questions

Jul

2024

Called to be alongside of others

A message for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost

Sharing peace in Christ, leaving no one out

by David Sellnow

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Texas_Tech_University,_Student_Union.jpg

In my early years of ministry, I led weekly Bible studies on campus for a student group at a large public university in Texas. Anybody was welcome to attend. One who began coming regularly was Linda, who was somewhat older than the traditional college-age students in the group. After attending for a couple of months, asking many questions herself and listening to the discussions I led with the group, Linda approached me after one of the evening sessions. She told me, “I’ve decided you’re not a cult leader.” “I’m glad to hear that!” I said. Linda explained she had spent over ten years of her life stuck in a thought-controlling cult. After getting out and getting reoriented, she became a cult interventionist, helping extricate others from similar situations. The religious body that was the parent church for our student organization had a reputation for fixed doctrines that everyone agreed to. That had been a red flag for Linda, and she had decided to investigate our group. Thankfully, I had passed the test and was not a cult leader. I wasn’t mind-controlling anyone or causing spiritual damage. We were digging in Scripture together and sharing thoughts openly and equally.

Sadly, there are religious leaders and religious organizations that dominate in ways that are abusive and harmful. Much research has been done into complex post-traumatic stress disorder, including religious trauma, when religious systems harm rather than help. It happens when individuals are made to feel fearful and trapped and depressed and lose who they are. They experience an erosion of their individual personality. They are compelled to conform themselves to the dictates and decisions and rules of the group (CPTSD Foundation).

Not all stern, unbending churches are inflicting religious trauma in the formal sense of the term. But they may be ignoring the hurts and hopes and needs of many who are looking for good news and instead find mostly restrictions and legalisms.

I knew a young woman whose pastor preached that any and all forms of birth control were wrong. The young woman’s fiance had the same, unyielding view. As he and she talked about marriage, he insisted they should have as many babies as they could. Any attempts to limit that he saw as sin. The young woman was terrified, wondering if her body and mind and emotions could handle so much. Her pastor and her fiance were overemphasizing one thought in Scripture, that a man who has many children has been given a great blessing (cf. Psalm 127:3-5). They meanwhile were ignoring another Bible imperative, that husbands are to show consideration and concern for their wives and honor their needs of body, mind and spirit (cf. 1 Peter 3:7).

I knew young men and women who were training for roles in ministry in the church, who would not talk about internal struggles they had. If they had doubts or questions about any particular spiritual teachings, they were afraid to express them. If they experienced any mental health challenges, such as feeling anxious or depressed, they did not dare admit these things out loud. The church culture that surrounded them made them feel that any admission of weakness would disqualify them from ministry. They feared being dismissed from pre-ministry training because they weren’t good enough, weren’t strong enough, weren’t perfect enough to be pastors or teachers. Somehow they were forgetting the stories of all the human faith leaders we see in Scripture. Scripture openly shows the flaws and shortcomings of Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, Paul, and others whom God called into leadership. Good leaders lead through God’s strength, not their own (cf. Philippians 4:13). We don’t lead—and we are not disciples—because we are perfect people.

Religious groups and religious leaders can lose that understanding and that humility. They can begin to view themselves as having a rightness that’s righter than others, a betterness that’s better than others. They overlook their own failings and inconsistencies and judge persons who don’t adhere to their rules as out of line, as less than, as falling short.

These are the kinds of things that the LORD spoke against, through Jeremiah, saying, “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! … You have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them” (Jeremiah 23:1,2).

In One Coin Found: How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins,” Emmy Kegler points us to Jesus’ parable of the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10). She says, “The thing about coins is that they can’t get lost by themselves. They can’t roll away on their own. Coins get lost because their owners aren’t careful; whoever was in charge was wasteful with them. Coins get lost because they lose their shine, because dirt and rust cling to them, and without careful attention, they turn a color indistinguishable from dust and mess.” Lost and dismayed and scattered souls are often in that condition because persons charged with responsibility in faith and religion have not kept their focus on God’s grace, have not maintained mercy in their preaching and their practice. As a result, people are cast aside—or they pull away because they are afraid, because they feel shamed and judged, because they are not led forward in hope and joy.

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bob5d/16730007506

Do we do things in our own ministries and dealings with people that make others feel less than, as not properly in line? Are we more concerned about holding onto our own traditions than we are about welcoming others who have different backgrounds and different perspectives? Do we think of the church as our church, as if it belongs to us and anybody coming to us needs to fit in with our expectations and think the way we think? Do we put signs outside our churches and banners on our websites saying, “All are welcome,” but if folks come who aren’t the kind of people we were expecting to join us, make them feel unwelcome?

