God is not a vending machine: the problem with the prosperity gospel

Oh Lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?

My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.

Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,

So Lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes Benz ?

–Janis Joplin

This song was written to be a satire on the materialistic culture of America.  Like all satires, it’s funny because it’s true: we do pray to God for that ‘Mercedes-Benz,’ whatever that may be for us.  There is a widespread belief that in the “prosperity Gospel”: if God loves you, you will be healthy and wealthy.  If you are spiritual enough, if you pray the right prayers, if you go to the right churches, if you have the right positive attitude, God will give you what material gifts you ask for.  And it makes sense–we all know people who self-sabotage, who assume the worst or prepare for the worst and through that very belief cause, in some sense, the worst to happen to them.  So if the opposite is true, that you can influence what happens to you by having a positive attitude, well, that seems fair.  And after all, didn’t Christ say “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.  For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).  It seems clear enough.  Decide what you want, trust in God, ask, and it’s yours.

A best-selling book was written about the Prayer of Jabez from 1 Chronicles 4:10, explaining how this one verse can lead you to a deeper spirituality that will result in material prosperity, as if God were a vending machine.  Put in the correct change (the right belief and the right attitude), make the correct selection (the right prayer) and the treat drops down into your hand.  Joel Osteen and other televangelists make similar claims, as do a wide variety of other spiritual figures from Conservative Christians to New Age gurus to business consultants and life coaches.  (And what does it say about our society that business consultants give spiritual advice?)  We all want a good, long, prosperous life.  God loves us and wants us to be happy, and has said he’ll take care of us.  Surely, putting the two together can’t be a bad thing?

But what happens when things go wrong?  What happens when we don’t get that Mercedes-Benz?  What happens when bad things happen–abuse, illness, injury, the death of a loved one, the breakup of a marriage, the loss of a job?  If God rewards the right attitude, the right faith, and the right prayers with material prosperity, then the only explanation is a failure of the person in trouble.  Maybe they didn’t have a positive enough attitude.  Maybe they didn’t pray for the right things.  Maybe their faith wasn’t strong enough.  This is the fundamental problem with the prosperity gospel: during the darkest times of our lives, when we need the love and presence of our God the most, we are abandoned.

Now, I don’t mean to say that God actually leaves us, because he doesn’t.  But if we assume God only works through material prosperity and good fortune, if we assume that bad things are a sign that he is not with us, we will almost certainly blind ourselves to the ways that he is with us during times of trouble.  And then we have nothing to fall back on.  God is always with us, even if we can’t see him.  But if we can’t see or feel him, we feel as bereft as if he was truly absent.  I worked for a summer as chaplain in a mental facility, and one of the people living there was a woman with severe depression who had suffered many things in her life and so believed God was not with her.  However untrue that belief was, her anguish over the perceived abandonment was real.

But God does tell us “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8).  How do we interpret this if not through the lens of the prosperity gospel?  How do we pray to God and share with him our needs and concerns without assuming that if those needs and desires aren’t met, God has ignored us?  Let’s compare Jesus’ words in Matthew with those of James in his letter to the church:

You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

-James 4:2-3

Why do we ask for things?  How do we decide what we need, and how does that relate to God?  James points out that our attitude and our greed matter.  If we try to treat God like a cosmic vending machine, handing out treats on demand, we’re asking wrongly.  It’s not that pleasure is by itself bad, and it’s not that wealth itself is bad.  The problem comes when we allow our wants and desires and appetites to direct our thinking instead of our relationship with God.  If we’re focused on our own wealth and well-being, we’re probably ignoring both God and our neighbor.  James points out that selfish thinking separates us from the community as we try and get what we want through whatever means we can; we shouldn’t be surprised if it has the same effect of separating us from God, so that we cannot see the ways in which God is calling us and supporting us.

God is always with us, even when we can’t see or feel him.  God is with us even when we focus on our own selfish desires.  God is with us in good times and bad, and God knows our true needs better than we do ourselves.  God will never forsake us, in good times or in bad.  God’s love cannot be measured by health or wealth, but only in the fullness of his grace and mercy.

