Discernment vs. Censorship

I was talking to my pastor friend Tim once about a book.  A book I think both of us were supposed to think was BAD, but neither of us really did.  Well . . . we agreed that the author was wrong on many things, but other things we really liked.

Then he said something that struck a deep chord with me.  He said it as an apology.  He said it fearing what I might say.  He said it as if it was a bad thing.  He said, "I almost always find something in any book that I like."  I agreed.  My first instinct when I disagree with something is not to censor it, but to study it.  I try to look at things from the opposing point of view as best as I can.  Usually I see a nugget of truth there that I need to deal with and learn from.

I fear too many of us are in the censoring business (Harry Potter is from the devil; Twilight is satanic; the Hunger Games glorify violence, etc.).  I believe the Holy Spirit can speak through many avenues, including pop media   I watched a horrendous movie the other day.  It was the worst movie I think I had ever seen.  Yes . . . it was a Sundance award-winning movie.  That fact alone pretty much seals the deal for me.  I watched it, thought I was going to kill myself, and then wished I had those hours back when I was done.  BUT . . . I still was able to discern a good message.  EVEN from a pile of garbage (from my point of view).

The message was about not trading short term pleasure for long term happiness and satisfaction.  A woman didn't return to her home country when her student visa ran out, because she was in love.  But . . . that very act led her to not be able to come back and be with her loved one in the future.  Man does that speak to the Christian life or what.  How often do we trade the immediate pleasure of sin for its long term negative consequences.

I can even find redeeming things about Rob Bell's work (cue gasp)!  In "Love Wins" he is rightly trying to focus us on the blessings of the Kingdom of God in the present age and curses of disobeying God in this life.  Life in the kingdom of God is not just about holding a future fire insurance policy.  We can live heaven now through the Spirit, or we can live hell.  Now . . . there is the whole swinging the pendulum way in the other direction to the point of denying the clear biblical teaching on a future hell.  But . . . if we have open ears, we can still find truth that can cause us to grow, while rejecting the garbage. Discernment.

Maybe I am as wrong as rain!  I probably am!  I just believe that diamonds of God's truth can be found in even the most ordinary of places.  Are you looking for God's truth?

Are you really a victim or just paranoid?

A man attacked a dog this past weekend claiming that it was a racist. Can a dog be racist? Did this man really think that? Check out the story here at the Sun Times

Apparently this man walked by the dog's home many times, and each time he claims that dog discriminated against him. It barked at him and other minorities, but left white people alone. After the attack, the owner felt the need to defend his dog. So, he went out and tried to convince the public that the dog was not racist by citing the dog's minority friends. Did this dog owner really think that this defense was necessary?

Last night on CBS's Amazing Race a U-Turn was offered to the contestants. A U-Turn is when one team can make another team go backwards and do an additional task. Immediately, the teams began to discuss which team they would U-Turn if they had a chance. A few teams decided that they would U-turn a team made up of two women. These two women happened to be Lesbian. When a young man from another team heard this discussion (who happens to be gay), he immediately thought that these other teams wanted to U-Turn the women because they were Lesbian. No . . . they just didn't like these women's personalities!

I think our society has created a climate where our default setting is to cry abuse. We are always a victim. Did the man with the dog actually sit and watch the dog for days on end to make sure that it was racist and not just mean to everybody? No. . . he just immediately assumed that he was a victim. When I go to the store and get bad service, I don't immediately think that they aren't serving me well because I am 1/4 Serbian. I think that they are a poor employee. Others immediately claim that they are a victim. They didn't serve me well because I am a homosexual. They didn't serve me well because I'm Irish. Sometimes this may be true, but I think most of the time it isn't. Before we cry racist, sexist, or homophobe, maybe we should get all the facts. Or . . . maybe we just shouldn't be so paranoid and not care so much about what others think.

My Mother's Homegoing

On Wednesday December 23 my mother went home to be with the Lord. This is a tribute that I wrote for her, detailing a little of what she meant to me.

Things I love about my mom:

She was fantastic at hide and seek, or at least the hide part. I had to do the seeking. Every time I got in trouble, she would hide my guitar. Then, I would have to spend the rest of the day trying to find out where it was hidden.

She was a classic over-reactor. If I didn't wear a coat outside at 60 degrees, I would get grounded. But . . . she was also a classic under-reactor. When I got suspended from school for fighting, I didn't get in any trouble at all.

She was a great motivator. When I was quizzing, if I didn't recite enough chapters of Scripture to her, I wasn't allowed to eat dinner. Alright, it wasn't quite that bad, but it was close.

She was a stickler for a clean house. I was allowed in the family room, but never the living room. If I stepped foot in the living room, she made me go back in and vacuum up my footprints.

