The Foundation of Hope

The scriptures referred to are Romans 8:12-25 and Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43.

“There is no god besides you, whose care is for all people, to whom you should prove that you have not judged unjustly...For your strength is the source of righteousness, and your sovereignty over all causes you to spare all. For you show your strength when people doubt the completeness of your power, and you rebuke any insolence among those who know it. Although you are sovereign in strength you judge with mildness and with great forbearance you govern us; for you have the power to act whenever you choose. Through such works you have taught your people that the righteous must be kind, and you have fill your children with good hope, because you give repentance for sins.” Wisdom of Solomon 12:13, 16-19

I'm not into sports but one of the best films I've ever seen was 2005's Murderball. It looks at the brutal sport called quad rugby, that is, rugby played by quadriplegics in armored wheelchairs. If that sounds confusing it's because most of us think of quadriplegics as people totally paralyzed from the neck down. But technically it just means the person has limited function in all four limbs due to paralysis. So they might be able to move their arms but not use their fingers. The star of the documentary is Mark Zupan of Team USA. He was paralyzed when he fell asleep in the back of a buddy's pickup after a night of drinking. His friend lost control of the truck and Mark was thrown into a canal. He awoke and was shocked to find he could not move his legs. It was all he could do to hang onto a branch with one hand and keep his nose above water. He clung to that branch for 13 ½ hours, enduring rain and red ants. Why did he hang on? After all, he knew he was in real bad shape. He couldn't pull himself out of the water. Most of his body was deadweight, not responding to his thoughts. Not only didn't he have any idea how long it would be until he got discovered, he had no idea if he would ever be discovered. So why didn't he give up? Because he didn't let himself think of his current predicament as permanent. He had hope that something better was coming along. He had hope that someone would rescue him.

In today's passage from Romans, Paul writes of how we suffer at the present. We are buffeted by a flood of troubles. We feel abandoned by others. Our bodies betray us with weakness and pain. Political and financial circumstances beyond our control threaten the stability of the world. We lose our loved ones. We fear for our children. All of these things weigh on us. We move through life as if our parking brake was always on. Why don't we give up? Because of the hope of something better.

But why do we hope? The author of the deuterocanonical book of the Wisdom of Solomon starts with the fact that there is one God. Now why should that be a cause for hope? All of the polytheistic religions imagine a group of quarreling gods. They attribute much of the world's griefs to the jealousies and rivalries of the gods. They could not imagine a bunch of superpowerful beings getting along without their egos clashing. After all, they saw this in their kings and emperors, whose life and death power over their subjects was so absolute that most of them declared themselves to be gods or to be descended from the gods. So when kings warred, people thought the gods took sides.

But Yahweh revealed himself to the Israelites as one God. The problem wasn't that the people of earth mirrored the cosmic clashes of fractious gods but that humans failed to reflect the unity of God. The truth of this deepened when Christians realized that God is Triune, 3 divine persons acting in such unison that we can say they are one and that God is love, not metaphorically but literally. (1 John 4:8) God is a love relationship, the original love relationship: the Father loving the Son loving the Father for eternity in the unity of the Holy Spirit. And if God is love, there is hope.

The second thing that gives us hope is that God cares for all people. Once again, throughout the period when the Bible was written, people thought the gods played favorites among the nations. Even the Israelites came to believe this. They were God's chosen people. So God had to remind them that they were chosen but for a mission: to show the world what kind of God he was. (Deuteronomy 4:7; Exodus 19:5-6) They were chosen because as Abraham's descendants they were to be a blessing to the world. (Genesis 12:2-3) They weren't chosen because they were powerful or inherently important. (Deuteronomy 7:7) They were chosen in spite of the fact that they were nomadic sheepherders, prone to wander from the path of God. Stronger peoples claim God was on their side. And yet God didn't choose the Egyptian empire or the Babylonian empire or the Assyrians or the Greeks or the Romans. He chose Israel, a nation of slaves, to show that he is a God of liberation and justice and mercy. And through the story of Jonah and the prophesies of Isaiah, he reminds them that he made all people and cares for all people. And if God cares for all, there is hope.

The next thing that gives us hope is that God is strong. That might seem like an obvious statement. But there is an idea today that maybe God isn't strong. Maybe the reason that there is evil in the world is that God can't stop it. It all goes back to the philosophical problem that if God is both all-good and all-powerful, evil shouldn't exist. Since it does exist, either God isn't all-good or else he must not be all-powerful. And some people have opted for a well-meaning but ineffectual God.

But in today's gospel Jesus offers a parable on the problem of rooting out all evil. He focuses on a common weed called the tare or the bearded darnel. In the early stages of its growth it resembles wheat. Only once its head develops can it be differentiated from wheat. But by then its roots have become entangled with the roots of the wheat. So pulling out the darnel will also pull out some of the wheat. The farmer in the parable chooses to wait until harvest time. Only after they both are harvested can the wheat and the weeds be safely separated.

People tend to think of evil as some separate, outside entity but it is actually a quality found in everyone. Evil is not so much the opposite of good as the corruption of it, the misuse, abuse or neglect of the good gifts God has created and given us. So while a person is still developing it can be hard to decide whether he will turn out to act in evil ways. Is the person being persistent or just pigheaded? Is he being foolhardy or brave? Is she being persuasive or manipulative? Is he being loyal or close-minded? Is she being forgiving or an enabler? Jesus says that only after our life has taken its final form can it be evaluated.