Back in the early days of the Christian church, the members who had been part of the Jewish traditions of faith did not easily adjust to having Gentiles joining the faith. The new Gentile Christians did not share the cultural context of Judaism, and often were made to feel like second-class citizens. The apostle Paul, who had described himself as the most enthusiastic proponent there could be of the Jewish faith (cf. Philippians 3:4-6), addressed that problem. In the church in Antioch (in Syria), he even confronted the Apostle Peter for going along with the standoffish behavior that Jewish Christians there were showing over against Gentile believers (cf. Galatians 2:11-21). In his letter to Gentile Christians in the Greek city of Ephesus, Paul reassured them that they were fully equal members of the church. He wrote to them, “You were [once] without Christ … aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise. … But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. He is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall between us. … You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God” (Ephesians 2:12-14,19). Paul also strongly made this point: Christ “has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace …. Through Christ all of us have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Ephesians 2:15,17-18). Jesus had fulfilled God’s laws for all of us. So laws and rules of the Jewish community were not to create a barrier to Gentile persons finding a spiritual home in the church. The church was not to have rules that made people change who they were in order to belong.

Nearly two thousand years have gone by since Paul wrote those words to Gentile Christians in what was then primarily a Jewish church. Today, do we Gentile Christians, with a long history and tradition in our practices of faith, need to hear the lesson Paul was teaching to Jewish traditionalists back in his day? Have we become so used to the church fabric and makeup as it has been that we don’t (or won’t) open our eyes to new people and new possibilities for the church in our own time? Do we truly welcome everyone, as Jesus welcomed everyone? Or are we sometimes too focused on ourselves to be full of caring and compassion for others?

Think of the ministry of Jesus. He labored with all his energy to reach out to every soul in need. At one time, when he and his disciples were exhausted from their work and had not even had time to eat, he said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). They decided to cross Lake Kinneret, but the crowds hurried on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them (Mark 6:32-33). What did Jesus do as he went ashore? He saw the great crowd (over five thousand people), “and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34). Tired as he was, he took the time to teach them, delivering words of comfort and hope. And along with his teaching, Jesus then also did a miracle of mercy, providing a meal of bread and fish for that whole crowd, more than they could even eat (cf. Mark 6:35-44). We’re told of the general pattern of Jesus’ ministry that “wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed” (Mark 6:53-56).

We are called by Jesus to carry on ministry in the same spirit as his ministry. Do you remember the woman who had been suffering for twelve years from hemorrhages, who said she just hoped to touch Jesus’ clothes and his power would heal her (Mark 5:25-34)? Do you remember the Syrophoenician woman, from outside of the children of Israel, who came to Jesus for help for her daughter, and said to him, “Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (Mark 7:28). People of all sorts and all needs reach out for love and acceptance and hope and help. They may not even be consciously reaching out toward the church. But they may be reaching out to you, if you are in their circle of acquaintance. Don’t look down on them. Don’t turn away from them—any of them, no matter who they are or what they are. Reach out to take their hand. Reach out to put an arm around their shoulder. Reach out as an ally to them, as an advocate for them, as a friend and partner. If I may use a Greek word, be a “paraclete” to them. That’s a word that Jesus used when he promised to send us his Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “ I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete [Παράκλeτοß], to be with you forever. … You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you” (John 14:16,17). The Greek word parakletos, literally translated, means one who is called to the side of another. Jesus has been that for us. God’s Spirit has been that for us. We are called to be that for one another, for our neighbors, for our friends, for strangers, for enemies, for everyone.

We are not a cult, trying to control others and make them follow us without question and without thinking. We will not be like the shepherds Jeremiah described, who scatter and drive souls away in fear and trauma, rather than attending to them with care. We hope to be the sort of shepherds the LORD said he would raise up, providing a witness to God’s love and an embodiment of his grace, so that those whom we reach “shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing” (Jeremiah 23:4). We will not demand people fabricate their own righteousness; rather we will point to the Savior God raised up in Jesus, whose very name by which he is called means: “The LORD is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6). We are the church, established by Jesus, being “built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God” (Ephesians 2:22)—and for all of his people. Once we were not a people, but now we are God’s people; once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy (1 Peter 2:10). Christ, in his mercy, has called us alongside him that we might call others alongside us. We proclaim the mighty acts of the one who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). Let us be that light, in Christ, to all of our neighbors, near and far.

For a related devotional thought, see this post on The Electric Gospel: https://theelectricgospel.com/the-house-of-disposable-souls/

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Jan

2022

Hidden in Plain Sight

The Quiet Power of God’s Presence

Thoughts for Epiphany (January 6) and for the Baptism of our Lord (Sunday after Epiphany)
David Sellnow

They say that heaven is 10 zillion light years away
But if there is a God, we need him now
“Where is your God”
That’s what my friends ask me
And I say it’s taken him so long
‘Cause we’ve got so far to come

-Stevie Wonder, “Heaven is 10 Zillion Light Years Away,” Fulfillingness’ First Finale (Tamla, 1974)

Some of you might recognize those lyrics from a Stevie Wonder song from 1974. It was the case then–and remains the case always–that human eyes look for evidence of God’s presence in big, obvious ways. We think that if our lives are overflowing with an abundance of wealth and good health, that’s when God is with us. When times are hard, we assume we’ve been abandoned and God isn’t there. There are problems with this point of view. For one thing, having riches and success rarely indicates how close to God a person is. In fact, many powerful, successful persons often achieve such glories by godlessness–not by prioritizing kindness and walking humbly in the ways of God (cf. Micah 6:8). Another thing: The testimony of Scripture shows that God never abandons those who trust in his name, and he is especially with us in the experiences that challenge our faith in him.

