Reformation

The scriptures referred to are Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Romans 3:19-28.

A little over 500 years ago an university professor went to the community bulletin board and tacked up a proposal for a debate. The debate never took place. And as a consequence, the world changed. The professor was Dr. Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk teaching theology at the University of Wittenberg, and the debate proposal was a list of 95 propositions or theses he felt passionate about. The theses were not debated because they undermined the idea that the church had the authority to issue indulgences, or indeed the authority to dictate a person's destiny after death or their relationship with God in the present. This was not something the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and especially the Pope, wished to explore. Luther simply wanted to reform the church. By refusing to even discuss these issues, the church forced the very principled Luther to do what he had not wanted to do: break with the only church he, and just about all Europeans, had ever known. He felt he had to set up another church. Other scholars and theologians followed his example, the church splintered, and we call this whole process the Reformation.

Luther's words and eventually his actions, as well as those of Calvin, Zwingli and others, were a reaction to a church that they saw as having drifted very far from the movement Jesus began 1500 years prior. Although Luther would not have said it drifted but that the church had become corrupted. He saw this when he was sent to Rome to represent his monastery. He went expecting to be inspired and uplifted by the “Eternal City.” Instead, he was dismayed by the luxuries popes, bishops and clergy indulged in. He saw how, even in a time when there was no such thing as separation of church and state, local Roman politics could dictate church leadership. Popes went to war. Bishops were treated like royalty. Priests and monks were morally lax and abused their positions and their parishioners. Relics, the remains of saints or objects that supposedly came into contact with Christ or the apostles, were venerated as if they were magical. People were told the way to avoid time in purgatory was to buy an indulgence from the church. And the average person thought this is just the way things are because the corrective to all this, the Bible, was only available in Latin, which could only be read by those who were highly educated and could only be interpreted by the church.

7 years later, when Luther put his 95 theses on the Wittenberg church door, he did not deal with every one of these issues. But as the church refused to debate him, they all came up. And they were no longer regarded by the average person as standard operating procedures for the church. Because Luther questioned them, showed how they differed from what scripture said and eventually translated the Bible into German so that people other than the elites could judge for themselves. Though the Roman Catholic church excommunicated Luther, his criticisms led to the Counter-Reformation, in which the church dealt with some of its most egregious practices.

But that was 500 years ago. The churches that came out of the Reformation have evolved. Some of the changes have been necessary, some have been improvements, but some of the changes have brought us back to the things Luther objected to.

In Luther's day certain clergy, especially popes and bishops, lived like kings. Not only did they have lavish lifestyles, but their word was law. And we see the same thing today, especially in megachurches. People who view the pope with suspicion will nevertheless treat the utterances of their megachurch pastor and favorite televangelist as the word of God. They accept his interpretation of the Bible as the only correct one and do not research or seriously consider other possible interpretations. They regard him as infallible.

And if he misbehaves, they will excuse his bad behavior, even when it contradicts what the Bible explicitly says about how a Christian, let alone a leader, should behave. In 1^st Timothy and in Titus, Paul lays down the qualifications for those who oversee or work in a church. Among those qualities are that they have self-control, that they not be violent or quarrelsome or lovers of money and they have a good reputation with those outside the church. (1 Timothy 3; Titus 1) He lists other characteristics but we can see already how many church pastors don't meet the qualifications I pointed out, be they Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist, nondenominational or belong to other church bodies, even, alas, our own. And their highly visible falls from grace make people outside the faith disparage the gospel.

While today we officially have a wall of separation between church and state, people keep trying to tear it down. They don't realize that James Madison, one of the people behind the writing of our constitution, said a major reason for this separation was to preserve the churches from corruption. Yet some people who supposedly revere the constitution don't see the danger. They think the state will become an arm of the church. History shows us instead that the church becomes an arm of the state. It blesses whatever the government says and does, the way the tame prophets working for the king of Israel proclaimed what the monarch wanted to hear. (1 Kings 22:6-8) And so people today might think the Ten Commandments mention homosexuality, abortion, guns and taxes. And we have preachers cozying up to those with secular power and saying, “You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.” They forget that the prophets whose works are preserved in the Bible were those who went against the status quo and spoke truth to power. They championed those who were without power and were oppressed, because God does. The result was that Jeremiah wasn't put on a pedestal; he was pilloried. He wasn't invited to the palace; he was thrown into a pit.

We don't see a lot of traffic in relics these days but we do see televangelists selling things that are apparently magical. Jim Bakker, who tried to make his theme park a pilgrimage site for Christians, was sued by the Missouri Attorney General for selling a fake cure called Silver Solution that was supposed to “totally eliminate” coronavirus and HIV in 12 hours. This prompted comedian John Oliver to point out that silver doesn't kill coronavirus; it kills werewolves. Other televangelists have sold prayer cloths and holy water that were supposed to cure disease. And this not only invites people to ridicule the faith, it endangers the lives of sick people, who spend money on snake oil and magic trinkets.

And while these religious hucksters may not sell indulgences, many of them promise that if their followers want to prosper financially they need to give to their ministries sacrificially. These “prosperity gospel” preachers call it “seed faith” and bilk struggling people out of money that they need to pay their mortgages or for car payments or for medical care.

The sad thing is that, unlike Luther's day, it is not hard to get hold of and read the Bible. I have several translations on my phone, as well as the original Hebrew and Greek, which I downloaded for free. There are books and even apps that will help you understand the Bible, including the hard passages. And there is a lot in the Bible about false prophets, bad shepherds and wolves in sheep's clothing. (Deuteronomy 18:21-22; Isaiah 56:11; Ezekiel 34:1-5; Matthew 7:15) God knows that bad people will pass themselves off as his servants. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the kingdom of heaven—only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do many powerful deeds?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!'” (Matthew 7:21-23)

There is one thing to keep in mind, which Paul says in today's passage from Romans: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All! Therefore we should not elevate any mere human above all criticism or slavishly follow everything they say. Even my favorite author C.S. Lewis was wrong on some things. In the book of Acts the Jews of Berea were commended because “...they eagerly received the message, examining the scriptures carefully every day to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11) Even after hearing Paul preach, they double-checked to see if he what he said was backed up by the word of God. And yet people will follow a David Koresh or a Jim Jones or any one of a number of preachers and false messiahs who teach novel doctrines and bizarre interpretations of the Bible. And they also teach, often in secret to their innermost circle, that the rules of the Bible concerning proper behavior don't apply to them. And folks will rally to the defense of leaders who, even if their job wasn't about teaching people how to live a moral life, would normally be fired.