Meanwhile to prematurely and ruthlessly remove evil people from our midst would tear apart the fabric of our lives. Should God strike dead every adulterer? What about their children, like Solomon, the second child of David and Bathsheba, whose relationship began as adultery. Should God kill every killer? What about Moses who killed an Egyptian slavemaster? (Exodus 2:11-12) Should God eliminate those who merely incite or encourage others to kill? What then happens to Saul, who approved of the stoning of Stephen, only to later become the apostle Paul? Should God smite every liar? Who would survive? The writer of the Wisdom of Solomon rightly praises God for sparing all. And if God is not only strong but merciful, there is hope.

The writer of Wisdom says “For your strength is the source of righteousness.” That doesn't seem to follow. We see that when someone is too strong he tends to become unjust. But that's because all humans start out powerless. We realize that when we are quite young and we all grow up wanting to be in control. We try to achieve control over the important aspects of our lives and we work to keep it. It's our underlying insecurity over the situation, our uneasy knowledge that we are never and can never really be totally in control, that makes us abuse what power we have. We use our God-given gifts of intelligence or empathy or speaking or good looks or physical strength or artistic talent or common sense to dominate or manipulate instead of using them to serve others. God, however, is in control and always has been in control and need not worry about losing control. His undisputed power lets him be truly impartial and just and righteous. And if God is fair, there is hope.

Finally the writer of Wisdom says, “You have filled your children with good hope, because you give repentance for sins.” Notice that we are not talking here about God's forgiveness but about our repentance. We have already talked about God's mercy. But mercy can be wasted on people who refuse to repent. Some even take advantage of the forgiving nature of others. So our hope like not simply in God's nature but also in the ability he has given us to repent. And by repent I don't just mean to feel bad when we do bad things but to change our behavior. That is true repentance. A dog who steals food from the table may know he's doing wrong but he will never spontaneously change his mind and turn around and bring back what he's taken. Repentance is all about changing your mind and your life.

Evil, as we said, is not something that exists apart from people. Neither is it merely a superficial or trivial characteristic of human beings. Thieves do not steal simply because they can't budget their money. Most people who lie constantly aren't simply unaware of the truth. The majority of killers are not driven to the act by necessity or self-defense. When Scott Petersen's adultery was discovered, he had a lot of other options besides killing his wife and unborn child. He chose to end theirs rather than face the music. Evil, as Jesus tells us, comes from within. (Mark 7:21-23) So it must be dealt with internally. When we open our hearts to God's Spirit, he starts the work of repentance and change within us.

Parables and analogies have their limits. Weeds cannot change their nature. People can. And Jesus knew that, as evident in the parable of the prodigal son. (Luke 15:11-32) Repentance is like having your spiritual DNA changed. It means your future is not determined by your past. It means your destiny is not determined by your deficits. It means your salvation is not determined by your sins but by your response to God's work in you. And if God can transform us, there's hope.

Mark Zupin's hope would have been in vain had not someone found him clinging to that branch. He could not help himself. And our hope is in vain if we put it in anything or anyone other than the God of love revealed in Jesus Christ. We cannot save ourselves. We do not always obey our own better thoughts and impulses. Our desires and fears can drag us down and drown us. But our strong, caring, just, merciful and transforming God can save us. And so, as Paul says, we join with creation in eager longing for our adoption as his spiritual offspring, for our redemption, and for the completion of the good work God has begun in us. We await with expectation the revealing of the children of God, when those he makes righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. 

Translating the Spirit

The scriptures referred to are Romans 8:1-11.

I know it irks some people when I use illustrations from popular culture, particularly movies, TV and comic books. I cite as my example for doing so St. Paul, who quoted popular Greek poets and playwrights in his letters and even in his testimony about Jesus' post-resurrection appearance to him. (Acts 17:28; 26:14; 1 Corinthians 15:33; Titus 1:12) If you are talking to people it helps to use terms that their culture understands. Paul bases a speech to the Athenians on an altar he sees in their city that is dedicated to an unknown god. TV shows, movies and comic books are the mythology of our culture. That is, they present and preserve our values and our consensus on certain truths in the form of stories that are easily grasped and remembered. This becomes especially clear when they are translated from one medium to another.

After seeing decades of crappy versions of the popular Marvel superheroes, fans were gratified at the movies turned out when the comic book company became a studio. And comic book historian Alan Kistler can tell us why. In his blog on film adaptations of comic books, he says that movie makers must do 3 things to get them right. First, they must know the source material. You'd think this was a prerequisite but he lists some bone-headed ideas movie producers had that did not, thank God, make it to the screen. Such as a Superman without powers who didn't wear his costume and who died only to be reborn, virgin-birth style, from Lois Lane. Where did that come from?

