Roger Bothwell

One very pleasant evening I walked down a street in Honduras and passed house after house watching American television plucked from satellites.  A few years later I sat in Moscow, Russia and watched the Today show while I was having breakfast.  It does not matter where you go American culture blankets the world.  American commercials with images and sounds designed to infiltrate the pockets of American youth are being absorbed by African, Asian and Moslem youth.  Any thoughtful non-American adult knows it is only a matter of time, a generation or so, before the traditions and values of their heritage and belief structure will be replaced by the commercialism and materialism of the American market place.  We need not wonder why conservative parents and grandparents of the world look upon us with disgust and fear.  The values they hold dear are being overwhelmed.
 
If we saw our heritage being taken apart commercial by commercial and program by program we too would rise up in arms to destroy the “Great Satan.”       
 
It is important to present truth and let the power of its veracity proclaim its worth.  However, once in a while it is important to recognize and speak of the greatest enemy of what we hold dear.  It is not foreign but internal.  We are not immune. We cannot entertain ourselves with morally decadent dialogues and listen to people infer we will be better people if we use their product and then expect ourselves to grow into good people.  What we watch. What we feed upon we become. 
 
Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
 

I received a pamphlet today from the Audubon Society telling me how to attract birds to my yard.  Numbers one through three are to provide food, water and shelter.   This isn’t much different from evangelism.  We want to draw people to to our churches and to do so we have to provide those three things.  Number one is to be sure to offer a satisfying diet of spiritual food.  This seems so obvious but often that is not the case.  Sometimes people come to hear about Jesus but instead they hear negative things said about their childhood faith.  They are put off by a message of exclusiveness and leave not hearing much at all about Jesus.  Jesus told us He is the Bread of Life. John 6:35.  If we are to be successful He must be the entrée. 
 
Number two – Jesus told us He is the Water of Life.  John 4:14.  And number three – Jesus said He is with us unto the end of the world.  Matthew 28:20.  He is the shelter in a time of storm.  People are fearful and need the assurance of being safe.
 
Jesus is the key to real evangelism.  People, like birds, will come if their hunger and thirst are satisfied and if they are assured of eternal safety.  Real Christianity abundantly supplies all our needs unlike counterfeit Christianity that lures people in only to then tell them all the things they now need to begin doing to be saved. Counterfeit Christianity makes people anxious and fearful that they are failing to perform perfectly enough to satisfy God. See Galatians 5.  But Jesus said, “Come unto me and I will give you rest.”  Matthew 11:28.   When we clearly see Jesus we see what God is really like.  To know Him is to love Him because He provides all three necessities.

The art of preaching is the art of motivation. One can move a crowd with fear, another can do it with pride, another can motivate with love.  If you have attended church much in your life you will have heard all three.  Perhaps some of the best motivators are footfall coaches during halftime or corner men between rounds getting their man back into the ring.  Two of the best motivation speeches ever have to be found in the film Brave Heart and in Shakespeare’s Henry V.   In both situations men are about to go onto a killing field.  Henry V says to his men, “This story shall the good man teach his son . . . We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother. . . . And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”
 
In I Peter 1:12 we read that angels longed to understand the secrets of the Gospel that have been shared with us.  For eternity we, the redeemed, shall be princes and princesses of the Most High and beings from the far stretches of the universe will know that we, sinful as we were, weak as we were, were the apple of God’s eye.  We few, we happy few, recipients of the blood of the King of the Universe will forever be special.  Angels will not hold their positions cheap but they will know that we were blessed to be from earth.  Only we will be privileged to sing the song of Moses and the Lamb.   Revelation 15:3.

There is a bank in our city advertising on a billboard with huge letters beside the face of a pretty lady, “Banking should be about a relationship not about transactions.”  REALLY!  So it doesn’t matter if they make mistakes on my monthly statement, it only matters if they are nice to me.  I don’t go to the bank to have pizza with the tellers.  I want to cash a check.  And I want all the money written on that check.
 