I love that she was a strong Calvinist. I remember telling my Advanced Theology class in Seminary that I'm glad I married a Calvinist girl, because I think she would have disowned me if I didn't.

She knew her Bible better than almost anyone I’ve met. She caught me in a lie when I was young, and the next thing I know she is handing me a new Bible. In that Bible, every passage of Scripture about lying was highlighted. She did the same thing when we argued about whether drinking alcohol was a sin or not. When she found out I didn’t agree with her, she took my Bible and marked and underlined every passage having to do with the consumption of alcohol.

She was pretty funny. Last week, the last time I saw her at least somewhat alert, she was brushing her hair on the side of the bed. I reminded her of the time she smacked me in the mouth with a brush for talking back. She then proceeded to imitate the action one more time for me. Thankfully, my face was 7 feet away from her brush.

She was better than any doctor. I would tell her my symptoms and she knew exactly what was wrong with me or my kids, because chances were that she had had the same issue at one point or another.

She cared about people. She never wanted to do anything that would harm them. She tried her best to think about other people's feelings over her own.

She loved her family. Over this last couple of years she worked hard at getting her father and her brother moved here, so that she could look after them better. Who knew it was going to be her that needed the looking after. She was always there for me. When a solo pastor has a medical procedure, there is no one to come with him and support him, but his wife. However, my mom would drive all the way up to Fort Wayne to sit with me, no matter how minor the problem.

She was the best grandmother in the world. When she first came out of her induced coma in October, she rattled off the weights of all five of my kids. These weights were from right before she got sick. She wanted an update right away. When she saw baby Sarah for the first time after she woke up, I was standing between them. Even though she couldn't talk yet, she waved frantically for me to get out of the way, so that she could see her better. She was always buying our children gifts, and spoiling them. She wouldn't even think twice about giving them ice cream or pickles for breakfast, if that was what they wanted.

She was greatly used by God. She suffered much in her life. The biggest suffering was the loss of her firstborn son. She took that grief though and she used it for good. She threw herself into helping others who also had sick kids or kids that had passed away. She volunteered for years at the Ronald McDonald house, trying to help families with terminally sick kids. She even wore a Ham-Burglar suit a couple of times for the sick kids. Can you imagine my mom in a Ham-Burglar suit? She also threw herself into the Candle-lighters group, which was a support group for families that had kids with cancer. She reached out to those who still had kids alive with cancer, even though her own had gone into the presence of the Lord. She also became part of the bereaved family support group, and reached out to families who had not only lost children to cancer, but also to car wrecks and even to SIDS. Not to mention the families from her church that she helped through similar situations. She was always using the pain in her life to help others. She was an embodiment of 2 Corinthians 1, channeling her experiences in order to bring comfort to others.

This list doesn't even begin to exhaust the things about my mom that I love, nor the great things that she has done for me and my family, nor does it adequately sum up the imprint that she left on this world and the people's lives in it. She is so much more than we can sum up in a half hour service. So . . . I just want to close with my mom's own words. They were words that she wrote to my wife after we miscarried our fifth child. She reminded us that time is the great healer, and there seems to be so little of it. My mom had a lot to live for: two kids, 8 grand-kids, a wonderful husband, and supportive church family. But . . . she also has a lot to die for. She has a son to get reacquainted with, a grandchild to meet, a Savior to heal her, and a mansion to decorate.

Good bye Mom. See you again. Aaron

Consequenes of Losing the Amazing Race

I can't believe I lost! Like the proverbial Cub's fan, I guess there is always next year. You see, I live in a very competitive household. It is not enough for us to just watch the Amazing Race, we have to raise the stakes a little bit. Each of us chooses a team to root for. If our team wins the race, they get to choose a restaurant for us to eat at. I usually root for my own team, but more than that, I root against my younger kids' teams. They will choose Chuck E. Cheese every time. While I like the mouse, I hate his pizza! Call me a pizza snob, but its disgusting. To borrow a line from Kevin Malone, "It is a hot circle of garbage."



This year I didn't win, but thankfully none of the Chuck E Cheesers won either. Somehow, baby Sarah was allowed to choose a team halfway through the season, and conveniently Shannon was allowed to choose the restaurant, since the baby can't talk yet. So, we ended up eating at the Olive Garden. Not a fan of the pasta, but I would rather eat pasta off the floor, than eat the Mouse's pizza. Next year I will just have to pick a better team. You're globetrotters guys! Come on!!

Family is important. Find as many creative ways as you can to spend time with them! They are always our number one mission field! You got any cool ideas, throw them my way!

My Tiger Woes

Is anyone else just severely disappointed in Tiger? Despite all my theological knowledge on the depravity of man and my lack of faith in the moral quality of athletes in general, this news still caught me by surprise.

I have been a golf fan for 10 years and a Tiger fan for the same amount of time. I really believed the hype of his image. I believed that he was a family man. I believed that he had a hard work ethic. I even pictured him in my mind practicing his swing from morning until night.