The true prophets denounced such things. In that spirit Luther did the same when he saw corruption in the church of his day. He noticed that the gospel, the good news of Jesus, had gotten lost and buried and even contradicted by all the junk that had accumulated in the church's teachings and practices over 1500 years. Reform was long overdue. And I think that now, 500 years later, it is time for another Reformation.

Once again people have been led to believe that our relationship with God is transactional. We need to do things—listen to a particular preacher, buy his merchandise, vote as he says—to be saved. If you don't, you are not a real Christian. But as Paul says, “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) This was revolutionary in Paul's day because people thought you have to continually appease the gods through sacrifices, offerings, festivals and the like. Because the gods did not love mortals and did nothing for them for free. Nor were they particularly moral. They really were like Zeus and his ilk are portrayed in Thor: Love and Thunder. But in Jesus we see that the real God loves us and is willing to die for us and offers us eternal life if we just trust him. And he doesn't do this because we are worthy. “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

But just because we are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus and not through our deeds it doesn't mean God doesn't care about what we do. He wants us to act out of love and justice and mercy. But he knows we cannot do it alone. We need his help in the form of his Holy Spirit. That's why he tells Jeremiah in today's passage that the new covenant will be internal and the law will be written in our hearts. In Ezekiel he says, “I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you; I will take the initiative and you will obey my statutes and carefully observe my regulations.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27) Notice that the Spirit doesn't allow you to operate outside the moral rules set down in the Bible; they give you the ability to live by them.

Speaking of trying to do this alone, we were never meant to operate as separate units, each one independent and on our own. We are to act together as the body of Christ. The body has various parts that look different and have different functions but all work together, following the instructions they get from the head, which is Christ. (1 Corinthians 12:12-31) So any church hierarchy should exist for functional reasons—planning, direction and coordination—and not because some persons matter more than others. Nor should anyone be unaccountable to others. We are all sinners; none of us, however intelligent or wise or holy, is infallible. We need to listen to each other and when in doubt, check things against scripture.

Luther was fortunate that his prince supported him or he would have been martyred like Jan Huss had been 100 years earlier. And though today we have greater political power, through the vote, and more independence than Luther had, we must be careful and not buy wholly into any political leader or party. Though they may pretend to be on God's side, they are always ultimately about making political gains for themselves, even if they have to trade away some of their principles. As the psalmist says, “ Do not trust in princes, or in human beings, who cannot deliver!” (Psalm 146:3) We should be like Lincoln, who said to one of his advisers, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.” Again, no human is always right or without sin. Not even King David, as the prophet Nathan pointed out. (2 Samuel 12:1-13)

In addition, we see that personality cults and the thirst for power and the love of money have arisen within the church. Some see the church not as a channel of God's love and grace but as a business or even as a shadow government. And rather than being denounced, many in the church have embraced these things. People are adding qualifications to being a Christian and are pointing to them as badges of faith and marks of the true believers, the same way Paul's opponents did with circumcision and dietary laws. Forgetting the good news that our salvation depends on God's grace alone, churchgoers are also neglecting things like humility, mercy, forgiveness and repentance. Some have appointed themselves judge, jury and executioner of those they see as sinners, forgetting that Jesus came not to condemn the world but to save it. (John 3:17; 12:47) When the time comes to pass judgment, that will be Jesus' job, not ours. (John 5:22) Instead he said, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” (Luke 6:37)

We cannot condemn others but we can judge whether things are true or false and whether actions are right or wrong, the same way a doctor or nurse cannot tell a patient that he or she is a bad person but can and should tell them if what they doing is harmful to their health. And there are many things people in the church are doing and many ideas they are spreading that are harmful not only to their spiritual health but to the spiritual health of those who see and follow them in such beliefs and behaviors. Such as worshiping or showing blind loyalty to any mere human (1 Corinthians 1:10-13), trying to marry the church to any party or politician (Luke 20:25), turning the church into a marketplace or a den of thieves (John 2:16; Mark 11:17), and either adding to or subtracting from what God clearly commands us to do. (Deuteronomy 12:32) Like love him and love people above all the other commandments. (Mark 12:30-31)

We need to get back to the gospel, the good news of what God has done for us and is doing in us through Jesus Christ, God's Son and our incarnate, crucified and risen Lord. We need to emphasize God's love, his grace, his forgiveness and the transforming power of his Spirit, freely given to all who put their trust in him. That is what changed the world starting in the 1^st century. That's what reformed the church beginning in the 16^th century. And it's what the church and the world need right now in the 21^st century. 

Humble/Brag

The scriptures referred to are Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22 and Luke 18:9-14.

It's usually easy for me to find pop culture references to use in my sermons. And it's a breeze to find current issues or historical persons or events to illustrate aspects of the main topic of the lectionary texts. But this Sunday I'm having problems. Because our passage from Jeremiah and our gospel passage are about two things that are rarely seen in history or depicted in movies, TV or books. They are repentance and humility.

No one likes to admit that they were wrong. No one wants to admit there is something wrong with them. We are the heroes of the movies that are playing out in our heads and the hero is always right. If he doesn't succeed, it is because of some external force opposing him, not because of some flaw within him. We love to see a person triumph over adversity, be it disability or nature or enemies. We don't like to see a hero have doubts about himself. Doubting himself is the only thing we tolerate him being wrong about. We want him to realize he was right after all and regain his confidence in himself. We don't want him to say: I was wrong. I was bad. I am sorry for what I did.