However, the problem with the first Hulk movie directed by Ang Lee was not a matter of not knowing the source material, Kistler says. While some minor details were changed the origin of the Hulk was told relatively faithfully. The problem came in violating the second principle of translating something to film. The movie makers must “figure out what it was about the original product that people reacted strongly to.” Kistler points out that what makes us sympathetic to the Hulk is that we know that he is really a decent guy who, due to a tragic accident, can become a monster if he gets angry. Stan Lee, long-time Marvel editor, says the challenge in writing the Hulk is how to make a hero out of a monster. Director Ang Lee said the Hulk is not a hero but a monster who messes things up. He saw the film as a straightforward Jekyll and Hyde story. He missed the fact that the Hulk is more like Frankenstein's misunderstood monster. Ang Lee didn't get what made the character resonate with people.

The third thing that Kistler says makes a good comic book movie is when the director remembers the atmosphere and the heart of the original. The story of the Hulk is that of a fugitive unjustly pursued. From Les Miserables to many of Alfred Hitchcock's films to the saga of Dr. Richard Kimble, people love to cheer for the innocent man fleeing from a relentless and wrong enforcer of the law. The second Hulk film starring Edward Norton got all of these elements right and so it became a big hit. And Marvel has been for the most part succeeding in its subsequent adaptations of its heroes and stories.

I've gone into such detail because the problem of getting the heart and character of someone right is precisely what Paul is dealing with in today's reading from his letter to the Romans. He has been going into depth on the question of how Christians relate to the law laid down in the books of Moses. It's not simply a matter of trying to obey God's law. For one thing, that doesn't change a person, not at the deepest level. Obeying the law is not the same as being a good person. Eliot Spitzer became governor of New York after being a zealous prosecutor and officer of the law. He nevertheless availed himself of the services of high-priced young call girls while in Nevada. Prostitution is legal in certain parts of that state, so he wasn't even breaking the law. Human law, that is. However the revelation of his infidelities and deceptions revealed he was a hypocrite and not the virtuous person he advertised himself to be when running for election.

Which leads to Paul's second point: we can't even obey God's law, not totally. We are always going to fail at some point. And the reason we fail is the principle he talks about here. Unfortunately it is one that has been misunderstood for most of 2 millennia. Paul calls this principle “the flesh.”

In Greek the word sarx or “flesh” means different things in different contexts. When Paul is talking about circumcision, he is of course using the term “flesh” in the literal sense. But when he talks about things “according to the flesh,” he is talking about things seen from a strictly human mindset or standard. But other times, like in this passage, when he talks about “the flesh” what he means is human nature unaided by God. This is an important distinction to understand because lots of people, including many Christians, think Paul is referring only, or primarily, to sexual sins. But the term is more inclusive than that.

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes, “Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual sins, impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, quarrels, jealousies, rages, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, carousing and the like...” (Galatians 5:19-21) As you can see from what I italicized, a lot of what he is talking about are non-sexual sins. Hatreds, idolatries, divisions and their ilk don't arise from sexual or bodily desires but from human nature when it is divorced from spiritual direction. So that's the way to understand Paul's use of the word “flesh” here, as unredeemed human nature.

Paul contrasts “the flesh” in this sense with “the Spirit.” By this Paul doesn't mean what people today mean when they talk about “spirituality.” It is not simply any kind of belief system or the contemplation of non-material realities. By “Spirit” Paul means a person, the Spirit of God who lives in us, who enables us to embody Christ in our life. So Paul is juxtaposing 2 ways of life: “walking” (living) directed by mere human nature or directed by God's Spirit.

It is very popular today to equate what is natural with what is healthy and good. But that ignores the fact that a lot of what happens in nature is anything but. In various animal species we see cannibalism, infanticide, incest, rape, and even war. Most but sadly not all of these things are condemned by most human societies. Even non-Christians recognize that not everything that arises from human nature is good. The usual solution to these is to make laws against them.

If you've been following our weekly passages from Romans you know that Paul has been arguing that the law doesn't really make people good. Prohibiting theft doesn't make theft disappear, not does it make thieves into model citizens. It just makes them outlaws once they commit the crime. This is also true of God's law. The prohibition in God's law against murder hasn't wiped murder from existence. Which is why putting the Ten Commandments in schools will not somehow stop school shootings. God's law is not magic. So what good is it? We'll get to that shortly.

Sometimes instead of violating laws, people learn to game them. If you've got kids you know they love to annoy one another. If they are poking their brother or sister in the back seat of the car, telling them to stop touching each other often results in them waving their fingers inches from each other, tauntingly saying “I'm not touching you.” They are observing the letter of your prohibition while violating the heck out of its spirit. And once again this is true of how people often react to God's law. A president said that oral sex with his mistress was not adultery. True, you can't find a specific mention of it in the Bible. But obviously it violates the spirit of the commandment against adultery.

Human nature is so perverse that prohibiting something can make people curious about the thing or activity prohibited. Tell your kids not to look in the upstairs closet and they will break into there faster than the Mission Impossible team. Unfortunately this impulse to explore the forbidden doesn't disappear with childhood. Advertisers appeal to it all the time. The internet is flooded with clickbait articles that promise to tell you salacious stories about celebrities or show scandalous pictures of them. Even if it's not true it's an effective way to get people to go to the website. And it wouldn't have any appeal if it didn't promise something forbidden and if we weren't curious about such things.