Think of Job, who lost all his wealth and lost loved ones and cried out wondering where God was. God knew everything and was, in fact, striving to connect Job’s heart even closer to his own.
Think of the parables Jesus told. It was not the well-to-do Pharisee who was right with God as he bragged proudly of how much he’d done. The social pariah, the tax collector, who prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 9:13)–that’s who Jesus said was exalted in God’s eyes.
It was not the rich man “dressed in purple and fine linen … who feasted sumptuously every day” that ascended into heaven on the day he died (Luke 18:19-31). The beggar who sat in the street outside the rich man’s home, whose only friends were stray dogs that licked his open sores–that’s the person Jesus said was blessed.

When we look at the world through our usual human perspective, we don’t see God in action in the obvious ways we want to see.

The way we see things and the way things really often are out of alignment. As we go about our lives, we focus on physical, material, tangible things that can easily be measured. We are not attuned to sensing spiritual realities–the ways that in God “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Psychologists have noticed something called “inattentional blindness” in how we interpret the world. Rather than noticing each detail around us, we tend to concentrate on the things most important to us. We see things in the context of existing mental frameworks that we have adopted (Kendra Cherry, “Inattentional Blindness in Psychology, VeryWellMind, 5/4/2020). If you’ll allow me to apply that principle in a broader way, our earthbound primary focus notices the flow of what’s happening outwardly in our lives, and we miss many details of what God is doing in and through and underneath those events. While “no one has ever seen God” (John 1:18), the hand of God is evident in things that can be seen. “Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made” (Romans 1:20). But we tend not to look past outward appearances, and so we miss seeing important truths. “Focusing our attention on one thing can cause us to overlook another” even if the other is right in front of us. (Daniel Nevers, “A Brief History of Hiding in Plain Sight, Mills College Art Museum, 2019). That’s how we tend to be with the manifestations of God that are given to us. God shows himself, but human beings mostly fail to pay attention to these evidences of God. Spiritual realities escape our notice, hidden in plain sight all around us.

Think about the ways God made himself known when Jesus Christ came into our world. There were clear manifestations of the miracle of redemption God was bringing about, but most people’s attention was aimed in other directions. When God chooses to make his presence seen and known, he often does so in what seem like insignificant ways.

When Jesus was born, he arrived in one of the world’s least significant places, the little town of Bethlehem. The King of kings might be expected to be found in a palace, at the center of politics and power. Yet when astronomers from an eastern land came looking for him in Jerusalem, the king in Jerusalem had to consult Jewish religious scholars to ask where the Messiah was to be born (Matthew 2:4).
The woman who had given birth to Jesus was no one of fame or acclaim. She and Joseph, the legal father of the virgin-born child Jesus, both were “descended from the house and family line of David” (Luke 2:4), but otherwise they were pretty much nobodies. Joseph was a carpenter (Matthew 13:55). Mary was his teenage wife, who herself said the Lord had “looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant” when choosing her to bear the Christ child in her womb (Luke 1:48).
When Jesus was anointed to begin his work as Teacher and Savior, there was no grand national ceremony with parades and dignitaries. Rather, John, a cousin of Jesus, served as the prophet to point to Jesus as the Messiah. John lived in the wilderness by the Jordan River, wearing clothing of camel’s hair and subsisting on a diet of locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:4). John proclaimed “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4), and people did come to be baptized. Then Jesus requested that John baptize him also–“to fulfill all righteousness,” as Jesus insisted (Matthew 3:15). At Jesus’ baptism, “the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased’” (Luke 3:22). But I wonder if most people who were there when that happened heard and saw things differently. “Look at that, a dove just landed on him,” I imagine many said, not understanding the spiritual significance. And, as happened on another occasion when the Father spoke audibly from heaven, rather than hearing the words “This is my Son, the Beloved,” the crowd standing there may well have thought, “Was that thunder?” (cf. John 12:28-29).

Our eyes and ears aren’t attuned in such a way that we grasp the workings of God, even when they happen right in front of us. Think of baptism itself, the holy act by which God claims us as his own. What do we see? Ordinary water, nothing special. A few simple words, as we are baptized into “the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). When we have our baptisms, there is no dove that miraculously appears or audible voice speaking from the skies. But with eyes of faith, we confess that “baptism is not simply plain water,” but that “it is water used according to God’s command and connected with God’s word.” We believe beyond what we can see, that baptism “brings about forgiveness of sins, redeems from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe” (Martin Luther’s Small Catechism). So also with communion, the Lord’s Supper. We eat and drink the most basic sorts of things – little bits of bread, small sips of wine. But because such simple actions were directed by Christ himself, whoever believes his words “has what they declare, namely, forgiveness of sin” (Martin Luther’s Small Catechism).