What fascinates me about this is the billboard is hundred percent correct if we change one word.  “Christianity should be about a relationship not about transactions.” So often we get this reversed.  People are fearful they will go to bed without having asked for forgiveness.  They fear there must be a sinful debit on their account.  Asking for forgiveness is a nightly transaction.
 
Jesus wanted so much to have us understand God is our Father.  He told us to begin our prayers with “Our Father”.  In Galatians 4 and in Romans 8 Paul assures us we can be adopted into the heavenly family and not only call God Father but we are allowed to use the familiar name Abba which simply means Daddy.  This is all about relationships.  I am not saying we don’t need to ask for forgiveness.  But that is not a transaction.  It is a good daughter or son saying, “Dad I’m sorry I disappointed you.”  This is not complicated.  What is truly fascinating is real Christianity is the only religion in the world that is this simple.  So why was it when I got a degree in Systematic Theology at the seminary it seemed so difficult? 

Shakespeare said it so well.  “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.  They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. . .”  We are moms and dads, students and teachers.  The list for each of us is almost infinite.  We at times are sinners and at times saints.  In my years as a pastor I have seen people do the meanest of things and a week later be generous and kind.  It’s no wonder Jesus told us not to judge others.  If we did, the judgments we pass down would surely be wrong.  They would be tainted with our biases and loads of prejudices.  Please don’t object and say you are not prejudiced.  You are.  I am. The challenge is to admit it and then compensate with all the fairness we can muster.
 
If we live long enough we get to be grandparents and I have friends who have advanced to yet the next level.  Human developmentalists tell us that somewhere after 50 the wonderful quality of wisdom has an opportunity to bloom.  However, we can’t count on it.  Many older people never exhibit any signs of it.  Foolishness knows no limits.
 
Proverbs 1 is a great primer on wisdom.  Verse 7 tells us where wisdom begins.  “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.”  Unfortunately there are those with lots of university degrees who are saturated with information, but it doesn’t make them wise.  Wisdom is what we do with all that information.  All the world is a stage and how grand it is to exit when one is filled with wisdom and love and gratitude for the privilege of life.

So I know this guy who I think is a bit strange.  Actually all of us are strange to someone.  But I mean really strange.  His wife is newly pregnant and he is throwing up in the mornings.  I’m watching him to see if he begins bloating.  He claims it’s happening because he loves his wife so dearly he feels her pain.  I think he’s stumbled upon something better than bringing home flowers.  This is free and his wife is loving it.  (Why didn’t I think of this?)
 
Lest I sound too cynical I do have to admit there is a parallel in Scripture.  Isaiah 53 very clearly states, “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
 
However, this really isn’t the same.  My friend’s pains, while real in his head, are symptomatic.  Jesus’ pains for us were more than in His head.  Those nails, those beatings, that crown of thorns, the thirst, that triangle of wood trust up between His legs were all actual.  In addition, there was the pain in His head of feeling His Father’s withdrawal so He could be alone as He died for our sins.  He had to pay the price for our sins and the price for sin is not death with the Father’s comforting presence.   And so it was that He cried out, “My God, my God.  Why hast thou forsaken me?”
 
It wasn’t just Jesus who suffered for us.  The Father was suffering as much or perhaps even more because He could not comfort Jesus without spoiling the plan of redemption.

The human mind is an amazing organ that can instantaneously render a decision using a host of different ideas.  It is done with computer-like speed when there is no time to reflect on the fruit of the options available.  Many years ago while I was collecting homework, one of my brighter students didn’t have anything for me.  Before I pondered the fruit of a remark, I made a smartish comment about his bleary eyes and what it appeared he had done instead of studying.  Instantly he responded with a disrespectful reply.  Tit for tat!  Just then I bit my tongue from responding in kind.  I had a good one, but in that instant my brain went into hyper drive.
 