So with all the ways people can abuse God's law, what use is it? For one thing, the law is good at pointing out what is and is not healthy behavior. It can't make you obey it but it can function as a diagnostic tool. For instance, it's essential to know that a healthy temperature for a human being is somewhere around 98.6 degrees, a healthy resting pulse runs between 60 and 90 beats per minute, and a healthy blood pressure shouldn't be higher than 120 over 80. These vital signs let you know when someone has a fever or hypothermia, tachycardia or bradycardia, hypotension or hypertension. But to treat those conditions you need more than a thermometer and a blood pressure cuff. You need something that gets to the heart of the problem.

The law gives us standards that tell us what's wrong with our human nature. But the law cannot cure us by itself. For that we need something or someone else. We need the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God who was in Christ. (Luke 4:1) And we need him in us. We need to let go of the reins to our life and hand them over to the Spirit. We need to let him transform us from people led by our human nature to people led by the Spirit.

Letting our human nature run our lives hasn't worked out so well. The hatreds, quarrels and divisions Paul described are universal, found in all human societies and groups. We act like rival packs of animals, zealously guarding our territories, trying to extend their range into the territories of others. We are suspicious of strangers, and prisoners of our fear of them. We let the urgings of our human nature ruin personal lives and break up families. No one is immune, whether rich or poor, rural or urban, Western or Eastern, Northern or Southern, pink or brown. So maybe it's time to let Jesus take the wheel.

But we fear that. We fear not being in control. If we let the Spirit take control of our lives, what will happen? Just as Paul described the consequences of letting out human nature control us, he described the results of letting the Spirit take over our lives. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23) It is the antithesis of letting our lower nature rule our lives. Paul adds there is no law against these. And again, no law can compel them either.

You can't pass a law requiring people to be kind or to be humble or to be patient. Any lawyer would tell you that such laws would be too vague and unenforceable. Yet the world needs more people who are peaceful and kind and faithful and patient and humble. How will we get them? Not by passing laws. That's what has always bothered me about members of the religious right who thought they can bring about the kingdom of God on earth by passing legislation. If they really studied and believed their Bibles, they'd know you can't do that. Paul spends half of Romans and Galatians establishing that fact. Instead we are to be the body of Christ to the world. And the only way to do that is to embody his Spirit.

Jesus taught. So should we. Jesus healed. So should we. Jesus fed the hungry. So should we. Jesus forgave the repentant. So should we. Jesus preached good news to the poor. So should we. Jesus spoke the truth to power. So should we. Jesus comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable. So should we. Jesus went beyond the demands of the law. So should we. Jesus stood up to evil regardless of the consequences. So should we.

Some fans have objected to movies in which Batman uses lethal force because that goes against his moral code. In the same way, we must be careful that in translating the gospel into the medium of our lives we do not betray the Spirit of Christ. We must not do harm in the name of the one who healed. We must not wink at sin in the name of the son of righteousness. We must not act arrogantly in the name of the one who blessed the meek. We must not stir up hate in the name of the God who is love.

C.S. Lewis said that Christianity is more like painting a portrait than following rules. The purpose of following Jesus is to become like him. Too often the picture of Christ we paint in our words and actions is rigid, lifeless, rote and predictable. We lose the heart of Jesus, the thing that makes people respond to him. We need to capture his Spirit. Or perhaps that is the problem. We still want to be in control. What we need to do is let his Spirit captivate us and take hold of our lives. Only then people will see in us the real Jesus.

Reality Check

The scriptures referred to are Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30.

I just finished reading Kurt Anderson's Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History. His premise is that ever since we came to America there have always been people who think that reality is whatever they decide it is. The result has been cults, pyramid schemes, witch hunts, quack medical cures, conspiracy theories, and Satanic panics. We have people on both sides of the political spectrum denying science, folks dressing up as superheroes at Comic Con, Civil War re-enactors, guys pretending to be modern day soldiers and shooting at each other with air soft guns, and people who want to live in Disneyworld. Some of these fantasies are relatively harmless in that they, as Thomas Jefferson said, neither pick our pockets nor break our legs. But some are harmful, especially at a time when we have some major real world problems to solve and yet some people are doubting there is such a thing as objective truth. We already have deep-fake videos which make it look as if a real person is saying or doing things they haven't. In the newest Indiana Jones film for the first 20 minutes they convincingly make 80 year old Harrison Ford look like he did 40 years ago. P.T. Barnum once sewed together the bodies of a monkey and a fish to create the Fiji mermaid for his museum. Imagine what he could do today! He'd have a YouTube channel and a Twitter feed.

In today's gospel reading Jesus is dealing with perception and reality. He compares the people of his time to children playacting and being upset that the other kids aren't going along with them. Each group has their very own made-up reality. Sound familiar?

This inability to see reality extends to their perceptions of John the Baptist and Jesus. John was very much an Old Testament kind of prophet. He was also an ascetic, abstaining from wine and various foods in a form of self-discipline that went beyond the dietary laws all Jews had to observe. His message was one of judgment on the corruption of the leaders and the spiritually and morally lax behavior of the people. He is represented in Jesus' metaphor by the children wailing and playing a funeral dirge.

Jesus by contrast was not an ascetic and is represented by the children playing a dance, as folks would at a wedding. Jesus liked to compare the kingdom of God to a wedding feast. (Matthew 22:2-14; 25:1-13). What's more, he ate and drank with people that were considered outcasts by the religious leaders: tax collectors and sinners. Jesus said to those who were upset with his approach, “Those who are healthy don't need a physician, but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17)

There are still people who think the primary purpose of the church is to condemn sinners and make sure they are punished. They misunderstand the gospel. The Greek word for gospel, euanggelion, means “good news.” To evangelize means to proclaim the good news. As I heard a preacher once say, some people instead approach the gospel this way: “Hey, have you heard the good news? You're going to hell.” That is not good news.