In our passage from Jeremiah, the people of Judah are finally confessing their sins because of a famine, a plague and an invasion. They have been listening to false prophets who have been telling them that all will be well. Only when they could not deny that things were bad did they turn to God. But this passage is not specific about what they did wrong. Elsewhere in Jeremiah we are told what their sins were: not loving God above all and not loving their neighbors as themselves. They indulged in idolatry and injustice. (Jeremiah 7:9) Jeremiah is told to go to the palace of the king of Judah and proclaim, “This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who was robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.” (Jeremiah 22:3)

Furthermore, the people did not free their slaves as they promised! “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your forefathers when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I said, 'Every seventh year each of you must free any fellow Hebrew who has sold himself to you. After he has served you six years, you must let him go free.' Your fathers, however, did not listen to me or pay attention to me. Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to his countrymen. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name. But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again.” (Jeremiah 34:13-16) This doesn't seem to be the periodic freeing of debt slaves, however, for when the sixth year was up would be different for each slave. What scholars think happened was that during the siege by the Babylonians, King Zedekiah got the people to free their slaves so that they could be drafted into the army. But when they weren't needed to fight anymore, they were returned to slavery. This dirty trick outraged God.

Eventually the Babylonians conquered Judah and took the Jews they deemed valuable—the upper class, the educated and the skilled—into exile. While they were there, the Jews realized that they should have followed God's law. And they no longer had a temple where they could make sacrifices for their sins. The Babylonians had destroyed that temple. They realized that, as it says in the book of Proverbs, “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice.” (Proverbs 21:3) It is in Babylon that they compiled the documents we know as the Old Testament and made the study of them and following them the main focus of Judaism. They even included the history of their failures and the prophets who had warned them about their apostasy and injustices.

After 70 years the Babylonians were in turn conquered by the Persians and the Jews were allowed to return to their homeland. They rebuilt the temple. Later, under Roman rule, King Herod built the temple into a larger, more grand and beautiful place. And that's where Jesus sets his parable of the two men who come to pray. One is a Pharisee, an inheritor of that tradition where study of the Torah and following the regulations the rabbis deduced from it should be, according to them, the primary expression of Judaism. The other man is a tax collector, a Jew working for the Romans by collecting taxes for the empire that is oppressing his countrymen. In Jesus' day, the Pharisee would be seen as righteous and the tax collector as a traitor and a terrible sinner. You can almost hear Jesus' audience booing and hissing the taxman.

But then Jesus reveals what each man prays. The Pharisee says, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all of my income.” Let's look at the last part of what he prays first. In Jesus' day, fasting was only required on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when Jews are to confess their sins and repent. But Pharisees were also known to fast on Mondays and Thursdays. And he gave a tithe of everything, not just the tenth of his produce required in Deuteronomy 14:22. The tithe supported the Levites who assisted in the temple and had no allotment of territory when the land was settled. (Numbers 18:21) So credit where credit is due. The Pharisee was super-religious. And if we assume that he is in fact not a thief or unjust (a better translation than “rogue”) or an adulterer or a tax collector, that is also good.

But that's not Jesus' point. Luke tells us that he was speaking to those who trusted in themselves that they are righteous and who despised others. The problem wasn't the Pharisee's good works; it was his attitude. The Greek word translated “contempt” literally means to “count as nothing.” This Pharisee saw people who were not as good as he as a waste of space. He did not love his neighbor as much as he loved himself. And he should have known that he was violating that commandment. (Leviticus 19:17-18)

And yet he trusted that his own righteousness justified him before God. Think about that for a minute. The Pharisee may very well be good but God is perfect. William Barclay says, “...the question is not, 'Am I as good as my fellow-men?' The question is “Am I as good as God?'” Compared to God, the Pharisee is not nearly as good as he thinks he is. He can always improve, especially in the “love your neighbor” department.

And that's the point. This Pharisee is trusting in his own righteousness. While he is ostensibly thanking God, he is really looking for a pat on the back for how very good he is. He is not only contemptuous towards others; he is full of himself. Though an expert in the scriptures, he obviously is forgetting what it says about the proud. Proverbs says, “The Lord abhors the arrogant person; rest assured that they will not go unpunished.” (Proverbs 16:5) And “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” (Proverbs 11:2)

The tax collector, on the other hand, is humble. He knows that he falls short of God's standard of goodness. Jesus says, “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'” Actually the Greek says, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” In other words, unlike the Pharisee, who saw himself as morally superior to everyone around him, the tax collector saw that, compared to everyone else gathered in the temple to pray, he was the real sinner. He knew he was not the person God intended him to be. And he regretted it.

Recognition that you have messed up is the first and necessary step to correcting things and doing better. If you refuse to see what you've done wrong or are doing wrong, you can't progress. And we've all seen people who keep making the same mistakes over and over again and not learning their lesson. They keep digging and and digging and the pit in which they are trapped just gets deeper and deeper.

That's why Jesus says it is the tax collector who goes home justified. God recognizes the man's desire to change. The Pharisee, who thinks he's already better than everyone else, has no motive to change or grow spiritually. The tax collector, who knows he is not better than others, is motivated to do better. God is not so much concerned with where a person has been morally and spiritually as with the direction in which that person is going now. As God says in Ezekiel, “When a righteous person turns back from his righteousness and practices wrongdoing, he will die for it; because of the wrongdoing he has done he will die. When a wicked person turns from the wickedness he has committed and does what is right and just, he will preserve his life.” (Ezekiel 18:26-27) What you did in the past is not as important to God as what you are doing now and will continue to do.

Some sharks, like great white sharks, whale sharks, makos and hammerheads, have to keep moving to live. If they stop moving forward, they will suffocate and die. If we want to keep alive spiritually, we cannot rest on our laurels as the Pharisee does. And if we are going in the wrong direction, as the tax collector realizes he is doing, we must turn back (the literal meaning of the Hebrew word for “repent”) and start moving towards God.

I find it interesting that in the very next chapter of Luke we get the story of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector in Jericho. We are told he is both wealthy and short. To see Jesus, who is surrounded by crowds, Zacchaeus has to climb a tree. Jesus sees him up there and says, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, because I must stay at your house today.” Zacchaeus climbs down and welcomes Jesus joyfully. But the crowd is not so gleeful. They complain that Jesus is going to stay with a sinner.

