Hope you don't mind some poetry here now and then...

What Spark 

what spark is not
a holy shot of
risk obsessed by
village embers bent
on brighter missions

what spark will not
defy the stupid dark
to win a streak or
stoke a few more
irons in fire

what spark would not
rise to occasion
give its life
for light, no greater
love than this

what spark despises
shame or steers
from fears when
burning out is
death's undoing

these sparks know
how to love
they know the sleep
dark waives when coals
are heaped up high.

Have you fasted and prayed lately?

The Muslim month of fasting comes to a close today (Monday) with a feast and great celebration, called Eid al Fitr.

Muslims are taught to fast during the month of Ramadan from sunup to sundown, as a matter of Islamic Law, as an exercise of self-control, enhanced awareness of Allah, and a time of heightened piety.

The Bible has many references to fasting as an act of spiritual discipline, stripping off distractions and focusing one's attention away from the needs of the body and toward the needs of the spirit. A few examples:

Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the LORD, and he proclaimed a fast for all Judah. (2 Chronicles 20:3)

I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions. (Ezra 8:21)

Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD. (Joel 1:14)

The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. (Jonah 3:5)

"Even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity." (Joel 2:12-13)

The gospels record an incident when people noticed that Jesus' disciples were not fasting during a customary time, and they asked Jesus why. Jesus' reply, somewhat in the form of a riddle, was that the guests of the bridegroom do not fast while the bridegroom is still with them. "But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast." (Luke 5:35)

Fasting is not joyous, it is a sombre activity. In the Old Testament it often goes along with mourning, and putting on sackcloth and ashes as a sign of repentance, grief, sorrow, sincerity.

When was the last time you wore sackcloth and ashes as a form of prayer and repentance? Ashes are rather easy to come by, but Levis and Gap have yet to come out with fashionable sackcloth, and Sears has not had even plain vanilla sackcloth on the shelf for years now.

Fasting is an act of sincerity, a means of emphasizing to God our desperation, a way of saying, "God, I really want your attention, look how much I want your spirit to connect with mine, I'm even depriving my human flesh of the food it needs, because in the long run this matters less than my relationship with you. Meet me. Talk to me. Hear me. I'm hungry for you."

Fasting, after an initial sense of hunger passes, actually has a way of bringing the body and mind into a state of higher attentiveness.

Prayer should always accompany fasting. Jesus didn't teach fasting just for the sake of peity. He went far beyond that, teaching that "if anyone will come after me, they will deny themself, take up their cross daily, and follow me." (And that anyone who does not, is not worthy of him.)

Following Jesus does involve self-denial, yes (and fasting is one way to exercise this), but it also involves replacing the attention on self with something else -- sacrificial Jesus-following, obedience, and service of others.

Jesus fasted in the desert before he was tempted. It prepared him to deal with that temptation.

Jesus taught the disciples that some miracles could not be performed without special fasting and prayer - a special act of concentrating God's power on earth -- one  that was even exercised by the incarnate Son of God! Jesus seems to be teaching that some of God's power does not materialize on earth without these twin activities of fasting and prayer.

It's interesting to me that the Christian church does not have a sacrament of fasting like we do with communion or baptism.

We like our church potlucks, and the food and fellowship at such gatherings is wonderful, but I've never heard of a church-wide un-pot-luck day of fasting.

(One fine exception is the World Vision 30 Hour Famine, an enlightening exercise of fasting and learning and solidarity with the world's poor who hunger daily. This is designed for youth but anyone can participate and benefit from this exercise.)

As I understand it, the North American church treats fasting as an opt-in activity and doesn't even strongly recommend or teach it as a spiritual discipline. And to be painfully honest here, the last time I fasted and prayed on any regular basis was when I was a college student.

But I value fasting, and I want to incorporate it into my life again as a matter of obedience and a reminder that physical discipline can feed my spiritual life in Christ. What ideas do YOU have for how a person or a small community of people could do this together?

Today, as you think about Muslims fasting and celebrating the end of their fast, think about those among them who are not only exercising a legal Islamic obligation, but who truly desire to be obedient to God through the means they are currently aware of. Pray that the God who made each one will reach out and meet each one in their seeking; that doors of God's house which are being knocked on by many Muslims will be opened; that those who are asking to connect with God will receive that gift. Pray that God's spirit will move and a new day will dawn among those who are now Muslims and are seeking God with sincerity of heart, mind and soul.

And while there is a proper place for fasting, let us remember that the point of fasting is not to impress God or others. God cares much more about the inward state of the heart than the outward appearance; yet God also seems to care more about our faith's tangible influence on others in God's kindom than our inward personal piety.

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?" (Isaiah 58:6)

If you're up for a challenge, here's one: find your local mosque (there's at least one in most North American cities) and go there, be friendly and respectful, talk to the people who meet you at the door, tell them you are a Christian and want to wish them a happy Eid celebration at the end of their month of fasting; talk to them about fasting as a means to draw closer to God. Ask them what they learned during Ramadan.