This doesn't mean we tell people what they want to hear. John the Baptist was delivering the diagnosis: everyone, rich or poor, religious or not, was spiritually sick. The prognosis was that this spiritual illness would lead to spiritual death if untreated. As physical death separates us from our loved ones, spiritual death separates us from God.

Jesus delivers the good news that there is a cure. He is the great physician, who can heal us from this dire disease. But just as you have to trust the doctor to heal you and you have to follow the doctor's orders, so also we have to trust Jesus and do what he says we should do. But going on their faulty perceptions of Jesus, a lot of people could not bring themselves to do that. They didn't think Jesus was holy enough.

People often form ideas about Jesus based on impressions they've picked up from others rather than investigate him themselves. So they might think he was always disapproving of innocent things, including things he never mentioned. Other people think he was all about approving everybody regardless of what they do. The truth is Jesus didn't condemn people but he did condemn certain thoughts, words and actions which people are responsible for. He said people who were enraged with a member of their community, or who insulted them by calling them empty-headed or a moron would be answerable for their sin. (Matthew 5:22) He was against adultery, even if it was only lusting after someone in one's heart. (Matthew 5:27-28) He was against retaliating for the way someone treated you. (Matthew 5:39-42) He was against hatred for your enemy, saying you should love them instead. (Matthew 5:44) He was against violence even if it was motivated by defending Jesus. (Matthew 26:51-52) He was against people paying lip-service to God but not actually doing what he wants us to do. (Matthew 7:21)

Jesus accepted people who acknowledged their sin and repented. (Luke 19:2-10) He was for forgiving others (Matthew 6:14; 18:21-22) He was against harsh punishments that didn't give the person a chance to change their lives. (John 8:3-11) He was against blaming people whose misfortune was not their fault. (John 9:1-3) He was for helping those who were hungry or sick or imprisoned or immigrants. (Matthew 25:34-40) He was against rules that stopped people from helping others, even if the rules were religious. (Mark 3:1-6) He was against stopping other Christians from doing good works in his name because they weren't part of “our” group of Christians. (Mark 9:38-40)

Jesus' critics could not see past their prejudices to perceive the hand of God in the good he did or the wisdom of God in what he said. They actually accused Jesus of casting out demons, that is, healing people, with the help of the ruler of demons. They didn't see God's Spirit at work in Jesus. People whose thinking is so messed up that they think good is bad and bad is good can't be helped because they don't recognize the one who can help them. (Matthew 12:22-32) The problem is that people who think they are really smart can get so caught up in their sophistication and cleverness that they miss the obvious. Kids on the other hand often see through the elaborate foolishness we adults frequently fall for. My brother, an amateur magician with 50 years experience, says the hardest audience to fool is that of children.

It reminds me of Hans Christian Anderson's story of the emperor's new clothes. If you remember, 2 swindlers convince the emperor that they can weave him clothes so fine that only the stupid or incompetent won't be able to see them. They go to work on “making” the clothes and nobody comments on their loom seeming to be empty because they don't wish to appear foolish or unfit for their position. The emperor pays the “weavers” a fortune and they “dress” him in his new royal finery. The word of the new clothes reach the townspeople and when the emperor parades before them no one dares say anything for fear of looking incompetent. And then a child states the obvious: “The emperor has no clothes!”

In that spirit, Jesus thanks God that his wisdom and goodness, which is lost on the worldly wise, is not missed by those who, like little kids, see things as they really are. Things that heal and help are good; things that harm or hurt people unnecessarily are bad. Jesus healed and helped and fed and forgave people. He was doing God's work.

And yet there are still folks who think Christianity has done more harm than good. As I said last week, secular historian Tom Holland would disagree. Without Christianity the modern world would not accept the idea that might doesn't make right, that mercy is preferable to ruthlessness, that the weak and the poor have rights, that people should forgive others, and that all people should be treated equally well. We would never have derived this from the Greeks and Romans and pagans. For instance, Paul took the then common form of the household code where everyone in the family was told their duties and he subverted it. He told husbands they should do more than provide for their wives but should love them and be faithful to them as well. They should not exasperate their children. In a world where thousands owned slaves he told their masters not to mistreat them because they too have a Master in heaven who shows no favoritism. (Ephesians 5:25-6:9) Thinking, as many of anti-theists do, that most people today would magically have these ethical values without Jesus and Christianity is living in fantasyland.

And yet such folks rightly condemn the church when it violates the values Jesus taught. Which means they agree with Jesus about this. When the church has gone wrong, it is because it has forgotten Jesus' principles and sought power and money and ignored his call to love all, including enemies. Jesus foresaw that self-proclaimed followers of his would act like the Pharisees he opposed. He said of the last judgment, “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 7:22-23) That will be the ultimate reality check.