Zacchaeus stops and says, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I now give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much.” Jesus says to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, for he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:1-10)

If the tax collector in the parable doesn't behave like the tax collector Jesus actually meets, then his prayer for mercy means little. God has no use for empty words. Let's face it, if every person who ever got in trouble, and prayed that they'd go to church every Sunday if God would save them, actually did so, this place would be filled to the rafters. As it says in 1 John, “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:18) As somebody once observed, “When all is said and done, there's a lot more said than done.” We need to reverse that state of affairs.

Speaking of reversals, in 1938, aviator Douglas Corrigan made a flight from Long Beach, California all the way to New York City. He was supposed to return to Long Beach but went to Ireland instead. He blamed it on a navigational error, which, if true, was a doozy. But he had been a mechanic on Charles Lindbergh's plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, and had talked of doing something similar. Though he always denied it, many think he actually did it for the publicity. If so, his legacy is not what he thought it would be. He was elected an honorary member of the Liars Club of America, which he rejected, and he will be known forever by the nickname “Wrong Way” Corrigan in jokes, cartoons, and comedies like Gilligan's Island and the Three Stooges.

Don't be a spiritual “Wrong Way” Corrigan. If you're going in the wrong direction, turn around. If you need directions, ask. Because as God says in Ezekiel, “Repent and turn away from all your wickedness; then it will not be an obstacle leading to iniquity. Throw away all your sins you have committed and fashion yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why should you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” (Ezekiel 18:30-32)

How much does God not want anyone to die and be separated from him forever? Enough to send his Son to us to die in our place and give us his eternal life. So do not listen to those who think you count as nothing. God thinks you are important enough to die for. And don't think you have peaked morally or spiritually, or that you are stuck in sin and can't get any better. You can. The first step is to admit your faults. The second step is to ask for God's help. He will give it. Then pick up your cross daily and follow Jesus. He came to seek and to save the lost. Which, if we are honest and humble about it, is all of us.

Unpredictable

The scriptures referred to are Jeremiah 31:27-34, Psalm 119:97-104 and 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5.

We often talk about science as if it is one thing, but we actually should talk about the sciences, because they are not only about different subjects but they work differently. The hard sciences tend to be dominaTted by math, which makes it easier to predict the results and makes their conclusions more certain. Think physics, chemistry and astronomy. The softer sciences are less about math and mostly a matter of collecting data and analyzing it. Think archeology or paleontology. Even if you have collected a lot of data and done the analysis well, if someone next week digs up a new dinosaur or an older human settlement, the scientific consensus in your field could change. You can't predict that. But the really soft sciences are things like economics, political science and sociology. Because they involve analyzing people.

As a former psychiatric and neurosurgical nurse, I devour the latest research on psychology and neurology, though I know that we still cannot predict what any given individual will do. We are better at predicting what large numbers of people will do, but even they can surprise us. For instance, when a pandemic is killing millions of people worldwide, you would expect most folks to do what they did in a small town in Brazil: almost everyone got vaccinated. But as we know that didn't happen. Which to me is the death blow to the argument that we have no free will. If we didn't have free will, we should be very predictable. When the internet was created, observers predicted that with access to all the world's knowledge at our fingertips, we would become wiser and better. Nobody predicted we would find out that there is nothing so ridiculous, bizarre, dumb or objectively terrible that some people will not believe it or attempt to do it.

In contrast, today's section of Psalm 119 and our excerpt from Paul's second letter to Timothy talk about how useful God's written word is to living a wise and better life. The psalm focuses on how the law or Torah helps one become more understanding. Paul speaks of how all scripture that is inspired by God (literally “God-breathed”) is useful “for instruction, for convincing, for setting straight, and for training in righteousness.” (my translation) And that's why people still read a book that is more than 2000 years old: it contains timeless wisdom. 85% of US households own a Bible with the average household having at least 4. So it's not hard to find copies of God's word. But merely having them doesn't do anyone any good. The Bible isn't a magical item. Possessing it doesn't automatically make people more spiritual or moral.

And today's Old Testament passage tells us that. Jeremiah was a prophet whose ministry encompasses the decades leading up to and including the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. He is the archetypal “prophet of doom,” though he took no pleasure in predicting the fall of Judah. Like all the prophets he accused God's people of violating what Jesus called the two greatest commandments. They turned from God to idols (Jeremiah 2:11) and they mistreated the poor and powerless. (Jeremiah 5:26-28)

But like the other prophets, Jeremiah offered hope. God says, “If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers forever and ever.” (Jeremiah 7:5-7)

Well, that should be easy. God has given his law and if his people follow it, they won't do these things. But of course, they don't follow God's law. Knowing the right thing to do doesn't magically make you do it. John Jay, one of the architects of the Constitution, belonged to the New York Manumission Society—but he didn't free his own slaves. I know nurses who smoke, though they take care of people with emphysema and COPD and heart disease and lung cancer. Some people's knowledge never makes the journey from their head to their heart or to other aspects of their life. God even says of the priests, “Those who deal with the law did not know me.” (Jeremiah 2:8) Yet God's law is an expression of his just and loving nature. Apparently the priests knew the letter of the law but not the Spirit behind it.

Part of the problem is that while they were observing the ceremonial parts of the law, they were not observing the moral parts. From the entrance to his temple God says, “Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my name, and say, 'We are safe'—safe to do all these detestable things?” (Jeremiah 7:9-10) Fulfilling the ceremonial laws does not make up for violating the moral laws. We are to love God and love our neighbor. It's not either/or; it's both!

In fact, the two relationships are connected. In his covenant with Noah God forbids murder because humans are created in God's image. Murder is symbolic deicide. (Genesis 9:6) Jesus said that whatever we do or don't do to others in need, we do or don't do to him. (Matthew 25:31-46) And in 1^st John, the writer makes the point that if you don't love a human being whom you can see, you cannot possibly love the God you can't see. (1 John 4:20) You can only separate the two great commandments to love in the abstract. In reality they are inextricably entwined.

