Note: This is an article from Christianity Today about Lesslie Newbigin. An influential thinker on the church and its message to a pluralistic, secular society, Newbigin puts forward the idea of the gospel as public truth. If you work as a witness in the campuses, this article will help you.
It was an unlikely adventure to launch a global ministry—a tediously long bus journey from Madras, India, to Birmingham, England. It was an unlikely background for a champion of the gospel to emerge from—the theologically liberal Student Christian Movement. It was an unlikely age at which to unintentionally initiate the emergent and missional church movements—age 66 after 35 years of cross-cultural missionary service. But Bishop Lesslie Newbigin made his most important contribution and did his most profound thinking in his 70s and 80s. Can this man, whose birth centenary was celebrated in December, help today's church navigate a critical period of change?
American Christianity is a long way from disappearing, but it is embattled. Newsweek magazine, bus placards, and best-selling books are all proclaiming the death of Christian America. Over the past 35 years, American confidence in religious leaders has dropped significantly—and dropped farther and faster than confidence in leaders of other institutions. Of those under age 30, only 3 percent hold a favorable view of evangelicals, compared with 33 percent who hold a favorable view of gays and lesbians. The 2009 American Religious Identification Survey showed a 10 percent dip in the number of self-identified Christians while also reporting that the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent.
These figures come as no surprise to someone from the other side of the Atlantic. The European church has long struggled with plummeting attendance. The most optimistic reading of our latest church attendance statistics describes the U.K. as "pulling out of the nosedive." Penn State's Philip Jenkins sees Europe taking the lead as the "acids of modernity" (journalist Walter Lippmann's term) dissolve the Christian foundations of a continent.
Others, like sociologist Grace Davie, see Europe as the exception, the only place on the planet where the church is in decline and facing increasing marginalization. Despite the best efforts of the militant New Atheists, we have ended up not with secularism but with religious pluralism.
In the face of alarming statistics, secularist attacks, and media scaremongering, the church has an important ally in Lesslie Newbigin. His writings continue to call the church to its missionary vocation in the midst of cultural change and ideological pluralism.
Newbigin was born 100 years ago on December 8, 1909. After completing theological studies at Cambridge University and working briefly for the Student Christian Movement, he left for India in 1936 to labor as a missionary, evangelist, and apologist. There he was instrumental in bringing together the Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed, Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, and Pentecostal churches from India, Pakistan, and Burma into one ecumenical denomination: the Church of South India. On his return to England, he was shocked to find that the West was as urgent a mission field as the East. Refusing to settle into retirement, he wrote prolifically, issuing a clarion call to the Western church to rediscover its missionary mandate.
This was not merely a response to the declining state of the church, but the result of Newbigin's wrestling with the interplay of such enormous ideas as election, modernity, contextualization, the end of Christendom, and missional ecclesiology. Seeing the bigger picture of the gospel has inspired many of Newbigin's readers to grasp more fully the interaction between gospel, church, and culture. Three major themes stand out as particularly pertinent to our time.
Bigger than we think
When I speak with students around the world, I find them confident in their ability to present the gospel. They tell me that God loves me, that I have sinned, that Christ died for me, and that I need to believe in Jesus to get to heaven. Their confidence is reassuring, but their content is worrying. Doctoral students and seminarians often seem to have no deeper grasp of the gospel than do Sunday school children. The gospel they present has been reduced to a personalized product that offers the ultimate bargain—exchanging spiritual poverty for eternal riches. The problem with much of our evangelism is not what we include but what we omit: the Holy Spirit, the church, persecution, obedience, mission, reconciliation, resurrection, and new creation.
The gospel according to Newbigin challenges this thinking in two distinct ways. First, he calls us back to a gospel that brings personal reconciliation with God, but also a gospel that connects us with God's reconciling purposes in conscience, culture, church, creation, and cosmos. Second, he calls us back to a gospel that is more than a series of bullet points, a story that centers on the flesh-and-blood character of the divine Christ.
Newbigin's call is earthed in his careful exposition of John's gospel, but it draws as well on thinkers such as Martin Buber, Michael Polanyi, Hans Frei, and Alasdair MacIntyre, synthesizing their reflections into a powerful, unwittingly postmodern-friendly apologetic. Newbigin encourages us to tell the stories of the gospel as part of the grand sweep of the biblical drama. This is vital if an increasingly biblically illiterate generation is going to hear the gospel for the first time. We must explain that the stories of Jesus, true both historically and experientially, are the only way to understand how our individual stories make sense, and we must demand a personal decision to follow the Lord of all history.
As Newbigin explained in 1994, "The true understanding of the Bible is that it tells a story of which my life is a part, the story of God's tireless, loving, wrathful, inexhaustible patience with the human family, and of our unbelief, blindness, disobedience. To accept this story as the truth of the human story (and so of my story) commits me personally to a life of discernment and obedience in the new circumstances of each day."
As we tell the Jesus story, we draw people to him as a person worthy of allegiance rather than as a proposition to be evaluated.
The gospel as public truth
In God Is Back, Economist editors John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge cite economics as the reason Christianity has fared better in the United States than in Europe. They argue that the disestablishment of the American church opened a free market in which religious ideas flourished while their European state-backed religious counterparts disintegrated along with other politically enforced institutions. This insight offers us hope that European-style decline is not the future of global Christianity, and that the American model may hold the key to the re-evangelization of Europe.
But there is a danger in free-market spirituality. Christianity becomes just another lifestyle option. As we become more aware of the multiplicity of worldviews and religions, and as we rightly value diversity, we can grow increasingly reluctant to commend the truthfulness of the Christian message. Privatized relativism is a real danger for the church. We are tempted to vacate the public square, avoid evangelism out of fear of offending others, and retreat into ghettos. The only alternative seems to be to try to impose Christian values on the wider culture by exerting moral muscle.
Newbigin offers a third way. He challenges the post-Enlightenment separation between so-called objective facts in the public realm (taught at school and presented without the need for the preface "I believe") and the subjective values of the private world of religion and ethics. He argues that the church needs to humbly yet boldly enter the public sphere with a persuasive retelling of the Christian story—not as personal spirituality, but as public truth. He takes the logic for this public dialogue from the scientific community. A scientist does not present research findings as a personal preference, but with hope for universal agreement if the findings stand up to investigation. In the marketplace of ideas, we should likewise present the gospel not as personal preference but as truth that should gain universal acceptance. This allows us to commend the faith with the humble admission that we might not have exhaustively grasped the truth, but that we have truth that needs to be investigated and seriously engaged.
The gospel in community
I remember being in a crowded living room in Birmingham as a group of university evangelists and apologists sat at the feet of a very old man who needed a magnifying glass to read his tightly typed notes. He explained that the bottom line of his whole theological project was "the doctrine of election." That was my first encounter with Newbigin, and after immersing myself in his writings for five years, I discovered that his entire missiology revolved around that idea. God's people are elected to join in God's mission to call others to God in keeping with the Abrahamic calling, "blessed to be a blessing." There is therefore a dual purpose: God wants to reconcile people to himself, but also to reconcile people to each other. The election of individuals cannot be separated from God's election of the church: we are elected to be God's missionary people.The church is, by its very nature, missional.
This has two major implications. First, the church, not the individual, is the basic unit of evangelism. A community that lives out the truth of the gospel is the best context in which to understand its proclamation. This insight is at the heart of courses like Alpha and of the best examples of church planting and church growth.
Second, the unity of the church matters to the mission of the church. Disunity undercuts the gospel of reconciliation that we claim to bring to the world. Newbigin the evangelist's own lifelong commitment to church unity throws down the gauntlet. Whatever we need to do to help this generation to hear the gospel, we need to do together.
As Newbigin wrote, "I have been called and commissioned, through no merit of mine, to carry this message, to tell this story, to give this invitation. It is not my story or my invitation. It has no coercive intent. It is an invitation from the one who loved you and gave himself up for you. That invitation will come with winsomeness if it comes from a community in which the grace of the Redeemer is at work."
Over the past 100 years, the church has made a global impact, and God has proved faithful through every cultural shift. He can certainly be trusted for every new challenge the church faces today. Hearing Newbigin's call to present Christ publicly with courage and humility, in all his glory and with the integrity of a united church that lives his message before a watching world, should fill us with eagerness to prove God faithful in our day and over the next hundred years.
Krish Kandiah is executive director of churches in mission for the Evangelical Alliance U.K.
Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Following our Servant Lord
I did not come to be ministered unto but to minister. (Matthew 20:28)
The idea of servant leadership has become quite popular; it has been completely secularized, as Christmas and Easter are secularized. What I mean by secularized is that people use the words but deprive it of any connection to the Biblical ideas surrounding it. The concept of serving people is no longer a Christian ideal. Now even sportsmen like Tiger Woods and Manny Pacquiao, despite their marital problems are careful about their reputations in order not to diminish the quality of their service to their fans. Multimillion dollar corporations are careful so that their products provide the kind of service that would bring the highest satisfaction to their customers.
Christians and churches buy into that mentality and it colors their understanding of ministry.