C.S. Lewis, in his book The Screwtape Letters, saw that one diabolical way to keep people from seeing the truth was to make them fear and fight against the threats that are least likely to affect them. Thus we still have people worried about socialism and communism at a time when even Russia and China have gone capitalist, and yet these people ignore the fact that these countries show that it is possible to have both capitalism and a dictatorship. People complain that their views are not heard at the same time anyone can go on the internet and find a forum to say anything, including the most easily disproved lies. Some people are convinced that celebrities are kidnapping millions of children to drink their blood whereas less than 1% of child abductions are committed by strangers. The vast majority of child abductions are committed by parents in a custody dispute and more than 90% of those children are returned home alive. This kind of thinking is like looking up at the sky, worrying about getting hit with a meteorite, instead of looking both ways when crossing a busy street.

And some Christians have gotten caught up in fearing unlikely things while ignoring real problems. They have worried about Satanic child abuse while ignoring the child abuse happening in some churches. They have preached more about maintaining traditional lines of authority in families and less about the things that really destroy families: lack of commitment, infidelity, too much conflict, marrying too young, financial problems, substance abuse, and domestic abuse. They have concentrated more on maintaining denominational and doctrinal purity and less on doing what Jesus commanded us to do: show the love of Jesus to others by all we think, do and say. These other things are diabolical distractions from what we need to be concerned about.

If there's one big thing I disagree with Kurt Andersen about in his book Fantasyland, it's his attitude toward religion. As an agnostic, he feels all religion is magical thinking. He traces the origin of the concept that everyone has a right to their own reality to Martin Luther saying everyone should interpret the Bible their own way. That's not what Luther said. He felt that everyone had the right to study the Bible for himself and that the church did not have the sole authority to interpret it. Luther felt that if the person read the Bible with the guidance of the Holy Spirit the basic truths of the gospel would be plain. He did not approve of all of the groups that came out of the Reformation, especially some of the radical Anabaptists who believed they received new direct revelations, or who used violence to usher in the New Jerusalem. Had Andersen researched the history of the church he would know that there have always been those who cherry-pick a few parts of Christianity and then run wild with them.

The big problem Andersen has is that he doesn't give us a good definition of reality. How can you pin down what is a fantasy if you don't lay a firm foundation of what reality is? Any definition would have to account for the existence and persistence of religion throughout all history and all cultures. The definition of reality would have to deal with the fact that scientific studies show that belief in God tends to go along with better physical health, including a better immune system, lower blood pressure and greater longevity. It gives life meaning and people a purpose in life, both vital parts of good mental health. Prayer and other spiritual practices can reduce stress and anxiety. At a time when loneliness is epidemic in society, a person's religious community can lead to friendships and support. While deaths of despair from substance abuse and suicide are increasing, those attending services weekly can reduce that risk by anywhere from 33 to 68%. And studies have shown that religion is vital to the formation of a civilization.

Andersen's idea of reality is that the universe is a somewhat clumsy “but astonishing accumulation of happy accidents with nobody in charge.” Really? The number of the atoms in the universe are 10 to the 78^th or to the 82^nd power. That's between ten quadrillion vigintillion and one hundred thousand quadrillion vigintillion atoms. They all have to somehow be arranged into a universe that is fine-tuned to allow for life without design or guidance. That would be like having a million Lego sets and expecting them to accidentally come together in an exact, life-sized and working model of the Millennium Falcon. And then having that happen trillions of times in a row until you had the whole Star Wars universe. Does that sound realistic? Or does that sound like fantasy?

Up until the age of 12, it is hard to convince children that there isn't a God or a purpose behind everything. Like the kid in the tale of the emperor's new clothes, they see what is obvious. Kids enjoy fantasy but they know the difference between it and reality. It was adults who convinced themselves that narcissistic conmen like Jim Jones, or David Koresh, or Keith Raniere, or L. Ron Hubbard were either God or the person with all the answers to life. These people lied and harmed people. They did not live up to their own standards. Eventually that reality came out to the world.

Jesus says, “I am gentle and humble in heart.” If I or any other human said that it would come off as a humble-brag or a contradiction in terms. Why do we not feel that way about Jesus saying it? Because from everything he said and did, we know it rings true. He didn't use his power for himself but for others. He was betrayed by a follower but he did not betray his disciples, even asking those who came to arrest him to let them go. (John 18:8) Jones and Koresh decided all their followers should die with them.

You can find cults or religions that tell you that sin and evil or even the physical world are not real. You can find ones that tell you that just by believing you can be rich or successful. You can find ones that tell you that you are God. But the Bible says God originally made a good world and he created us in his image. We misused and abused and neglected his good gifts. But in Jesus, God's son, we see what God is like and we see what we can become: children of God. Those who didn't like the reality Jesus revealed about them killed him. But God raised him to life again. And those who encountered the reality of the risen Jesus, who saw and touched and ate with him, told everyone they met, even when it cost them their lives. But their persecutors couldn't kill the gospel and it is still making real changes in people's lives.

When Paul and Silas left Thessalonica after a riot by their opponents, they came to Berea. We are told, “These Jews were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they eagerly received the message, examining the scriptures carefully every day to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11) They did a reality check on the gospel and found it to be true. We Christians need to be discerning. We mustn't get distracted by unlikely threats and irrelevant issues or ignore the obvious or retreat into fantasies of how we'd like reality to be. We need to be clear-eyed and clear-headed. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) How we think and talk and act needs to reflect the reality of Jesus and his love.

