A Question for Anti-Semitic Christians

Throughout the Old Testament, God makes promises to the Jewish people. At least 17 times God or God's prophets speak of "everlasting covenants" made to God's people to protect them, love them, be with them, and be their God. God specifically tells David in 2 Samuel 7 that his kingdom will be "made sure forever before Me" and God will not take away God's "steadfast love" from David's descendants (that is, the Jewish people). God chose the descendants of Abraham and David to be God's people forever.  

As a Christian, I believe that Jesus came and amended that promise so that all the world might be adopted into God's people. But that original promise was never erased. Even though I may disagree with my Jewish neighbors on who Jesus was, we remain part of the same religious family tree and share the "everlasting covenants" of Abraham and Sarah and David. Even in the New Testament, St. Paul says explicitly, "Has God rejected His people [the Jews]? By no means!" (Romans 11:1).

If you are someone who believes that Jews are evil, or enemies of Christians, or a threat to civilization, or need to be opposed in the name of God, then my question is simple. If God has abandoned the "everlasting covenants" of the Old Testament, then what's to keep God from abandoning the promises made in Jesus Christ? What does your scorn of the Jewish people say about God's eternal nature?

How can you trust a God who has gone back on promises to the Jewish people to uphold promises made to Christians? Either God is trustworthy or God is not.  

I will put my trust in the God of welcome and reconciliation (2 Cor. 5). I believe yours is a liar.

From the Gray, 

Pastor Ari

“If our hearts have turned to stone, there is hope; we know the rocks will cry out.” -Jars of Clay, “Shelter”

Amateurs Welcome

“This life, therefore, is not godliness but the process of becoming godly, not health but getting well, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed.” -Martin Luther

The quote above is one of my favorites by Martin Luther and lately I’ve been thinking it’s an important one for the church today. I attended a mini-conference in April on adult education and one of the key points we discussed is that church leaders have allowed a terrible lie to persist in our churches, a lie that is undermining the health of our congregations.

That lie is what I’ll call the non-curious adult expert. What I mean by it is this: somehow most of us seem to get the idea that as Christian adults we should already know everything about our faith and aren’t much interested in going deeper with it. It’s assumed that everyone knows the major themes and characters in the Bible, can give a thumbnail sketch of Luther’s theology, and have a solid understanding of who they are in relation to God.

That is true for some, but when we assume it’s true for all, then we design classes that never touch on some of these broader themes, we create environments where questions aren’t asked because people feel they should already know the answers, and we discourage people from participating because they feel learning at church is only for kids. The lie contributes to widespread imposter syndrome in churches, which is the belief that “I don’t belong here because everyone else is an expert/knows what they’re doing/gets it and I’m going to be found out as a fraud.” 

This is why this quote from Luther is so important for us today. It points to the fact that none of us are done learning or growing. Just as we would never think of a person as being fully matured or fully educated when they finish middle school, the same is true for our spiritual lives.

I have read the Bible front to back multiple times and spent four years getting a Master’s degree in this stuff and I am still surprised at the things that I learn and come to understand in new ways as I continue on the way to “what we shall be,” as Luther put it.  As we’ve read lessons from Acts in the season of Easter this year, I’ve been reminded that the disciples themselves continue to learn and grow through the book, coming to deeper understandings of God.

The church has never been a collection of experts, but a group of God’s people learning and growing together. It should be thought of like a YMCA or gym membership; I don’t go to the Y because I have perfect health, but so that my health may continue to improve and though there may be people more fit than I am, we are all striving toward the same goal of greater health. In the church, we are all striving towards the same goal of growing in our relationship to God and helping others to do the same. 

Our baptism is a life-long process, not a one-time event. So we need to strive to create a culture in which questions and curiosity are normal, where learning and growth is expected, and where we embrace our amateur status as we work out our faith for the long haul.

In God’s Amazing Grace,

Pastor Ari

(This article first appeared in my church's summer 2016 newsletter.)

“Don’t forget to bring encouragement. Yeah, we’re all just beginners.” -Bill Mallonee, “Bank”

The Bible Says Hospitality Means What?

What is hospitality?

Usually I think about hospitality as preparing a meal for my friends or (ugh) cleaning my home before company arrives. There are other thoughts that come to mind, but most of them involve sharing a common space with people I know and love.

This morning, though, I stumbled across a fact that made me rethink what hospitality should be.

The Bible talks an awful lot about hospitality, not always directly, but certainly in terms of loving each other and following the Golden Rule. There are many scenes of dinners and gatherings with guests in both testaments. Hospitality was a huge deal in the ancient Near East and poor hospitality could lead to condemnation and death.

What's fascinating is that the Greek word for hospitality, the word used in the New Testament, is philoxenia, which literally means "love of the stranger." In other words, hospitality isn't just welcoming people we already know and like, it's expecting and making space for the stranger, the other.

It is the hospitality shown when Abraham warmly greets three strangers wandering through the desert and is blessed because of it. It is the hospitality shown in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, where a religious minority stops to care for a wounded man who belongs to a group that has avoided and shunned the Samaritans.

As I pondered the root of this Greek word, it struck me just how far from this idea we often are. Rather than loving strangers, we are encouraged to fear them. Our 24-hour news cycle especially loves to bombard us with stories that are filled with scary words and images. "This person/thing hurt/poisoned/stole from someone like you! Beware!" Politicians love to throw around the idea that the other side will destroy the world if given the chance. The overall message we are fed is that anyone who has a different religion, political opinion, sexuality, age, class, or education probably shouldn't be trusted and certainly not shown hospitality (at least not a hospitality that looks like "loving a stranger").

Certainly there are reasons and times to be cautious and act wisely, but I think there is a great difference between a posture that assumes anyone that's different is likely a threat and one that assumes most people are decent and worthy of respect.

Interestingly, Jesus came as a stranger into this world, unrecognizable as God because of how he was born and where he lived. John's gospel makes note of this and that most people "did not receive him." Jesus the stranger didn't find hospitality. But those who did welcome him became "children of God." In a sense, Christianity is based entirely on hospitality: on God's willingness to love us who are estranged and our willingness to love the strange God who shows up in a manger and dies on a cross.

And then we are asked to share that same hospitality with others on earth.

In this season, many of us are preparing to practice hospitality in our homes or to be received by the hospitality of others. Perhaps this Christmas season we can pause and consider what stranger we might welcome to our tables... and our hearts. Then the angels' proclamation of "Peace on earth! Goodwill to men!" might ring a little louder and richer.

From the Gray,
Pastor Ari

“If we can reach beyond the wisdom of this age into the foolishness of God, that foolishness will save.” -Rich Mullins, "Let Mercy Lead"