"Look What I Found!": Blind Squirrels and Spiritual Truth

By David Ryser

Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes.  (Proverb)

I do a lot of driving, both on my job and in my personal life.  Driving is not exciting to me…and I suppose it’s best that way.  “Driving” and “excitement” are two words that should probably never appear in the same sentence.  In my experience, excitement while driving is almost always a bad thing.  But driving can be boring, which poses its own risks.  So I look for ways to keep myself mentally engaged while driving.

I particularly enjoy reading church building marquees.

There are lots of opportunities to read church building marquees.  Church buildings are everywhere… like pubs (and for the same reasons).  Reading the marquees, I often muse about the folks who gather in these buildings…and why they do.  What sorts of people attend the services?  Do they love Jesus?  Do they even know Him?  Does Jesus attend their church meetings?  Would I be welcomed in their services…and for how long?

I’ve come to suspect that the message on a church building marquee says a lot about the people who meet inside.

Many messages I read on church building marquees are…to put it politely…religious tripe.  Many others are merely advertising of some kind.  I suspect that the latter is less harmful than the former.  Few people are harmed by advertising.  Far more are poisoned by drinking the religious bilge served in the average church service.

But I digress.

My current favorite example of a church building marquee message that encourages me to stay out of the building at all costs is one I saw in a small rural town.  The sign reads:  IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE BREAD OF LIFE, YOU’RE TOAST.  I must admit that my first reaction was to laugh.  A part of me found the sign to be quite funny…if somewhat counter-productive…and it amused me.

After all, if you’re going to engage in religious buffoonery, at least have the decency to be entertaining.

But what kind of message does this send to people?  Much of what is communicated in Christian evangelism…by whatever media…seems to portray God as saying, “Love Me…or else.”  Or else what?  Or else I’ll curse you?  Cause you to be sick?  Harm you, your family, and your children?  Burn you forever in the fires of hell?

Who can resist such an invitation?  Doesn’t this just make you want to run into your heavenly Daddy’s arms?

Jesus never…ever…not even once…issued such an invitation to people.  He did encourage them to meet and relate intimately with the Father.  A Father who desperately loved them.  A Father who wanted very much to fellowship with them.  A Father who would not reject them, but who would receive them with gladness into His embrace.

It’s been my experience that it’s not necessary to threaten a person in order to persuade them to love someone who loves them this much.

So I don’t find much truth on church building marquees.  And when I do, I often suspect that it’s an accident.  For example, I was driving past a church building recently, and the message on the marquee read:  NEED A NEW LIFE?  GOD ACCEPTS TRADE-INS.  I found the message clever, and was about to pass it out of my thinking.

And then the truth of the message exploded in my spirit.

You see, too many Christians…myself included…tend to view our faith as a spiritual automobile repair.  Our car (life) is broken, so we take it into the mechanic (Jesus) who repairs (“saves”) it and returns it to us with an admonishment to drive more carefully (live the “Christian life”) and maintain it more diligently (develop robust spiritual disciplines) in the future.  This sounds good, but is found nowhere in the Bible.

The Christian life is less like a car repair, and more like a trade-in for a new car.

With a trade-in, a person takes his/her old car (old life) to the dealer (Jesus) and exchanges it for a new car (new life).  Ownership of the old car is relinquished to the dealer, and the previous owner forfeits all future rights to it.  Signs away the title.  Turns in the key.   Walks away from the old car and begins to drive the new car, never to own or drive the old car ever again.

This is Paul’s view of the Christian life.

Especially in his letters to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, Paul presents the Christian faith as an exchange of life.  We die and receive Christ’s life.  We trade in our old man for the new man.  We no longer live out of the old life; but rather, we walk in the newness of Christ’s life.  And as the seed of Christ’s life which has been planted in us takes root and grows, it displaces our old life and we progressively come out of the spiritual darkness into God’s light.  We live “in Christ” (a term found dozens of times in the Epistles), and Christ lives in us.

God not only accepts trade-ins, He welcomes them.

