God
The Homeless Man and the Scone
10 a.m. Left my house and headed for Starbucks in West Grove.
10:20 a.m. I sit down to read “A Wideness in God’s Mercy” by Clark Pinnock for a class at seminary with a strawberry smoothie by my side.
11:15 a.m. Have the astute idea that it’s nicer outside than it is inside, so I move to the outdoors to enjoy the pleasant 78 degrees.
12 noon. Have another astute idea that my seat in my car is more comfortable than the metal chair I’m presently occupying.
12:45 p.m. Notice a random person emerging from the wooded area across the street. As the person comes closer, he crosses the street and sets himself down at the corner of the busiest red light on the strip.
1:00 p.m. Random person now rummaging through his backpack, pulls out a sign that reads “HOMELESS.” Random person now identified as “homeless.” Obviously looking for some free handouts.
1:15 p.m. A number of thoughts roll through my mind:
If he’s smart enough to stand at the busiest intersection, with a well-designed sign, he should be smart enough to hold a job?
Maybe he’s an ex-convict and can’t get a job.
I wonder how often he eats.
Everybody’s driving by him, nobody’s stopping, I wonder how that makes him feel?
Maybe he has a drug addiction and can’t hold a job.
In a different life, that could be me.
Ohh … he’s sitting down … too tired to stand.
Maybe he’s too lazy to hold a job.
Better get back to my book … my report’s due on Friday.
Look at all those expensive cars. I bet all these people are strapped for cash. I mean, I NEVER carry cash.
I wonder if he has any idea the economy’s in a recession.
2:00 p.m. I’m starting to get tired, so I move out of my confortable driver seat and back to the metal chair, just in time to redeem my “after 2 p.m., any iced drink just $2” coupon.
2:30 p.m. Realize that I don’t like iced mochas.
3:45 p.m. I finish the Pinnock book, pack up my stuff, head to my car and notice the homeless man holding his position at the corner of the red light. I decide to buy him some food … since I don’t have any cash.
3:50 p.m. Walk up to the cashier, not sure what the homeless man would enjoy. I remind myself that I’m on a tight budget since the whole adoption process has us strapped. Can’t *afford* the freakin five dollar sandwich, so I settle on a scone.
“I’ll have the blueberry scone” I tell the cashier. That’s what I’d want if I were homeless, I think to myself.
“We’re all out of the blueberry.”
“Okay, what’s that kind?”
“Cinnamon and cranberry.”
“Okay, I’ll have that.”
“$2.75. Do you want your receipt?”
“No.”
4:00 p.m. I drive up to the red light that’s currently green with some jerk hole on my tail, and quickly hand the scone off to the homeless guy like a baton in relay race. I say, “It’s a scone.” He says, “Thanks, brother. God bless.” I drive away, thinking to myself, “A scone isn’t very healthy … should have got him some fruit.”
*****
Why’s it so hard to do something good?
This is how the story should be told:
1:00 p.m.: Random person now rummaging through his backpack, pulls out a sign that reads “HOMELESS.” Random person now identified as “homeless.”
1:05 p.m.: I get out of my car, walk to the homeless person, introducing myself to him. He introduces himself as “___Insert name I would have known had I actually approached him______”. I invite him to share lunch with me at Starbucks ….
But, I’m afraid, the rest of that story can’t be told — as exciting as it might have been — because I was too involved in looking/judging at the man while I was reading “A Wideness in God’s Mercy” for my seminary class.
*****
I was so intent on learning about Jesus that I forgot to act like him. Or, maybe it’s just easier to learn about Him than it is to act like Him. Maybe orthodoxy is just easier than orthopraxy.
Does God Know Our Death Date?
I was at a funeral the other day and the pastor boldly stated,
“God knew the exact day ‘Bob’ was going to die. He knew we’d be sitting here today, mourning ‘Bob’s death. Not only did God know when ‘Bob’ was going to die, but he knows the exact day … the exact hour … and the exact second that you’re going to meet him face to face.”
Wow!
That’s a pretty bold statement.
I remember when I was young, I would often think to myself, “If God knows when I’m going to die, I wonder if he could tell me?”
He hasn’t told me yet … and I’m rather glad he hasn’t told me if he does indeed know.
I mean, can you imagine?
Can you imagine knowing the day, hour and second you’re doing to die? It might be depressing. Or it could cause us to live life up to the fullest. It could cause us to be the person we’ve always wanted to be, but could never find the motivation.
