Enchanted Noel

We began our Advent series last Sunday, Enchanted Noel. Here's what it's about.

God has a story. We are a part of it. Maybe a small part. This story begins, of course, with creation and then the Garden of Eden. This place, the Garden in Eden, was a remarkable place. It was very good. It was a place of abundance, beauty, a place where God walked around. People lived there without sin. And without clothes, because there was no shame. It was heaven on earth. Heaven and earth overlapped there in the Garden. God wanted his special creatures, the ones made in his image, to expand this goodness and abundance around the rest of the earth. But before they could even get started, our first parents fell to temptation. They reached out to take the knowledge of good and bad, rather than seeking wisdom from God. And they were kicked out of the Garden.

No wonder humanity longs for connection with the supernatural.

Ever since then, God has been working his plan to bring heaven to earth. This is what Advent is all about. God himself came to this world to bring the kingdom of God here: “on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s presence brings a different quality to creation. He infuses it with his beauty and power.

This season our series of messages is “Enchanted Noel.” When I speak of enchantment in this context, I’m not talking about magic and spells or superpowers. I’m talking about qualities of this world that go far beyond the material. We step into this world beyond the material when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper: the Body of Christ, the Blood of Christ. There is more to these elements than bread and juice. There is a supernatural reality that we are all part of. I want to call our attention to this spiritual realm. This season begs us to look beyond molecules and photons to meaning and love.

On the one hand, let’s recognize that the dominant Western world view today is “science.” If you deny science, you are stupid, backward, and superstitious. The material world is the “real world.” This is a real bias of modern thought. Anything beyond the material is soft, squishy, and suspect.

It helps us to realize that this perspective is unique in human history. Most people for most of history have had a great deal of respect for the supernatural world. Sometimes that respect has led people astray, but not always.

But this material worldview cannot speak to some of life’s most important elements: meaning and love.

This is why we need Christmas. Even before Christ, there were winter festivals, feasts of celebration as days grew shorter and darker. Today in the West, we scientific people set that material perspective aside and we seek wonder and surprise and the intangible. We call it “Christmas spirit.”

We can look more closely at this world. Even this material world is full of mystery. We look farther and farther into space, and we find more and more mystery. We look deeper and deeper into the properties of matter, and we find mystery there too.

While we tend to focus on science, let's note that on the other hand, God communicates through story. The Bible is not a fact manual. Everything in the Bible has to be understood in the context of story. We speak of the Christmas story, not the Christmas timeline or formula or policy. God communicates through story because story leans on relationship. And God wants relationship. He wants relationship with you.

So he puts you in a story, in this enchanted world. It’s a story of love and redemption. It’s a world in which heaven works to overlap with earth. The more we tune into heaven, the more heaven comes to earth. “On earth as it is in heaven.”

God’s greatest work of bringing heaven to earth begins with the Christmas story.

Enchanted Noel

•     December 1 - Longing: The Prophets
•     December 8 - Watching: Simeon and Anna in the Temple
•     December 15 - Believing: The Magi
•     December 22 - Receiving: Mary and Joseph

Helene's New World

Friday morning I was delighted to see the sun come out. The fringes of Helene had blown through here with bands of windy showers. It was so good that the storm was past. Friday afternoon I was checking on livestock and erosion at the Garrett Family Farm. There were a few limbs down, and the ground was saturated. About what I expected. As I harvested some watermelons and tomatoes, it started to sprinkle again. No big deal. Then my phone alarm went off: Tornado Warning! The sprinkles got harder. I wasn't sure what to do as I climbed in my truck. My 4-wheel drive easily took me around some fields up toward the highway. But the radio repeated the civil alert announcement. A tornado warning was issued for Western Rockingham County. Doppler radar showed possible tornadic activity in Ellisboro, Madison, Mayodan, Wentworth, Intelligence. In other words, I was in the bullseye. If I left the farm, I would be going toward one of those communities. 