So now I’m left wondering if the people who worship and fellowship inside of this church building are living in…or are even aware of…the truth expressed on their building’s marquee.  It’s one thing for a blind squirrel to stumble across an acorn, but this good fortune does the squirrel no good unless it recognizes the acorn as an acorn.  Otherwise, the squirrel will mistake the acorn for a rock…or some other inedible object…and kick it aside and resume the search for food, never realizing how close it came to enjoying the feast that it was seeking.

Religion is a lot like that squirrel.

I probably will never go into that church building.  I don’t even remember where it is.  But as I went on my way, the message on the marquee continued to ring in my spirit.

NEED A NEW LIFE?  GOD ACCEPTS TRADE-INS.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

The Empty Theater: Playing to an Audience of One

By David Ryser

            See, when you’re a little kid, nobody ever warns you that you’ve got an expiration date. One day you’re hot stuff and the next day you’re a dirt sandwich.  (Jeff Kinney)

“Look at me!  Look at me!”  What is it about young children that causes them to clamor for attention?  Children seem to need attention desperately.  I’ve known some of them to misbehave simply to get attention…the kind of attention that any rational human being would seek to avoid.  I can only conclude that attention is like any other form of publicity.

I’m told there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Children…and some religious professionals…crave attention.  They have a need to be seen.  They have a need to be heard.  They have a need to be acknowledged as important.

In short, children need to be valued by someone…by anyone.  So do adults.  And one of the most common ways that we measure our self-worth is by how many people pay attention to us.

So we pursue attention.  We prefer positive attention.  But we will settle for negative attention if we must.

And the more attention the better.  The more people who see us, the better.  The more people who hear us, the better.  The more people who attend our church….

Well, you get the idea.

The problem with using fame as a means to measure our value is that fame is fleeting.  One day we are the center of attention.  The next day, we are yesterday’s news.  If you want to know just how easily you can be forgotten…and how quickly...simply become a religious professional.

And then leave the ministry.

Of course, this dynamic applies to everyday life as well.  We seek to be valued and admired by all kinds of people…spouses, other loved ones, employers, co-workers…even by people we don’t know.

If we are noticed, we believe we have value.  If we are ignored, we feel worthless.

This can be quite a roller-coaster, mentally and emotionally.  Life is full of these ups-and-downs.  Even Jesus was not immune to this reality of life.  He experienced anonymity in His early life.  He experienced fame later in His life.  He was well-received.  He was rejected.  His message and ministry were enthusiastically accepted.  His message and ministry were opposed.  He preached to large crowds.  He had hundreds of disciples.  His preaching also caused all of these disciples…except twelve…to leave Him.

And even those twelve abandoned Him when He needed them the most.

Reading the gospels, I am struck by how Jesus behaved in the good times and the bad times.  He didn’t seem to be influenced by how popular He was…or how unpopular.  He remained steady when He was opposed, and even slandered.  He did not seek fame or approval…with one notable exception…and did not fear disapproval and rejection.

So what was the exception?

Throughout His life and ministry, Jesus was concerned only with the approval of His Father.  He ministered by doing only what He saw the Father doing and saying only what He heard the Father saying.  He was unmoved by the approval or disapproval of people, but was very responsive to the Father’s pleasure.

Jesus played to an audience of One.

Jesus heard the applause of the Father when the crowds accepted Him.  Jesus heard the Father’s applause when the crowds rejected Him.  The religious leaders and religious people never did accept Him (there’s a lesson in this, I think).  Jesus even heard the applause of the Father when His closest friends abandoned Him.

So what about us?

Do we hear the Father’s applause?  Do we go about our daily lives in tune with what the Father is doing and saying…and how He is responding to what we are doing and saying?  No matter what is happening around us?  No matter what people are saying about us?  Whether or not people are paying attention to us?  Whether or not people are approving of us?

And if not, then why not?

I’ve given this quite a bit of thought because for the longest time I suffered from a peculiar form of Attention Deficit Disorder.  Specifically, I felt I wasn’t getting enough attention from people…a deficit of attention…and strived mightily to get it.  When anyone suggested to me that I should seek to satisfy my need for attention and sense of being valued from God, the religious part of me would acknowledge that I ought to do so.  But I was always unable to pull it off.

Why?