But how can we obey them if merely knowing them cannot make us do them?

Here's an analogy. My word processing program is always underlining words I know are correctly spelled. Sometimes the problem is that the word in question is in Hebrew or Greek. Sometimes the word is a combination of two words it knows separately but not together, like cartop as in cartop carrier. But often the program recognizes a word but not the plural form created by simply adding an “s” at the end, which I find unbelievable. Luckily I can tell it to add the word to the internal dictionary. In other words, I can, to an extent, change the programming in my computer.

In today's reading from Jeremiah God proposes doing the same thing with us. Since we cannot seem to obey the written law God gave us, he says he will make a new covenant, one that is unlike the covenant he wrote in stone on Mt. Sinai. This time, God says, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts...” An external law hasn't changed us; only an internal law will.

But how would that work?

When we are in love with someone, they change us. He likes sports, so you start to watch sports and become a fan. She is concerned about the environment and so you educate yourself on the issues and become more active in supporting the changes necessary to keep the world inhabitable. Having kids changes your priorities and you change your lifestyle accordingly. Fathers find themselves having tea with teddy bears and their daughters. Moms become their son's most vocal supporter at wrestling matches. And while kids are not born with a gene for camping, they pick up their parents' love of sleeping under the stars. What and whom we love changes us.

We see this in a negative way as well. Bonnie Parker was not a criminal. Clive Barrow was. She fell for him and their gang killed 13 people. The couple also said their prayers every night, so again we see a disconnect between practicing “religion” and living as God wants us to. And ordinary folks fell under Hitler's spell and became killers or at least complicit in the genocide he inspired. That's one reason God doesn't want us to worship idols, whether gods or men. People become like what they love.

If we want to be like God, we must love him. And the way to do that is to open our hearts to his love. As in says in 1^st John, “By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:9-10) Jesus came to not only remind us of how God expects us to behave but to show us. And that included confronting the authorities, who wanted him dead. They got their way. But then God took the worst thing we could do—murder his Son—and turned it into a demonstration of his gracious love, by making it the way to wipe out all our sins, offer us forgiveness, and share his eternal life with us.

And one way to open our hearts to his love is by reading about and inwardly digesting what he has done for us. Who hasn't fallen in love with their favorite writer by reading their works or found their personal hero by learning about what they did? By studying and steeping ourselves in the story of Jesus and meditating on the writings of those who knew and were affected by him we will find our hearts warming to his love for us.

And we can and should ask for his help. The Spirit is a gift given to every Christian, not just extraordinary ones. Jesus said, “If you then, although you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13) On the night he was betrayed, Jesus said to his disciples, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments. Then I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he resides with you and will be in you.” (John 14:15-17) Paul tells us, “...the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5:5) When we commit ourselves to follow Jesus and are baptized in the name of the Triune God, we receive the very Spirit of God who empowered Jesus.

In fact without his power we cannot hope to live his life. (Romans 8:8) The whole of the 7^th chapter of Romans is made up of Paul's account of how not even he could live up to God's law under his own power. Then, in chapter 8, he says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped by the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their outlook shaped by the things of the Spirit. ” (Romans 8:1-5, NET) The problem with the Old Covenant is that we cannot seem to live it out under the power of mere flesh and blood. God's New Covenant, made by Jesus at great cost to himself, comes with the power to fulfill it: God's Spirit in us.

But we must continually consent to the guidance of the Spirit. Paul said not to quench or stifle the Spirit, meaning that it is possible to do that. (1 Thessalonians 5:19) But how? Think of it as driving and ignoring your GPS when it tells you how to get to your destination. God will not force us to follow him against our wills. There are parasitic flatworms that infect the brains of ants, taking them over and controlling their behavior. That is not God's way. As Jesus said to the church in Laodicea, “Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking! If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into his home and share a meal with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20) Jesus will not break and enter into our lives. We must be invite him in.

Following Jesus is impossible if we don't listen to his Spirit within us. I think the reason we see Christians doing things that go against what Jesus says is because they are ignoring the voice of the Spirit. They tune it out when they want to do something they know God would not approve of. And eventually they become deaf to the Spirit.

You can tell because Jesus said that, just like trees, you can identify people by the fruits they produce. (Matthew 7:20) Paul lists the ones that come from operating on the basis of mere flesh and blood as being “sexual immorality, impurity, outrageous conduct, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, ambitious rivalries, divisions, factions, envies, drunkenness, carousing and the like.” (Galatians 5:19-21, my translation) Then he says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) If we let the Spirit work in us we should see these qualities growing and developing in us.

That growth doesn't happen overnight. (Mark 4:26-29) It may not always feel like we are making progress or overcoming all our problems. Paul was troubled by some physical or spiritual problem he calls “a thorn in the flesh.” He asked God 3 times to remove it. “But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'” (2 Corinthians 12:9) Paul came to realize the “thorn” kept him from getting arrogant. He learned to rely on the power of Christ that resided in him. Instead of being dismayed by our inability to do it all by ourselves, we should humbly ask God for help through the power of the Spirit of Christ that is in us. (Romans 8:9)

If the Spirit is already in us, why do we need to ask for his help? Look at it this way. Scientists have found that our bodies conserve our energy. Long distance runners talk about hitting the wall, suddenly losing all energy after about 20 miles. Researchers found that if they drink just a spoonful of a sugary drink, they suddenly get more energy. Their bodies hadn't let them use up all their energy. Some was held in reserve. The promise of more energy coming in, the sugary drink, unlocked the reserve energy they already had. In the same way, asking God for help activates the Spirit within us. Often when we succumb to temptation, it's because we haven't opened up the channel to God. We are not taking the sip of the living water that opens the fountain within.

Paul said, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12-13) C.S. Lewis points out that the first part of that passage, telling us to work out our own salvation, sounds like it all depends on us. But the second part, saying that God is the one who is working within us bringing out the desire and the ability to do it, makes it sound like it is all on God. As someone said, “Without God we cannot; without us God will not.” God could do everything on his own without us. But rather than making us puppets, he prefers to make us partners. It is rather like having a toddler help you make cookies. It's easier if you do it all yourself. And you have to help them with just about everything. But you do it to teach them how and you include them out of love.