See what you might learn, and see what they might learn.

A new person is added to the U.S. population every 11 seconds, by birth and by immigration.

For those of us who have been diligently counting these (hey there's another one) we saw this number reach 300 million today.

(In reality of course, nobody knows to this level of accuracy how many people exist in any country; this is some people's best guess, and Americans like to measure stuff.)

The U.S. is only the third country in history to have reached this population size, following the footsteps of China and India.

"Be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it." (Gen. 9:7)

When God gave these instructions to a few people (Noah's family), God would have known that countries would reach their current size in the 21st Century, and there would be 6.5 billion people on the planet today. God would have known about the ever steeper growth curve, we'll reach 7 billion in another 6 years and 10 billion not long after that.

God would have known about the challenges and even hardship caused by rapidly increasing numbers of people, including overcrowding; lack of food security; conflict over limited natural resources; cumulative impact on the environment, atmosphere, and even weather patterns; vulnerability to rapidly spreading epidemics; and so on.

God would have known about the complex reasons large groups of people, from greed to desperation, make choices that lead to problems like deforestation, exhaustion of soil nutrients, and depletion of clean water sources.

Whether this level of population growth and all its consequences is fully what God had in mind by "be fruitful and multiply," or just how much of the global dynamics of today's significantly populated world have been brought on by flawed human choices, perhaps no one can fully say.

The United States doesn't yet experience severe shortages of resources like some countries. And we still have vast open areas of land, compared to some densely populated (and very poor) countries like Bangladesh or Rwanda.

(Because of our consumption, we also use a huge percentage of the world's limited nonrenewable resources, and crank out a hugely disproportionate percentage of pollution and greenhouse gases.)

Some of the poorest countries on earth have the highest growth rates, even in spite of a high level of infant mortality and a low life expectancy age. This tends to exacerbate their challenges.

Then there's China, the only country with an official "one child policy" which is encouraged but not enforced, as an effort to limit population growth. In a society where boys are favored, this means an ongoing problem of abandoned, unwanted girl babies or even worse. But the population is controlled. Being fruitful but not multiplying?

Back to the U.S... a new person every 11 seconds (there's another one)... what will these new people be like? Beautiful Americans, or "Ugly Americans?" Responsible and informed participants in a global community, or self absorbed consumers ignorant of the rest of the world? Openminded, or bigoted? Followers of Jesus, or followers of other ways?

My guess is all of the above. America is not a Christian nation (really never was, and no such animal exists) and grows less so with time. We're at least as ignorant as many other nations about the true human realities outside our borders. Much of our information about the world is filtered through a proprietary, slanted world view. We even have a few views to choose from. We do each have our preferred spin on the world.

What might God's hopes and dreams for America be as we reach this 300M milestone? How should I as one citizen be a proactive influence on God's behalf in this nation and world? I think the answers are found in the fact that as followers of Jesus, our highest citizenship is in heaven, not a 230-year-young country. That's where our highest allegiance and identity rightly belongs.

Just like the new American immigrants every day who add to our number and our rich diversity, Paul mentions in Ephesians 2 that through Jesus we are "no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household."

And in Philippians 3, "As I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ."

Think prayerfully about the words in the middle (destiny, god, and glory) in light of America as a nation. We can look near, before we look far, to find and extend love to those who live as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Be a good citizen, eagerly awaiting the Savior.

Since the earliest days there has been sexual misconduct by leaders, rulers, kings, and regular old citizens too.

There was even David, the Old Testament royal figure who as a little boy conquered the enemy Goliath and his army by faith, and was hand-picked by God to rule Israel.

In spite of being an amazing man and leader, he later gave in to lust and committed adultery.

His story is another reminder that special selection, gifting, and even anointing by God our very creator does not preclude our vulnerability to basic temptation.

I'm not comparing this particular guy to King David, but last week, the story broke about U.S. congressman Mark Foley -- not just any old sinner but a family-values Republican congressman who even sat on the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children -- who was caught inappropriately sending (homo)sexually oriented electronic messages to under-age male Pages who were getting a chance to help at the Capitol, but not in that way.

This isn't new. There have been plenty of leaders, political and otherwise including church leaders, whose sexual misconduct has come to light.

My question is, what might God think of this conduct?

Disappointed but perhaps not surprised?

Does God have a severity index for sin, or are all sins similarly offensive? Is arrogance less offensive than pedophelia? Is violence more offensive to God than verbal abuse? Is quietly judging someone, or gossipping or slander any less distasteful to God than murder or adultery? Is a failure to repent of hurtful conduct less aggregious than idolatry? Is the abuse of power perhaps no more offensive to God as envying someone else's position or appearance? Is an aborted child more offensive to God than "collateral damage" (aka innocent civilians who are killed) in a preemptive war? Ask enough sincere questions like this and you can eventually touch a nerve or two.