My problem boiled down to my lack of knowing God and the failure of the religious system to teach me how to know Him.  In fairness, it was foolish of me to expect my religious leaders to teach me how to know and love God.  They had no more idea of how to know and love God than I did.  I believe most of them wanted to know and love Him.  So did I.  But God wasn’t real to us.  None of us had experienced Him…His presence in a real and tangible way…enough to connect with Him, much less be intimate with Him.  So we would acknowledge that we needed to get our sense of self-worth from God and for His approval to be enough for us, but experienced neither.

How can we play to an audience of One without any awareness of His presence in the theater?

We can’t.  It was not until I experienced God’s presence and began to walk in an intimate relationship with Him…and became secure and confident in that relationship…that I was able to live for His pleasure alone, not moved by the opinions and the approval/disapproval of others.  Now I am able to hear Him when the theater is full and when it is empty.  I have learned to play to an audience of One.

And that has made all the difference. 

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

Abiding in Jesus: A Lesson from the Teensy-Weensy Spider

By David Ryser

…apart from Me you can do nothing.  (Jesus of Nazareth; John 15:5c NASB)

I am often amazed, and sometimes dismayed, by what passes for news these days.  For example, right now I am sitting at my desk looking over a news story about a spider with a detachable penis.

I am not making this up.

The male orb-web spider has a detachable penis.  Now, I would not particularly care to have one of these.  But as it turns out, this is a handy thing to have if you are a male orb-web spider…because an intimate encounter gives the female orb-web spider a howling case of the munchies.  And the preferred post-coital snack of choice for the female orb-web spider is the male orb-web spider.  So the male spider is able to leave his genitalia behind to finish the job (which it does…without him being attached to it) while he, hopefully, scampers a safe distance away from the female until her hunger subsides.

So having a detachable…functioning…body part is a great blessing for the male orb-web spider.  This does not, however, work so well for the Body of Christ.

I cannot count the number of times I have read John 15:5.  And I shudder to think I may ever have preached from it.  Never has the last part of this verse impacted me as it has of late.  Jesus is not joking when He says, “apart from Me you can do nothing.”  How could I have missed that?  Because for a good part of my Christian life, I did attempt to bear spiritual fruit apart from Him.  I tried to work for Him, to accomplish great things for Him, and to live my life for Him.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that nowhere does the Bible command me to do anything for God.

Part of the problem is our poorly translated English Bible…and poor translation leads to poor interpretation…and every version has serious problems.

In several translations, the last part of John 15:5 is rendered, “without Me you can do nothing.”  This leads us to conclude that with Jesus we can do anything.  But the Bible never says this…not in Greek, anyhow…and it flies in the face of what Jesus is teaching in the first part of John 15.  The picture here is not of a vine that is not with us.  The idea is not that we branches could bear all kinds of fruit if the vine were alongside of us.

And yet, how much preaching have we heard about how we can accomplish great things for the Kingdom of God with Jesus at our side?

Rather, the illustration Jesus uses is that of a branch that has been detached from the vine.  And the word translated “without” (χώρις) in some of the most popular English versions of the Bible, is better translated as “apart/detached from” as it is in the NASB and the NIV.  Just try to tear off a grape branch from the grapevine with your bare hands sometime.  You will discover the branch is an outgrowth of the vine…so much so that if you attempt to tear off the branch, it will shred the vine all the way to the root.

Grape branches cannot be torn off.  They must be cut off.

And if the branches are cut off from the vine, the life of the vine will not flow through them.  Not only will the branches bear no fruit, but they will also die. We are delusional if we think that we are going to produce and manifest the fruit of the life of Jesus apart from an intimate connection with Him...apart from His life flowing through us.

This theme is repeated throughout the New Testament.  Paul uses the picture of the body (us) connected to the Head (Jesus).  Imagine Paul’s reaction if we were to suggest to him that a body part could go out and accomplish anything for the head while detached from the head.  Jason Henderson illustrates the absurdity of this kind of thinking by using the example of a talking hand arguing with the head about wanting to go out and do something great for the head.  The head tries to convince the hand that it just wants the hand to be an expression of its life, and to be as active…or inactive…as the head desires at any given time.

This can turn into quite an argument.  Ask me how I know.

A body part that is detached from the head is not going to do anything useful for the head.  A body part detached from the head is not merely dysfunctional.  A body part detached from the head is dead.