Slavery and Freedom

The scriptures referred to are Romans 6:12-23.

Prominent anti-theist Sam Harris has a new book out called Free Will. The title seems ironic because Harris argues that we don't actually have free will. Harris bases this on the observation that neuroscientists have detected that people seem to make choices subconsciously milliseconds before they are aware they are making them. From this and a reductionist view of reality that says nothing but the material world exists, he says we don't actually consciously make choices. It's all just conditioning and chemicals and synapses and DNA behaving according to natural laws. Free will is an illusion.

There are several problems with this. For one thing, in the experiment people were told to push a button or flex their wrist and to report when they were aware that they were going to do it. The EEG electrodes attached to their heads merely showed that activity in the supplementary motor area of the brain (or SMA) took place a half a second before the person said they were aware of deciding to make the move. Does that activity reveal a subconscious decision being made or does it merely show a shift of attention to the wrist or button or does it simply show an expectation that some kind of move is coming? Other experiments have shown the same activity in the SMA when people are only imagining moving or even deciding not to move. Concluding we have no free will from such an ambiguous experimental finding seems like a huge leap in reasoning.

Besides if Harris is right and we have no free will then I don't know who he is trying to persuade. He thinks people can't change their minds. His book therefore is useless. But I don't blame him for deciding to write it. He couldn't help but do it.

It's not only certain scientists who think we have no free will but some theologians as well. Certain Calvinists feel we are all so corrupted by sin that we cannot decide on our own to trust God. Which makes the Bible superfluous. If people can't choose God, why give them a book that urges them to? Why does our passage from Romans begin with “Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions”? The Greek is in the imperative. Paul is telling the reader not to act in a certain way. Surely he means to persuade us. If not, why bother?

I think when it comes to free will people make the same mistake that we do when we use the word “free” in any context. We think that true freedom must mean unlimited freedom to do anything at all. But our right to free speech doesn't mean we can lie on contracts or slander someone or libel them. It famously doesn't mean we can falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theater or incite people to riot. In real life freedom has its limits. As my 8^th grade teacher used to say, your freedom to swing your arms ends at the tip of my nose. Total freedom is neither ethical, practical or even possible.

In the same way, our free will is not absolutely free. What I choose to do will be influenced by various factors: my abilities, my education, my life experience, my personality. To some extent, they make my decisions fairly predictable. If given a choice between attending an MMA match or watching a Sherlock Holmes film, my family knows how I will decide. But I could decide to surprise them by acting differently.

Things like ability, education, life experience and personality don't totally rule certain things out. A person with a disability can with effort and creativity find other ways to do things folks might not think possible for them. Paralyzed people have learn to paint holding the brush in their teeth. People in wheelchairs have figured out how to dance. Helen Keller, who could neither see nor hear, learned how to speak using her voice.

People without formal education have taught themselves how to do things. Steven Spielberg couldn't get into film school but made a short film that got him a contract to direct television. Nikola Tesla never got a degree in engineering or physics but was a brilliant inventor. He's the reason we use alternating current for our electrical power.

People have overcome some terrible childhoods or later life experiences. Carol Burnett had alcoholic parents and was raised by her grandmother who lived down the hall from her mother. She not only did not succumb to that addiction but introduced AA into Russia. Gavin De Becker's mother was a heroin addict who shot his stepfather. That night De Becker saw the signs that his mother was ramping up and got his little sister and himself to safety in the back bedroom before the shooting took place. He became the head of a security company working with companies, celebrities and even the government on threat assessments. Andrew Solomon fell into a deep depression following his mother's suicide after her long battle with cancer. Through therapy and antidepressants he has become an award-winning writer. I highly recommend his book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression.

And what are our personalities but fairly well established patterns of thinking, speaking and acting? But those too can change. African American musician Daryl Davis has been befriending KKK members for the last 30 years and convincing them to leave the Klan. He has 200 Klu Klux Klan robes that they have given him to prove it. James H. Fallon is a neuroscientist who studies the brains and genetics of psychopaths. He used the brain scans of normal persons as a control group. So he was startled to find that he had the brain of a psychopath. A gene profile confirmed it. His family told him of his lack of fear, regrets and limited empathy. His mother told him they were related to Lizzie Borden! Since learning this he has worked on being more thoughtful of others. The cards he was dealt by his DNA did not determine his future.

Which is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6. After listing a variety of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God, he says, “Some of you once lived this way. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. (1 Corinthians 6:11) If people cannot change then these people would not be able to enter God's kingdom. But they did change through faith in Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.

And it wasn't like God came upon them unawares and forced them to change. As Paul says a little later in Romans, “How are they to believe in one they have not heard of? And how are they to hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14) Why do they need to hear preaching unless they need it to make a conscious decision to trust and follow Jesus?

But as anyone who has ever been enslaved to a habit or an addiction will tell you, it's hard to change. And one of the things we do to avoid having to change is not follow what we are doing to its logical end. We know that recreational drug use, smoking, and drinking damage the body and eventually lead to death. But few consider that when they first try them. All people think about is the pleasure these bring. Studies have also shown that activities like gambling trigger the same response in the brain that substances do, meaning certain activities can be addictive. Addictions are diseases of the brain.

