So many different religions

It was a wonderful ten day trip to Egypt. The protesters in the streets stayed in their place and we went to our places and never crossed paths.  The great plus was that we were among a very small handful of people touring. We got to see and go to all of the sites without fighting any crowds. The guides, the stores, the sites were delighted to see us. There were no crowds at the Pyramids. No mob at Karnak or Luxor. The Valley of the Kings was empty of living people.  The down side was that all the vendors were desperate for sales and we had to fight off the constant appeals for "deals."

But the ten day tour did present a rapid history lesson and a major lesson in religions. The Temples were built for the Egyptians Gods and Goddesses.  But even among them there was the attempt to change gods under one of the Pharaohs. Then the invasion of the Hykoss came and brought a new religion. The Egyptians threw them out and returned to their gods. Then came the Greeks and while they had their own gods and goddess, Alexander the Great knew that political stability was best if you did not mess with people's religions so he tried to "act like an Egyptian."  The Romans came next with their set of gods and goddesses. The Christians came along about that time and they were welcomed in Egypt by the Egyptians but persecuted by the Romans until Rome became Christian.

The revolving religious story continued with the invasion of Islam. The Temple buildings kept being converted from one use to another. Temple, Church, Mosque, Temple, and on and on. Like so many other places the evidence for the other religion was "removed" by the present or current religion.

It has to make you realize that you have to understand the tentative nature of faith. There is no way to be absolutely sure that your faith is the "correct" one.  On the other hand, it does speak to our deep need and our deep conviction that there is a Holy Dimension to life that is concerned and involved with human history.  There is a need to worship in the human heart. There is a passionate hope for a life that extends beyond this life. There is a common element of death and resurrection.  There is, in many of the stories, a interaction of the gods with humans to achieve a special messenger and a different level of being.  There is an absolute agreement that heaven is much too large, and time is much to long for us to ever find the gods if they did not want to be found. There is  a common convictions that the gods have come to us and revealed themselves to us.

Today God loves me. I mean, what else can you say. My team won last night. The player I was cheering for won the tournament, my stocks have gone up last week, I had three good meals, last night was a good night’s rest. My children have not called me with any problems. My wife got to her destination with no car problems.  It is all good. God must love me.

Last week, God was not my friend.  Last week, the elections did not go as I had hoped. My doctor did not make it all better with one shot. The bills for my insurance came due. No one volunteered to help us at our office. The sermon I gave seemed pretty bland to me and to the people who heard it. It was not a good week. God did not love me that week.

Sometimes I think that that is how many of us evaluate our relationship with the Holy. It is a very, very old standard by which lots of people have used to evaluate their relationship with God. If things are going very well, and we are prospering then we must be doing good, and God is blessing us. If things are going poorly and we are struggling, then we must be doing something wrong, and God is punishing us.  It is a measuring stick that is even used in the Old Testament. If the king was faithful, then God blessed him and the king prospered. If the king was unfaithful, then God did not bless and the king suffered defeat and opposition.

It is the criteria that was debated directly in the book of Job. It was the philosophy that the disciples asked Jesus about when the man born blind came to Jesus. Who sinned to make this man blind? His parents or He? 

But what fascinates me most about us is how rapidly we change our opinion about what God thinks about us depending on the one event or one week.  We can go from thinking that God loves us to God has it in for us in a couple of hours. We can go from thinking that we are blessed to the conviction that God ignores us in one moment.  Maybe we could at least try to get a broader picture and consider the whole events of a year or two years.  

We might want to try to steady ourselves in the basic affirmation that indeed God loves the world and all who are in it and so God loves us all the time regardless of what happens to us. That God loves us and is working for the good of all creation in the events of the created order.  

But if that is a stretch for us then certainly we can remind ourselves as the Sinatra song says, “Life keeps turning in cycles, first there is laughter then tears. So I think I’ll stay round and see what tomorrow brings.“  And the whole story has not been told. One cannot evaluate the book until you get to the end.  We cannot make the final decision until the final event has happened. There is always the possibility of something happening that will change our verdict. 