Let me illustrate what I am saying. Two weeks ago I had to pass by Iloilo because I have some meetings to do there before proceeding to Boracay. Along the way it is quite instructive to see how local churches name themselves. Here is a church that defines itself as “fundamental,” another as”conservative” another as “Bible”, another as “apostolic” and of course “Roman Catholic.”
Why do churches have such titles? Who are the intended receivers of these titles? Muslims? Hindus? Atheists? These religions could hardly care whether you are fundamental or apostolic. These words are meant to measure the people in those churches against other Christians.
They are conservative because other Christians are liberal.
They are Bible because other Christians are unbiblical.
They are apostolic because other Christians are modernistic.
They are Catholic because other Christians are narrow and nationalistic.
Whether churches or individual Christians we have a tendency to look at ourselves through the lens of other churches and the implied message is, “We are better than you are.” We have more money. We have more influence. We have more power. Join us.
That reminds of two churches I saw one evening in Singapore. One had a large building capable of seating perhaps a thousand. If it has a sign I didn’t see it. But there are spotlights that highlight the design of the building. It was a building meant to convey success and wealth. Next to it was a very small chapel, I think only five meters across. I calculate maybe less than 50 can be accommodated within. But it had a large blue neon sign blazing at the top of the building. What does it say? “The True Church.” We may be small but we are true. We may be small but we have the power of God.
Indeed implied in service is strength for those who are too weak cannot serve. There is no service if we have nothing with which to serve. No capital to use for our resources. But any form of power in itself is dangerous commodity.
In the late 1980’s a born again general by the name of Efrain Rios Montt, seized power in Guatemala through a coup d’etat. Evangelical leaders in the United States rejoiced and Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell were very supportive of him and became his friends. With Rios Montt in power there was much talk about introducing reforms in Guatemala that would result not only in evangelizing the country but also in eradicating poverty.
These were false hopes. His vision of the rule of law was a military junta that subjugated the opposition, silenced freedom of the press, and created military tribunals with the power to impose the death penalty. In a short time, 600 villages in Guatemala were reduced to ashes. In 1982 alone over 10 thousand native Indians were killed and tens of thousands more were annihilated by death squads in the following months.
The regime of Rios Montt, the first born-again president of Central and South American went down in history as the most violent that the American continents have ever produced. Rather than exalting the rule of God, he diminished it. He corrupted the meaning of what it means to be born again.
There is no doubt that Jesus had power. The devil saw it. But Jesus saw what game the devil was playing and resisted it.
Since we are in quoting Scripture hope to emulate Jesus, not sportsmen or captains of industry, how do we understand what he meant by serving and not being served?
For that we have to go back to the way he understood his mission. And we find that in Luke 4 where Jesus said,
18‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
Is Jesus saying that salvation is limited to the poor alone? No. Is he even saying that the poor are to be given preferential treatment in his ministry? To some extent yes. But it goes beyond preferential option. It is looking at the world from the lenses of the world of the weak, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed.
Jesus defined his mission through the eyes of the underprivileged.
How did he do that?
First of all he identified himself with them. There is a distinctive odor to poverty. You who have served among them know that. It is the odor of the earth, of animal dung. And that is the odor with which Jesus was born into. Jesus was familiar with animals. He spoke of sheep and cattle, fish and sparrows. He was familiar with the hard life of shepherds, farmers, and fishermen. He did not shun prostitutes and publicans. He walked with them and ate with them.
But there is more to than solidarity with the oppressed rather than being a tool of oppressors. Jesus leaned towards the outcasts, the dispossessed, and the weak as the mirror whereby to understand the mission of God in the world.
The lepers, the woman with the issue of blood, the Samaritans—these were the untouchables of Jesus’ day. Jesus not only touched them but allowed them to touch him.
The woman with an issue of blood, she touched Jesus and was healed. Have you ever wondered why Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” Wasn’t that rather insensitive, to expose this woman’s uncleanness to the crowd? He could have let her have what she needed, her healing and release her. But could she go back and be restored into the life of her community? No. Why? Because how could they know she was healed? She would be healed but remain an outcast.
In exposing this woman to the crowd, Jesus was acting as the priest who pronounced healing upon the unclean so that she could return to her community not only healed but reconciled. Once again her children could touch her, and she touch them.
In the healing and restoration of the bleeding woman Jesus is saying that God is calling the outcasts to himself. Jesus presence in society is a beacon of wholeness to those who are bleeding. The bleeding woman’s healing and restoration is a sign of reconciliation between those who are out and those who are in, between those who benefit from the rewards of a corrupt society and those who are left behind, the sick and the stragglers and the lost.
If indeed the church is the body of Christ in the world, if the church is the living presence of Jesus in the world, then the church can be no less a sign of that same healing and reconciliation that happened to the bleeding woman.
Who do we want to touch us? Who do we want to surround us? That is the issue.
After our Sunday service I hurry back to our ministry center where I have a little room. It is comfortable but it is not Boracay. I have to hurry back because there are people waiting for me to open the gate of our center. These are the homeless, street dwellers of Cebu. We minister to their spirit but we also minister to their bodies. About 100 of them adults and 60 children. While crossing from Jollibee a woman approached me and crossed the street with me. She is one of them. At the gate about a dozen or them were sitting on the ground or standing. But another dozen were lying on the ground, resting. Bare ground. There is a puddle of dirty water on the street. Don’t lie on the ground, I said. Come in.
One said, don’t worry pastor, this is our life.
There was a stab of pain in my heart. How could you say we are used to this? I wanted to go back and give them a lecture on cleanliness and on the image of God. But something held me.
Why am I reacting? Because I don’t want these people with their filth and their smell to invade and foul up my antiseptic space?
And where would I rather have this people to lie down? Near a place where sex traffickers are already watching over the growing bodies of their children? Where drug pushers are already at work? Where criminal lords are recruiting children to use?
Efren Penaflorida as you probably already know was a World Vision sponsored child. Through the help of strangers he was able to finish high school, then an associate in computer technology and finally an honors degree in education. I know similar people like him who have risen up from poverty. But as soon as they find a job they forget where they come from. They surround themselves with the kind of people they would like to become, sometimes reinventing themselves with a new name and a new background.
Efren chose to go back. He chose to look at his world from the vantage point of the scavengers and street dwellers. His life is in inspiration to others who dream of becoming heroes themselves. As I look at him I feel rewarded too.
To you in the literature ministry, you too will feel rewarded…
To the extent that the Christian literature ministry continues to publish good news to the poor, deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; …
To the extent that the Christian literature ministry continues to inspire those who work among the outcasts and the bleeding of our society,
to the extent that the Christian literature ministry continues to heed the call of Jesus to deny itself, take up its cross and follows Jesus…
then to that extent you too will feel rewarded.
Message to OMFLit Staff Cebu 9 December 2009
The idea of servant leadership has become quite popular; it has been completely secularized, as Christmas and Easter are secularized. What I mean by secularized is that people use the words but deprive it of any connection to the Biblical ideas surrounding it. The concept of serving people is no longer a Christian ideal. Now even sportsmen like Tiger Woods and Manny Pacquiao, despite their marital problems are careful about their reputations in order not to diminish the quality of their service to their fans. Multimillion dollar corporations are careful so that their products provide the kind of service that would bring the highest satisfaction to their customers.
Christians and churches buy into that mentality and it colors their understanding of ministry.
Let me illustrate what I am saying. Two weeks ago I had to pass by Iloilo because I have some meetings to do there before proceeding to Boracay. Along the way it is quite instructive to see how local churches name themselves. Here is a church that defines itself as “fundamental,” another as”conservative” another as “Bible”, another as “apostolic” and of course “Roman Catholic.”
Why do churches have such titles? Who are the intended receivers of these titles? Muslims? Hindus? Atheists? These religions could hardly care whether you are fundamental or apostolic. These words are meant to measure the people in those churches against other Christians.
They are conservative because other Christians are liberal.
They are Bible because other Christians are unbiblical.
They are apostolic because other Christians are modernistic.
They are Catholic because other Christians are narrow and nationalistic.
Whether churches or individual Christians we have a tendency to look at ourselves through the lens of other churches and the implied message is, “We are better than you are.” We have more money. We have more influence. We have more power. Join us.
That reminds of two churches I saw one evening in Singapore. One had a large building capable of seating perhaps a thousand. If it has a sign I didn’t see it. But there are spotlights that highlight the design of the building. It was a building meant to convey success and wealth. Next to it was a very small chapel, I think only five meters across. I calculate maybe less than 50 can be accommodated within. But it had a large blue neon sign blazing at the top of the building. What does it say? “The True Church.” We may be small but we are true. We may be small but we have the power of God.
Indeed implied in service is strength for those who are too weak cannot serve. There is no service if we have nothing with which to serve. No capital to use for our resources. But any form of power in itself is dangerous commodity.
In the late 1980’s a born again general by the name of Efrain Rios Montt, seized power in Guatemala through a coup d’etat. Evangelical leaders in the United States rejoiced and Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell were very supportive of him and became his friends. With Rios Montt in power there was much talk about introducing reforms in Guatemala that would result not only in evangelizing the country but also in eradicating poverty.