When asked why he ate with sinners, Jesus said, “Those who are healthy don't need a physician but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) So sin can be thought of as a spiritual sickness. Sins are those thoughts, words and deeds that are harmful to ourselves, to others and to our relationship with God. Sin also leads to spiritual death, which is separation from God. And like the addict we find ourselves slaves to sin. (John 8:34)

Now it can look like someone with an addiction has no free will. Because as the addiction takes control of their lives, they will sacrifice everything—loved ones, jobs, home and possessions—to continue feeding the habit. Surely they wouldn't give up such things if they had free will, would they?

But while their will is certainly impaired it is not totally gone. Because people do get free of their addictions. Jamie Lee Curtis is a recovering alcoholic who used to be addicted to opioid painkillers. For Robert Downey Jr. his addiction began when he was 8 and included cocaine and heroin. He was arrested several times and spent time in jail and in prison. He lost his wife and was fired from several films and TV shows. After another arrest in 2001, he said to himself, “'You know what? I don't think I can continue doing this.' And I reached out for help and I ran with it.” Now he is one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. About overcoming his addiction, he said, “What's hard is to decide to do it.”

A person in AA once summarized the first 3 steps of the 12 step program this way: “I can't. God can. I'm going to let him.” We cannot save ourselves from sin but we can decide to let Jesus do it. We can decide to trust him and let him go to work on us. When I had my accident no amount of eating healthier and getting more exercise and thinking positive thoughts was going to repair my broken legs and arms and ribs and my collapsed lung. Only a surgeon could open me up and put me back together. All I could do was trust him to do it.

And afterwards, while my body was fixed, I would have been bedbound for life if I hadn't followed the doctors' orders and done the physical therapy they prescribed. But I couldn't just do it halfway or when I felt like it. As a nurse I had patients who had new hips or knees but never walked again because they said their physical therapy was too difficult or too painful. I wasn't going to be like them.

Only Jesus can free us from the sins that enslave us. And only by following the guidance and encouragement of the Spirit can we take full advantage of our freedom in Christ and learn to walk with God.

Living at a time when 20% of the people in the Roman empire were slaves, Paul uses that as a metaphor for being dominated by sin. And it is disconcerting to hear him say that the alternative is to be a slave of God. But when I was in physical therapy learning to walk again I had to become a slave to the routine of going there everyday and doing whatever task the therapists gave me that day. I had to do it religiously, so to speak.

But by trusting the doctors and slavishly following the therapists' instructions, I now have freedom. I have the freedom to walk and to drive. I have the freedom to feed myself, which was difficult when I had broken both wrists and they were in a casts for weeks and had to be strengthened afterwards. I was free to return to leading services at my churches and free to resume my ministry at the jail.

In the same way, when we let Jesus become our master we gain the freedom to do things that are good and healthy for us and for our relationships with other people and for our relationship with God. What we are not free to do is stuff that is harmful and leads to spiritual sickness and death. Why would we want to go back to that?

And, yes, almost every time we are called servants of God in the Bible the underlying Hebrew or Greek word actually means slaves. Because God freed his people from slavery in Egypt. And Jesus bought us out of slavery to sin. As Paul wrote, “You are not your own, for you were bought with a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) When we use the word “redeem” what it means is literally “to buy or ransom.” The person who bought a kinsman out of slavery was called his redeemer.

And Jesus even used this language of servitude about himself. He said, “...whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43-45) Taking this further, on the night he was betrayed, Jesus stripped off his cloak and tied a towel around his waist and washed the feet of his disciples, a task usually carried out by the lowest slave. After he was finished he said, “Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and do so correctly, for that is what I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example—you should do just as I have done for you.” (John 13:12-15) We serve Jesus by serving others as he did. We serve him out of love and gratitude for what he did, redeeming us from our destructive and self-destructive sins at the cost of his life.

Death on the cross was reserved for slaves and traitors. So Jesus even died as a slave would. In fact, this was one of the things that led secular historian Tom Holland to write his latest book Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World. While writing his previous histories of Greek and Roman leaders, he found their mindsets hard to get into. They believed in gaining power and glory and conquering others. They did not believe all people were equal, so they could be unbelievably cruel to others. To Holland, it was alien way of thinking. And he realized that today's people have been shaped, whether they realize it or not, by Christian moral values. The Greeks and Romans worshiped strength and despised weakness. The idea of worshiping a God who died on a cross was absurd. Things like equality and helping the poor and outcasts and victims and turning the other cheek were not Greco-Roman values but came from the New Testament. And as Christianity spread, the idea of what society should value and what we see as good and right behavior changed.

And we have seen how corrupt the church becomes when it begins valuing power and denigrating certain people. Paul said, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for all of you are one in Christ.” (Galatians 3:28) We are all created in God's image and Jesus died for all.

Still don't like the idea of being called a slave? Well, as Bob Dylan sang, you gotta serve somebody. We are either slaves to our own appetites and desires and fears, or we serve other human leaders, or we serve the God of love revealed in Jesus Christ. And if we serve him, we can look forward to the day when he says to us, “I no longer call you slaves, because the slave does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father.” (John 15:15) When we see Jesus face to face, we will be like him, freed from not just the penalty and power of sin in our lives but its very presence. (1 John 3:2) On that day we will know true freedom. Because, as Jesus said, “...if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)