Such is God’s way of making himself known to us, his way of connecting himself to us, of doing the miraculous for us. It’s not typically in the spectacular, but in things that seem everyday and ordinary. Do you remember Naaman, “commander of the army of the king of Aram, a great man and in high favor”–but who suffered from the disease of leprosy (2 Kings 5:1)? Naaman had a slave girl who had been captured from the people of Israel. The slave girl urged her master Naaman to go see the prophet in Israel for healing. Naaman went to Israel, and the prophet Elisha merely sent a messenger to tell him to go wash in the Jordan River seven times and he’d be healed (2 Kings 5:10). Naaman became angry and began to leave, because he was expecting some great and mighty prophet to “come out and stand and call on the name of the Lord” and wave his hand over Naaman in dramatic fashion and cure the disease (2 Kings 5:11). Naaman had to be convinced by others of his servants, who said to him, “If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it” (2 Kings 5:13)? So, Naaman did the simple thing the prophet had said, and he was healed.

That’s how it often is with God. As Elisha’s teacher, Elijah, had learned, don’t expect God to show up by splitting mountains in half or shaking the earth beneath our feet. God more likely will make his presence known in what Elijah heard as the “sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12), or “a still, small voice,” as the King James Version of the Bible expressed it. Every day, in all sorts of seemingly ordinary ways, God makes his presence known and shares his grace by the life and witness of people who are acting in his name.

There is the son who visits his elderly mother every weekend, spends time with her, takes care of chores around the house for her, cooks a meal for her. And when she has to go to a nursing home, the son continues to visit, even as his mother becomes more confined, her health diminishes, and her memory fades away.
There is the mother whose toddler is throwing a tantrum and cannot calm down, so she sits down on the floor and gathers the child in her arms and just holds on, closely, securely, through all the kicks and screams, until the toddler finally melts into her embrace and hugs her back and says, “I’m sorry, Momma. I love you, Momma.”
There is the student who sees a schoolmate being picked on by others, avoided and ostracized and gossiped about for being different–and this classmate seeks out and befriends the outcast. They sit together in the cafeteria, spend time together studying and not studying (just hanging out), making it clear to everyone that acceptance and understanding are better than prejudice and pettiness.

Those could be just human actions of kindness, yes. In many cases, though, they are far more than that. They are the acts of God’s people making God’s love known in the ordinary course of events, doing things that are, in fact, extraordinary. God is working to make himself known to others through you–ordinary people in your everyday lives. Nothing spectacular. Nothing dazzling. Just you laboring patiently to serve your family, your neighbors, your community. Just you loving earnestly and committedly, caring for others with hearts that have been invigorated by the Spirit of Christ. That’s your calling as God’s people. God says to each of you, “I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. … You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you” (Isaiah 43:1,4). He also says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isaiah 43:2). How does that help, that strength, that rescue from the Lord usually show up in your lives when you are hurting or in trouble? Through the actions of people doing simple things, basic, necessary things, in God’s name. The neighbor who shovels your sidewalk or snowblows your driveway–because he knows you are away from home, caring for a sick relative. Fellow church members who take turns dropping off meals at your home–because you are the caregiver for a disabled family member or for your spouse who is going through chemotherapy, and they want to help bear your burdens. Complete strangers who contribute to an online plea for funds to help with extensive medical bills incurred from a major surgery or a lengthy stay in the hospital ICU recovering from disease.

Every now and then, God has intervened in history with supernatural interruptions of natural events. But more often, God does his work through us, his people, in less astonishing ways. Let me remind you again of the experience of God’s prophet Elijah. Elijah had the experience of God making his presence obvious and forceful and explosive. Elijah prevailed over the enemies of God by calling on God to do a miracle, to consume a sacrifice with fire sent from heaven. And God did so, spectacularly. “The fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the dust, and even licked up the water that was in the trench” around Elijah’s offering (1 Kings 18:38). But the perspective of the world doesn’t readily change when a miracle like that happens. In fact, the enemies of God (and of Elijah) only got more determined against God’s plans and against God’s prophet. Death threats were issued from the royal household against Elijah, and he ran. He ran back to the mountain where God had once revealed himself to Moses, and felt ready to die. “I’ve had enough,” he said to God. “Take away my life” (1 Kings 19:4). Instead, God told him to get up and he would reveal himself to Elijah. God did show himself, but not in expected ways. Not in a mighty, raging wind. Not in a rock-smashing earthquake. God revealed himself In a still, small voice, in the “sound of sheer silence” (I kings 19).

God’s powerful presence is often in the still, small voice–a voice carried out into the world by individuals, one at a time, by people like Elijah, by people like you and me. God’s way of enacting change in the hearts of people, one person at a time, is by the simple testimony of his words on our lips and his love lived out in our lives. He brings about the miracle of salvation by one baptism, then another baptism, then another, sending his Spirit to live in each baptized person’s heart and life. He carries out the actions of salvation in our hearts and lives, as we who have been saved by grace through faith, “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Ephesians 3:10), go about doing those works on behalf of one another, and for our neighbors, and for our communities.