These were false hopes. His vision of the rule of law was a military junta that subjugated the opposition, silenced freedom of the press, and created military tribunals with the power to impose the death penalty. In a short time, 600 villages in Guatemala were reduced to ashes. In 1982 alone over 10 thousand native Indians were killed and tens of thousands more were annihilated by death squads in the following months.
The regime of Rios Montt, the first born-again president of Central and South American went down in history as the most violent that the American continents have ever produced. Rather than exalting the rule of God, he diminished it. He corrupted the meaning of what it means to be born again.
There is no doubt that Jesus had power. The devil saw it. But Jesus saw what game the devil was playing and resisted it.
Since we are in quoting Scripture hope to emulate Jesus, not sportsmen or captains of industry, how do we understand what he meant by serving and not being served?
For that we have to go back to the way he understood his mission. And we find that in Luke 4 where Jesus said,
18‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
Is Jesus saying that salvation is limited to the poor alone? No. Is he even saying that the poor are to be given preferential treatment in his ministry? To some extent yes. But it goes beyond preferential option. It is looking at the world from the lenses of the world of the weak, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed.
Jesus defined his mission through the eyes of the underprivileged.
How did he do that?
First of all he identified himself with them. There is a distinctive odor to poverty. You who have served among them know that. It is the odor of the earth, of animal dung. And that is the odor with which Jesus was born into. Jesus was familiar with animals. He spoke of sheep and cattle, fish and sparrows. He was familiar with the hard life of shepherds, farmers, and fishermen. He did not shun prostitutes and publicans. He walked with them and ate with them.
But there is more to than solidarity with the oppressed rather than being a tool of oppressors. Jesus leaned towards the outcasts, the dispossessed, and the weak as the mirror whereby to understand the mission of God in the world.
The lepers, the woman with the issue of blood, the Samaritans—these were the untouchables of Jesus’ day. Jesus not only touched them but allowed them to touch him.
The woman with an issue of blood, she touched Jesus and was healed. Have you ever wondered why Jesus asked, “Who touched me?” Wasn’t that rather insensitive, to expose this woman’s uncleanness to the crowd? He could have let her have what she needed, her healing and release her. But could she go back and be restored into the life of her community? No. Why? Because how could they know she was healed? She would be healed but remain an outcast.
In exposing this woman to the crowd, Jesus was acting as the priest who pronounced healing upon the unclean so that she could return to her community not only healed but reconciled. Once again her children could touch her, and she touch them.
In the healing and restoration of the bleeding woman Jesus is saying that God is calling the outcasts to himself. Jesus presence in society is a beacon of wholeness to those who are bleeding. The bleeding woman’s healing and restoration is a sign of reconciliation between those who are out and those who are in, between those who benefit from the rewards of a corrupt society and those who are left behind, the sick and the stragglers and the lost.
If indeed the church is the body of Christ in the world, if the church is the living presence of Jesus in the world, then the church can be no less a sign of that same healing and reconciliation that happened to the bleeding woman.
Who do we want to touch us? Who do we want to surround us? That is the issue.
After our Sunday service I hurry back to our ministry center where I have a little room. It is comfortable but it is not Boracay. I have to hurry back because there are people waiting for me to open the gate of our center. These are the homeless, street dwellers of Cebu. We minister to their spirit but we also minister to their bodies. About 100 of them adults and 60 children. While crossing from Jollibee a woman approached me and crossed the street with me. She is one of them. At the gate about a dozen or them were sitting on the ground or standing. But another dozen were lying on the ground, resting. Bare ground. There is a puddle of dirty water on the street. Don’t lie on the ground, I said. Come in.
One said, don’t worry pastor, this is our life.
There was a stab of pain in my heart. How could you say we are used to this? I wanted to go back and give them a lecture on cleanliness and on the image of God. But something held me.
Why am I reacting? Because I don’t want these people with their filth and their smell to invade and foul up my antiseptic space?
And where would I rather have this people to lie down? Near a place where sex traffickers are already watching over the growing bodies of their children? Where drug pushers are already at work? Where criminal lords are recruiting children to use?
Efren Penaflorida as you probably already know was a World Vision sponsored child. Through the help of strangers he was able to finish high school, then an associate in computer technology and finally an honors degree in education. I know similar people like him who have risen up from poverty. But as soon as they find a job they forget where they come from. They surround themselves with the kind of people they would like to become, sometimes reinventing themselves with a new name and a new background.
Efren chose to go back. He chose to look at his world from the vantage point of the scavengers and street dwellers. His life is in inspiration to others who dream of becoming heroes themselves. As I look at him I feel rewarded too.
To you in the literature ministry, you too will feel rewarded…
To the extent that the Christian literature ministry continues to publish good news to the poor, deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; …
To the extent that the Christian literature ministry continues to inspire those who work among the outcasts and the bleeding of our society,
to the extent that the Christian literature ministry continues to heed the call of Jesus to deny itself, take up its cross and follows Jesus…
then to that extent you too will feel rewarded.
Message to OMFLit Staff Cebu 9 December 2009
Marking Time
As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. So he said, ‘A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, “Do business with these until I come back.” ( Luke 19:11-13 NRSV)
Some years ago I discovered Advent. I am talking about a season in the Christian year in which we celebrate hope.
It used to be that the second coming of Jesus was a hot topic in many sermons. We even have charts that showed such things as when the rapture would happen, what happens after the rapture, the tribulation, the battle of Armageddon as well as the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
Today all of these things seem quaint, as are songs such as He’s Coming Soon, and Mansion Over the Hilltop. Our songs today are all about our present experience of worship. To think of God as a very present help in time of trouble is a wonderful truth. But it is too narrow. And the result troubles me because too much of what we read and hear today is how to religion. Go to any Christian bookstore and you see that the titles that sell are practical guides on how to be a good father and husband. How to be a good mother and wife. How to succeed in your career. How to pray. How to worship. Etc etc.
Now there is nothing bad about these how to books. The only question that should bother us is what do these topics have to do with Jesus? I find that many of these books have a lot of things in common with the favorite topics used by motivational speakers such as Scott Peck, Og Mandino, and prior to them Dale Carnegie. How to Win Friends and Influence People.
What I am saying is take away the verses, take away reference to Christian churches and you find little that is distinctively Christian in many so-called Christian books. What they say could be said by an atheist or a Hindu or an Muslim.
How to religion is a religion of self-improvement; and a religion of self-improvement is a religion of self-salvation or works of the law.
The grand celebrations of the Christian church, whether it is Sunday which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, or the Lent season which celebrates the salvation brought about by the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost—all of these are celebrations of the acts or the works of God on our behalf and they put context into our practice of the Christian life.
There is a place for works in the Christian life. There is a place for improving ourselves in the Christian life. But as a result of salvation, not as an effort to save or redeem ourselves.
This is the reason why we need to put our efforts all of these how-to’s within the context of these grand celebrations of grace or our efforts will degenerate into works of the law and our attempts to win favor from God, from other people or even to improve the way we look at ourselves. That is self-salvation.
1. To sum what I have said, Advent is a way of refocusing our Christian life so that it is grounded upon what Christ has done to start our salvation and what Christ will do to complete our salvation. In other words, our works is a response to grace; and, because we do them through the power of the new life of Jesus in us, are themselves acts of grace.
2. Secondly, the Advent season helps us to find a reason for being. Why in the world are we still here? Let me illustrate what I mean.
Americans have a day they call Black Friday. Until Lonni told me what that means I thought it has to do with some massacre that happened in their history. Lonni told me it is a shopping spree when department stores outdo each other by offering huge discounts. It was more like worshipping at the temple of mammon.
Well, I have a friend in America who wrote me what he and his son did on Black Friday. “We are both typical males and got everything we thought of and then left the store. We even went on-line previously and bought items. Now women on the other hand would be at the store the whole day and then return half of the stuff the next day. The difference between the sexes!!!” To which I answered back, Long live the difference!
That’s it! You got what you want. Why stay any longer? I can imagine an American husband fuming in his car waiting while wife and daughter merrily hop from one shopping mall to another.
That’s the puzzle of salvation. The goods are safe in our hands. The logical thing is to enjoy what you haveWhat is the purpose of this time between the two comings? Waiting it out until God is done with his Black Saturday shopping? In the meanwhile, what do we do? Sit it out in church listening to sermons that bore you to death? Make sure the pastor and his family doesn’t starve? Make sure he rides a nice Pajero so he doesn’t embarrass you before other people? Be good and try your best not to lose your salvation?
No wonder we are bored.
In Jesus parable of the ten virgins all the virgins have to do is light their lamps and wait.
There is nothing so frustrating as to wait for the big thing to happen. The Cebuano language has a word that has no equivalent other Filipino languages. it is the word “tagihuwat.” It means waiting for the big break. It is waiting for that man to propose or for that girl to say yes. It is waiting for that notice from the Embassy saying that the petition for your immigration has been approved. It is teaching in a small school while waiting for the government to approve your application for ranking. But I think there is a word for it in English—marking time.