The Beginning of Wisdom

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Psalm 111:10, Proverbs 9:10)

That never made sense to me.  It’s a common theme in the bible, occuring twice in those words and many, many times in other variations.  And it’s one of those pithy statements that I heard occasionally growing up from elderly Christians of my aquaintance.  But I was taught in Sunday School about a God whose greatest characteristic is love for all creation, especially his children.  God was a loving father, we were taught, who saves us and heals us and takes care of us.  Why should we be afraid of him?

I know some Christians believe in a terribly wrathful God just looking for excuses to condemn and smite people and send them to Hell, but that’s never been part of my personal piety.  After all, no matter how angry God sometimes gets, no matter what we do, he still loves us.  17“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17).  Or, in the words of Jesus Loves Me (verse two), “Jesus loves me when I’m good/When I do the things I should/Jesus loves me when I’m bad/Even though it makes him sad.”  Another favorite hymn growing up was “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”  Why should I fear my friend, my father, the one who created me and loves me and takes care of me, even when it costs him?

Why is the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom?  Psalm 111 was the Psalm of the week last Sunday, and it got me thinking about this.

Yes, God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.  Yes, Jesus loves us, and loves us so much that he died to save us.  Yes, the Holy Spirit surrounds us and guides us in love all the days of our lives.   But the problem with focusing on our loving relationship–God our Father, Jesus our dear friend–is that it’s easy to lose track of the fact that God is not just a nice person living up in the sky.  He’s not just a human who really likes us.  God is greater than that.   God is greater than we know, greater than we can know.

Consider the mystery of the Trinity–Father, Son, Spirit, three distinct persons who yet make up one indivisible God.  When Saint Augustine, one of the greatest theologians ever, tried to understand this mystery, he was given a vision of a little boy digging a hole on the beach and trying to fill it with water from the ocean.  Of course the water all drained out through the sand, and the sand kept filling in the hole as the edges of the hole collapsed.  “You have set yourself a difficult task,” Augustine said.  “No more difficult than your self-appointed task of trying to understand the Trinity,” the boy replied.  If we can’t even understand the form of God, how can we understand deeper things about him?

Familiarity breeds contempt.  When all we remember about God is that he loves us, when we think we understand him, it’s too easy to think of God only as God fits into our own needs and desires.  But God can’t be limited that way.  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”  It doesn’t mean that we have to be afraid that God will abuse or abandon us.  It means, instead, that we need to remember that God is beyond our understanding.  We see through a glass, dimly; God sees all.  We cannot know what God intends for our lives and the whole world.  We can’t control God’s power.  If a little awe at God’s greatness helps us remember this, that’s a good thing.

Since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.  22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,  23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,  24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.  26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;  28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are,  29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God.  30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,  31 in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:21-31)

Paul divides the world up into two categories in this passage: the “Jews” who want signs of God’s power to prove his existence and their own righteousness, and the “Greeks” who want to prove God’s existence through wisdom, which they can then use to enhance their standing in society (“wisdom” being highly valuable in Greek culture).  Now, obviously our world does not fall into the neat ethnic categories of Jew and Greek today … but the two basic mindsets of how people approach religion are still much the same.  People generally want religion for one of two reasons.  Either they want a sign of God’s power (preferably one that benefits them in some way–wealth, healing, political or military power, etc.) or they want some special wisdom that will enlighten them, help them climb up the path to heaven.  (Remember when I talked about up religion and down religion?  These are the two main forms of up religion.)

But God the deepest and most powerful way in which God shows Godself to us is not through great wisdom and great power (or, at least, not what the world counts as great wisdom and great power).  God came down to earth and took on human form.  Then he allowed himself to be arrested for a crime he was innocent of, and died one of the most gruesome deaths imaginable, naked and broken for all the world to see.  This does not look like power, and it does not look like wisdom.  At least not what we think of as power and wisdom.