Or religious.

Instead of us trying to do something for God while detached from His life, Paul presents the Christian life as our being crucified with Christ and raised up into the newness of His life.  Rather than us doing things for God, Jesus lives through us.  His life flows through us.  We abide in Him, and His life in us produces fruit.

The phrase “in Christ” (or its equivalent) is found hundreds of times in the New Testament.  Religious professionals tell us we are positionally in Christ from the time we pray a salvation prayer…also referred to as the sinner’s prayer…but that we might not experience the intimacy of that relationship until after we die.

This thinking/teaching is so fundamentally flawed, I don’t even know where to begin to tear it apart.

For one thing, the salvation/sinner’s prayer didn’t even exist until 200 years ago.  How did Peter, James, John, Paul, and the others become Christians if they didn’t pray “the prayer”?  For another, “in Christ” is a place, not a position.  It is a present reality.  The New Testament expresses this clearly…and often…but we fail to see it, partly because of bad religious teaching.    I cannot help but suspect that those who tell us we cannot expect to experience a vibrant, intimate relationship with Jesus in this life are only telling us this because they are trying to cover up the fact that they themselves do not. 

But the Bible does not teach this.  Matthew 7:22, 23 tells us clearly that we will enter the Kingdom of God, or be rejected, on the basis of whether Jesus has ever been intimate with us…while we are alive on this earth.

If anyone has a hope of being accepted on the basis of what they have done for God, the people described in Matthew 7:22 are those people.  But according to the Bible, the issue is whether Jesus “knows” (γινώσκώ) us, not what we did for Him.  Knows us…experientially and intimately.  Now…not in heaven…but now.

So let’s abandon the preposterous notion that we can be anything or do anything apart from an intimate connection with Jesus.  We can no more live apart from Him than a branch can live apart from the vine.  We can no more function apart from Him than a body part can function detached from the brain.  It’s impossible.

Unless you’re a spider penis.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

Intimacy without Familiarity: Religion's Version of Knowing God

By David Ryser

The dysfunction of the Church is that it has become a group of people who are in Christ living as though they were not, trying to get a group of people who are not in Christ to behave as though they were.  (Tim Speer)

A friend of mine recently sent me an article that, in part, is a shining example of the religious mindset when it comes to our relationship with God.  The main premise of the article is that the Church has been taken captive by a belief that “the Church” is defined as a building (with its attendant rituals and activities) rather than as a group of believers.  The author correctly observes that Jesus said He would build His Church, but we have attempted to build it for Him rather than simply to love Him and others.  In so doing, we have stolen the Church from Him.  And then we, in turn, allowed the enemy to steal the Church from us.  The author then exhorts us to turn back to God.

So far, so good.

But toward the end of the article, the author issues a warning/caveat/disclaimer that is all too common in religious writings.  What is this dire warning?  We are cautioned not to become too familiar with God lest we lose respect for Him as the all-powerful Creator of the universe.  In fact, the author claims to “see too many people who are too familiar with God.”  I find this to be an interesting claim because I don’t know anyone who is too familiar with God.  I know people who are not at all familiar with God.  These people are religious-minded people…both believers and unbelievers…who hold God at arm’s length and relate to Him as though they are on the outside of the relationship looking in.  And I know people who are familiar with God.  These people are passionate lovers of Jesus and are intimate with Him.  And they respect Him.

How can you have intimacy without familiarity?

Intimacy without familiarity is an absurd notion.  How absurd?  I dare you to apply this concept to your relationship with your spouse.  Go to your spouse and utter the following affectionate speech:  “I love you.  I love you like I love no other.  I love you passionately.  I want to be intimate with you…body and soul…so that we are one in every way.  But I don’t want to become too familiar with you for fear that I will lose respect for you.”

What?  Can you imagine how your spouse would react to this?  And is there any way you could envision that your spouse would react positively?

There is a reason this sort of drivel does not appear in romantic greeting cards.

The fact is, there is no genuine intimacy without familiarity.  And religious writers who suggest we can have intimacy with God…and then caution against familiarity with Him…are likely neither intimate nor familiar with God.  They’re merely religious.  Religion depends upon maintaining a distance in our relationship with God.  It has a vested interest in keeping us separated from God and relating to Him as though He was an abusive Father whom we must fear…and appease…in order to win His favor.

