meanwhile, God still uses his providential care to shield Jonah from the heat, sending up a plant to shade him. Even though Jonah’s an angry idiot, God still has compassion for him and takes care of him. Jonah rejoices at this. But God is up to something more. The next day, he sends a worm to kill the plant, which leads to Jonah being angry once more. He decides he’d rather die than live in a world where it’s hot outside and plants are dying.

So God questions him once more, “Do you do right to be angry about the plant?” Jonah responds like a stubborn four year old. “Yes I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”

“Well,” God says, “Shouldn’t I be the same way with Nineveh?” Nineveh is a great city, not an insignificant plant. Nineveh’s been around for centuries, not just a day. God made Nineveh, unlike Jonah with the plant. And Nineveh is filled with people. Not just people, but people who don’t know their right from their left (a phrase demonstrating ignorance, and usually moral ignorance). There are all these people who know nothing, they’re caught up in their sin and ignorance. The proper response is not anger and judgment (not yet at least), but rather pity and love. Do we have compassion on sinners, or are we just angry and self-righteous toward them? God is the only one in the Universe with any right to be angry and judgmental, and he has pity. How much more should we? We like it when God is merciful to us, shouldn’t we be merciful to others?

How has God shown to us that he has pity for us?  How has he protected us? How has he taught us mercy,  love, and compassion? Through Jesus.
In his life, death and resurrection, God brings his people out of darkness, by taking that darkness on himself. He can be merciful because he has done what is necessary for him to be able to “relent from disaster.” Not only has he told us to be a people of compassion. He has formed us as a people through his compassion. He has shown us what compassion looks like on the cross. If you ever wonder whether or not God cares: look to the cross. There’s the answer. God allowed himself to be God-forsaken so that you would never be abandoned.

Some points of application:

1. Jonah cared more about a plant than a city full of people. Do your priorities line up with what really matters?
2. God cares about our great cities. Do we?
3. Does our use of time and energy reflect a care for the people around us, or like Jonah, is our life just about ourselves?

Finally, in concluding our study of Jonah, the following question would be good for reflection:

1. What have we learned about God through this Book?
2. Will we allow this truth to penetrate and permeate our lives?

This past Sunday, I preached a sermon from Jonah 2, where Jonah cries out to God from the belly of a great fish. This is the first time in the book that Jonah prays. In chapter one, he was on a sinking ship, full of sailors crying out to their gods, and begging him to cry out to his God. But he didn’t. Then he’s thrown overboard, nearly drowns, and is rescued by being swallowed by a giant fish. God supernaturally keeps him alive inside the fish, and after three days, Jonah finally prays. Let’s think about this. God has rescued him, and is preserving him, and it takes him three days to get around to praying. This guys and idiot!

And we do the same thing. We more or less go through the week as atheists. Sure, many Christians will spend a few moments glancing at their Bible or trying to mumble a few prayers as their day begins. But by the time you get to the middle of the day, where real life happens, we’ve forgotten all about God. When was the last time God was a significant factor in your decision making? Or the last time you spontaneously gave him thanks for his gifts (and before a meal doesn’t count)?

I’ve been thinking about this, and I think one of the causes of this is that churches have forgotten how to relate to God in the ordinary. Evangelicals have this tendency to be very “spiritual,” looking down on “material” and “mundane” things (which tends towards the heresies of Gnosticism and Docetism). And because this is the case, there’s a tendency to expect to find God in odd, extraordinary, bolt-out-of-the-blue ways. I’ve had a few of those, but they’ve been few and far between. It’s good to have such experiences. It’s good to desire them. But the problem is that they can tend to cloud the way God normally relates to us.

The ways God relates to us are often quite ordinary, mundane, and (dare I say?) boring. And that’s great, because that’s how real life is! It’s ordinary, by definition! And of course it’s mundane, we live in the mundum (Latin for world). The idea that we should avoid the mundane is a devaluation of the created order established by God (which he said was very good). God has created this world. He has given us bodies. He’s ordered human life so that we have our common tasks, etc. He has established all of this.

And that means that while our lives are ordinary and mundane, they are by no means trivial. Because God has created and established our boring ordinary lives, they are shot through with significance. And it’s in those ordinary, “boring” moments that we relate to God. So perhaps, rather than expecting God to rend the heavens and shake the earth all the time, we should ask God to help us appreciate and find him in the ordinary mundane lives he has given us.

Just some food for thought.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger

Today the United States observes Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Celebrating and honoring that champion of this civil rights movement. Dr. King challenged the racism of his day, and did so from a position firmly within the Christian tradition. Now, decades after his death, we are seeing definite signs of progress: we have an African American President, for one thing. But we still have so far to go. For example, back in December, the New York Times reported on highly qualified African American job applicants having a hard time getting hired due to racial disparities. Racism is still very much with us.

And Christianity is fundamentally and intractably opposed to racism. I know there are racist Christians. I know Christianity has been used to underwrite racist agendas. But still, the religion on the whole is inherently anti-racist.

Christians have a doctrine of creation in the Image of God (Genesis 1.26-27). Therefore, all humanity is fundamentally equal. You cannot be a racist without denying creation.

Christians believe that the Savior of humanity is Jesus Christ. This one Jewish man suffered death for all peoples, purchasing for God a church from every nation, tribe, and tongue (e.g., Revelation 5.9). Again, this underscores the fundamental equality of all races. You cannot be a racist without seriously undermining the doctrine of salvation.

This is played out in various places in the Bible. In Galatians 2, Paul rebukes Peter for his racism. But he doesn’t just say, “Peter, how dare you be a racist? That’s very wrong of you!” Instead, he tells Peter that he is not walking in line with the gospel of Jesus. Racism is a gospel issue.

In Ephesians 2 we read that the former walls of racial hostility are broken down in Jesus so that Jews and Gentiles (and Whites, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, etc.) are united into One Body in Christ. We share one baptism (Ephesians 4.5). We eat of one bread, and drink of one cup (1 Corinthians 10.16-17). Christians “believe…in the holy catholic church” (The Apostles Creed). You cannot be a racist without undercutting belief in the holy catholic church. People from all different races are our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Racism spits in the face of Jesus Christ.

If you indulge in racism, these passages of Scripture should chill you.

“Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” (1 John 2.9-11)

“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot  love God whom he has not seen.  And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4.20-21)

We’re all implicated in racism. And the proper response when we see this is not to deny it, or point to others whose racism is worse than our own. It is to repent. The Dutch Reformed Churches learned this. For years they had taken part in the evil of apartheid in South Africa. The turning point came, when in an act of repentance, they declared apartheid (and racism in general) to be a heresy and turned from it.

Racism is a terrible sin. But Jesus Christ is an even greater Savior.

Today, as we honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, give thanks to God for the progress that’s been made, and beg him for strength to carry the fight forward into the future.

Posted by: Gene Schlesinger