Fortunately the alert told me what to do. "If you are in a vehicle, seek shelter in the most substantial structure available to avoid flying debris." So I pulled the truck around to my hay barn. I sat by the bales, under the shelter, singing and praying aloud. I waited out the warning while the rain rattled the tin roof. As quickly as it came, the storm moved on. I would find out later that a small tornado touched down in Stoneville, where I had been only an hour before. In 20 minutes the storm dumped 0.8" of rain on my garden. I was so glad when the storm was over.

But the storm is not over. The rain has mostly stopped, but the waters in western NC still fill many streets and still overflow river banks. As they do recede, they are revealing a new world. Towns have been washed away. Homes slid down hills. Houses that remain are filled with mud. Livestock were swept away, many dying downstream. Roads are flooded, washed away, covered with rocks and mud. A day-long enemy air strike could not have done such destruction.

So here we are. Faced with the world left by Helene. Only now are we discovering the destruction. Today, Monday morning, the death toll is nearing 100. Some people are missing and authorities don't even know they are missing. Many communities are utterly cut off from the outside world: no phones, no internet, no roads. So no one knows how bad it is yet.

It's time for some good news. Convoys of power trucks and ambulances are making their way to the disaster. Crews from far-flung states are coming here to help. Neighbors are serving meals, grilling meat from their freezers. The NC National Guard--with other Guard assets from Connecticut, Maryland, Ohio, Iowa, Florida, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania--has been rescuing people and pets. They have moved more than 34,000 pounds of cargo to help victims with food, water, and medical supplies. And they are just getting started.

In these desperate times, our people are pulling together. Neighbors are loving each other. It is such a long road to recovery. Those of us who can help, we need to step up. You will have the opportunity to give, to go cut down trees, to rake out mud, to serve meals, to wash clothes.

I know that Samaritan's Purse, NC Baptists on Mission and many other organizations have already begun operations. 

Western North Carolina will never be the same. Some of my favorite places have been washed away. But we can ask God to redeem this destruction. And we can step in to bring the redemption. We can rebuild roads and structures. And right now we can build relationships through loving, compassionate, sacrificial giving.

Finding Treasures and Leaving Them There

Our family goes to the beach, every year. Lisa and I began our annual beach trips before our kids were born, and, with few exceptions, we have gone every year. Lisa and I like to walk on the beach, and we can't help but look for seashells along the way. It seems like there are always some beautiful shells just hiding in the sand. We squat down and sort through the crunched up remnants of shellfish homes. We almost always find treasures in the chips. 

The treasures, of course, are whole seashells. We find them tiny and large, lots of different colors. And we (almost) always bring them home. We have more seashells than we know what to do with. Lisa uses them brilliantly for home decorating. But we can't possibly use all our shells.

Seashells are meant to be picked up and enjoyed. Why just leave them in the surf?

I notice that a lot of Christians use the Bible that way. They find inspirational verses and pull them out, to put on bumper stickers and stationery. It's like these verses are scattered through boring, irrelevant Bible words, and we just need to dig through to find them. And when we find them, we take them home. We remove them from the author's flow of thought, and we use them for our own purposes. Maybe even decorating our homes.

We consider the context irrelevant. It doesn't matter where we find these treasures. We like what they say to us. Never mind what they meant thousands of years ago.

Maybe we should see Bible verses not as shells to be picked up, but as jewels in a crown. Yes, you could remove the stones from a crown, but part of their beauty is their setting. The gold prongs, and leaves, the depth and relief--all of this brings beauty to the jewels. Without the crown, they are just rocks, beautiful rocks, shiny rocks. But their meaning is diminished.

What if we found treasures in the Bible and left them where we found them? We should look at them often. But when we see them in context, we can really behold their beauty. We have to meditate on the scripture to find its depth. There is always more depth.

We can ask: 

• Who wrote this?
• Who received this?
• What kind of literature is this? A letter? Poetry? History?
• What point is the author making?
• What other Bible passages do we need to keep in mind?

When you find your treasures in the Bible, leave them there and let their beauty radiate.

Waiting for rain

My garden is thirsty. It's been two or three weeks since we've had measurable rain in these parts. The ground is becoming hard, and the lawns are turning brown.