My heart's desire (as far as golf is concerned) was for Tiger to smash every single one of Jack's records. Now I find myself wondering who to root for. I once tried to root for David Toms, because I didn't want to be part of the "everyone loves Tiger" crowd. That lasted for about a minute. I don't know about you, but I just can't choose who I root for. I just root for the person my brain tells me to root for.

Why do we put so much faith in people that we know are driven by a fallen nature? In college I really respected one of my professors who was also my pastor at the time, only to have him fall into sin with the youth director! How can you expect the best of someone, but at the same time be prepared for the worst. That has been my motto for many years, but I always seem to just default to expecting the best, and I am still not prepared for the worst. I don't think the answer is to just expect the worst either. What do you think? And who am I supposed to root for now!?

Love For Strangers?!!!

Xenophilius is a very colorful character in the Harry Potter series. Ironically, his name is not very fitting for him. It comes from a Greek word which literally means “love of strangers!” But, when Harry visits our eccentric Xenophilius Lovegood, he is met with lies and a friendly call to law enforcement to come and pick up their #1 most wanted: Harry.

When we encounter this word in the NT it refers to the practice of hospitality. However, our idea of hospitality is completely different from an ancient one. We offer some refreshment and a comfortable chair, but at the same time we have our fingers crossed that they don’t get mud on our carpet and that they leave soon.

In the ancient world, however, the “love of strangers” was universally regarded as a virtue. Something that everyone should practice. The Greeks viewed it as a basic aspect of civilized behavior, and the Jews regarded it as having deep roots in the character of God. Hospitality is commanded by God 24 times in the Torah alone!!! Deuteronomy 10:17-18 says, “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God and awesome warrior who is unbiased and takes no bribe, who acts justly toward the orphan and widow, and who loves resident foreigners, giving them food and clothes” (Deut. 10:17-18). Hospitality is just part of who God is, and as his people, it should characterize us as well.

The end times are often pictured in the Bible as a great banquet with God as the ideal host. Isaiah 25:6-8 says, “On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will make for all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees . . . He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces” (Is. 25:6-8).

Even Jewish literature of the Second and Third centuries CE takes an interest in biblical hospitality. We see Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, as the inventor of the inn (Gen. Rab. 39:14), the originator of saying grace before meals (B. Sota 10a-b), and the host who insists that his guests either praise the God of Israel or kindly pay for their meal (Gen. Rab. 49:4). This idea makes its way into our New Testament as well. In Luke 16, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, we see Abraham as the ideal host in the heavenly realms. Also in Matthew 8:11 Abraham is the host of God’s great eschatological banquet, “Many will come from the east and the west and sit at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of God.”

Just like the Torah, the New Testament is replete with explicit and implicit calls to be hospitable. Jesus gave a positive reception to women, children, the poor, and the sick. He fed the multitudes, and he opposed fasting while the he, the bridegroom, was present. Paul encourages the churches to contribute to the needs of the saints (Rom. 12:13). The early church shared all things in common and broke bread in each other’s homes with glad hearts (Acts 2:44-47). Also, the author of Hebrews encourages us to entertain strangers, because just like Abraham, we might be entertaining angels without knowing it.

When we read passages like this, what type of images of hospitality come to our mind. Of course ideas that are conditioned by our culture. Our culture teaches us that hospitality needs to be reciprocated. If I have you over for dinner, then there is an expectation that you will have me over at some point as well. In the ancient world hospitality was seen as a duty with honor at stake. We think of hospitality as a “secular” idea, but in the ancient world hospitality was a “sacred” duty that came straight from God. In our world WHO I eat with has no consequence. In antiquity being welcomed at a table was symbolic of friendship, intimacy, and unity. That is why John urges us to show hospitality to traveling missionaries as if they were God himself, and to not even say “Hi!” to those who carry a false doctrine (2nd John). When we are hospitable to missionaries we share in their noble work. When we show hospitality to false teachers we share in their evil deeds. That is why the Pharisees were so concerned with Jesus eating with “tax collectors” and so-called “sinners.” How could Jesus be intimate with such riff-raff?!! What a slap in the face it was when Jesus told the Pharisees through parable that it is not them that would be invited to the eschatological banquet, but that God would go out into the streets and bring in the poor, the blind, and the naked!!!

So, we need to change our perception on what it means to be hospitable. It should never be an inconvenience for us, nor seen as something that should be reciprocated. It should flow out of our relationship with God, when we realize that being a good host is part of who he is. As a consequence, it should be part of who we are as God’s children. So, the next time someone has their feet on your coffee table, drinks one to many sodas, or stays an hour longer than you think they should, remember that “loving strangers” no matter what is VERY pleasing to God!!!