It is a journey, an adventure, and without ups, downs, mysteries, challenges, surprises and joys it would not be nearly as much fun.

Nothing But Hope Will Do

My goodness, it sure looks like a losing streak to me:  Rainy day. My Sport teams are losing. The Republicans have just killed a great bill to require equal pay for women.  The recall of Scott Walker failed. The stock market is down. Fracking looks like it will be permitted. The state Democratic Party cannot get beyond its alleged sexual assault problems.  My home made bread just turned into a baked lump of hard dough (yeast was too old). and My shoulder surgery is not healing as quickly as I want it to.

With so many things going against my wants and wishes, it is a good time to remind myself that the opposition to my desires may suggest the presence of another's will and purpose at work in the world.  The list certainly reminds me that I am not God and that I cannot make things come out the way I want them.  The opposition to my will raises the possibility of another's will at work in the world moving us in another direction.

Into such sad and disappointing times, it is good to have the conviction that the other will at work in the world may not be just other people, but that there is a purpose and a providence that means creation good. That there is at work in History another Mind, another Heart that cares for creation and is at work to bring creation and all of us into fulfillment of our intended purposes. It is that faith in the presence of God at work in the world that gives me hope that even though "my side" is not winning now,  the side I want to win(which I would like to think is "my side" but which I know may not be), the God side, may be having a lot better luck.

The Biblical Immigration Policy

As has been pointed out so often, the people who are claiming the mantle of Christianity have a lot of trouble because they give no evidence of having read the Bible.  The Old Testament and the New Testament have a very generous immigration policy. Those on the right who want to capture the title of Christians have a very mean immigration policy.

The Old Testament has a lot of advice for the Children of Israel concerning the foreigners in your midst. The bottom line is that the Children of Israel need to be very kind, open and generous to the stranger, the foreigner in you midst because the Children of Israel should remember how they were treated as foreigners in Egypt.  Later the Kings of Israel are urged to be welcoming and gracious to the foreigners who come so that those visitors can see what wonders God has done for his people.

The New Testament in the letters just talk solves it all by saying that in Christ everybody is the same. We are all children of God so that we should love each other.

The Immigration problem in the United States needs to be addressed. Here are the pieces that need to be considered: a. We need a policy by which people can come and go freely. Worker's permit or visitors so that they cross at check points and not sneaking in. b. We need to give Hispanics who live here a chance to confess that they have violated the law(this is not amnesty), pay a fine (whatever amount seems appropriate) and give them a procedure by which they can become citizens or legal residents. We can not send them all back. Businesses need the workers.  A solution needs to be found, but the Biblical witness is that we should be a lot more gracious to the foreigner in our midst than many who have the name of Christian are sounding.

The Holy Spirit moves forward

If I hear one thing in all of our discussions about our country and our political debate, it is very clearly the question of whether we need to go back or go forward.  The complaint is that we have lost our way. We have deserted the founding principles. We have forsaken the values and virtues of the past. We have to go back. We have to turn this country around. We have to restore this country to its pinnacle of prestige. We have to become again the world's greatest nation.  These comments seem to dominate a lot of what I hear from the pages and screens of the media.

On the other hand, there is the side that suggests that we are a changing world, a different country, a more diverse people, and we need to move forward. We need to accept new ways and do new things.  We have to find new ways to live in a world where more than one country has nuclear weapons. We can no longer dictate to the world. We have to be prepared to adventure into the future and be ready to change as the future comes.

In my faith, that is one of the most important aspects of the power and grace of God. God is always moving his people forward. The Call to Abraham to go into a new land. "Behold I do a new thing" says the prophet. "Fear not," is always the greeting.  "I go before you..."  The Holy Spirit will come and lead you into all truth.   The direction of the grace and mercy of God in the Bible as I read it is always going forward, always preparing to invite us to have faith in God and "move out."