Yet through that cross, through that weakness, that foolishness, God broke the power of sin and death and the hold it had over the world.  This is the way God works in the world: through weakness and foolishness, things that we humans would normally try to avoid at all costs.  The cross is what God’s power and wisdom truly look like.  So if we truly want to see and experience God’s power and wisdom, we can’t rely on our own views of what power and wisdom should look like.  We need to let God show us what “Christ crucified” looks like in the 21st century.  We need to stop boasting in ourselves or the things we think we can get from God, and start paying attention instead to what God is doing in us and through us in things that look weak and foolish.

We need to start seeing every person through the lens of the cross.

Law and Gospel: living in the tension between sin and salvation

We Christians talk a lot about the Gospel.  It’s a term so basic we don’t often stop to define what we mean when we say it, but let’s take the time now.  “Gospel” can actually mean two things: first and most obviously, the four Gospels are the four books of the Bible that chronicle the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  But there’s a deeper meaning.  “Gospel” literally comes from an old English word meaning “Good News.”  “Evangelism” is derived from an old Greek word meaning “Good News.”  On a fundamental level, the Gospel is the Good News that God loves us and wants to save us from our sins, to make us happy and healthy and whole and in a right relationship with God and with our fellow human beings.  Gospel, then can be found in more places in the Bible than just the four Gospels.  The Gospel can be found in every single book in the Bible, from Genesis through Revelation.  (“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” Isaiah 40:1, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:15, etc.)

But there’s more in the Bible than just Gospel.  Before you can talk about the need for healing, you have to understand that you’re sick.  Before you can see the need for salvation, you have to be able to see sin.  That’s where the other thing in the Bible comes in: the Law.  The Law is the stuff that points out just how far short we fall of the life God intends for us.  The Law is not just the legal codes in Leviticus and other places in the Old Testament.  Just as there is Gospel in the Old Testament, there is also Law in the New Testament.  The parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids in Matthew 25:1-13 is a good example.  The bridesmaids were to meet the groom with lamps lit.  Five brought enough oil, five didn’t.  The groom was delayed.  The five who ran out of oil left to find more, and when they came back they found they had missed the bridegroom’s coming and were not allowed to enter the wedding.  It’s an allegory for the coming of the kingdom of God, and the message is that if you’re not prepared, you don’t get to come in.  After two thousand years of waiting, how many of us are truly ready for the coming of God?  This passage is law because it points out to us just how unready we are for God’s coming into our lives, and because the redeeming mercy of God is not shown to the bridesmaids who weren’t ready.  Will there be mercy?  Yes, because God is a merciful God.  But before there can be mercy, there must be the recognition of a need for it.  The Law convicts us, and the Gospel saves us.

We are redeemed by God’s love manifest in Christ Jesus.  But sin is the default condition of the world and everyone in it, and this will be the case until Christ comes again.  We still sin, every day, which is why we still need God’s love and forgiveness.  We are saints–people made holy by God–who are also sinners.  If we forget that we are saints, we turn away from God in despair at our brokenness.  If we forget we are sinners, we turn away from God because we think we can rely on our own merit, and we become self-righteous hypocrites who condemn sin in others without recognizing it in ourselves.

We need both law and gospel.  We need the law to remind us of our need for God, and we need the Gospel to remind us that God answers our needs.

If you have any questions about this article, or any aspect of Christianity, please comment and I will address the question next week.

On righteousness

Reformation Sunday

Sunday, October 26

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Psalm 46
Romans 3:19-28
John 8:31-36

Preached by Vicar Anna C. Haugen

First Evangelical Lutheran Church, Greensburg, PA

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today is Reformation Sunday. Four hundred and ninety-one years ago this Friday, Martin Luther nailed a list of ninety-five things he thought the church was doing wrong on the church door in Wittenburg, hoping initially only for a theological debate that might reform the church he served. The lessons for today are taken from those texts that were especially valuable to Luther in his realization that the theology of the medieval Roman Catholic church had serious problems in need of reformation. We celebrate this day as a festival of the church to remind ourselves that since the church is made up of humans who have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, it is in constant need of reformation and renewal.