Tagihuwat is life being lived between neither here nor there. It means being frozen in a present existence that produces nothing. It is walking on a treadmill. It is life lived in the meanwhile. I am waiting for this to happen…in the meanwhile, I do this. I feel sorry for the tagihuwat. But I feel more sorry for the people who employ them. The tagihuwat’s heart is not in his present job. It is waiting. Just waiting. Marking time.
Just as pathetic are people who have high notions about serving God but never put it into practice. They talk about the mission field. But they can’t even relate to their friends. They talk about changing the world but don’t know how to change their bed.
They remind me of a story I heard. A stranger asked an old farmer how to get to the next town. The old man scratched his head and answered, “If I were you, I would not start from here.”
We’ve got to start somewhere but where do we start?
This is the point being made by another parable--the parable of the ten stewards. Most of us don’t really see this parable because we read it thinking it is the parable of the talents. But this is a different parable. There are ten stewards, not three. All are given the same amount. And then they receive this simple command, “Occupy till I come.”
The word occupy is quite interesting. It only occurs here. And the root is pragma from which we have the English word pragmatic…which means to be practical. The word Jesus used could be translated, “to put this money to good use” or “to invest this money” or “to do business with this money” until I come.
We start from the fact that in salvation the Lord has invested us with the capital of his grace. That’s the entire starting point. Now get busy! Do something about God’s grace. Be occupied until I come!
I remember how I was filled with the Holy Spirit. It took me a long time. But when the Spirit finally gushed out of my being, it was as Jesus said, living water flowing from my belly. For almost half an hour I was in ecstasy. My mentor, the man who won me to the Lord was waiting. While walking home he gently said to me, “Narciso, you’ve received a wonderful gift. Don’t use it all on yourself. This afternoon, join me. Let’s do some preaching.” That afternoon we went out street preaching. My knees were still trembling. I did not know what I was saying. But I got started.
Being occupied, being pragmatic, is the exact opposite of the tagihuwat interpretation of the present Christian life.
The tagihuwat Christian does not know what to do with his time while waiting for things to happen. But the pragmatic Christian has his work cut out for him. Capital has already been placed in his hands. How he invests that capital is up to him.
People who are not where God wants them to be have a great capacity for mischief. So if indeed there is a waiting period in your life, you want to make yourself useful,. be of help, but don’t get in the way. Inspire others; don’t be a source of discouragement.
Conclusion
Tagihuwat is certainly not in the vocabulary of Efren Penaflorida. He is a young man who put his conviction to work.
“From the muddy streets and wet markets of his Cavite City hometown to the flashy lights of Hollywood thousands of miles away. That’s how far teacher and civic worker Efren Penaflorida, 28, has gone and will go in his passion to bring education to out-of-school youths and very young children whose poverty may have limited their options to either jail or the graveyard.”
Penaflorida said, “I would rather do something than complain.” And he did something to change the situation that he saw. His made a difference. And so can everyone of us if we put muscle into our good intentions and if we put to work the capital of grace that God has invested into our lives.
Some years ago I discovered Advent. I am talking about a season in the Christian year in which we celebrate hope.
It used to be that the second coming of Jesus was a hot topic in many sermons. We even have charts that showed such things as when the rapture would happen, what happens after the rapture, the tribulation, the battle of Armageddon as well as the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
Today all of these things seem quaint, as are songs such as He’s Coming Soon, and Mansion Over the Hilltop. Our songs today are all about our present experience of worship. To think of God as a very present help in time of trouble is a wonderful truth. But it is too narrow. And the result troubles me because too much of what we read and hear today is how to religion. Go to any Christian bookstore and you see that the titles that sell are practical guides on how to be a good father and husband. How to be a good mother and wife. How to succeed in your career. How to pray. How to worship. Etc etc.
Now there is nothing bad about these how to books. The only question that should bother us is what do these topics have to do with Jesus? I find that many of these books have a lot of things in common with the favorite topics used by motivational speakers such as Scott Peck, Og Mandino, and prior to them Dale Carnegie. How to Win Friends and Influence People.
What I am saying is take away the verses, take away reference to Christian churches and you find little that is distinctively Christian in many so-called Christian books. What they say could be said by an atheist or a Hindu or an Muslim.
How to religion is a religion of self-improvement; and a religion of self-improvement is a religion of self-salvation or works of the law.
The grand celebrations of the Christian church, whether it is Sunday which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus, or the Lent season which celebrates the salvation brought about by the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost—all of these are celebrations of the acts or the works of God on our behalf and they put context into our practice of the Christian life.
There is a place for works in the Christian life. There is a place for improving ourselves in the Christian life. But as a result of salvation, not as an effort to save or redeem ourselves.
This is the reason why we need to put our efforts all of these how-to’s within the context of these grand celebrations of grace or our efforts will degenerate into works of the law and our attempts to win favor from God, from other people or even to improve the way we look at ourselves. That is self-salvation.
1. To sum what I have said, Advent is a way of refocusing our Christian life so that it is grounded upon what Christ has done to start our salvation and what Christ will do to complete our salvation. In other words, our works is a response to grace; and, because we do them through the power of the new life of Jesus in us, are themselves acts of grace.
2. Secondly, the Advent season helps us to find a reason for being. Why in the world are we still here? Let me illustrate what I mean.
Americans have a day they call Black Friday. Until Lonni told me what that means I thought it has to do with some massacre that happened in their history. Lonni told me it is a shopping spree when department stores outdo each other by offering huge discounts. It was more like worshipping at the temple of mammon.
Well, I have a friend in America who wrote me what he and his son did on Black Friday. “We are both typical males and got everything we thought of and then left the store. We even went on-line previously and bought items. Now women on the other hand would be at the store the whole day and then return half of the stuff the next day. The difference between the sexes!!!” To which I answered back, Long live the difference!
That’s it! You got what you want. Why stay any longer? I can imagine an American husband fuming in his car waiting while wife and daughter merrily hop from one shopping mall to another.
That’s the puzzle of salvation. The goods are safe in our hands. The logical thing is to enjoy what you haveWhat is the purpose of this time between the two comings? Waiting it out until God is done with his Black Saturday shopping? In the meanwhile, what do we do? Sit it out in church listening to sermons that bore you to death? Make sure the pastor and his family doesn’t starve? Make sure he rides a nice Pajero so he doesn’t embarrass you before other people? Be good and try your best not to lose your salvation?
No wonder we are bored.
In Jesus parable of the ten virgins all the virgins have to do is light their lamps and wait.
There is nothing so frustrating as to wait for the big thing to happen. The Cebuano language has a word that has no equivalent other Filipino languages. it is the word “tagihuwat.” It means waiting for the big break. It is waiting for that man to propose or for that girl to say yes. It is waiting for that notice from the Embassy saying that the petition for your immigration has been approved. It is teaching in a small school while waiting for the government to approve your application for ranking. But I think there is a word for it in English—marking time.
Tagihuwat is life being lived between neither here nor there. It means being frozen in a present existence that produces nothing. It is walking on a treadmill. It is life lived in the meanwhile. I am waiting for this to happen…in the meanwhile, I do this. I feel sorry for the tagihuwat. But I feel more sorry for the people who employ them. The tagihuwat’s heart is not in his present job. It is waiting. Just waiting. Marking time.
Just as pathetic are people who have high notions about serving God but never put it into practice. They talk about the mission field. But they can’t even relate to their friends. They talk about changing the world but don’t know how to change their bed.
They remind me of a story I heard. A stranger asked an old farmer how to get to the next town. The old man scratched his head and answered, “If I were you, I would not start from here.”
We’ve got to start somewhere but where do we start?
This is the point being made by another parable--the parable of the ten stewards. Most of us don’t really see this parable because we read it thinking it is the parable of the talents. But this is a different parable. There are ten stewards, not three. All are given the same amount. And then they receive this simple command, “Occupy till I come.”
The word occupy is quite interesting. It only occurs here. And the root is pragma from which we have the English word pragmatic…which means to be practical. The word Jesus used could be translated, “to put this money to good use” or “to invest this money” or “to do business with this money” until I come.
We start from the fact that in salvation the Lord has invested us with the capital of his grace. That’s the entire starting point. Now get busy! Do something about God’s grace. Be occupied until I come!
I remember how I was filled with the Holy Spirit. It took me a long time. But when the Spirit finally gushed out of my being, it was as Jesus said, living water flowing from my belly. For almost half an hour I was in ecstasy. My mentor, the man who won me to the Lord was waiting. While walking home he gently said to me, “Narciso, you’ve received a wonderful gift. Don’t use it all on yourself. This afternoon, join me. Let’s do some preaching.” That afternoon we went out street preaching. My knees were still trembling. I did not know what I was saying. But I got started.
Being occupied, being pragmatic, is the exact opposite of the tagihuwat interpretation of the present Christian life.
The tagihuwat Christian does not know what to do with his time while waiting for things to happen. But the pragmatic Christian has his work cut out for him. Capital has already been placed in his hands. How he invests that capital is up to him.