God could have made us predictable like robots. Instead he gave us the ability to choose. It means we can choose wrongly but without that ability we also cannot choose to love. And love is only real if it is a choice. But he knows we still need help. The reason we reject that help is arrogance: the idea we can do everything on our own. And the result of that arrogance is predictable and all around us. Everything we humans think we can control by ourselves is out of control. But if we choose to let him in and let him help, “by the power that is working in us he is able to do far beyond all we can ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20) And that's unpredictable in the best way possible. 

Illusions and Essentials

The scriptures referred to are Psalm 111 and Luke 17:11-19.

When we were kids, my brother and I would accompany our dad downtown as he would buy supplies for his bar and then he would take us to the magic shop nearby where the owner would do tricks and sell us small items. Like the finger chopper, that would cut a cigarette in two but not a finger. While I had a normal kid's interest in magic tricks, my brother made it his avocation. Since high school, he has been making his own equipment, like a full-sized guillotine that cut heads of lettuce in two but will not cut off human heads! He has been president of his local association of magicians and still regularly visits the children's hospital and does shows for the kids. And while you might think that the important thing about magic tricks is the equipment, a good magician doesn't need specially made props. He can use ordinary objects and make you believe he has done something impossible. What's more important than props is the patter—what he says—and the ability to misdirect the audience. Those two skills allow you to make people look at what you want them to see and to not notice what you don't want them to see, like how the trick actually works. In that way, being a magician is similar to being a conman. His job is to direct attention away from what is actually essential and put it on what is not. The difference is you know a magician is trying to fool you. It's entertainment. He may make your watch disappear but he will return it. A con man will make your life savings disappear and then disappear himself.

If you want to know the truth about something, you need to keep your focus on what is essential. And this is especially true in Christianity. In his second letter to Timothy, Paul is reminding his protege about the essentials. “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel...” There's a lot packed into that brief statement. The heart of the gospel or good news is Jesus, the Christ or one anointed by God. He is a descendant of David, and therefore his ancestor's successor as king. And as Christians, we acknowledge him as our king and obey him.

Paul says, he was “raised from the dead.” This wasn't a magic trick to impress us. In the previous chapter Paul says, “He has broken the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” (2 Timothy 1:10) Jesus' resurrection wasn't for his own benefit but ours. Paul quotes what may have been an early Christian hymn: “If we have died with him, we will also live with him...” Jesus gave his life for us and if we give our life to him, we will live with him in eternity. That commitment is essential to being a Christian.

The hymn goes on to say, “If we endure, we will also reign with him.” Paul is not speaking about those who made a statement of belief at sometime earlier in their life but are not really following Jesus, especially when it gets hard. What matters is not stepping forward at Bible camp or once reciting the “sinner's prayer” but whether you are sticking with that commitment now. Jesus said, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23) Not occasionally, but daily we are to disown our “right” to do whatever we want and take up our cross and follow in Jesus' footsteps. Jesus even says, “And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27) So this is not optional; it is essential. We are not to be like those folks who start the marathon, turn off the path, get lunch, take a nap and then reenter the race a mile or two from the finish line, pretending to have endured the entire ordeal. You can't fool Jesus. But if we stay the course, we will, as adopted children of God, reign alongside the Son of God.

The hymn continues, “If we deny him, he will also deny us.” If we say we aren't really his followers, he will agree with us. And this is true even if we say we are following him but actually aren't. Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the kingdom of heaven—only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out many demons and do many powerful deeds?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!'” (Matthew 7:21-23) Again, you can't fool Jesus. If you don't really trust in him and believe his promises, he will know. I don't imagine that in God's kingdom we will see a lot of those televangelists who live in mansions and have private planes and live like kings now, all the while engaging in all the scandals we've seen. They reveal how they have been trying to serve both God and money. Or God and sex. Or God and politics. Or God and anything else they try to place at his right hand, where only Jesus should be. That's idolatry.

We all find ourselves tempted to substitute something else for God or to put it up alongside him. We all sin and fall short of God's standards. (Romans 3:23) But thank God for the truth in the next line of the hymn, which says, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” We will stumble. But Jesus is by his very nature faithful to his promises, and one of those is to forgive the sins of all who come to him and do not resist the work of his Holy Spirit. (Mark 3:28-29) As it says in 1 John, “But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) If we fail but turn back to him, he will take us back.

Those are the essentials of the gospel: Jesus—who he is, what he has done for us and is doing in us, and how we should respond. And the state of our spiritual lives and the state of the church will be better if we remember these truths. But even in the first few decades of the faith, people were losing their focus on the essentials and being dazzled by the patter and slight of hand of conmen.

Paul says, “Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.” I am all for precision in the use of words but sometimes it is more important to note their content. Comedian Patton Oswalt points out that smart bigots will use the proper words but what they use them to say is terrible. The educated people of the Roman Empire often looked down on Christianity because the New Testament documents used Koine or vernacular Greek rather than the cultured classic Attic Greek of Homer and Plato. They were more concerned with how something was said than with what was being said.

And too often Christians will go after other Christians for not saying things the right way or not saying all the right things, rather than listening to what they are trying to say. And even if they are in fact wrong, Paul says, “And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, patient. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth.” (2 Timothy 2:24-25)

Paul goes on to stress that our job as workers for God is “teaching the message of truth accurately.” (NET translation) In other words, not misrepresenting the essentials of what we believe and how we behave. To that end, Paul continues “But avoid profane chatter because those occupied with it will stray further and further into ungodliness, and their message will spread its infection like gangrene.” (vv.16-17) The Greek underlying the words “profane chatter” means literally “worldly, empty babblings.” Then Paul goes on to mention 2 men who were undermining some people's faith by saying the resurrection has already occurred! So these empty babblings are theological speculations and innovations.