There is a question in the readings today. It stands behind Jeremiah’s vision of the future, and behind Paul’s vision of what Christ has done and is doing in our midst, and behind Jesus’ rebuke of the Jews who had believed in him. The question is this: we are all sinners, so how do we get a right relationship with God?

Israel had been created and formed by God throughout its entire history, and yet by Jeremiah’s day they had strayed so far from the path God taught them that they were destroyed. God was with them in their suffering and promised to rebuild them, but Jeremiah wanted to know what was to keep them from going so far astray a second time? God’s answer was a new covenant, in which God’s commands, God’s words, weren’t just something heard during worship but were so deeply a part of the community of believers that they could never be forgotten or discarded again. Not just the rules and regulations, but knowledge of how to live a happy, healthy, whole life in community with God and with all believers. This new covenant would be given not because they earned it or deserved it, but because they needed it. This gift from God is what would save Israel from another destruction and exile.

Centuries later, the new covenant was created in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote a letter to the church in Rome explaining what that meant not just for Jews but for everyone, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. No amount of external rules and regulations can keep us safe from sin. Even though we try our hardest to make up for it by following the laws as best we can, we can’t possibly do enough good works to earn our own salvation. The good news of Christ Jesus is that God loves us anyway, and created a new covenant with us to save us. Jesus took the punishment for our sins as his own, and suffered and died so that we would not have to. As baptized children of God, we are tied to his death and resurrection, and through his sacrifice we are given freedom and grace. Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit live within us and surround us, showing us how to life happy, healthy, whole lives in community with God and with all believers. We have nothing to boast about; it’s not our own actions or beliefs that save us but God’s actions and the faith he gives us.

It’s a wonderful thing, to be saved by God. Unfortunately, we often take that salvation for granted. We have been claimed and saved by God, but we aren’t perfect. The final destruction of sin and death won’t happen until Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead. Until that time, we are caught in between sin and salvation, unable to free ourselves from bondage to sin and yet constantly claimed and forgiven by God, renewed in faith and life. We are, in Luther’s words, both saint and sinner at the same time. Being both saint and sinner is not a comfortable thing to be. We don’t like to think of ourselves as sinners; we prefer to focus on our good deeds, on God’s love for us, and forget the bad things we do. I was participating in a bible study two years ago, when a woman said she didn’t see why we had to start every service with the confession and forgiveness—after all, she wasn’t a sinner, she was a good woman who followed the ten commandments and took care of her family and worked hard, so why should she have to confess anything?

I didn’t quite know what to say. I mean, I know that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but at the same time I understood where she was coming from. I don’t worship other gods, I don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, I worship on Sundays, I honor my parents, I don’t kill, I don’t commit adultery, I don’t steal, I don’t lie, and I do my best never to covet anything. I’m not perfect, but it sure seems like I’ve got the major stuff covered, right? And there are a lot of people out there, many of them in this church right now, who could say the same thing. It’s so easy to start thinking like the Jews who believed in Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson. “I’m a child of God, who follows the commandments and isn’t a slave to sin. What do you mean ‘you will be made free’? What have I done that needs saving?” And yet, according to Paul, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, including me and everyone else who does their best to obey the commandments. What are we doing wrong?

Let’s start from the beginning. The first commandment says “You shall have no other gods but me.” It sounds easy enough. Who here has ever worshipped, say, Buddha? That’s easy enough to avoid. But considering that today is Reformation Sunday, let’s check out what Luther has to say. In the section on the first commandment in the Large Catechism, Luther asks this question: what does it mean to have a god? Think about it. What does it mean to have a god? Besides the obvious things like coming to church on Sundays, how does believing in God and being a Christian affect you and your daily life? According to Luther, a “god” is what we look to for all good and in which we find refuge in all need. To have a god is … to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. And that’s the problem, the thing that makes the first commandment so very difficult to follow no matter how good we think we’re being. We may not consciously worship other gods, but it’s very easy to slip into trusting something in this world that we can see and hear and touch more than we trust God.

