Christmas is a season full of noise. What if we imitated Revelation 8:1, in which all of heaven stands silent before Jesus for half an hour? Listen to this message from Pastor David during our annual “Hanging of the Greens Celebration Service.”
The Last Day of Our Guatemalan Spiritual Journey
A FREE DAY! Our trip had a strange twist: we could not find reasonable airline tickets out of any city in Michigan. However, God answered prayer, and we flew out of Chicago which meant a 7-hour trip to the airport from Midland. Our flight home was a red-eye out of Guatemala City late on a Saturday night, which resulted in a blessing: we did not have to pay for another night in our hotel, and we had an extra full day in Guatemala. It did mean we traveled at night and didn’t get home until Sunday evening, but it worked out. The 2016 trip was indebted to Jim Sirks, Youth Pastor from the North Avenue Church of God in Battle Creek. Jim drove their big bus and transported us to and from O’Hare. Thank you Jim! Continue reading
Rethinking Sodom and Gomorrah
Why were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed?
What if it wasn’t for that reason?
Recently, in my personal Bible reading, I came across this famous Bible story in the Old Testament book of Genesis. The quick summary is this: Abraham’s nephew Lot finds himself and his family in the city of Sodom. One day, a couple of (male) angels arrive in Sodom, and Lot insists that they stay overnight in his house. That evening, the men of Sodom demand that Lot surrender these two angels so they can have sex with them; Lot offers his two daughters to the crowd instead.
(Let’s just pause right there. Why do we condemn the men of Sodom for their attempt to rape the angels, but we don’t condemn Lot for offering his two daughters to experience that same abuse?)
The angels then cause the crowd to go blind, Lot and his family escape, the angels disappear, God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone (what did the people of Gomorrah do?), Lot’s wife turns into a pillar of salt, and Lot ends up sleeping with and impregnating his own two daughters. Thus ends the biblical account of Lot. (Read all about it in Genesis 19.)
What is going on here? Why were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed?
The popular answer in modern-day Christianity is because the men of Sodom practiced homosexuality. In fact, that’s a fairly historical answer, too; the English word “sodomy” takes it meaning from this biblical story.
But what if it happened for another reason? Can we separate the story of Sodom from the highly-charged, emotional, political, religious issue of homosexuality? Let’s try.
What do we know about Sodom from the Bible? (This a more interesting question than asking about Gomorrah, because scripture always pairs Gomorrah with Sodom, but not vice versa.)
- Sodom is first mentioned in Genesis 10:19 as a border city in the ancient land of Canaan. (Review the sketchy beginnings of the Canaanites, descendants of Ham the son of Noah, in Genesis 9:18-29.)
- Sodom then shows up a few times in Genesis 13. In verse 10, it’s mentioned parenthetically as a town that God will eventually destroy. This is important: the Bible is aware of Sodom’s fate from the outset.
- But Genesis 13:10-13 is all about Abraham’s nephew Lot, who chooses a parcel of land for his family. He settles near Sodom, which is populated with wicked men who were sinning greatly against the Lord – but for undisclosed reasons.
- Then in Genesis 14, the king of Sodom goes to war with several other kings and against several other kings. It’s all very messy and bloody, but Sodom loses the battle, and Lot and his family are carried off into captivity. Abraham quickly rescues his relatives.
- The king of Sodom then has a unique meeting with Abraham himself in Genesis 14:17-24. In the middle of this meeting, quite unannounced and unexpectedly, Abraham has a powerful encounter with Melchizedek, priest of God Most High. This story forms the basis for our understanding of the tithe.
- Things settle down for Sodom until Genesis 18. In this chapter, God promises descendants to Abraham and Sarah, who are old and childless at the moment. After this promise, God mentions to Abraham that he’s going to destroy Sodom because of its wickedness (again unspecified). Abraham bargains with God: if God can find ten righteous people in Sodom, he will not destroy it.
- Then Genesis 19 happens, and Sodom is destroyed, but Lot and his daughters are saved.
So why were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed? I think the answer lies in the goal that the book of Genesis is trying to achieve: Genesis is all about explaining how God blessed Abraham and his descendants and made them into powerful nations. And God’s promise to Abraham is that God will bless all nations through him (Genesis 12:1-3).
The reason Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed is that they got in the way of God’s plan to bless the nations.
Take another look at Genesis 19, specifically verses 9 and 10. The nighttime conflict between the men of Sodom and the two angels ends when the men threaten Lot, not the angels and not his daughters. Lot is rescued by the angels. Lot survives the destruction of Sodom. Lot continues his family line through his two daughters (sketchy as that is). Lot becomes the ancestor of two of Israel’s ancient neighboring nations, Moab and Ammon.
Sodom is destroyed because God has plans for Lot, plans to bless him and to make a nation or two out of him. And let’s not forget the whole sweep of scripture: the entire Bible is about Jesus, whose human ancestry is traced (Luke 3 and Matthew 1) directly through a woman named Ruth, who is a Moabite, the great-grandmother of King David. No Lot means no Moab, which means no Ruth, which means no David, which means no Jesus.
I think the moral question of homosexuality – while still very important – is actually very far removed from what the Bible is trying to accomplish through the story of Sodom.
Just take a look at what the New Testament says about Sodom:
- Jesus refers back to Sodom and Gomorrah as a way of pointing toward God’s future judgment of all people. And that final judgment has everything to do with how people respond to Jesus himself. (See Matthew 10:11-16, 11:20-24; Luke 10:1-16, 17:20-37.)