And sure enough, by the second century we get all these apocryphal gospels, telling fantastic stories about Jesus as a child making clay birds and bringing them to life, or kids who run into him being struck dead, or Jesus offering to turn Mary Magdalen into a man or him spouting all kinds of mystical things that have nothing to do with the gospel of God's love and grace. They read like bad fan fiction about Jesus. And people still read them today, not as scholars, but seeking new, hidden and they claim, forbidden knowledge. Indeed, later in this letter, Paul says, “For there will be a time when people will not tolerate sound teaching. Instead, following their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves, because they have a insatiable curiosity to hear new things. And they will turn away from hearing the truth, but on the other hand will turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

It's almost as if Paul foresaw the explosion of cults in our time. What he says also applies to the internet, which, through the algorithms social media employ to keep you online, have led people down the rabbit hole of ideologies like the flat earth, Q Anon, lizard people, Christian nationalism, white replacement theory, antisemitism, vaccination misinformation and other controversies and conspiracy theories which have completely taken over some people's lives and turned them from people who are supposed to love others into folks living in fear and in hatred of certain people.

And not a few of these people have tried to marry these ideologies to Christianity. Which, as Paul predicted, has undermined the faith of some other people. The percentage of the US population who call themselves Christians has declined from 90% fifty years ago to 64% today. Unless things change, it will dip below 50% by 2070.

And the reason for this decline is not merely politics. People are leaving churches which lean left as well as churches leaning right, as evidenced by the rising exvangelical movement. Only half of kids raised as Southern Baptists stay Southern Baptist. All the churches, left, right and center, are losing members.

And it's not that the people who are leaving are converting to other religions. Other faiths are not growing in proportion to those leaving the churches. Nor are the ranks of atheists swelling. 86% of those who give their religion as “none” still believe in God. People are just disaffiliating with Christianity. It's as if something about it no longer attracts them.

I think that what is doing this is what Paul is saying. It's about the essentials. And it cuts two ways.

First, some people who call themselves Christian are not really interested in disowning themselves and taking up their cross daily. That's difficult and it calls for changes in how they live. Instead, as Paul says, they are fascinated by novel ideas and elaborate mythologies. These modern day Gnostics think salvation is a matter of knowing esoteric and secret knowledge about the world, rather than of believing in Jesus' death and resurrection, and then trusting and following him. (1 Corinthians 2:2; Romans 10:9)

Or they see themselves as holy warriors called to fight cosmic battles against evil, by gaining power, and by using force if necessary. That's more exciting than simply being witnesses to the good news about Jesus, which is what we are actually called to do. (Luke 24:46-48) Jesus told Peter to put down his sword (Matthew 26:52) and then healed the man whose ear he had cut off. (Luke 22:24). And Jesus pointed out to Pilate that his followers were not fighting for him for that is not the nature of his kingdom. (John 18:36) The only weapon Jesus supplies us with is “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Ephesians 6:17) And even this we are not to use in an aggressive manner. Remember what Paul said about gently instructing others.

But I think still other people are leaving the churches precisely because of the hatefulness and because of these additions to and subtractions from the gospel. They've read what Jesus says about how we should live and they don't see it being practiced in the church. Instead they just see all the baggage and all the junk under which we have buried the essential truths about Jesus. They see church people say and do things that contradict what Jesus said and did. And they see people trying to impose additional requirements to being a Christian, the way Paul's critics insisted that Gentiles had to be circumcised to be saved. It's not enough to believe in Jesus, they seem to say. You have to subscribe to this additional doctrine or this position on this hot button issue or you're not a real Christian.

Jesus did everything necessary for our salvation on the cross. All we have to do is accept it and trust in his gracious love and faithfulness. He wants us to love him back and to love everyone else he loves. And if we trust him, we will live as he said we should. After all, if you trust your doctor and he says you need to change your lifestyle to prevent a fatal heart attack, you would.

My brother says little kids are the hardest audience for a magician. They don't always look at what you are trying to distract them with but will often notice what you are really doing with your hands. So if you want to see through the illusion, you need to keep grounded and not lose track of the essentials. A man can't really produce doves out of thin air nor saw a lady in half without killing her. It's okay to enjoy being entertained but don't forget it's an illusion.

And if it's a conman, remember he is ultimately trying to part you from your money. Sadly, there are today, as in Paul's day, people who don't care if in the process of getting you to buy into what they are selling, you die of the cancer their bogus supplements or crystals are supposed to cure. And they don't care if your lose your soul believing in some elaborate mythology about angels or aliens you learn from their seminars and videos and books.

The essential truths are that God loves you, that he sent Jesus to save you and that he wants your trust and love in return. There are no magic formulas nor any hidden knowledge that somehow got left out of the Bible. Everything essential to salvation is in there. In fact, God wants everyone to know what he has done through Jesus. He wants us to teach and live the gospel.

Sure, life can get complicated and in such cases living a Christian life can be as well. Just don't forget the basics. Love God. Love others. Listen to the Spirit. Follow Jesus. Don't get sidetracked or distracted.

In Deuteronomy it says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5) When Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, he says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30, emphasis mine) Jesus adds that we are to love God with our whole mind as well. God gave us brains and he wants us to use them properly. He wants us to be wise, as it says in our psalm. Wisdom isn't about merely accumulating knowledge. Wisdom is having your priorities straight and knowing what is truly valuable. It means thinking clearly about what is essential, what is important but not absolutely essential, and what is neither.

What is essential is Jesus Christ, our incarnate, crucified and risen Lord, who loves us and saves us and bids us follow him. It would be foolish to think otherwise.

The Gospel According to Creatures

The scriptures referred to are Job 39:1-18, Psalm 121, and Matthew 11:25-30.

Well, it's been quite a week. To paraphrase Mark Twain's friend Charles Dudley Warner, everyone complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it. Yes, we can now tell you approximately what the weather will be and generally where it will be, but not, as we've seen, with precision. Ultimately, however, we can't stop the weather. Maybe that's why in the Old Testament God is often described using storm metaphors. It reminds us that there are powerful forces that we humans can't control and for which we should show a healthy respect. Unfortunately, we can, by ignoring where we should build and what bits of habitat we destroy or what things we pollute, like the water or the air, make things worse. We like to play God and every time we do, we show we can't be trusted.