This kind of fear is central to the continued existence and success of religion.  And someone who is intimate and familiar with God is a threat to religion…and to the religious.

Jesus had this problem back in His day.  He modeled and taught an intimate…and familiar…relationship with His Father.  And religious people hated Him because of it.  They called Him a blasphemer because He called Himself the Son of God, thus making God His Father.  Jesus demonstrated the love, compassion, mercy, grace, and works of the Father.  He claimed to know the Father…in an intimate and familiar way…and religious people hated Him.

They hated Him enough to murder Him.

Is this religious spirit the same spirit that compels religious writers to caution believers against becoming too familiar with God?  I hope not.  I hope that this is merely a holdover from the religious training we’ve all received.  As we transition from religion to Jesus, it is not uncommon for us to retain religious notions and patterns of thought even as we are moving toward an ever-increasingly intimate relationship with God.  These fall away as we get nearer to Him, and it is unfair to judge too harshly someone who is in transition.

We lovers of Jesus are all in transition.

So it can be difficult to know if someone is in transition or merely a shrewd businessperson who sees an opportunity for gain in jumping aboard the loving-Jesus bandwagon.  The latter can discern what God is saying to His Church and see an opportunity to profit from the “loving Jesus fad” in some way.  So they preach and write about loving Jesus without really understanding what it is to live in intimacy with God.  They trumpet the need to be intimate with God, but are not comfortable about being familiar with Him.  So they admonish us to be intimate with God, but not to get too familiar with Him.

I am not without compassion for these people.  I was one.  I remember one day, as I was in the pulpit preaching, having the thought:  “Here I am speaking for God, and I don’t even know Him.”

This was not my happiest moment in the vocational ministry.

Jesus lived in intimate, and familiar, relationship with the Father.  And He respected the Father.  There is no hint that Jesus’ familiarity with His Father caused Him to disrespect His Father in any way.  The whole notion is ridiculous.  I don’t know anyone who is in an intimate relationship, even with another person, who is not also familiar with them.  And I know of no one who is in an intimate and familiar relationship with another person who does not highly respect that other person.

How could this be any less true of our relationship with God?

Toward the end of His ministry, Jesus revealed to His disciples that God was as much their Father as He was Jesus’ Father.  In His last conversation with His disciples, Jesus invited them into the same relationship that He had with the Father.  Not a similar relationship.  The same relationship.  The identical relationship that Jesus had enjoyed with the Father (and the Holy Spirit) from eternity past.  He prayed that His disciples…whom he now called His friends…would be one with God and with one another in the very same way that He and the Father were one.

Intimate?  Yes.  Familiar?  Absolutely.  Disrespectful?  Never.

It is a biblical and experiential…for some of us…fact that we have been invited into an intimate relationship with God.  As we grow in intimacy with Him, we also come to know Him more and to become more familiar with Him.  This intimacy and familiarity with God never causes us to be disrespectful toward Him. It is not disrespectful to God for us to enjoy Him as He enjoys us.

So we should not be made to fear intimacy and familiarity with God.  We were created for both.  We must not allow religious people to tell us that we should have intimacy with God without familiarity.  Intimacy without familiarity is not genuine love.  Intimacy without familiarity is the love of the prostitute and the gold-digger.

And I am neither.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

Interpreting Scripture: Our Greek-ness is Showing

By David Ryser

Anamorphosis (noun): A distorted image that only takes its proper form when viewed from exactly the right angle or in an “unconventional” way.

The mother shooed her two young boys outside on a beautiful spring morning.  These active tots had been cooped up in the house for several days, and they were about to drive mom crazy.  She thought that some time outdoors would be good for them…and for her.  As the boys played outside, she busied herself inside the house…enjoying the peace and quiet.  After what seemed like only a few minutes had passed, she could hear the boys yelling at one another.  She went outside and began to scold the boys for fighting.  The older boy looked up at her, confused.

“But we weren’t fighting, mommy,” he said.  “We were playing Church.”

There are more than 30,000 Protestant denominations.  All are agreed that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  And all agree that the Scripture is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice.  So why are there so many denominations?

