Leaving the Light On For You: A Response to “Lights Out”

This post is an assigned response to Paul Louis Metzger’s article “Lights Out: Shining a Light on Caring for the Dying in a Multi-Faith World,” which addresses the need for cultural and multi-faith sensitivity on the part of chaplains serving the terminally ill on palliative care teams. The dying process is a time when patients’ desires and as well as those of their immediate families, are to be considered carefully.  Dr. Metzger advocates for a kind and respectful approach and cautions that “Gentleness and respect require that we do not force our views on others.”

Please Don’t Point Your Light in My Eyes

Just as having a spotlight pointed at your face is obnoxious, so too some witnessing approaches and methods can cause us to close our eyes tightly. Light can be encouraging, helpful, and even attractive, but when pointed into someone’s eyes, it can also be something oppressive to hide behind. Christ’s light is not to be wielded as a weapon. It helps provide care that shows our faith well, “adorning the doctrines of God” (Titus 2:10), to understand what other people believe, how they are feeling, and why they feel and believe as they approach their death.

While time is short, and the need is urgent, there is no call to be pressing or pressuring on our part—unless it is in prayer. I find that there often comes a new openness to the spiritual realm on the part of the person suffering. This is a great mercy from a loving God. As the things they have trusted in are stripped away, they see their emptiness and begin to search for something, or someone, with enough throw-weight to carry their soul into the next life. So should we! I am reminded of  Paul’s “near-death” experience described in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10,

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

As a pastor, my job is different from that of a chaplain…and is unchained from multi-faith restrictions. However, my approach should also be “gentle and respectful” and never forced or coercive, yet neither should it miss the rescue opportunity by being too timid. Dr. Metzger writes,

Yes, as Christians committed to the biblical hope, we long to share about our faith in the eternal security of life with God in the resurrected Jesus through faith in his love poured out by the Spirit (Romans 8:18-39; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Romans 5:5). But hopefully we also desire to live out the biblical exhortation to do for others what we would want them to do for us (Matthew 7:12). If we wish to be treated with respect and not have others force their views on us, no matter how well-intentioned, we should respect them and not force our views on them.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. We do long to share our faith, not to somehow win or control another, but to simply share the blessing we have received. We also agree that no spiritual decision should ever be forced; neither a baptism by Jesuits 500 years ago nor an evangelical’s “sinners prayer” or a Shahada by Muslims today.

Ladybug, Ladybug, Please Don’t Be Offended…but Your House is On Fire

I remember a John Leo column from the early 80s (Newsweek) where he told non-believers that they should not be offended when evangelical Christians witnessed to them, for it was a sign that they really cared. If you believe your neighbor’s house is on fire, you will be motivated by human decency to warn them. Like the person warning residents that their house is on fire, sometimes witnessing is neither subtle nor soft-spoken.  I agree. If we really believe the Bible, we should care enough about our neighbors to tell them.

When I think of watchmen, I think of the well-known passage in Ezekiel 33. A watchman’s job was to warn the city of the approaching danger. However, the responsibility to respond to the warning is on the people of the city, not the watchman. The watchman need not force the city to respond to the coming danger; he gives his observations and leaves the response to the people.

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, speak to your people and say to them,

Jerusalem before dawn

If I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and make him their watchman, and if he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows the trumpet and warns the people, then if anyone who hears the sound of the trumpet does not take warning, and the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and did not take warning; his blood shall be upon himself. But if he had taken warning, he would have saved his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand. (Ezekiel 33:1-6)

Delivering My Soul…and Yours

So the trick is to “deliver our soul” (v. 9) by warning those in danger. But there is a catch that I don’t remember noticing before. In verse two, we find that the watchman's role is conditional; it is conferred by the people taking one from “among them” and making “him their watchman.” When we apply this watchman principle to our own lives and ministries (I have, since my name means “watchman”), have we ever stopped to consider whether “my people” have made me "a watchman" for them? Or do we just assume that we can be freelance “watchers and warners” without first earning the relational trust of others? If we don’t listen authentically, how can we ever be “among them” enough to be trusted as a watcher?

I read Metzger’s post as suggesting that we need to be relationally trustworthy before others might ask us for our input into the great crisis moment of their lives. God doesn’t want any to perish (2 Peter 3:9), not even the really bad ones (Eze. 33:10-11). Even so, people die every day, many without really hearing the life-giving gospel of Christ. Could it be that our methods of urgency are too transactional (“Do this...and get that”) to allow others to truly join us (or for us to join them) on a spiritual journey that no person was designed to walk alone? I don’t want to be a roadblock. How about you?

We need boldness—boldness to listen long, to love with the love of Christ who loved us while we were his enemies (Romans 5:6-10, to consider the needs of others more than we impose our own perception of their needs upon them, and that they might see Christ in what we say and do, as well as in what we don’t.

The following poem was written a few years ago in response to my father-in-law’s emergency surgery, his 33-day struggle for life in the hospital’s intensive and critical care units, and his subsequent death. He was not open to discussing spiritual things earlier in his life and would leave the room when others talked about or answered questions about Jesus. However, after his wife died, he stopped leaving the room, but still didn’t participate in any spiritual conversations—until the day he was scheduled for emergency cancer surgery and his ears were opened to hear the voice of the Lord calling him. His transformation stunned us all. The following poem, written in the first-person, was inspired by that process and such scriptures as Matthew 7:1-14 and 19:23-26. I hope it speaks to you today.