When you feel like God is 10 zillion light years away, like God is so far distant from your life that you wonder if he’s even there at all, look again. Listen again. Feel again. Take notice of the little things, the inconspicuous ways that God is showing himself. Others’ actions. Your own actions. All the everyday words and actions whereby God makes his presence known and shares his peace among us. The smallest of kind words and actions toward one of the least of those whom Jesus considers his brothers and sisters are gifts to Jesus and blessings from Jesus (cf. Matthew 25:40). As Martin Luther taught, “God is so in control that the good we do is really God’s work. We’re nothing but the hands of Christ …. In the good we do, we are ‘little Christs’ to each other” (Luther’s Works, Vol.34, p.111, Volu.24, p.226, Vol. 31, p.367-368, quoted by Mark Ellingson in Living Lutheran, August 11, 2017). May our lives each day appreciate and extend the Epiphany of Christ in this way.

Jan

2020

Encourage one another

With this post, I am launching the new and improved version of The Electric Gospel. For Christmas, one of my daughters set up this new site (with expanded possibilities), upgrading from my previous blog. I credit her with site design and with doing much of the work of moving over archives of past devotional writings. The Christmas gift, a labor of love, was my daughter’s way of encouraging me to keep writing, to keep working at offering spiritual encouragement to others. I invite you to enter your email to subscribe for receiving new posts as this blog continues in this new form.

In launching the new site, I had thought about re-posting an updated version of something from the archives, such as a New Year’s post (from 2015) or a Martin Luther King Jr. Day post (from 2019). But you can get at those posts in the archives (follow those links).

A better way to begin the new version of The Electric Gospel is to post something new. Thinking of my daughter’s much-appreciated encouragement to me–as well as the intention of the blog site–it seems appropriate to speak about encouraging one another in faith and hope. If you wish to post a reply, please do!

Encourage one another

by David Sellnow

When I was doing college teaching, I made a habit of offering encouragement to students individually. Sometimes it was about a spark of spiritual energy I saw evident in them. Some I urged onward in their writing or other forms of creative expression, because they had talents to be explored. In many cases, I encountered young adults who felt out of place, who had questions or doubts, who weren’t sure the answers they were being told were consistent and true. Perhaps they were willing to share their doubts and wonderings with me because I was one who wondered along with them, a fellow learner, not someone who seemed to know all already.

On one occasion, I sent an email to a freshman student who had been offering novel insights in a history course. I encouraged her to continue sharing her thoughts, which were elevating the level of discourse in our classroom. Not long after receiving the email, the student came to my office, in tears. She was overcome with emotion, she said, because this was the first time in her life that a teacher had praised her work. I thought perhaps she was exaggerating, but her story was compelling. She had been raised in church schools where errors were duly noted and corrections expected. Perfect papers got praise. Her assignments mostly got marked up with red ink, pointing out every imperfection. She felt dismissed and disregarded by teachers, labeled as an underperformer. Her confidence and desire to do well diminished year by year due to the lack of positive attention.

We’d like to think of church settings as places where seldom is heard a discouraging word. Sadly, often much discouragement occurs. This is at odds with God’s gospel imperative to provide ongoing spiritual support. “Encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing,” Paul wrote to the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 5:11). It’s good that the Christians at Thessalonica were in the habit of encouraging one another. We do well when we follow their lead. In a similar vein, a writer to early Jewish believers urged them, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds … encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:24,25). Those Christians were enduring difficult times. But they held onto each other in faith and looked ahead to Christ’s return. The letter writer reminded them how they had “endured in a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions” (Hebrews 10:32-34).

Mutual encouragement is especially important when enduring hard times, injustices, or oppression. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (April 1963), Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., decried the lack of support from mainline churches for African Americans who were being deprived of their rights. How could this be, in a nation founded on the principle that all persons “are created equal … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” (Declaration of Independence)? King wrote: “The contemporary church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s often vocal sanction of things as they are.” Establishment churches were good at supporting and encouraging themselves within the circle of privilege and prosperity. They were ignoring the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, the despised. King pointed to the people on the front lines of the civil rights movement who supported one another faithfully as they struggled to achieve liberty and justice for all. One day the country will know, King said, “that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage.”

If you are someone enduring struggles or suffering, I pray The Electric Gospel blog can become a source of encouragement to you. Fill out the “Contact Us” form if there’s a specific concern on your heart that might be addressed here.

If you know someone in need of spiritual encouragement, by all means, reach out, speak out, help out. Let that person know they have a friend on their side and by their side. Don’t let anyone continue to be starved of needed praise and support in a world full of criticism and judgment. We are called to be there for one another. As the proverb reminds us: “Two are better than one …. If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10).

Dear God, help us to help one another and lift each other up, in Jesus’ name.

———

Jan

2020

Answering questions

Originally published on the Electric Gospel on October 25, 2018.

Answering questions

by David Sellnow

Once, in a religion class I was teaching, a student started the day by asking a question. He said no one had ever been able to give him a good answer before, and he really was hoping I could. He asked: “In heaven, if everyone is perfect, how does that work? If you’re playing basketball in heaven, and the offense is perfect at scoring and the defense is perfect at shutting down offenses, what happens?”