As I was writing this, hurricane Ian was passing the Keys and we were getting hit by bands of torrential rain and strong winds. And we were awaiting the storm surge. Which reminded me of the fact that in the Bible the sea is often a symbol of chaos. On the land we build our sandcastles, so to speak, and the sea can wash them away. Like Port Royal, the one-time capitol of Jamaica, which was submerged by a tsunami in 1692. Or Pavlopetri in Greece, considered one of the oldest submerged lost cities in the world, with an almost complete town plan with streets, buildings and tombs, which you can dive. (But please don't. Tourists are destroying it.) Small wonder the first disaster recorded in the Bible is a massive flood.

But if storms and floods and earthquakes and volcanic eruptions reveal the harder side of nature, animals can reveal other sides. For one thing, they reveal the variety and sheer number of forms life takes. Everywhere in this world there is life: in the pitch black bottom of the sea there are large colonies of mussels and tube worms that somehow live near deep sea vents that spew out boiling water no other beings could survive. On our faces are demodex, tiny mites that live in or near the hair follicles of our eyelashes, eyebrows, and noses, who eat our skin cells and oils. In each of the cells in our bodies are mitochondria, which used to be separate bacteria and have their own DNA, but which now are part of us and generate energy for our cells. In his speech to Job, who is complaining about not knowing why he is suffering, God points out all the other parts of creation Job also doesn't understand, including animals Job knows about. It gives Job perspective and he humbly accepts God's wisdom. If God had included the unseen things I just mentioned, Job's mind would have been blown.

And while animals can also reveal a harder side—you will never look at meerkats the same if you read up on what the matriarch will do to stay sole mother in her troop!—they can reveal a softer side of life. As my Facebook feed keeps reminding me, almost every baby animal is cute, no matter what they grow up to be, whether it is a hippo or a Tasmanian devil. And you see that mothers are usually gentle and caring, such as the alligator, which watches over her eggs for 9 to 10 weeks and then stays with the hatchlings for the first year of their lives. But mothers can also be ferociously protective, fighting off predators, however much larger and more lethally equipped than the mother. And sometimes, animals that have just given birth will adopt orphaned babies of other species, such as a cat adopting ducklings or a dog kittens.

Humans have adopted other animals as pets for several millennia. Archaeological evidence shows that humans domesticated dogs 30,000 years ago, more than 10,000 years before we did so with horses, cattle and sheep. Cats were domesticated 10 to 12,000 years ago. And today, it appears that there is almost no animal that someone has not kept as a pet. Except perhaps the Geographer cone snail, whose venom is fast-acting and can kill several people. It is found in Australia, of course, which some have called Satan's petting zoo.

The reason we have animals as companions is many of them are capable of showing love for us. Yes, even cats! When they bring you a dead mouse and lay it on your pillow, it is because they care about you. They think you are a terrible hunter and need to be shown how to kill your food. They are probably insulted that you don't eat what they bring you. And that's why cats look down on us.

Animals can be selfless in their love. Dogs will risk their lives to save people. Dolphins will protect humans from sharks. Seals have kept injured people in the water afloat until other people can rescue them. The question is why? Helping your own kind protects the genes of your species and makes sure they get passed on. By why should inter-species altruism exist? From a purely materialistic point of view, it makes no sense.

From the Christian perspective such altruism would be odd if it didn't exist. If God is love and created the world we should expect to see love reflected throughout his creation, refracted in various ways through a seemingly endless array of creatures.

And God cares about animals. The story of Noah and the ark shows that God doesn't just care about the survival of humans alone. In the story of Jonah, God tells the reluctant prophet why he wanted him to preach repentance to the capitol of the empire that took the tribes of Israel into captivity. “...Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from the left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4:11, emphasis mine) God wanted to spare all his creatures, the animals as well as the humans.

We don't have a lot of examples of pets in the Bible but they must have existed. When creating a story that would catch King David in his great sin, Nathan the prophet tells the former shepherd about a “poor man who had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.” (2 Samuel 12:3) This sure sounds like the lamb was a pet.

And one of the charming features of the book of Tobit in the apocrypha is the fact that the main character, Tobias, sets out on the journey that will get him a wife, accompanied by not only an angel but a dog. It is a lovely little story.

Approximately 48 million US households own at least one dog, including 40% of Floridians. A little over 25% of American households have a cat. 2.8% have birds as pets. 1.5 million homes have bunnies. Worldwide, a third of all households own pets.

So it's appropriate that we bless our animal companions and celebrate God's creation and his creatures on the Sunday nearest to the day we remember Francis of Assisi, God's troubadour. We sing his hymns and say his poems celebrating every element of creation. And we have stories of how he preached to the birds and tamed a wolf that had been terrorizing an Italian village. Francis was that rare preacher who was not so overwhelmed by the evil found in the world of men that he could not see the good in the world God created.

And when it came to the world of men, Francis, who as a young man had dreamed of military glory, became instead a peacemaker as Jesus calls us to be. During the Fifth Crusade Francis crossed enemy lines to talk to Muhammad Al-Kamil, the sultan of Egypt, and try to convert him. Not only did the sultan not execute the friar, he let him stay for several days. While he didn't convert Al-Kamil, Francis did get a commitment from him to treat Christian prisoners more humanely. Then the sultan sent the friar back safely. Francis had gone as an instrument of God's peace and was received as such.

C.S. Lewis felt you could not say anything that was either too terrible or too wonderful about this world. When God created everything he pronounced it good. But we have misused, abused and neglected just about everything in it. Still the original goodness can be glimpsed. And one place we can see it is in our pets. They can teach us about unconditional love. They can teach us about faithfulness. They can teach us about how to comfort those who mourn. And they do it without words. Often we use words when actions are called for. Animals can't make flowery speeches and so they just show their love in how they act. We need to learn to preach the gospel of the God who is love everywhere and always and in all ways. And when necessary, use words.