For me, I know I’m a smart, competent woman. The temptation for me is to put my trust in my own abilities and intelligence, instead of in God. I can think my way out of most problems: figure out what’s wrong, figure out how to fix it, and go out and do what needs to be done. I believe in God, but I also believe I can handle most things. When I need something, when I have a problem, my first instinct isn’t to turn to God for help and guidance, it’s to look for what I can do to fix it. And I never realized how little trust I had in God until I spent last summer working as a chaplain at a mental hospital. You see, the thing about mental illness severe enough to need hospitalization is that you can’t fix it. You can’t think your way through it. Even with the best medication and counseling available to them, the people in that hospital will have to struggle with their illness for the rest of their lives. There was nothing I could do to fix them, or help them fix themselves. Going there ever day, knowing I could do nothing, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. It forced me to realize just how much I relied on myself and how little I relied on God. As the summer went on, I had to learn to open myself to the possibility of God working in and through me and in the lives of the staff and patients at that hospital, and put my faith and trust in God instead of in myself. I could not help them. But God could.

Self-reliance is one form of idolatry that Americans are particularly prone to, but not the only one. Look at the political campaigns going on in our country right now. Both sides believe that if they are elected they can fix all the problems in America. Their ultimate trust and faith is in their ideology and political proposals. Or how about money? If there’s one thing that the marked fluctuations and economic problems of the past few weeks have proven, it’s that there are a lot of Americans who put their ultimate faith and trust in the economy instead of in God. To listen to people talk, in our community and in the national news, you would have thought the whole world was coming to an end. What will we do if our investments aren’t worth as much? What will we do if we don’t get a raise this year? What will we do if we don’t have the money to take the vacation we wanted? What will we do if we get laid off? How will we live? As a culture, our love of money and financial security has become the driving force in our lives. Let me be very clear here: being smart, or interested in politics, or having money are not the problem. The problem is when we put more trust in our abilities, politics, and money than we do in God.

The question in today’s lessons is the question for our age as well. I’ve only talked about one of the commandments today, but when you truly look at each of the commandments, at the spirit of the law and not just the letter of it, each one is just as difficult to follow. Paul was right. We are all sinners. We are all slaves to sin. If we can’t even keep the first commandment, how can we possibly make a right relationship with God and our fellow believers?

The answer is simple. We can’t. But God can. We are slaves to sin, but if the son of God makes us free then we are free indeed. God has made a new covenant with us, a new promise, to be our God and make us God’s people. Through Jesus Christ our sins have been forgiven and we have been made whole. Not because we’ve earned it—we haven’t—but because God loves us in spite of our sin and loves us no matter what we do. The God who created us and gave us every good thing in the world, the God we turn away from every day with each sin, loves us enough to die for our sake that we might be saved even though we are still sinners. This is a gift we could never earn, and we cannot pay back. The only thing we can do is rejoice, and open our hearts and minds to the presence of God in us and among us, and allow ourselves to be re-formed in God’s image and in God’s steadfast love.

Give to God the things that are God’s

I know I’ve talked a lot about money and God and stewardship lately, but the text this last Sunday was so perfectly on that topic that I had to speak on it. Next week will be on a different topic, I promise.

Matthew 22:15-22

‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ It sounds fairly simple. Yes, Christians are to pay taxes and be good citizens, while at the same time staying faithful to God. You might say we have dual citizenship—we are citizens of our country here on earth while at the same time we are also citizens of God’s kingdom, which will be fulfilled on earth when he comes again. We need to be good citizens of both heaven and earth, and that means participating in all just requirements of citizenship in our earthly country, including taxes.
But there’s more to this passage than simple advice to be good citizens of both kingdoms. ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ There’s a lot of political debate in our country about what and how much should be taxed, how much should be “given to the Emperor” in the words of today’s lesson, and just about everyone I know has a strong opinion on the subject one way or the other. Here’s something we don’t think about as often: what should be given to God? I know that time and talent sheets have been mailed out, so you’ve probably given this a little bit more thought recently than you usually would. Here’s something to keep in mind.