People who are not where God wants them to be have a great capacity for mischief. So if indeed there is a waiting period in your life, you want to make yourself useful,. be of help, but don’t get in the way. Inspire others; don’t be a source of discouragement.
Conclusion
Tagihuwat is certainly not in the vocabulary of Efren Penaflorida. He is a young man who put his conviction to work.
“From the muddy streets and wet markets of his Cavite City hometown to the flashy lights of Hollywood thousands of miles away. That’s how far teacher and civic worker Efren Penaflorida, 28, has gone and will go in his passion to bring education to out-of-school youths and very young children whose poverty may have limited their options to either jail or the graveyard.”
Penaflorida said, “I would rather do something than complain.” And he did something to change the situation that he saw. His made a difference. And so can everyone of us if we put muscle into our good intentions and if we put to work the capital of grace that God has invested into our lives.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Numbering Our Days
Psalm 90:`12Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. NIV
So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. NRSV
I don’t know about you but I was confused about the thing we are observing today.
When I was growing up all I know is kalag-kalag or pista minatay, and that’s supposed to be on the 2nd of November, but that it’s bisperas or the mass is performed on the eve of kalagkalag.
Later, I don’t know who, perhaps it was our catechism teacher or our own teacher in public school, said, “No you got it wrong, we are not celebrating the dead, but honoring all the saints.” Todos los santos. A feast to honor all the saints, and that is today the 1st day of November.
So now comes the Americans and their magazines and newspapers and TV shows talking about Halloween and that it falls on the 31st of October. So now which is which—30 or 1 or 2?
For most Filipinos this practical question is simple, when do we visit the graves of our loved ones? I think most are agreed that it is on the evening of November the 1st, whatever you call it.
So let’s go to why we are celebrating on these three days, for it is clear somehow they are all associated with death, dead martyrs, dead saints, dead Christians. The simplistic answer is to lump all of these as pagan, like Christmas is pagan, and Easter is pagan. This is the kind of mistake made by people who think they know more about the Bible than their neighbors. It is one thing to know the Bible, it is another thing to read the Bible with some understanding about the longings of the human heart.
This day is about patching up the missing gaps, the empty spaces of our lives, spaces that could have been filled with stories. But when loved ones die, they take away their stories with them. So those stories will have to be filled up by those who are left behind. We, all, human beings need to find those connections. Without them we are like lonely flotsam and jetsam tossed to and fro by the ocean waves.
This is the reason behind all of this confusion, this failure to understand the longing for connectivity in our lives.
1. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church tried to put Christian meaning into pagan practices. So Todos los Santos was originally Fiesta para los Martires, a festival to honor the martyrs of the Church. But that would leave out Saint Mary, for she did not suffer a martyr’s death, and all others who lived saintly lives but did not die violently. So a festival was made in commemoration of them, and it took the place of the pagan festival for the dead. So it became a Fiesta para Todos los Santos, “A Feast for all the Saints.”
2. But instead of honoring the saints what did the Christians do? They went to the graves of their loved ones anyway. Instead of honoring Sta Felicita and Sta Barbara and San Bernardino, and San Martrin de Porres, they went to the graves of nanay and tatay and undo, and inday, lolo and lola.
So the church again thought all of this was sheer paganism. To solve it they said, “Hala, if you cannot be prevented from your celebrating dead loved ones, go ahead, but pray for their souls in purgatory. “ So that’s why we have All Soul’s Day. The idea is to make this a day for intercession for the dead who were not good enough for sainthood, whose souls languished in purgatory.
It was a good move for it made money. Not any one can just pray for the release of a soul from purgatory. You need to have a priest. And you know that priestly intercession is not free. Well for those with money it was fine. But it seems to me as far as the general public was concerned, they would rather give their money to the rice trader, cook some puto and suman, and sikwate and eat it at the grave, and that was enough.
3. And what about Halloween? That came from two words, hallow is the same is holy, or saintly, which is for all saints day. But the mass for all the saints is said the evening before, and evening is often shortened into even and even into een. So we got Halloween. And it became just a thoroughly pagan celebration involving witches and ghouls and masks, etc.
It has been said, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We only succeed into creating a monstrosity. People who are so afraid of paganism, who don’t celebrate Christmas and Easter, and even Sunday, don’t understand that not everything pagan is evil. We have to distinguish between what is human and what is demonic.
To be homesick is human. To long for departed loved ones is human. To visit their graves is human. My grandmother, mother, brother and aunt—they were all buried in the ground. Eventually the cemetery their remains decayed and other bodies were put in their place. But my father was placed in a niche. A year ago I visited it, alone, a week after All Saints Day. Something in me wanted to speak to him and I did. Then I reached out my hand in a parting farewell, to trace his name in the headstone. It reminds of a poem quoted during the funeral of Princess Diana.
Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love,
time is eternity.
Henry Van Dyke
I was scanning old family photos to be posted into an online family photo album. As I looked at the photos of my mother and father, my brother and sister, my aunt a powerful wave of longing came over me. If only I could let them see this city, go with me to Boracay.
There are huge gaps in my father and mother’s life that I know nothing about. I would like to know how this illiterate boy learned to speak very good Spanish. Who taught him to cook, for he was exceptionally good in making fine Spanish sausage, ham, smoked fish, etc. Who taught him fine cabinet making, making intricate inlay work on jewelry boxes, etc.
Then in Boracay a former student showed up. He told me he is now working with a microlending corporation and financing small businesses. Then he gave me the name of his boss, “Not the Chinese but the original owners of this family name. “ I know that family I said. For my father worked with them. Making boats, fishing, speed boats, yachts. Wood boats, steel boats, and fiberglass. Then I told him about the shop where my father worked. The hum of machinery, the squeal of wood being sliced, the flash of welding steel to steel, the smell of steel being ground smooth, the vat where they were cooking ham, the boatyard, the ice plant, the piggery.
And most wonderful of all, the frame of a small canvas skinned airplane hanging from the trusses of the shop. An engine eventually was fitted to the frame and my father was its first passenger in the test flight. I knew told him many more little bits of information that only someone who family well would know.
The following day I received a text message from my student. What is your father’s nickname? After giving the nickname of my father, a text answer came back, “My boss wishes to meet you.” I couldn’t believe it. I look forward to my meeting with this man for it will fill up the gaps in the story of my own life.
We belong to a web of humanity. We have to find the connections, otherwise we are like spiders lost from their web. We are like jetsam and flotsam bobbing In the vast ocean alone. For the same reason we create Facebooks, celebrate birthdays, hold family and class reunions, so we celebrate today. For the same reason the Bible gave us genealogies, so we celebrate today. Connections. For God did not make us as individuals but as a family that started with Adam and Eve.
There is one more reason why we celebrate this day.
Today people all over the Philippines are flocking to the cemeteries. The memorial parks and the cemeteries will be bright and there will be music and dancing.
Yesterday American children carved pumpkins and put candles inside them. The Frankenstein masks are sold even here in the Philippines. But only for today. Today we can make fun of death. Because tomorrow, next week when the tombs are desolate, we don’t want to visit again.
We are cowards and we know it. Death haunts us. Terrorizes us. Walking in a dark place. Riding an airplane. A narrow mountain road. A trip to an island when the sea is rough. News of another typhoon. Waiting for the result of our annual physical examination. A headache, a rise in blood pressure. We panic.
Kalagkalag is really a coping mechanism. We make fun of that which we fear. We are cowards and Satan knows it and takes advantage of our fear and binds us with that fear. I can almost see death grinning and saying, “Salig mo ron kay daghan mo. Suwayi balik sunod semana, ikaw ra, wa kay kauban.”
If you want to take way the dread, the horror of death, there is a better way. Find someone who died and came back to tell the story.
The Jesus of glory now says, “I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades” (Rev 1:18).
The Christian hope is not based upon the promise of immortality. It is based upon a fact of history. Jesus too faced the terror of death, pleading to his Father, “Let this cup pass from me.” He suffered, he died and was buried. He followed humankind’s destiny which is the grave. But on the 3rd day he defied that destiny. Jesus rose again triumphantly.
It is in the triumph of Christ that Paul could exult, “O death, where is thy sting? Oh death where is thy victory?”
So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. NRSV
I don’t know about you but I was confused about the thing we are observing today.
When I was growing up all I know is kalag-kalag or pista minatay, and that’s supposed to be on the 2nd of November, but that it’s bisperas or the mass is performed on the eve of kalagkalag.
Later, I don’t know who, perhaps it was our catechism teacher or our own teacher in public school, said, “No you got it wrong, we are not celebrating the dead, but honoring all the saints.” Todos los santos. A feast to honor all the saints, and that is today the 1st day of November.
So now comes the Americans and their magazines and newspapers and TV shows talking about Halloween and that it falls on the 31st of October. So now which is which—30 or 1 or 2?
For most Filipinos this practical question is simple, when do we visit the graves of our loved ones? I think most are agreed that it is on the evening of November the 1st, whatever you call it.