What do you do when you need rain? You irrigate as much as you can. But then you wait. It's all you can do. It's heart breaking to watch crops wither in the field. But still we have to wait. Of course we pray for rain. We have to trust God to bring what we need when we need it. Sometimes that takes a lot of faith, to believe that God has it all under control and that we can truly trust him. But then, what choice do we have?

Today I heard thunder at my house and thunder at my farm. Clouds were all around, but I never saw a drop. It's still cloudy, but I hear no thunder now.

Sometimes when life is dry, we find rainless thunder. A glimmer of hope for relief that turns out to be empty. All we can do is wait and believe that God will provide what we need.

Years ago I talked with a farmer in Georgia during an extended drought. I asked him when he thought it would finally rain again. With a wry smile he said, "I don't know, but it's one day closer than it was yesterday."

Somebody's got to say it

Governments often do bad things. They set things up to benefit the powerful and leads to oppression of the masses. They fail to bring justice and allows people on the margin to suffer. Often government rewards corruption. Someone needs to speak up. 

This is nothing new. Governments have always had such problems. Even good, honorable people can be corrupted when given power. History is full of these stories. The Bible tells plenty of stories of corrupt leaders and unfair economic systems. And the Bible includes voices who call out these abuses.

These voices are the prophets. They are the loyal critics who name names and point out hypocrisy and injustice. Sometimes the prophets' complaints get tiresome. Sometimes they give hope to the oppressed. Most often the prophets are ignored by the people in power. On rare occasions, the powerful hear and respond.

As you read the historical accounts in the Bible, you will find so much corruption in the kings and priests. Keep reading and you will find the prophets who call out the sins and urge the leaders to repent.

We need more voices calling out evil and corruption here today. And I expect every bit of repentance that we found the biblical stories.

Taking Notice

I've been reading my pocket New Testament a lot lately. The page layout is different, but the version is the same one I have used for years. Somehow the stories now feel so fresh to me. I'm noticing new details. I find story threads and repeated phrases. I see the context of Jesus's conversations. I feel like I'm more dialed-in to the author's train of thought.

There is so much depth to the story of the Bible. The more I learn the more I see. The more I understand, the more I experience the depth of God's love. And that helps me live out the Kingdom of God.

I need to notice the words on the page and the heart of the scripture's author. I also need to notice the world around me. God can also speak to me through people who are helping and people who are hurting. He can speak through the frustrations and the successes. Of course he can reveal himself through the vast outdoors. 

There is so much richness in the pages and the world. I just need to take notice.

Tax Day, Free Markets, and Housing Crisis

I have always been an advocate for free markets. Tax Day seems like an appropriate time for some reflections. 

Entrepreneurs should be rewarded for their risk and innovation. Those with property should be allowed to sell it, develop it, or hoard it. The free market seems like the only fair way to allocate resources. And employers and employees can negotiate appropriate wages without the interference of government. If wages are too low, a worker can find another employer who will pay a fair wage. The market is impartial and favors no one. 

Capitalism has served the Western world well, creating wealth like the world has never seen,  bringing new ways of meeting many of life's challenges. This system also allows investors to invest in innovation by purchasing stock. Enterprises can move at greater speed and greater scale thanks to the capital created with shared ownership.

But what happens when the free market goes wrong? Some would say that only interference in the free market causes problems. 

Today we see a growing problem in the housing market. Real estate prices have skyrocketed, while interest rates have moved to the highest levels in decades. That looks like the free market at work. But this free market now has a new kind of player. Investment firms with deep pockets are buying houses at high prices and high volumes. That is, these groups are buying up as much real estate as they can get their hands on. They are holding on to these properties and turning them into rentals. As demand for housing keeps rising, rental rates rise as well. Fewer homes are owned by individuals, giving these investment groups a lot of leverage in the housing market, allowing them to charge more and more rent. Those who don't own property are left with few choices. They have to pay high rent rates just to have a home.

This is the free market at work. The system works great for those with resources, but takes advantage of the poor. 

We are called by Jesus to love our neighbors. We need to find a loving way to help people have a place to live. Seems like the least we could do as a society.