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t take the young man seriously. I thought he was joking. I later realized he was serious. He was struggling with a concept. He honestly wanted an answer. I owed him an apology for the way I had laughed off his question initially.

When people have religious questions, no matter how odd the questions might seem to us, we do well to listen carefully and answer thoughtfully. Their questions and curiosity — even their objections and counterarguments — provide us with opportunities to speak gospel words that bring attention to Christ.

There is a Christian author named Alicia Britt Chole, who was not always a Christian. Her book Finding an Unseen God tells her story, of how she did not believe in God as a child and was very much an atheist during her high school years. She didn’t fit in at all in her Texas high school where most folks were pretty religious. But two girls whom she refers to as the “Bowheads” (because they always wore bows in their hair) decided to be her friends even if she didn’t share their beliefs. Their patience and genuine friendship made an impact on her. In college, she began pursuing religious questions with more seriousness. And she writes this about her questioning:

What a relief it was for me to discover that [my] continual questioning did not make God nervous. Interrogatives do not irritate God. Emotionally charged query does not shut God down. … God is, after all, rather secure.

The problem is not that we have questions. … Personally, I have found that God takes pleasure in an inquiring mind. God delights in sincere questions.

– Finding an Unseen God (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2009), 142

During Jesus’ ministry, a group known as the Sadducees had a question for Jesus. It was an insincere, eye-roller sort of question. Still, Jesus took up the question seriously and answered in a meaningful, educative fashion.

Here’s the account of that event (Luke 20:27-38 WEB):

Some of the Sadducees came to him, those who deny that there is a resurrection. They asked him, “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies having a wife, and he is childless, his brother should take the wife and raise up children for his brother. There were therefore seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died childless. The second took her as wife, and he died childless. The third took her, and likewise the seven all left no children, and died. Afterward the woman also died. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them will she be? For the seven had her as a wife.”

Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry, and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. For they can’t die any more, for they are like the angels, and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive to him.”

Notice the manner in which Jesus responded to the Sadducees’ question, even though the Sadducees were opponents of Jesus and were attempting to refute the idea of a life after death. They had decided there is no resurrection, no afterlife — that the meaning of religion is to give morality to this life. So their question was just a doozy dreamed up to test Rabbi Jesus and see if they could stump him. But even with their not-so-sincere question, Jesus answered as a true teacher. He looked his questioners squarely in the eye and taught them something of what heaven really is like. He pointed to the Scriptures, showing how Moses expressed faith in the God who is “not the God of the dead, but of the living.” The Scriptures point us to God, to our salvation in God, to a resurrection to life with God. This was the message of good news that Jesus consistently proclaimed — good news that he was fulfilling in his own person.

How do we answer the questions that come to us? Let me tell you a story of another woman whose perspective on religion changed when she was a teenager. This woman, Elaine, was raised in the church and took the pastor’s class for the teens at her church. She had lots of questions, such as how on earth did Noah manage to get dinosaurs on the ark, and other curious wonderings like that. The pastor was always irritated by her questions, pushed aside her questions, didn’t want to answer her questions. He had his agenda that he wanted to get through in class, and she was interrupting. After a while, he wouldn’t let her ask any more questions. And after a while further, Elaine decided the church wasn’t for her. She stayed away from the church throughout her adult life. She only came back into a church class years later (that’s when I met her) — when she was working as a caregiver for a disabled woman who wanted to attend the classes. Elaine came along with Nadine as caregiver … and thank goodness I didn’t roll my eyes at questions Elaine started asking again, decades after she had previously given up on the church and its ministers.

The Lord Jesus wasn’t afraid of questions. When given the chance to speak to a question, Jesus answered in an evangelical, gospel-centered fashion. God grant us the attitude of Jesus as we deal with others, that we don’t dodge questions or reject their questions, but point every struggling or wondering soul to Jesus and his Word for the answer. And even when the questioners are Sadducee types who may think they already know more than we do, let’s still be serious and solid in our answers, saying what the Word of God says, calling attention to the Lord our God. “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive to him.” And our testimony in Jesus’ name is to point others to the life that is in him.

Jan

2020

Trusting God’s Word

Originally published on The Electric Gospel on April 6, 2017.

Written as a letter to someone doubting their faith and realizing that they are merely “going through the motions” of attending church. They often question and doubt that the Bible is, in fact, the Word of God.

God’s Trustworthy Word

by Sarah Couture

My dear friend,

I know you have been struggling lately. First, I want to reassure you that you are not crazy. Having questions about the Bible and its teachings is completely normal. In fact, I think it is healthy to ask tough questions. You may feel like these concerns you have are driving a wedge between you and your Savior, but I truly believe that expressing your concerns and seeking answers will only bring you closer to the Lord.