- Romans 9:29 quotes Isaiah 1:9, which refers to Sodom and Gomorrah in a way that gives thanks for God’s provision for his people in the time of his judgment.
- 2 Peter 2:4-10 mentions Sodom and Gomorrah in a passage that encourages Christians to endure trials in the present world.
- Revelation 11:8 mentions Sodom in passing as John describes the greatest evil in the world.
- The only verse in the New Testament that connects Sodom to some kind of immoral sexual practice is Jude, verse 7. But even then the passage is more about God’s final judgment than it is about moral codes of sexuality.
Please hear what I’m trying to say. I’m not advocating for free sexual practice among all people; I’m not saying that I approve of homosexual activity.
What I’m trying to say is that the story of ancient Sodom is more about God’s plan to save people through Jesus than it is about creating laws regarding sexual behaviors.
What if we learned to retell the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as a story of how God protected his people, created nations, and carved a path in history for the future arrival of the Messiah?
Changing Colors
It’s that time of year again – those few weeks, here in central Michigan, during which millions of leaves change color and fall to the ground. This could cause a number of reactions within you: anticipation of the winter months that lie ahead; excitement for the prospect of earning money by raking leaves; or simply amazement at the colorful beauty of the earth.
I have been struck by this beauty in the past week or two. Even on my short walk from home to the church, I can see many shades of red, yellow, orange, and purple – all signs of the changing seasons. Have you ever wondered about why leaves change color in the fall? It has been a while since I studied trees in elementary school, so I Googled the subject and found 38.7 million results. It’s a popular subject!
As you may remember, leaves are green because they contain chlorophyll, a pigment crucial to the process of photosynthesis. Chlorophyll helps plants create energy from sunlight; it absorbs light with wavelengths in the red and blue areas of the spectrum. But chlorophyll reflects green light, which is why living leaves look green.
The trouble is that chlorophyll constantly decays, so it must be constantly replaced by plants. All spring and summer long, chlorophyll helps plants store up energy so that they can survive the winter. But when the days grow shorter in the fall and sunlight becomes less readily available, plants stop producing chlorophyll. At that point, leaves begin to die, slowly lose their greenness, and change into colors that really have been there all along but were covered up by the green pigment.
If you are sensing that I might turn this into an analogy about our spiritual lives, you are figuring me out: there’s a sermon in everything! However, I don’t want to compare our lives as believers to the changing colors of leaves for two reasons:
- Spiritual life is not cyclical. While trees go through this process year in and year out, we are not guaranteed regular, recurring periods of “spiritual dryness.” There may be seasons in which we wander in the wilderness, but the light of God does not take a winter-long vacation from us.
- The sin nature is not always lurking, buried deep within us. If we think of “green” as “life in Christ” and “red/yellow/etc.” as “sinful living,” then we might reason that our sinfulness is always buried just beneath the surface; if the greenness ever fades away, our “true colors” will show. But this is not the case. Salvation is about the gift of a new identity; our sins, red as scarlet, have been washed away by the blood of the Lamb, making us white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). We may turn from Christ and return to sin, but it is not as if sin were lurking inside us, waiting for the right opportunity to take over.
Take a minute to read John 15:1-17, in which Jesus says he is the vine and we are the branches. One thing is for sure: leaves (branches) do not stand a chance of surviving if they are disconnected from the tree (vine). Let’s stay green (bear fruit); let’s remain connected to Christ and to each other. Let’s continue to find new ways to love each other during the changing seasons of our lives!
–Pastor David
Universal Redemption
This week, the Catholic Church’s Pope Francis gave a brief message in which he made some remarks that have prompted worldwide attention. In these remarks, he spoke about the common human desire to “do good” – something that unites people of all cultures and faith traditions.
Pope Francis’s comments were based on the gospel reading for the day, Mark 9:38-40, in which Jesus says that someone doing miracles in his name should be allowed to continue even though he is not part of the “core group” of disciples. The rationale? “Whoever is not against us is for us,” said Jesus. This led the pope to state that all people, even atheists, are redeemed by the blood of Jesus, because all people are created in the image of God and all people have the God-given command (and desire) to “do good.”
Before we jump to conclusions and responses, let’s remember a few things: the world is a complicated place, sound bytes often reduce conversations unfairly, and Pope Francis raises a few worthwhile points here:
- If we consistently “do good,” then we will avoid war, murder, and killing in God’s name – which is against God’s character.
- God has indeed created all people in his own image. This means every single person is loved by God and deserves our respect, compassion, and love.
- “Doing good” in community leads to a “culture of encounter” which breeds peace, not conflict. Said differently, we are to live in community with each other, not in isolation.
I have been very interested in Pope Francis, his beliefs, and his practices since he was inaugurated earlier this year. I appreciate a great deal about him: his call to poverty, his emphasis on service, his humility (even in such a high position), his simplicity. These are exciting days to have such a pope in the world.
Yet we need to be careful when we talk about how the blood of Christ redeems all people. It is true that God desires all people to be saved; he does not want anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9). God did create us in his image exactly so we might enjoy right relationship with him forever. But even in Old Testament days, forgiveness for sins had to be obtained through animal sacrifices, which individual believers would bring to the tabernacle or temple. Redemption was not automatic then, and it is not now.
…because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. (Hebrews 7:24-27 NIV)
The most important faith-related question for any person is this: What will you do with Jesus? The answer to that question – for better or worse – transforms life, community, and why we “do good.” Let us faithfully proclaim Jesus as the Savior of the world and encourage those around us to enter into relationship with him.
–Pastor David