The Narrow Gate

Utterly burdened beyond strength

Looking, facing, fearing

Narrow gate’s eye of the needle, knowing

I don’t, can’t, won’t fit.

Despairing painfully of any solution

But pressed, drawn, nonetheless by

God’s possibilities, and

My latent mortality.

Dreadful as death’s door was

From a distance, now

Up close, uncomfortably close,

Squinting against the needle’s eye

Perhaps glimpsing bright sparks beyond,

Through my grimace.

How could I trust,

Transition, from here to there

Through this impossibly narrow

Moment of prolonged surrender?

Yet I am sought, welcomed

Comforted as I hear his voice with

Others he has led this way before.

I reach for the rope

Grace’s already threaded

Sticky scarlet cord grasps me

In suffering’s fellowship.

What is earthly, mean, camelish,

Scraped off, exfoliated, removed,

Wrung out, expressed into a disposable bag,

What was once my focus, now

So much medical waste.

Good riddance.

The brass buttons of my autonomy

Catching on eternity’s door

I fight to free them, until with embarrassment in

Purgatory of my last years, days, 

Giving up, I ask for help

Slowly casting off the uniform of my birth

While putting on that of His

Through learning to love.

My eyes seem to blink away the mist

Suddenly seeing truly

Awesome God

Yet I am not consumed.

What was pressed, pulled through the eye

By the power, possibility of God’s love

Weightier, more expansive

Than I ever was before.

© Greg K. Dueker

We need to leave the light on for others to find their way. May it be the kind of light that draws us near and delivers us all from fear. 

ACME "Bait and Switch" (A Response)

Bait and Switch

The following post is a response to Paul Louis Metzger’s Patheos post Bait and Switch. In his article, he encourages Christians to not pretend to be relational merely to obtain conversions. The test of our relationality is whether we are willing to be friends with those who don’t accept Christianity and show no signs of interest. Will we be relational with non-believers over the long haul, or are we merely economic relaters who temporarily invest for a return and then reevaluate, cut our losses, and reinvest elsewhere? If we advertise friendship and caring and only deliver evangelism, to use Metzger’s terminology that is “bait and switch”. The Apostle Paul was truly relational with the Thessalonians, not spinning his message for personal or ecclesial gain.

For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness… But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. (1 Thessalonians 2:3-8)

As I read and considered Metzger’s concept of relational bait and switch I thought about ACME. Remember how in the old Roadrunner cartoons how the Coyote was always trying to bait the Roadrunner? ACME was the catalog company from whom the Coyote bought all his crazy Roadrunner-catching schemes.

 

 

 

 

He often put up signs advertising false detours, Roadrunner food, and painting fake tunnels on rock walls. The Roadrunner always seemed to be able to use the detours successfully. Yet when the Coyote tried to follow he always seemed to get hit by a train or some type of exploding device. Perhaps in a “bait and switch” scenario, people may still benefit from hearing the good news even if our motives and methodology fall short (Philippians 1:18) like the Roadrunner using the Coyote’s painted-on escape tunnel. However, in such situations, we are the ones who end up suffering like the Coyote for the sin of objectifying relationships and misrepresenting the love of Christ. We miss out on what we could have learned from the other specifically because they were different and yet human. They have more to say than, "Beep! Beep!"

 

Metzger writes, “I want to listen and learn from my friends of other paths. If I don’t listen to people, it is very difficult to communicate love, which is foundational to Jesus. Listening and mutual learning and loving go hand in hand.” This subject of listening is one I have explored at length on this blog in other posts.

The concept of “bait and switch” belies a transactional approach to our salvation that is less than Biblical. The thought that we are only able to be “relational” with those who share our world-view and/or our “otherworld”-view says that we have yet to apprehend the love of God who, “shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) Not only were we sinners but we had made ourselves his enemies and it was then he died for us, whether we would believe in him or not. Metzger says rightly, “Still, while I have no control over someone being converted to Christ, and will not try to force someone’s hand or heart, I do have control over whether or not I will love someone as myself.”

On this subject, Jesus’ treatment of Judas Iscariot is instructive, for he knew from the beginning that Judas would betray him and yet treated him no differently than the other disciples. I find it mind-blowing and heart-stretching that when the night of Jesus’ betrayal came, and Jesus said that one of those sharing the meal with him was the traitor—nobody knew who it was (Matthew 26:20-25; Mark 14:17-21; Luke 22:22-23).

Further, Jesus taught his followers to care for others, and sharing with a fully non-reciprocal mindset is also applicable to this discussion. We are not commanded to invest a limited amount of loving-kindness in hope of a spiritual response from another person. If we are to share what we have with no expectation of receiving back in either food or finances, can the sharing of ourselves be any different? [Note: Non-reciprocal does not deny that a relationship can and should evidence mutuality.]

We may not get any economic ROI, but perhaps we can gain a more relational understanding or benefit from another perspective. This is true especially of their toughest arguments and accusations; they can temper the steel of our character to love and serve even more like Christ in the future. Metzger notes that,

“Perhaps such critics don’t realize it, but they are also evangelizing me, when they try to encourage me to stop evangelizing: they are trying, in a sense, to “convert” me out of being an Evangelical, which as I said above involves concern for evangelistic witness.”

I agree with his assessment and don’t want to become “devangelized” (my term) by my critics nor desensitized to the conviction of the Holy Spirit that may come through those same people.

May the Lord remake our hearts—with the stuff of Heaven not the stuff of ACME—that we might love long, in a way that represents well the One who first loved us.