You have previously expressed that you are not completely convinced that the Bible is God’s inspired Word. I can understand this concern. Many Christians defend the validity of the Bible using circular reasoning. For scientific thinkers, such as you, circular reasoning does not hold much weight. “The Bible is God’s Word because it says in the Bible that it is God’s Word” leads people like you to have further doubts and questions. I’d like you to take a step back and look things from a different angle. A friend once explained it to me this way:

We have numerous accounts, outside of the Bible, that speak of Jesus. In fact, we have more proof that Jesus existed than Julius Caesar. Knowing that a man named Jesus existed is where we’ll start. Now let’s take a look at the resurrection. We see accounts of this event in all four of the Gospels. Each of these accounts provides a unique view and different details of the resurrection of Jesus. If the authors of the Bible were writing about a fictional event, they would try to keep their stories vague in order not to contradict each other. In reality, the testimonies are unique and provide unique perspectives on the event. Furthermore, during this time in history, women had little to no power or influence. Therefore, if the disciples were trying to convince people of a fake resurrection, why would their accounts have women be the ones to find the empty tomb? Finally, after the resurrection many disciples were martyred for their beliefs. In the case of Peter (as told by the historian Eusebius), he was forced to watch his wife die before him, and was told that all he had to do was admit Jesus was not God and did not resurrect from the dead. None of the disciples gave in. If the resurrection was a lie, why would these men let their families and themselves be killed brutally? They would not.

I know you have many other questions running through your brain. For so many years, you have gone to church and Bible study and believed everything that was taught to you because a master of theology with a white robe said it was the truth. Friend, I encourage you to voice your thoughts and concerns openly. Ask questions and seek answers. I promise you that others have similar questions. You will not be judged. People will not look down on you for asking challenging questions. And if they do, they are not acting as proper ministers of the faith. The fact that you are concerned about your lack of faith is comforting because it shows you continue to have faith. Please do not be discouraged. Read the Bible, especially on days you have doubts. You’ll be amazed how the Holy Spirit works through the Word.

Dec

2019

Faith in God’s timing

Originally published on the Electric Gospel on October 2, 2016.

Faith in God’s timing

by Lauren Ewings

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. – Psalm 27:14

I used to consider myself a very impatient person. I would rush to finish others’ stories for them. Waiting in a line for a ride at an amusement park was absolute torture. Detailed storytellers were my worst nightmare.

Many times I found myself impatiently questioning God’s plan for me.

“This is not what I pictured my life to be like right now.” This is a phrase I oftentimes found myself thinking, while selfishly praying for companionship and becoming frustrated when it seemed like God wasn’t listening or answering. I know that sometimes my sinful expectations of prayer have been that God will answer quickly and he will answer the way I expect him to.

Many times during my early years of college, I expected the perfect man to be placed in my life, thinking, “God, don’t you know how happy this would make me? Don’t you understand that I don’t want to be single anymore?” My selfish prayers were heard … and although I didn’t see it at the time, they were answered as well. God did not answer with an immediate yes as I had hoped. Instead he answered with “not right now.”

Not until my senior year did I finally recognize God’s answer to my prayer. I was student teaching, living independently, miles away from many of my friends and my family, and things were okay. I discovered that going out by myself was enjoyable. I was able to explore the city without feeling the need to be in constant contact with others. I dug deeper into God’s Word and found comfort in his love.

A psalm of David (Psalm 27) reminds us to wait for the LORD, to trust in his plan for our lives, to have faith that he is always working for our good. Faith in God means faith in his timing. It may not always be easy to accept, but know that your prayer is not going unanswered. God is working for your good.

Prayer: Dear God, please help us remember to be patient. Help us remember that you hear our prayer, and that you always answer. Give us strength and comfort, and remind us of your everlasting love while we wait for you. Amen.

Dec

2019

A Cry from the Depth of One’s Heart

Originally published on The Electric Gospel on August 1, 2014.

During the summer of 2014, The Electric Gospel featured items written by participants in a summer writing workshop. In this post, Carl Heling shares with us a prayer from his heart, leaning on God in the midst of frustrations with life. His lament echoes what psalmists have cried — and what our own hearts often feel.

___________________________________________

A Prayer, a Lament – From my Heart to God

by Carl Heling

O Lord, God, maker and preserver of all things, hear me as I come to you. Listen to my cry. As I sit here pondering on my life, I realize time and again how wretched and lowly and poor a human being I am. Surely, I do not deserve the gracious blessings you have given to me nor to be called your child, but you still do so continually. Oh, how my heart can’t fathom your love!

As I lie here, I feel lost in a world of chaos and uncertainty. Every day I labor and toil long hours to make a dollar, pay the bills, help the family, go to school, and give to church. I do so with my best effort, knowing that it is my duty to do so as a citizen and member of the family and because that is what you desire from your children. Yet I am unhappy, full of grief and pain. I am disappointed and uncomfortable with myself and my doings. Things never seem right or good enough. I could have done this better. I should have done that better. O Lord, my heart is plagued and overrun with grief and pain on account of the sins and failures I commit every day of my life!

As I sit here, Lord, every day feels so futile. I feel lost and powerless in this large world of chaos. I don’t know how I am to best serve you with the unique talents and abilities that you have given to me. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless (Ecclesiastes 1:1). I am filled with urgent desire for knowing your Word, and yet despite that still find myself feeling as if everything I do is useless and fruitless. And so I am filled with grief and sorrow. Along with this, I feel sorrow on account of always feeling grief and sorrow! I sorrow for the things I should or could have done better. I grieve over all the sins and failures I have done in my everyday tasks. And I sorrow and grieve about how much I sorrow and grieve.