Because they can’t agree on what the Scripture says.

And their disagreement over what the Bible says is not caused by a lack of biblical scholarship.  The Bible has been translated into virtually every language on earth.  In an effort to make the meaning of the scriptures clearer, several modern-language versions of the Bible have been marketed within the last 50 years.  Bible Colleges and Seminaries number in the hundreds of thousands.  Some of the most brilliant minds in the world have dedicated their lives to biblical archaeology and language study.  There are strict rules for biblical study to assist the believer in the search for a deeper understanding of spiritual truth.

We have all of the tools.  We are not stupid.  So why can’t we agree on what the Bible says?

One problem in western Christianity…and in those cultures unfortunate enough to have been influenced by western Christianity…is that we are Greeks.  And by this, I mean that our way of processing information has been greatly influenced by ancient Greek thought. All of us who have been raised and/or educated in a western culture…regardless of our ethnicity or heritage…think like Greeks.  And this can cause us some problems when we attempt to interpret the Bible.

Because God is not a Greek.

And when scriptures that are inspired by a non-Greek God…and written by non-Greek people, I might add…come in contact with the Greek mind, there will probably be some difficulty as a result.  Among other things, we Greeks believe that there is only one correct way to interpret any particular scripture and apply it to our lives.  We claim to be believers in objective truth (defined as that which is absolutely and universally true regardless of our encounter with it), but then interpret biblical truth through our own personal religious, cultural, societal, and experiential lenses.

Then we argue over which of these subjective interpretations is objectively correct.  That’s how we get more than 30,000 versions of the same truth.  Frankly, I’m surprised that there are so few.

When a verse or passage in the Bible lends itself to more than one interpretation, we Greeks seem unable to consider the possibility that both interpretations might be equally valid.  (If your head spun while reading that last sentence, then you just might be a Greek.)  Let us consider the following example:

In Matthew 13:44-46, Jesus speaks two short parables (or, more accurately, two similes) concerning the Kingdom of Heaven.  He tells about a pearl merchant who finds a pearl of great price and a man who finds a treasure in a field.  Both men sell all they have…the former to buy the pearl, and the latter to purchase the field...in order to obtain the treasure.

And now the argument begins.

Are we the man who finds the pearl/treasure (Jesus) and values Him so much that we give all we have to obtain Him?  Or is Jesus the man who finds the pearl/treasure (us) and values us so much that He pays the ultimate price to purchase us?  I have heard both versions preached as truth.

But they can’t both be true…can they?

Actually, they could both be equally true and valid.  I’ve had the Holy Spirit quicken both of these interpretations in my spirit at different times of my life.  I have been awestruck by the preciousness of Jesus and determined to obtain an intimate relationship with Him regardless of the cost because He is the only One who is worth what I will pay for Him.  And I have been brought to tears to know that He loves, cherishes, and values me so much that He would pay the ultimate price to invite me into the relationship that He and the Father & the Spirit have enjoyed from eternity past.

Both of these are true.  Both are consistent with the full teaching of Scripture.  Both have been a comfort and a blessing to me at different times in my life.  Jesus does not offer the definitive interpretation of these little parables/similes.

So which interpretation did Jesus have in mind?

I’m not convinced Jesus had any interpretation in mind when He spoke these words.  He always did what He saw the Father doing, and He always spoke what He heard the Father speaking.  I don’t know that Jesus needed much explanation or clarification before revealing the works and words of the Father.  If the Father was doing and/or saying something, that was good enough for Jesus.  Do you really think Jesus knew everything that was going to happen…and be taught…as the result of the Holy Spirit leading Him one day to look for figs on a tree when it was not the season for figs…and then to curse the tree when (duh!) there weren’t any figs on it?

Oh, please!

So now we are left to deal with differing interpretations of Matthew 13:44-46…and I assure you there are many more examples of this sort of thing in the Bible…and to decide which is the objective truth.  Or we can put aside our Greek-ness and give up on the idea of objective truth defined as a body of information and correct interpretation.  How about we simply adopt the Bible’s definition of objective truth?  According to the Bible, ultimate truth is a Person…Jesus Christ.  Then how about we let the Author of the scriptures quicken them to our hearts so that we see them in whatever light He wishes for us to see them at that particular moment?