These are NOT rhetorical questions, mind you, but I realize they're also not ultimately answerable by flawed and finite human beings who don't fully know the mind of God. (And we do need to keep that in mind from time to time as we forge our theological frameworks.)

You'd think that the "original sin" committed by the first two human creatures which resulted in such grave consequences would have been over something more grievous than eating the wrong fruit.

This wasn't a big sin as we tend to measure them today, it was simple disobedience, but that was enough to change the relationship with God for the rest of human history. (Did this breach surprise God? I think not.)

It does often seem that some wrong things we might do are more severe than others, in our own eyes. But this does not lessen the fact that even minor disobedience from what God desires amounts to sin, no less.

"Be holy, for I am holy" is not graded on a curve. It's a mandate we're called to live out, even while the widescreen picture of the full Gospel of Jesus Christ acknowledges that on our own, this is not humanly possible for any person.

It's like God is saying in consecutive sentences, "Strive for holiness" but "You won't be able to achieve it" but "I forgive you and have paid the price for your past and future failures" and "Keep striving to be like the one in whose image you have been made."

The hardest work is already done by God, and the hardest part we need to play in this reconciliation is the triple act of belief, repentance, and following after the Way of Jesus.

Then God asks us to be salt and light influences in the world, even as imperfect creatures that God declares to be acceptable and pure by the redemption (payment of what is owed) through the sacrifice of Jesus, even in our state of shortcoming.

(Whew. That paragraph was a buffet serving of theology, sorry if it stretches the stomach.)

I don't want anyone to misunderstand and think I am trivializing or excusing any form of sin, sexual or otherwise. I'm trying to make the point (in perhaps more words than are necessary) that it's easier to see the hypocrisy or sin in someone else (like maybe this Senator) than in ourselves; it's easier to see the splinter in the other person's eye rather than our own tree trunks, causing a big logjam that even Visine can't fix.

And various splinters and logs may not be judged by God in the same way that we human creatures assign varying degrees of severity to sinfulness.

While I'm offended and saddened (but not surprised) by the misconduct of the congressman, I'm also aware of sinfulness in my life and in the body of Christ that falls short of what we're called to, even while God knows and graciously accomodates for this in the sacrifice of the perfect lamb.

Lastly, God did create us as sexual beings ("male and female, God created them") and this is something to be celebrated in the appropriate context of faithful marriage.

Sexual perversion, sin, and idolatry by the culture around us should not make us think that human sexuality is anything other than a beautiful gift from God.

Like any gift from God (including creative ability, freedom of choice, beauty, music, taste, health, power, authority, possessions, talent, etc.) there are appropriate and also inappropriate ways to exercise these gifts.

The takeway for me is a reminder to try to examine every word and deed of my own, to measure them against what God calls me to. Do I speak and act in God's name?

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
- Colossians 3:16-17

 

There is a better-late-than-never growing attention among Christians (I count myself among them, including the "late" part) to the global environment as a critical moral, ethical, and theological issue that followers of Jesus should have in their focus.

I hope to write more about this soon, but for now I want to point out an upcoming PBS show this Wednesday called "Is God Green?"

From the Moyers on America website: "Is God Green?" explores how a serious split among conservative evangelicals over the environment and global warming could reshape American politics. 

Watch a preview and other related videos here. In Wisconsin, this is on at 8pm on WPT.

If you watch it: What do you think? Please post your comments.

Here's the B list... the Late Show list, if you will, although Letterman probably doesn't know about Urbana 06 and that could be why they didn't do this list.

The Other Top Ten Reasons to go to Urbana 06 in St. Louis this December:

10. Among so many zealous mission-minded servants of God, I'll get lost in the crowd and God won't call me to anything super challenging or dangerous. Sweet.... coastin'.

9. It's either Urbana, or hang out with the weirdest people I know... you know, my friends and relatives and family.

8. I'm looking for a special cross cultural "relationship" if you know what I mean... that counts as missions, right?

7. Anywhere they serve grape juice instead of egg nogg on New Years Eve, count me in.

6. I heard they found the "Arch of the Convenant" in St. Louis and I want to check it out.

5. With the global church already shifted primarily to the southern hemisphere now, it's fitting that Urbana move a little further south every three years. I'm there.

4. I've got nationwide roaming included in my cellphone plan, and as a Christian, I want to be a good steward of my cellphone plan. Can you hear me now?

3. Over 300 mission agencies... sounds like a real, uh, party... not to be missed... (but this is not your grandmother's mission agency...)

2. Won't have to shovel snow back home and yeah, even with global warming, back home it still snows pretty bad in December.

1. I heard that Missouri loves company, and I'm happy to join the party.

But seriously... top goofy or real reasons, anyone who's thinking about registering for Urbana 06 and hasn't yet... should do themselves a favor, save some money, and register by this weekend. Nuff said. We now return to our regular (whirled) programming.