“What was I here for?  Was it to be a teacher – an example?  Or was I here to show off to the other students how witty and cool I was?  What if this kid was sharper than I?  What if he had another retort ready that was better than mine?  Was I prepared to go low with yet another?  Where was this headed?  What did I want for this student?  Did I want him to succeed in life?  What would the other students (who were now all ears) think if I lost the exchange?  What would they think if I won?”
 
It was then that I thought of Romans 12:10.  Paul wrote, “Honor one another above yourself.”  Or as paraphrased in The Message, “Practice playing second fiddle.” All of this occurred in a millisecond and I said, “I’m sorry.”  He stopped as if someone hit him in the stomach.  The next class he brought the homework assignment and to this day, many years later, he is my friend.  I learned it as a child. Psalm 119:11, “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.”  It worked. 

It’s the ides of May and New England is dressed with blossoms.  Walking about is a feast for the soul.  Robert Frost, our New England poet from California, must have had the same feelings as I when he wrote in his poem called, A Prayer in Spring. “Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; and give us not to think so far away as the uncertain harvest; keep us here all simply in the springing of the year.” 
 
How often are we so full of memories or looking forward to something we miss out on now.  When we are thinking of some coming trip somewhere exotic, we forget to look about at our local beauty others travel far to see.  Often we dig deep for causes in some far off land when someone in our neighborhood needs our help.   Now and here is usually a pretty nice place chronologically and geographically.
 
Our hummingbirds are back for the summer and in A Prayer in Spring Frost wrote, “The meteor that thrust in with needle bill, and off a blossom in mid air stands still.”  Hummingbirds are so amazing people would travel around the world to see one if they were not so common.  Ah the problem of common.  We think little of the miracles we see every day.  God loves us so much and like a good father He fills our lives with miraculous events.  It is no wonder Paul wrote in Romans 1, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” We don’t have to travel afar.  We can see it outside our windows.

Decades ago when we were teaching in Africa someone stole the tires and wheels off our car.  It cost over a month’s salary to replace them. Needless to say I was more than a bit miffed at God who promised me in Malachi 3,   “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you.'” I kept my part of the bargain.  Where was His’?    I found out just one day later.   We received a letter from our church’s world headquarters in Maryland.  It said, “We discovered we have for the past year been underpaying you.  Please find enclosed a check for the balance.”  It was EXACTLY the amount needed for the new tires and wheels.  Actually the tires needed to be replaced.  I had a lot of crow-eating to do with God.  I figure He was quite amused at my anger considering He knew “the check was in the mail.”
 
Ever since then I have had a special place in my heart for Isaiah 65:24, “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.” 

I was reminded of this story this week because we just purchased something online as a present for one of our granddaughters who is graduating in two weeks.  It arrived on our doorstep before we got the email saying it had been sent! 

Don’t you just love being part of God’s family?  Our Father is the best.

My wife put in an unusually long day working away from home.  Arriving home from an eleven hour day she asked, “Are you upset with me for being gone so long?”  Uh Oh.  If I said, “No,” I risked communicating that I was fine with her absence.  Not a good thing!  If I said, “Yes,” I would have been asserting my residual chauvinistic bias inherited from cavemen.  I would have been interfering with her autonomy as a woman of the twenty-first century.  There was no way I was going to win this one.  Where was Solomon when I needed him?
 
Negotiating one’s way through life is fraught with relational pitfalls. Harmony is often maintained by compromise and artful responses.  I had nothing.  Instantly I thought of James 1:5. “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”  So in a millisecond I asked.  We don’t have to explain the details of our dilemmas to God when we pray.  He’s been watching.  He already knows.  “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.”  Isaiah 65:24.  It is refreshing to know we are not alone when catastrophe looms.  In the last verse of Matthew 24 Jesus promised, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
 
Without pause the following flowed from my lips. “The dog and I really missed you.  We miss you no matter how long you are gone.”  Phew.  Armageddon was diverted.  However, I do wonder. Was that a smug look on her face as she went upstairs?