This kind of subjectivity drives Greeks crazy.

But relationships are subjective by their very nature.  Some time ago, I was teaching a class attended by two sisters.  When the topic of subjectivity in relationships…including our relationship with God…came up, they shared their experience of their father.  One sister was the eldest child and was dutiful, respectful, and somewhat detached from her father.  The other sister was the baby of the family and had a much more familiar relationship with her father.  She called him by his first name and would often jump up into his lap and crawl all over him.  The elder sister would never dream of doing either of these things.  Both sisters felt loved and accepted by their father.  Both remember him fondly.  But listening to them talk about him, a person would think that they were speaking of two different men.

So which one was the real man?  Which was the real father?

Only a Greek would ask such questions.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Working God's Graveyard Shift

By David Ryser & Martha Paterik

Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.  (Ephesians 5;14b, NKJV)

Martha is one of my favorite people in the world.  There are a lot of reasons for this.  Martha is a passionate lover of Jesus.  She knows Him…really knows Him.  And she thinks.  I just love being around thinking Christians.

I especially appreciate them because of their scarcity.

Recently Martha shared with me a conversation she had with her mom.  Somehow they got to talking about church cemeteries.  At one time, it was common for churches to have cemeteries on their property.  This is not so usual anymore, and for a lot of reasons.  Martha suggested that the reason churches no longer have cemeteries outside of the church building is because all of the dead people are on the inside of the building.  Her mother graciously pointed out that not all of the people in the church building are dead.  Martha agreed, but noted that in the days of church cemeteries not everyone who was buried was dead either.  That’s why a string was tied to the body and attached to a bell above ground.

If the person had been buried alive, the movement of the body would cause the bell to ring.

But there’s not much point in having a ringing bell to signal life if there’s no one around to hear it ring.  So someone would stand the “graveyard shift” and listen for the ringing of the bell…just in case they had buried a live one by accident.  Upon hearing a bell ringing, the one standing by would summon assistance and reassure the one untimely buried that help was on the way.  Then the graveyard shift worker would assist in unearthing the one buried alive and set them free.

Martha’s next words exploded in my spirit.

So, Doc, how many bells will you hear…the next time you step into a church?  How many bells does God hear?  How often is Jesus calling an untimely buried person out of the tomb of church?  If you can’t resurrect the whole graveyard, then at the very least unbury the ones still alive in it.

And I was reminded of Tom.

Years ago, Tom stood the graveyard shift at a church that was renowned for its coldness and unfriendliness.  He would greet people with a smile, a kind word, and a hug.  A big hug…a squeeze-the-air-out-of-you hug.  People would stand in line to be greeted by Tom.  Several people confided to me that the only reason they attended that church was because of Tom.  He made them feel valued and loved.

When Tom finally left that church, he was greatly missed.

I typically do not attend a traditional religious service on Sunday.  This is not a secret.  So occasionally I talk with people who do attend a conventional church service, and they feel the need to explain…usually apologetically…why they do so.  Many are getting very little out of the experience, but feel God is calling them to stay.  And they don’t know why.  They are frustrated.  They want very much to leave.  As we talk further, they usually realize that they stay in their church because their friends attend there.  Or they feel compassion for the people in the church and want to minister the love of Jesus to them…like Tom.

They are working God’s graveyard shift.  And it can be hard work.

It’s hard observing people you love slowly die from exposure to the religious system week after week.  It hurts to see the light in their eyes dim and eventually extinguish.  To watch their strength and passion ebb away to nothingness.  To look on as they strain and claw for the last little bit of life on their way down to spiritual death.

But someone needs to be there to hear the bells…and to assist in unearthing those who should not be buried.

Maybe God is calling you to be that someone.

If so, then let me encourage you to be faithful to that calling without apology.  I have endured some misunderstanding and criticism for not attending a traditional church service.  Surely you can endure those who ask, “Why are you staying in that church?”

Maybe now you have an answer to their question:  “I’m listening for bells.”