Jesus divides it up that if it belongs to the emperor, it should go to the emperor, and if it belongs to God it should go to God. But wait a minute. Doesn’t everything belong to God? God created heaven and earth. God created everything, from the planet we live on to the stars and sun that shine above us, to the plants and animals we share the planet with, to our very lives. God created us and everything around us. Everything we have, from our lives to our families to our possessions, is a gift from God. Our salvation through Jesus Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst, the faith that brought us here today and sustains us through our lives, all are God’s gifts to us. We acknowledge this in our offering prayer, but have you ever really stopped to think about what that means?

We like to think we’ve earned everything we get. Study hard in school, work hard at your job, and you’ll get ahead and earn money to buy things with. But the intelligence that helped us learn and the health that helps us work are both gifts from God, for our use. And the things we buy with our money were all made from resources God has given us. The fabric in our clothing comes from plants and animals created by God, the metal in our cars comes from the planet created by God, the plastics that are in just about everything these days were created from materials given by God using knowledge gained by chemists using the intelligence God gave them. Everything we have comes from God, one way or another. And we have so much.

The Pharisees knew that everything comes from God. That’s what they based their question on—the Romans were foreign overlords who wanted them to worship Roman gods. They didn’t think it was lawful to give anything that belonged to God—including the money for the tax—to the people who ruled them and didn’t want them to remain faithful to God. But at the same time, they were looking at the whole thing from a purely political standpoint, as if God were merely a rival king and paying taxes to his rival were treason. They missed the deeper truth that God is not a petty ruler looking to consolidate his power at the expense of everyone else’s. God gives us everything he gives us because he loves us and wants us to have an abundant life, and he wants us to learn to love and share that abundance he has given us. Giving to God is not just about paying your share of the church’s bills, it’s about taking care of the people all around us, sharing our abundance so that all of God’s children here and around the world can live happy and healthy lives.

When we forget that everything comes from God, when we think of everything we have as things we earned on our own, it’s harder to be generous. We worry about not having enough, about not earning enough and saving enough, particularly when the economy is troubled. So when we do give things to others, we base it on needs and expectations. The church needs to make its operating budget and we are expected to contribute so we figure out what we can comfortably spare. The school band needs money for new uniforms, and we are expected to support them so we buy a sandwich or two. We do what we need to do to stay members of the community in good standing. It’s not bad, but it’s not particularly good, either.

Give to God the things that are God’s. When you find yourself having trouble with that, remember this: Everything in heaven and on earth belongs to God, and God has given to us everything we have. God will continue to give to us, though perhaps not always in the ways and quantities he has in the past. God wants us to give generously—not just with money but with time and talents, too. God wants us to give, not because it’s expected of us or simply to fill a need, but cheerfully and with love because we have so much to share.

Stewardship isn’t just about paying the bills on time. Stewardship means taking care of the things that have been entrusted to you. It means using them where they will do the most good and passing them on to the next generation. It means recognizing that in the end, everything belongs to God. Including ourselves.

If you have any questions about Christianity, please comment and I will answer them.

Be still, and know that I am God.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28 And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you– you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matthew 6:25-34)

“Be still, and know that I am God!” (Psalm 46:10)

It seems like everyone’s worried about something these days. If you’re not worrying about the economy, you’re worried about politics. If you’re not worrying about politics, you’re worrying about the environment or the world hunger crisis or international relations or your health or the way kids these days behave or the way adults just don’t understand or your job or your spouse/significant other or …. the list is endless. We work frantically to try and fix whatever problems we think are fixable, or work frantically to try and ignore the ones we think aren’t. We try to drown out our worries in work or play. We get so caught up in our worries that we don’t have room for anything else, and that takes a toll not just on our mental and spiritual well-being, but on our physical well-being.