Oh, how I long to be with you and with all the saints in heaven! Heal this broken and plagued heart and mind of mine, Lord. Invigorate my mind, body, and spirit with your strength and grace. Forgive me of all my sins and failures and lead me to do better. Ultimately, give me true, godly wisdom and understanding, as well as a steadfast and true heart set on your ways and your heart.

This is my cry, O Lord. In your mercy in Jesus, hear me.

¹Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;
²    Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
³If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
  Lord, who could stand?
⁴But with you there is forgiveness,
  so that we can, with reverence, serve you.
⁵I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
  and in his word I put my hope.
⁶I wait for the Lord
  more than watchmen wait for the morning,
  more than watchmen wait for the morning.
⁷Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
  for with the Lord is unfailing love
  and with him is full redemption.
⁸He himself will redeem Israel
  from all their sins.

(Psalm 130)

Dec

2019

Questioning God’s Goodness

Originally published on The Electric Gospel on August 19, 2015.

Questioning God’s Goodness: When Christians ask “Why?”

by Danica Scharlemann

You crawl out of bed after a sleepless night. You don’t bother taking a shower because last month you were laid off, due to your company’s downsizing in a plummeting economy. You check your voicemail, hoping that you missed a call for an interview from the many applications that you have submitted within the last week. Your heart sinks ask you listen to yet another message from your frantic sister who is continually struggling with the recent news of your parents’ divorce. You make yourself a bowl of cereal, using water instead of milk because you ran out the day before. You consider running to the store, but remember you’ve put yourself on a “spending freeze,” refusing to spend any money outside of the absolute essentials until you are employed. After dragging yourself into the shower, you decide to go spend the day with your sister. Convincing yourself that the company of family will raise spirits, you work up a smile and step outside. Before you take two steps, your 16-year-old neighbor runs up to you in tears, explaining that it was an accident and she’ll fix everything. Your eyes soon move past your hysterical neighbor and discover your dependable old Buick pinned to your mailbox by the girl’s 2014 Ford Focus. You nod politely to her and retreat to the privacy of your own home. You fall to the floor, letting out a cry of desperation, “Why, God! Why?”

There are times in our lives when we feel as if nothing is going right. We suffer relationship conflicts and struggle financially. We deal with the deaths of loved ones and try to find reasons behind natural disasters and economic crises. Daily stress drives us to exhaustion — physically, mentally, and emotionally. We turn to God, as we have been taught, but not in trust. We come in desperation and anger, in doubt and fear. We question God’s plan, his goodness, his love. In some cases, we may even question his existence. All too often we look at the troubles in our lives and ask God, “Why?” We hear the words of Scripture telling us of our Father’s goodness and love, and yet we fail to see them in our own lives. We turn to Scripture and read, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). We read that, but rather than finding comfort in it, we blame God. We accuse God of not knowing our limits and failing to provide a way out. We fall into despair. No one would argue against the fact that life is difficult. Conflict is one of the few givens in life; however, it is not the only given in life.

We may not all have the wisdom of Job—a man who, even after his family and wealth were taken from him, bowed down in worship and said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised”(Job 1:21). We may not trust our heavenly Father as Jesus did upon waiting for his creation to betray him, praying, “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). However, we all have opportunity to reflect upon our lives in view of not only the negative, but also the positive. Though sin afflicts every day of our lives, though the devil tracks us as his prey, though the world brings us down by picturing happiness as success and wealth, yet our God defeated all evil for us. He brings life. He brings love. He brings joy, peace, grace, and blessings galore. Rather than asking “Why, God?” accusingly, God invites us to come to him with those same words, spoken in awe and thankfulness. “Why, God, have you blessed me with such a loving, Christian family? Why, God, have you provided for my physical needs, giving me with food and shelter? Why God do you love such a wretched sinner like me?” The only answer to these questions is found in the unconditional love of our God, who gave himself for us.

You rise to your feet at the sound of a van door closing and your daughter’s laughter. She runs through the door and falls into your arms, showing you the picture of the two of you that she painted at school. The door closes as your spouse greets you will smiles and a loving embrace. The whole family gathers to help prepare a meal of Hamburger Helper. You help your daughter with her spelling homework before tucking her into bed. As a family you recite your bedtime prayer:

Lord, I have passed another day
and come to thank thee for thy care.
Forgive my faults in work or play
and listen to my evening prayer.
Thy favor gives me daily bread
and friends, who all my wants supply.
And safely now I rest my head,
preserved and guarded by thine eye.

A message for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost

Sharing peace in Christ, leaving no one out

The Quiet Power of God’s Presence

Encourage one another

Answering questions

God’s Trustworthy Word

Faith in God’s timing

A Prayer, a Lament – From my Heart to God

Questioning God’s Goodness: When Christians ask “Why?”

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