I think I’d put a countdown clock on my wall, that would display the amount of years, months, days and hours until my “Death Date”. Or maybe I wouldn’t want the clock … that might be rather unnerving.
It would certainly cause me to take out an insurance policy. If I knew I was going to die early, I could take out a huge insurance policy and let my wife live like Angelina Jolie after I die … she could adopt a whole country load of kids and buy that stretch limo HUMMER that she’s always wanted!
Or maybe I’d do everything in my power to beat death. Maybe on that specific day, I’d lock myself up in an atomic bomb shelter. Or maybe, I’d just check myself into a hospital the day before I’m supposed to bite the dust.
If you were sure God told you your death date, would you tell anybody else? I think I’d keep it quiet. For one, nobody would believe that God spoke directly to you … and they’d have an even harder time believing that he told you your date of demise.
Who knows what I’d do?
*****
So, what do you think? Does God know your death date? Below is a little survey you can take.
It’s all anonymous, so even though many people might consider the last two or three options as heretical, if indeed you choose one of those “heretical options”, you’ll still be an anonymous heretic.
And, if you’ve thought about stuff like this before (God’s foreknowledge, etc.) and want to talk about it, I’ll be happy to engage ….
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.
Politically Local
I’m going to play the prophet for a minute. In the very near future you will hear your Sunday morning pastors talking more and more about God as a person and less and less about the ideas about God. “Wait,” you say, “they’re already doing that …? They’ve been doing that for years!”
Okay, so I guess I’d be a better prophet if a prophet meant telling what is already happening, which I can do for you. A prophet that tells the future is scary, and a prophet who tells the past is, well, redundant, so bear with me. Modernity arguably had it’s start with Descartes’ “I think therefore I am.” Even hundreds of years later, this little “foundation” is still creating trends today … notice the emphasis on “I” and “think” and the “I am” identity. Along with philosophical historian beast Robert Solomon, I’ll argue that this little statement has created one of the irrefutable foundations Western culture is built on, spawning individualism and molding the materialistic Western mindset. It has helped created the Enlightenment, survived Romanticism, aided existentialism and eventually birthed modernism.
For the sake of this short article, I’ll be simplistic and reductionistic by defining modernism as the belief that truth = fact. This was originally fought against by Christianity, but was eventually amalgamated by liberalism, rejected by fundamentalism and finally defended by evangelicalism. So that a couple decades ago, conservative evangelicals had a list of ideas you had to believe in order to become a Christian. Mind you, it was accepting ideas that made you a Christian, and not, as we hear today, relationship with God that made you a Christian.
Yes, it’s true. God isn’t primarily an idea, but a person. He isn’t an object, but a subject, who is concerned with relationships. The truth in Christianity isn’t even the Bible for Jesus said, “I am the way …” you know the rest. And this new movement, although in ecclesiology, tends toward (I can’t say the movement on blogger), in theology it’s being called post-conservative / post-liberal because both conservative and liberal sides are recognizing that they were fighting on a field (modernism) that isn’t even a Christian field.
How does this all apply to politics? Well, this is where I can play the prophet. Few people have connected this to politics … well some have. Let me ask this question, “If a Christian’s main concern is not idea but personal relationships, would he or she be more likely to get involved with political platforms or people?” I’ve set up the answer to this question, so it should be pretty easy. Many Christians may be post-conservative / post-liberal in their theology (that is relationship oriented), but few have translated this to their politics.
As I have said before, the fact that Christians are often more concerned with national politics than local affairs is telling of their misplaced agenda and still modern mindset. Many Christians are more willing to talk about policies they can’t effect instead of reaching out and touching people they can. I guess Christians are more comfortable with defending ideas than they are people, and in this respect they are still trudging the modern paradigm.
What I’m promoting here is not a blend of conservativism and liberalism; what I’m promoting is a redefinition of politics from the platform base politics to the defense of people politics … away from ideas and towards local action. What I’m promoting is less national and more local (sound conservative to you?).
If you want to solve problems, sure, get involved in national politics, but not at the expense of the local / meeting people where they are at, helping the community poor, giving support to the mother who’s thinking about abortion by taking her into your home, by adopting local, by getting a job closer to home, by getting involved in your school board, by seeing your work as a mission field, by prayer walking through your town, by standing up for the sexually abused, by being involved enough in your community to even know who the sexually abused are, by running for a local political position … by preaching the Gospel, by being Jesus (does this all sound liberal?).
See, when we focus on the local people … on being Jesus in your community, you may find yourself disassociating with a straight-ticket platform and associating with the broken heart of God, which will often cross (no pun intended) political lines.