Here’s the thing: we don’t have to worry, and we shouldn’t worry. When we worry, when we turn problems over and over in our head and agonize over what can or can’t be done to fix them, we enclose our minds and souls until they are only big enough for the problem we’re worrying about. We don’t leave room for God to work in us and through us. The fate of the world does not rest on our shoulders alone, but on God’s as well. Things will not always go well. But whether things go well or badly, God is always with us, and he’ll take care of us if we let him. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do whatever we can to solve our own problems, but it does mean that the problems shouldn’t consume our attention, and when we fail it’s not the end of the world. Do what you can, and trust God–in whose care the entire world rests, including you and me and everyone else–to take care of the rest.

When you find yourself worrying, don’t give in to the temptation to frantic action. Don’t give in to the temptation to turn your worries over and over in your mind. Instead, stop and take a deep breath, and remember that God cares for the world and everything in it. In the words of the Psalm, be still and know that God is God. Then take time to pray or meditate. Turn your worries over to God to deal with. Find something to be grateful for, something to rejoice over, and lift that up to the Lord. Then ask God for guidance and help dealing with whatever it is you’re worried about. Then act.

No Other Gods

“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.” (Deuteronomy 5:6-7)

Thus begin the Ten Commandments, the laws given by God to his people to teach them how to live good lives.  This commandment is the first because without a strong foundation, without knowing who our God is who is the basis of our faith, everything else becomes relative, shaky, a house of cards ready to fall.  After all, look at the story that follows the Ten Commandments: while Moses is up on Mount Sinai talking to God, the people of Israel get afraid and make an idol to worship to reassure themselves.  This is quickly followed by the people of Israel breaking just about every single one of the Ten Commandments they’ve just been given.

It sounds so simple to follow.  When we go to church on Sunday, it’s pretty clear who we worship: all the songs, scripture, preaching, etc., point to God, and it’s pretty easy to avoid going to the worship services of other religions which would involve the worship of other gods.  So it’s easy to read the story and condemn the Israelites for a lack of faith.  What we don’t realize is that idolatry is easy to spot when it’s wrapped up in a golden calf.  It’s a lot subtler in its modern forms, and we are very guilty of it.

Martin Luther said that our god is whatever we put our trust in.  Think about that: your god is whatever you put your trust in.  It’s not just about what you worship in formal ceremonies, it’s about what you rely on in your day to day life.  And watching what’s going on in America today, it’s pretty obvious that even in a nominally Christian nation, what we put our trust in is not the God who led our ancestors out of slavery and sent his only son to save us and make us whole and who has promised to be with us no matter what.

From the reactions to and panic about the banks and the stock market, it’s blatantly obvious that the thing in which many Americans put their trust is the nation’s economy.  And I’ll bet most Western nations have similar attitudes.  When the financial system falters and people start hearing the word “recession,” people feel nervous because the thing in which they put their trust–their god–is failing them.

From the reactions to and talk about the Presidential race, it’s blatantly obvious that the thing in which many Americans put their trust is their political party or specific political candidates.  America has problems; so does every other nation on earth.  People believe that a political ideal, or a political party, or a certain politician can fix those problems and make things right; that’s what they put their faith in.

Now, I’m certainly not saying that having a working economy is bad, or that participating in and caring about politics is bad.  Both are necessary to a functioning society.  But you always have to ask yourself: what do I put my trust in?  What is my God?

If your ultimate trust is in any human institution, you are doomed to disappointment.  All humans have flaws; all humans have problems; all humans have limitations.  Every human society and institution since the beginning of history has eventually collapsed in one way or another, because of those human failings.  If they are what you put your ultimate trust in, what will you do when things go wrong?  When the economy fails or the politician turns out to be just like all the others that came before or the ideology that sounds so great in speeches turns out not to work in real life?