So let’s go to why we are celebrating on these three days, for it is clear somehow they are all associated with death, dead martyrs, dead saints, dead Christians. The simplistic answer is to lump all of these as pagan, like Christmas is pagan, and Easter is pagan. This is the kind of mistake made by people who think they know more about the Bible than their neighbors. It is one thing to know the Bible, it is another thing to read the Bible with some understanding about the longings of the human heart.
This day is about patching up the missing gaps, the empty spaces of our lives, spaces that could have been filled with stories. But when loved ones die, they take away their stories with them. So those stories will have to be filled up by those who are left behind. We, all, human beings need to find those connections. Without them we are like lonely flotsam and jetsam tossed to and fro by the ocean waves.
This is the reason behind all of this confusion, this failure to understand the longing for connectivity in our lives.
1. In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church tried to put Christian meaning into pagan practices. So Todos los Santos was originally Fiesta para los Martires, a festival to honor the martyrs of the Church. But that would leave out Saint Mary, for she did not suffer a martyr’s death, and all others who lived saintly lives but did not die violently. So a festival was made in commemoration of them, and it took the place of the pagan festival for the dead. So it became a Fiesta para Todos los Santos, “A Feast for all the Saints.”
2. But instead of honoring the saints what did the Christians do? They went to the graves of their loved ones anyway. Instead of honoring Sta Felicita and Sta Barbara and San Bernardino, and San Martrin de Porres, they went to the graves of nanay and tatay and undo, and inday, lolo and lola.
So the church again thought all of this was sheer paganism. To solve it they said, “Hala, if you cannot be prevented from your celebrating dead loved ones, go ahead, but pray for their souls in purgatory. “ So that’s why we have All Soul’s Day. The idea is to make this a day for intercession for the dead who were not good enough for sainthood, whose souls languished in purgatory.
It was a good move for it made money. Not any one can just pray for the release of a soul from purgatory. You need to have a priest. And you know that priestly intercession is not free. Well for those with money it was fine. But it seems to me as far as the general public was concerned, they would rather give their money to the rice trader, cook some puto and suman, and sikwate and eat it at the grave, and that was enough.
3. And what about Halloween? That came from two words, hallow is the same is holy, or saintly, which is for all saints day. But the mass for all the saints is said the evening before, and evening is often shortened into even and even into een. So we got Halloween. And it became just a thoroughly pagan celebration involving witches and ghouls and masks, etc.
It has been said, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We only succeed into creating a monstrosity. People who are so afraid of paganism, who don’t celebrate Christmas and Easter, and even Sunday, don’t understand that not everything pagan is evil. We have to distinguish between what is human and what is demonic.
To be homesick is human. To long for departed loved ones is human. To visit their graves is human. My grandmother, mother, brother and aunt—they were all buried in the ground. Eventually the cemetery their remains decayed and other bodies were put in their place. But my father was placed in a niche. A year ago I visited it, alone, a week after All Saints Day. Something in me wanted to speak to him and I did. Then I reached out my hand in a parting farewell, to trace his name in the headstone. It reminds of a poem quoted during the funeral of Princess Diana.
Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love,
time is eternity.
Henry Van Dyke
I was scanning old family photos to be posted into an online family photo album. As I looked at the photos of my mother and father, my brother and sister, my aunt a powerful wave of longing came over me. If only I could let them see this city, go with me to Boracay.
There are huge gaps in my father and mother’s life that I know nothing about. I would like to know how this illiterate boy learned to speak very good Spanish. Who taught him to cook, for he was exceptionally good in making fine Spanish sausage, ham, smoked fish, etc. Who taught him fine cabinet making, making intricate inlay work on jewelry boxes, etc.
Then in Boracay a former student showed up. He told me he is now working with a microlending corporation and financing small businesses. Then he gave me the name of his boss, “Not the Chinese but the original owners of this family name. “ I know that family I said. For my father worked with them. Making boats, fishing, speed boats, yachts. Wood boats, steel boats, and fiberglass. Then I told him about the shop where my father worked. The hum of machinery, the squeal of wood being sliced, the flash of welding steel to steel, the smell of steel being ground smooth, the vat where they were cooking ham, the boatyard, the ice plant, the piggery.
And most wonderful of all, the frame of a small canvas skinned airplane hanging from the trusses of the shop. An engine eventually was fitted to the frame and my father was its first passenger in the test flight. I knew told him many more little bits of information that only someone who family well would know.
The following day I received a text message from my student. What is your father’s nickname? After giving the nickname of my father, a text answer came back, “My boss wishes to meet you.” I couldn’t believe it. I look forward to my meeting with this man for it will fill up the gaps in the story of my own life.
We belong to a web of humanity. We have to find the connections, otherwise we are like spiders lost from their web. We are like jetsam and flotsam bobbing In the vast ocean alone. For the same reason we create Facebooks, celebrate birthdays, hold family and class reunions, so we celebrate today. For the same reason the Bible gave us genealogies, so we celebrate today. Connections. For God did not make us as individuals but as a family that started with Adam and Eve.
There is one more reason why we celebrate this day.
Today people all over the Philippines are flocking to the cemeteries. The memorial parks and the cemeteries will be bright and there will be music and dancing.
Yesterday American children carved pumpkins and put candles inside them. The Frankenstein masks are sold even here in the Philippines. But only for today. Today we can make fun of death. Because tomorrow, next week when the tombs are desolate, we don’t want to visit again.
We are cowards and we know it. Death haunts us. Terrorizes us. Walking in a dark place. Riding an airplane. A narrow mountain road. A trip to an island when the sea is rough. News of another typhoon. Waiting for the result of our annual physical examination. A headache, a rise in blood pressure. We panic.
Kalagkalag is really a coping mechanism. We make fun of that which we fear. We are cowards and Satan knows it and takes advantage of our fear and binds us with that fear. I can almost see death grinning and saying, “Salig mo ron kay daghan mo. Suwayi balik sunod semana, ikaw ra, wa kay kauban.”
If you want to take way the dread, the horror of death, there is a better way. Find someone who died and came back to tell the story.
The Jesus of glory now says, “I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades” (Rev 1:18).
The Christian hope is not based upon the promise of immortality. It is based upon a fact of history. Jesus too faced the terror of death, pleading to his Father, “Let this cup pass from me.” He suffered, he died and was buried. He followed humankind’s destiny which is the grave. But on the 3rd day he defied that destiny. Jesus rose again triumphantly.
It is in the triumph of Christ that Paul could exult, “O death, where is thy sting? Oh death where is thy victory?”
Monday, September 14, 2009
Our Work: Our Calling
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. 2Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. (Genesis 1:31-Genesis 2:1, 2)
Last Sunday I talked about bringing order out of chaos and that the first step in that process is making distinctions. Light and darkness, night and day, earth and sky, man and woman, Creator and Created. Today let’s talk about one more distinction made in this passage of Genesis, the distinction between work and rest. In this passage both are good, both are important.
But there was a time in the history of Christianity that one was exalted above the other. In fact I grew up in a culture where the good life, or success, whatever you may call it, is defined by the absence of work. The ideal life is to be able to command others to do the work. It is an exalted position to sit on a rocking chair and speak with a condescending voice to the servant, “O Inday, and tsinelas ko. Inday, isang basong tubig. Inday ilagay mo to sa pridyeder.”
In fact I have observed in Boracay that even the poorest visitor gets a perverse pleasure in being able to throw things at the street. There is an expectation that somebody gets paid to pick up litter that one throws away. For a few days in the island, every visitor is a master. Others have to do the dirty work.
During the time of Rizal the priestly vocation was considered higher than the vocation of the ordinary workingman. The command of the priest was considered the command of God. But Rizal in his letter to the women of Malolos criticized this attitude. He said,
Napagkilala din ninyo na ang utos ñg Dios ay iba sa utos ñg Parí, na ang kabanalan ay hindi ang matagal na luhod, mahabang dasal, malalaking kuentas, libaguing kalmin, kundí ang mabuting asal, malinis na loob at matuid na isip.
You know that the commandment of God is not the same as the commandment of the priest, that religion is not a matter of how long you kneel or how much you pray. It is not a matter of how large is your scapular or your religious medal. Rather it is a matter of proper conduct, clean conscience and a righteous mind.
Rizal was struggling with a belief system that considers prayer more important than work. It was believed that work was a curse and burden to be avoided if it exceeded what was enough for a modest life. The life of a priest and a nun was most suited for that kind of ethic or belief-system.
With Martin Luther there began a new understanding of Christianity.
1. It was a Christianity that understood that every believer is a priest unto God. But how does this priesthood offer its sacrifices to God? Not only in times of worship and prayer. But where everything we do is worship and prayer.
In Romans 12:1, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
The body and all it does becomes an instrument for worship, whether it is done in church, or at home or in the workplace. These are various expressions of worship.
Work for the Christian, is not a curse but a blessing. It is the means by which we glorify God. Speaking to slaves who cannot receive earthly reward for their labor Paul said,
Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ (Colossians 3:22-24).
Our work then is a means of glorifying God. Idleness does not glorify God. In his letter to the Thessalonians he discouraged Christians from making themselves a burden to other believers.
Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labour we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right. Take note of those who do not obey what we say in this letter; have nothing to do with them, so that they may be ashamed. Do not regard them as enemies, but warn them as believers. 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15
2. There is another thing that we owe to the Reformers. It is a different attitude towards time and money. The Reformers believed that the idle person who spends one day sitting at home spends more than what he spent for his needs that day. He has also spent the money he should be receiving from his wages.
Furthermore, if he was a businessman he lost the opportunity for his money to beget more money. If you murder a hen you also murder all her chicks for a thousand generation. If you murder a thousand pesos, you lose the potential of those thousand pesos to yield more money.
More than greed is involved here. Excess wealth in the pursuit of honest labor is distinguishab le from avarice. To the Reformers economic gain is a sign of God’s grace.
The Roman Catholic who goes to the priest and seeks to be absolved of his sins finds assurance in the words of absolution. But the Biblical believer who knows from the promises of the Bible such as John 1:12, and the inward witness of the Holy Spirit that he is a child of God (Romans 8:16), finds external assurance elsewhere. One of those external signs is the material blessing of God upon our lives.
Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Reformers to the life of the ordinary believer is their belief in calling. Most of you are in awe whenever pastors talk about their calling. But there is a calling in which all of us can participate. It is the calling to live our lives in the world, and to be used by God so that our lives can bless others. John Wesley said, “Earn as much as you can. Save as much as you can. Invest as much as you can. Give as much as you can.” This summarizes the Protestant work ethic.
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 1 Cor 10:31.
In a sense, therefore there is no ordinary believer. All are priests unto God. All share in the calling of giving glory to God through his or her vocation. The priest performs it at the altar, the minister at the pulpit. The farmer’s altar and pulpit is his rice field; the carpenter and mason, the house they are building, the clerk, his or her desk. For others it is the call center, the factory, the store.
As heirs of the Reformation, we have every reason to take pride in the work of our hands. Paul did so. He said, “I coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothing. You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions. In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ “ (Acts 20:33-36).
We have as much responsibility, then, not only to share the Gospel with our neighbors, but also to share our blessing with the needy. But we can only share what we possess. That is why it is not enough for a Christian to say,”Makakaon lag makabisti ok na.” If can feed ourselves; if we can clothe ourselves, it is enough. It is enough if we live in a world where everyone has equal opportunity to feed themselves and to clothe themselves. But we live in a very unequal world. Some are too ill, some are too weak, some are too discouraged. It is the height of selfishness for us to say that.
• If you are a laborer then pray that the Lord will give you a job that will provide more for you and your family.
• If you are an employee then seek to be promoted.
• If you are a businessman, then pray that the Lord will bless your business so you can hire more people, and be a blessing to the church and its mission. You have a calling to prosper so you can be a blessing.
In 2003 Sonia and I arrived to assume our responsibilities at Faith Village. We did not like what we saw. The place was unkempt, garbage was everywhere. There were only two workers who spent most of the day sitting down and watching over the property.
Today Faith Retreat looks neat and trim. We don’t have the money to landscape but we make us of what we have to create beauty and a restful atmosphere. But the grass is always mown and our calachuchi trees provide color in the summer peak season.
Furthermore we employ nine workers now. And out of our proceeds we send fifty elementary school Ati children and provide scholarship to two college young people. We pay the wages of two preschool teachers. We provide training for the teachers.
With the help of Mission of Mercy and Alan’s church we educate and feed a hundred Ati children every day five days a week.
No, never consider work as a burden. It is a privilege given by God. It is a calling.
Last Sunday I talked about bringing order out of chaos and that the first step in that process is making distinctions. Light and darkness, night and day, earth and sky, man and woman, Creator and Created. Today let’s talk about one more distinction made in this passage of Genesis, the distinction between work and rest. In this passage both are good, both are important.
But there was a time in the history of Christianity that one was exalted above the other. In fact I grew up in a culture where the good life, or success, whatever you may call it, is defined by the absence of work. The ideal life is to be able to command others to do the work. It is an exalted position to sit on a rocking chair and speak with a condescending voice to the servant, “O Inday, and tsinelas ko. Inday, isang basong tubig. Inday ilagay mo to sa pridyeder.”
In fact I have observed in Boracay that even the poorest visitor gets a perverse pleasure in being able to throw things at the street. There is an expectation that somebody gets paid to pick up litter that one throws away. For a few days in the island, every visitor is a master. Others have to do the dirty work.
During the time of Rizal the priestly vocation was considered higher than the vocation of the ordinary workingman. The command of the priest was considered the command of God. But Rizal in his letter to the women of Malolos criticized this attitude. He said,
Napagkilala din ninyo na ang utos ñg Dios ay iba sa utos ñg Parí, na ang kabanalan ay hindi ang matagal na luhod, mahabang dasal, malalaking kuentas, libaguing kalmin, kundí ang mabuting asal, malinis na loob at matuid na isip.
You know that the commandment of God is not the same as the commandment of the priest, that religion is not a matter of how long you kneel or how much you pray. It is not a matter of how large is your scapular or your religious medal. Rather it is a matter of proper conduct, clean conscience and a righteous mind.
Rizal was struggling with a belief system that considers prayer more important than work. It was believed that work was a curse and burden to be avoided if it exceeded what was enough for a modest life. The life of a priest and a nun was most suited for that kind of ethic or belief-system.
With Martin Luther there began a new understanding of Christianity.
1. It was a Christianity that understood that every believer is a priest unto God. But how does this priesthood offer its sacrifices to God? Not only in times of worship and prayer. But where everything we do is worship and prayer.
In Romans 12:1, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
The body and all it does becomes an instrument for worship, whether it is done in church, or at home or in the workplace. These are various expressions of worship.
Work for the Christian, is not a curse but a blessing. It is the means by which we glorify God. Speaking to slaves who cannot receive earthly reward for their labor Paul said,
Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters, since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ (Colossians 3:22-24).
Our work then is a means of glorifying God. Idleness does not glorify God. In his letter to the Thessalonians he discouraged Christians from making themselves a burden to other believers.
Now we command you, beloved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us; we were not idle when we were with you, and we did not eat anyone’s bread without paying for it; but with toil and labour we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you. This was not because we do not have that right, but in order to give you an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right. Take note of those who do not obey what we say in this letter; have nothing to do with them, so that they may be ashamed. Do not regard them as enemies, but warn them as believers. 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15
2. There is another thing that we owe to the Reformers. It is a different attitude towards time and money. The Reformers believed that the idle person who spends one day sitting at home spends more than what he spent for his needs that day. He has also spent the money he should be receiving from his wages.
Furthermore, if he was a businessman he lost the opportunity for his money to beget more money. If you murder a hen you also murder all her chicks for a thousand generation. If you murder a thousand pesos, you lose the potential of those thousand pesos to yield more money.
More than greed is involved here. Excess wealth in the pursuit of honest labor is distinguishab le from avarice. To the Reformers economic gain is a sign of God’s grace.
The Roman Catholic who goes to the priest and seeks to be absolved of his sins finds assurance in the words of absolution. But the Biblical believer who knows from the promises of the Bible such as John 1:12, and the inward witness of the Holy Spirit that he is a child of God (Romans 8:16), finds external assurance elsewhere. One of those external signs is the material blessing of God upon our lives.
Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Reformers to the life of the ordinary believer is their belief in calling. Most of you are in awe whenever pastors talk about their calling. But there is a calling in which all of us can participate. It is the calling to live our lives in the world, and to be used by God so that our lives can bless others. John Wesley said, “Earn as much as you can. Save as much as you can. Invest as much as you can. Give as much as you can.” This summarizes the Protestant work ethic.
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 1 Cor 10:31.
In a sense, therefore there is no ordinary believer. All are priests unto God. All share in the calling of giving glory to God through his or her vocation. The priest performs it at the altar, the minister at the pulpit. The farmer’s altar and pulpit is his rice field; the carpenter and mason, the house they are building, the clerk, his or her desk. For others it is the call center, the factory, the store.
As heirs of the Reformation, we have every reason to take pride in the work of our hands. Paul did so. He said, “I coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothing. You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions. In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ “ (Acts 20:33-36).
We have as much responsibility, then, not only to share the Gospel with our neighbors, but also to share our blessing with the needy. But we can only share what we possess. That is why it is not enough for a Christian to say,”Makakaon lag makabisti ok na.” If can feed ourselves; if we can clothe ourselves, it is enough. It is enough if we live in a world where everyone has equal opportunity to feed themselves and to clothe themselves. But we live in a very unequal world. Some are too ill, some are too weak, some are too discouraged. It is the height of selfishness for us to say that.
• If you are a laborer then pray that the Lord will give you a job that will provide more for you and your family.
• If you are an employee then seek to be promoted.
• If you are a businessman, then pray that the Lord will bless your business so you can hire more people, and be a blessing to the church and its mission. You have a calling to prosper so you can be a blessing.
In 2003 Sonia and I arrived to assume our responsibilities at Faith Village. We did not like what we saw. The place was unkempt, garbage was everywhere. There were only two workers who spent most of the day sitting down and watching over the property.