And while you’re listening for bells, you may also hear Martha’s words ringing in your spirit as well:

Let it not be said of us that we walked by a ringing bell without taking notice.  Let us not be ones who left behind those to claw their last bit of life on the casket/pew.  You mentioned seeing the life slowly dying in the eyes of people trapped inside a church; the light slowly extinguishing like a candle burning away the last bit of oxygen.  What is sad is that they are in church because it is supposed to be the place the Breath of His Life is found.  So they come week after week breathing in a poisonous gas that is slowly killing them.  Is it not a more vile crime that we have tricked them with the false promise of God and delivered nothing but a slower, more insidious poison than the world was offering?

Stand the graveyard shift…stand the inglorious job of listening for life.  They are dying for life…they are dying for the Breath of His Life.

Hear the bells ring, Jesus.  The people are dying for the life that You bring.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

Lessons from an Atheist Stand-Up Comic: A Reflection

By David Ryser

If all the world’s a stage…where does the audience sit?  (George Carlin)

When I was a young man, George Carlin was my favorite comic.  Carlin was everything I was not.  He was hip.  He was cool.  He was edgy.  He was irreverent.  He was profane.

Okay, I was irreverent and profane, but I wasn’t any of those other things.

And Carlin was hysterically funny.  And shocking.  And poignant.  Simultaneously.  He made you laugh and think at the same time.  He delighted and horrified audiences with his comic routines such as “Seven Words You can Never Say on Television.”

Carlin was also a self-described atheist.

Now let us put aside for the moment the fact that atheism is an absurdity.  Atheism is preposterous.  There is no such thing as an atheist.  An atheist is not someone who does not believe in God.  A person who does not believe in God is simply an unbeliever.  An atheist is someone who declares…as an undeniable fact…that God does not exist.  In order to be an atheist, one would need to know everything and have been everywhere; otherwise, it would be possible for God to exist outside of the “atheist’s” limited experience.  Once this possibility is admitted, the person is no longer an atheist.

If you must know everything (be omniscient) and have been everywhere (be omnipresent) in order to be an atheist, then the only person who can be a genuine atheist is God.

It may come as a surprise to many that George Carlin was raised in church.  He also was educated at a parochial/religious school.  He was taught the basic tenets of the Christian faith both at home and at school.  Carlin was not a self-described atheist because he had never heard about Jesus.  He was a self-described atheist because he had heard about Jesus.

Perhaps I should explain that.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege to talk with a number of people who claim to be atheist.  I have found these people to be thoughtful about why they’ve concluded there is no God.  They are open about their quest for the God they could not find.  Most were genuine seekers of God at one time.

And all of them were raised in church.

Some were abused by the religious system…or by religious people…in various ways.  Some stopped believing in a God they could not please, no matter how hard they tried.  Some lost faith in a God that did not answer their cries at a time when they really needed Him.  Some could not believe in a fire-breathing tyrant who would brutally murder His own Son to prove His love for them.  Some could not grasp the concept of a loving God who is eager to cast them into hell if they misbehave or fail to appease Him in some way.  In short, they could not believe in a God that doesn’t exist.

If believing in a God that doesn’t exist is atheism, then I am an atheist.

Because I have found that these same people are very open to hearing about the Jesus of the Gospels.  They respond positively to the Jesus I know.  And I wonder if George Carlin would have wanted to meet Jesus if someone who knew Him…who represented Jesus accurately in word and deed…and knew George…would have offered to introduce them?

Our misrepresentation of God by bad theology and bad living has turned more people away from Jesus than all the demons on earth.

I am often struck by all of the scriptures in the New Testament, especially in the epistles of Paul, where the apostle encourages the people of God to live righteous lives.  Unlike the preaching in our churches, Paul does not command Christians to live uprightly so they can secure their place in heaven.  He wants them to live transformed lives so that people will see God at work in them and respond positively to Him.  When the people of God live sinful…or religious…lives, it misrepresents God.  Unbelievers get a false image of God and His work, and they reject both.

Imagine the early believers’ reaction when Paul said to them, “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2:24; cf. 1 Timothy 6:1 & Titus 2:5).

So when I saw the quote by George Carlin, my mind turned to all of these things…eventually.  Actually, my initial response was simply to answer the question:  “If all the world’s a stage…where does the audience sit?”

They sit in the pews.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com