All humans eventually fail.  But God, the one true God who created us and loves us and redeems us, will never fail.  You can put your trust in God whether things are going well or badly, whether the economy is strong or fails, whether politicians keep their promises or not.  God will never abandon you.

If you have any questions about the Christian faith, please comment and I will answer them next week.

Truth, not facts: how to read the Bible

The saying goes like this: “The difference between fundamentalists and Lutherans is that fundamentalists read their Bibles but don’t think about it, and Lutherans think about their Bibles but don’t read them.” It’s actually pretty accurate in my experience, and a crying shame, because both groups miss out on a vital part of their faith life. So I’m going to talk a little bit about the Bible today, and how to read it and think at the same time. God gave us brains for a reason, and God also gave us the Bible for a reason.

First, let’s talk about what the Bible is and is not. The Bible is a testament to the faith life of the people of God; a collection of stories about the actions of God in the world; God’s self-revelation to the world. The Bible is not and was never intended to be a science textbook, nor a history textbook. Nor is the Bible the Living Word of God. Jesus Christ is the Word; the Bible is a collection of words about that Word. The Bible speaks to us and to our lives today; but it was written for and by people who lived thousands of years ago in a specific place and time, and that has shaped it in pretty profound ways. The Bible is extremely important to our faith, and can shape and guide our faith lives and our understanding of God, and for that reason everyone should read it. But please, by all means, keep your brain turned on while you do so.

Let’s talk a little bit about the difference between “truth” and “facts.” “Truth” is about the deeper reality, about (hopefully) profound insight into the way things are. “Facts” are the surface things, the things you can see, hear, touch, measure, and prove beyond the shadow of a doubt. For most of human history, truth has been far more important than facts, so much so that the accuracy of facts was sometimes unimportant, as long as the deeper truth was preserved. It is only in the Western world since the seventeenth century and the beginning of the Enlightenment that facts have become more important than truth. Because of this, we look at the world very differently than the ancient Hebrews or the Jews of Jesus’ day did. We think that facts can reveal the truth. They thought that truth determined facts, and only facts which supported the truth mattered.

All Western people of the last several centuries have been trained to think in a literal, fact-based manner. Given that mindset, people often read portions of the Bible and find it too incredible, too unrealistic, too unlikely to ever be true. If they are faithful, they tend to either find “natural, realistic” explanations for miracles, or ignore their incredulity and insist that everything in the bible must be literally fact. If they are not faithful, they dismiss it as too fantastic to have any factual basis—and if there is no fact, there cannot be any truth either. The ironic thing is that people on all sides of the issue—the ones who doubt, the ones who cling to literal interpretations, and the ones who try to find natural explanations—all have a tacit agreement that the facts are what is most important. And there are only two ways to argue the Bible as a faithful record of God’s word and actions in history based solely on factuality: to turn off our God-given brains and ignore everything that science tells us about the world God has given us, or try and force pseudo-scientific explanations on the miracles God has given us. Both attempts ignore the richness and vitality of God’s creative and redeeming work.

How does this affect our reading of the Bible? It means that when we read a Bible story, our focus should not be on the facts but on the deeper truths they reveal. For example, take the creation story. Whatever your beliefs on the theory of evolution, the most important thing about the account of Creation in Genesis is not whether or not it took exactly six twenty-four hour periods to accomplish. Here are some of the important things, the deeper truths, that we learn in the story of Creation:

• That God did create the world, and God created it to be good (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31).
• That humankind, male and female, is created in the image of God, and that the world was given to us to tend and care for.
• That God worked through a process in Creation, doing one thing at a time, always building and continuing on what had come before.
• That everything was perfect until it was broken by sin.

When we focus on facts like the amount of time it took and the exact order everything happened in—whichever side of the evolution debate we are on—we lose track of the truly important truths.

Here’s an exercise to help you focus on truth instead of facts when you read your Bible. Ask yourself these questions: What does this passage say about God? What does it say about the way God works? What does it say about God’s relationship with the world and with people? What does it say about humankind? What does it say about the world? What does it say about my life and relationship with God?