Today Faith Retreat looks neat and trim. We don’t have the money to landscape but we make us of what we have to create beauty and a restful atmosphere. But the grass is always mown and our calachuchi trees provide color in the summer peak season.
Furthermore we employ nine workers now. And out of our proceeds we send fifty elementary school Ati children and provide scholarship to two college young people. We pay the wages of two preschool teachers. We provide training for the teachers.
With the help of Mission of Mercy and Alan’s church we educate and feed a hundred Ati children every day five days a week.
No, never consider work as a burden. It is a privilege given by God. It is a calling.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Reordering the Chaos of Our Lives
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, 2the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. Genesis 1:1-3
Growing up after the war we were so poor because my father was too ill to work. I often fantasized about money. I had this recurring dream. I would either be going up or down the bamboo ladder to our house. My foot slips and I would fall. My fall breaks the ground and lo and behold before my eyes is a box full of money. The dream was so vivid I would wake up panting with excitement.
As I was growing into adolescence and learned how to swim, me and the other boys would think of how to use our skill to bring fortune. We would fantasize about a rich woman crossing the bridge. Something happens. The woman falls screaming into the river. Then we would rescue her and naturally she would be grateful and offer to marry her rescuer. Then the rest of us would have to find other rich women to rescue.
Most of us fantasize about getting more money. If the Lord granted you a wish, how would you like him to bless you? Would you rather have it the way of my dream? You don’t have to do anything about it, it shows up like magic. Or would you rather find a rich man or woman to marry?
Do you remember the Disney cartoon of the Sleeping Beauty? Well, she had three fairy godmothers, each with a wand and they could make things appear and disappear. When Sleeping Beauty’s wedding gown was being made, the godmothers could not agree on the color. So with the zip or a wand, the gown turns into blue; another zap of the wand, it turns pink. And so on and so forth.
God can bless us by magic. He did that when the disciples needed money to pay tax. Jesus sent them to the sea to catch fish. And one fish had a coin in its mouth, enough for the poll tax. Not much, this is no goose that lays the golden egg story.
But the miracle of Genesis is not so much creating things out of nothing as much as bringing order out of chaos. To the Hebrews living on the hills of Palestine, the sea was sinister, wild and turbulent. But the Spirit of God brooded over the waters and things began to take shape.
Chaos is confusion, clutter, a mess. Junk.
How do you create order out of chaos? First of all you have to take some boxes and label them, putting some things here and other things there. It may require throwing unnecessary things away. In other words you make distinctions.
And this is just what God did. Open your Bibles to Genesis 1. What did God separate?
• Light from darkness
• Earth from sky
• Land from sea
• Man from animals
• Woman from man
Although it is not explicitly mentioned, there is one more distinction to be made. God is not part of creation. He is distinct from the things he created. He is holy. For that is what holiness means, to be distinct, to be set apart. We are not to confuse God with nature. We are not to confuse God with ourselves. This is what sets apart Bible religion from the religion of Greece and Rome. For their Gods were mere mortals with supernatural powers. They lie, cheat, commit adultery just like ordinary mortals do. God asked, “To whom will you compare me?”
Salvation then is the beginning of the work of creating order out of our confused lives. Let me use my own life as an example of this process of making distinctions.
Before I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ, God wasn’t a part of my life. I see religious people and sometimes I wished I could be like them. But I wasn’t really aware of God. I think of religion as kind of belonging to a club where you have certain rules to follow, certain uniforms to wear at certain times. But God wasn’t a part of my understanding of religion.
1. Then I was introduced to Jesus and things began to change in the ordering, first of all of my awareness of reality. I became aware of the presence of God. Have you experienced working and then without looking back became aware that someone is standing behind you? Somebody has intruded into your space.
I became aware of his place in the affairs of my life. It’s like you’ve been living alone in your dormitory room and then a stranger knocked asking if he could share your room. Remember I’ve known about this person before but he has no part in my life. Now he is sharing my room.
I was used to running my life the way I wanted to, now here’s this person who was getting in the way. Things got complicated. I find that word in FB profiles.
Relationships? Some answer, “Complicated.” Jesus does complicate our life.
He got in the way of my social life, for example. Would I introduce him to my friends? Would I rather not? Could I take him to this place where I hang out with other friends? Would I rather that he kept his own company while I kept mine?
So I began reordering my life with Christ around. I began doing what I have never done before, praying. My mother taught me some prayers. But knowing prayers and praying are two different things. Prayer is awareness of the Other Person before you. Prayers are like reading a book. The characters don’t leap out of the book and talk to you. Prayers are risk free. You do the talking; you do not consider the possibility of interruption, like, “What do you mean?” or “Why did you say that?” When you pray you are aware that the Other Person has something to say about what you are saying.
So praying is an interruption of my privacy. The more I talk the more I am allowing interruptions. But without talk Jesus remains a stranger and that’s difficult to have a stranger rooming with you. That creates a very awkward situation.
2. As soon as I began to see that there is a distinct Person who had become part of my life, I also came to realize that I had to make a distinction with regards to time. Prior to Jesus it was all my time. With his coming, he invites me to his time. Prayer is basically very much my call. I choose the time and the place. But not Sunday. It is his time and he chooses the place not me.
Until I met Jesus Christ Sunday had no significance for me. Other than the fact that I don’t go to school that day and that my father is at home and not working on Sunday, it was still part of my time. When I met Jesus, it became his day. The English language retained the old pagan name which is Sunday or the day of the Sun. But you can’t escape the meaning in Spanish. It is Domingo, which means the Lord’s or the day of the Lord. It is there I meet his people.
3. Now I have to make another adjustment. For, to be frank, some of his people I don’t like at all. I still think that some of my own people were better behaved than this bunch. There was this young man for example who just got in my nerves. He went to the same school as I but he was too loud. He was drawing too much attention to himself and his religion. He would call me in school and shout, “Brother Dionson!” Weird.
But I discover one thing. The difference between his people and my people is that I can easily drop people I don’t like in my circle. But I cannot drop people from his circle. I have a choice to do. I can drop out entirely. But that means losing the people there that I learned to like. I found out that the discipline of staying put with these people is helping me in many ways. I see myself much better because his people provide kind of a mirror through which I see myself. This is not always true in my circle where people just tell me what I like to hear.
Furthermore, I found out that being in fellowship with his people, my circle of friends actually expanded with people I could trust.
4. As I got to know Jesus better I find out there is a gradual but definite reordering of my outlook. I was born in poverty. Early on, I developed a defeatist attitude towards life. This was what scared me as I was graduating in high school. It was not so much that I lacked interest in pursuing a career. It was rather that I wasn’t sure what to do with a career. Finding Jesus in my life was like having an experienced mentor who told me, “Don’t be afraid, I’ll help you.”
It was that assurance that gave me the courage to take up the Christian ministry as my career. In fact it was a relief when I finally decided after months of agonizing prayer what to do with my life. Being in Bible school was a pivotal experience for me. More than the things I learned, the lifelong friendships I developed, and the awesome experiences with the Holy Spirit, what Bible instilled in me was the development of habits that eventually would prove to bless me in ways I never imagined. These habits Sonia and I carried into the raising of our family.
• We woke up before sun-up to read the Bible and pray.
• We ate our meals together.
• We worked from 8 to 5.
• We studied between 7:30 and 9 in the evening.
• We went to bed at between 9:30 and ten at night. We knew nothing of night life.
• We went to church together every Sunday. It was a holy day for us.
• We gave ten percent of our income to the Lord.
• We saved money. Bonuses. Extra income. Gifts.
• We entertained people at home.
There was a time when our squatter congregation was still quite small. I was working at home, pounding my typewriter writing a manuscript for sale to a publisher. An old Japanese gentleman opened the gate and introduced himself as Reverend Sato. Without saying anything he started unzipping his trousers. I was shocked. Is this Japanese going out of his mind? Then he pulled a cloth bag, opened it and gave me a hundred dollars. He said the Lord had told him to find me and give the gift to me.
I have a few experiences like that. But I could see that most of the time, the blessing came like Paul said it in Acts 20:33, “I coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothing. You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions. In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
The blessing came as I gave. I started my first congregation in Cebu among squatter people. I had to find work to rent a house where we met. I gave a tenth of my income to the District because I was an ordained minister of the AoG. It was like a seed. Our congregation grew. And the time came when I did not have to work. Not only that as the congregation increased in number and as our income grew, they took care of me and my family in a very generous manner.
In my last visit in Boracay I spent a few nights at Beth Shalom our own property in Boracay. We built a school there. It’s small now but it will grow. I sat down at the carpet of grass so carefully tended by Nanay Teling. And I was just overwhelmed by God’s goodness. Through the years the miracles that the Lord brought in our lives were the miracle of being connected with the right kind of people, of being at the right place at the right time. As though an unseen hand was guiding our decisions and even our failures and shortcomings became part of a tapestry of light and shadow that God was creating out of our lives.
Too much clutter in your life? Too many complications? Has somebody knocked at your door, saying, “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice, open the door and let me in. Let me help you with that junk. Let’s put order into your life.”
I can tell you this, you’ll never be sorry you let him in.
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