Thanksgiving...Gratitude for a Great God

"But thanks be to God,

who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

(1 Corinthians 15:57)

What does thanksgiving mean to you? Is it a turkey dinner and a football game? Is it a long anticipated family gathering? Is it all of the above wrapped up in a time of celebratory gratitude to God for his blessings?

For what were the Pilgrims thankful to God?

As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day in the United States that looks back to the when the Pilgrims first came to this continent seeking religious liberty.  Despite a very difficult first year at Plymouth at harvest time the Pilgrims gave thanks abundantly in and for all things. That first thanksgiving was after a year in which 47 out of 102 Pilgrims died (3 months at sea + a cold winter with poor shelters). As their ranks thinned, they drew closer together and prayed even harder—never giving in to despair. In October 1621, 90 Native Americans showed up and brought additional food with them to add to the celebration. However, in November 1621 another ship arrived and dropped off 35 more people with no supplies of any kind. This severely taxed their food supply until the next harvest. That second winter the daily ration was ultimately reduced to 5 kernels of dried corn, yet no one died of starvation. They never despaired but always gave thanks and during really bad times they gave thanks even more. So when the time came for the second thanksgiving celebration the first course was five kernels of corn lest anyone should forget. --

In comparison, Jamestown settlement did not give thanks and as things grew worse they suffered almost an almost 90% death rate including acts of murder and cannibalism.

In 2001, after going through the national turmoil of 9/11, I wrote a poem where I attempted to capture the emotion involved in that Thanksgiving, and perhaps by extension that of Christians around the world throughout the ages.

Thanksgiving at Plymouth

Survived

We’ve made it through

Anno Domini past.

Too many of our company did not.

Persecution and promise driven

Through water (stormy Atlantic),

And fire (raging fevers).

Amalgamated by the fellowship

Suffering . . .

Disease, exposure, exhaustion,

Seeking . . .

Thy face in desperate prayer,

Singing . . .

Praises for Thy tender mercies,

Sowing . . .

In hope we planted what remained!

Surrendered

Our ways, wills, wisdom

At the end of ourselves

Thy Word hast not returned void.

Strengthened

Providential purposes accomplished,

Righteousness’ fruit!

Thy harvest now we thankfully receive.

© Greg K. Dueker

 

In addition to this poem, and the Thanksgiving Day history, here is a pastoral potpourri on thankfulness.

When and how should we give thanks to God?

·         In everything… for it is God's will. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

·         Always... for everything (Ephesians 5:17-20)

·         Abounding in it as our regular habit (Colossians 2:6-7; 3:17)

·         By faith as part of our prayers. (Philippians 4:6-7)

·         Great or Abundant thanks (Psalm 109:30)

Three Characteristics of Biblical Thanksgiving

·       It is not based on Possessions but on Praise. (1 Chronicles 29:13,16) The Hebrew word indicates “to use or hold out the open hand,” which means that we acknowledge that which we have received from God is still God's. We offer it back with the open hand of gratitude. It also has the aspect of “making confession,” for in thanksgiving we confess our dependence on the Lord and praise him for his goodness.

·       It is not based on the Product but the Person. In the Bible there is one reference to being thankful for the Word of God (Psalm 119:62), two references to thanksgiving for salvation, and more than 30 examples of gratitude for God's person and character, his goodness, his loving-kindness, and his Holy Name. They thanked God for Who and What he was, as seen in the things He did.

·       It is Agreeing with the Process & Plan not just the "Pay." The terms used for thankfulness in the New Testament signify “to acknowledge or agree fully” in essence to confess not only thanks for God doing something but for the way God did it. Our gratitude to the Lord ought to be not so much for the end result as it is an agreement with God and His process and plan for getting there.

Outside of the Box...Behind the Curtain

Two of the things that I am thankful for this year are the interactions that I have had with the men and women in my doctoral cohort and the assigned reading I have been laboring to complete. I haven’t always agreed with them, but I have grown either by enlarging my understanding to include new ways of thinking about culture, ethnicity, and ambassadorship or by understanding my position more clearly.

But this process got me thinking about how often we read books and articles that are written from outside our own cultural/religious/political comfort zone. We generally don’t like to read or listen to those that disagree with us or can see through our façade.

Behind the Curtain

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

Recently I was reading a book by Vinoth Ramachandra a nuclear scientist and Christian theologian from Sri Lanka, Subverting Global Myths: Theology and the Public Issues Shaping Our World. His book reminded me of Dorothy’s little dog Toto in the Wizard of Oz when he pulls back the curtain to reveal the “Wizard” pulling levers in a frantic effort to intimidate Dorothy her and friends. I loved looking at what Ramachandra calls the “Global Myths” (i.e., Terrorism, Religious Violence, Human Rights, Multiculturalism, Science, and Post-colonialism) from an articulate voice outside Western culture. Despite the difficult language used, the point was powerfully delivered. As we say in my family, “That will leave a bruise!” 

While I don’t agree with some of the theological and political positions taken in this book, I have enjoyed the wake-up call. Books like this one have gone a long way toward pulling back the curtain of my own cultural blindness. Christianity is not equivalent to Western/American evangelical culture and our faith can only be strengthened and purified as we read the works of Christians from around the world. So what do I do when I find that the man behind the curtain is me (the dominant culture I am a part of)?

Outside the Box

Creative Commons, Public Domain

Another way of making sure our contemporary faith is balanced is by studying historical theology. It sounds silly, but I was pleasantly surprised by the writings of church fathers like Irenaeus (d. 202), Athanasius (d. 373), and Latin fathers like Augustine (d. 430), as well as believers from the Medieval and Reformation periods. 

There is something confirming in the realization that our faith is not new but has its roots stretching back to the early church. Their words, written in a different era can be very beneficial to us today. Some time ago, I stumbled across these insightful words, written by C.S. Lewis, in an introduction to an English translation of St. Athanasius’ book, On the Incarnation (available for free on Kindle), urging us to read books from outside our contemporary context.

“A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to light…

Every age has its own outlook. It is especially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it…

Where [modern books] are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us…

     To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately, we cannot get at them…”[1]

While reading voices that speak from outside my own chrono-cultural context is not a new idea to me, this program has made it a new practice. They have both worked to help me see behind the curtain of my Western dominant culture biases, and get me out of my contemporary box. For that I am thankful. Though honestly, I am even more thankful that I am almost done with this year’s assigned reading!

---

[1] Athanasius, St. (2010-03-01). On The Incarnation (Kindle Location 56-80).  . Kindle Edition.

 

Who Do We Represent? (Ambassadorship Part 4)

Are we Tourists, Businessmen, or Ambassadors (Part 4)

The term “representing” has come to be used in a much more marketing-focused way in recent years. You hear the phrase “way to represent” used in reference to the things we wear, say, and do to show our support for an apparel company, Alma mater, music group, sports team, political perspective, or even a church program. So who are we representing today? 

By way of review, last week we discussed the “how” characteristics of the Ambassador model for cultural engagement for Christ as opposed to the tourist and businessman models.

·        Ambassadors are invited guests who have a posture of humility and graciousness. They are not in it for their own interests but represent the one who sent them.

·        Ambassadors don’t expect people of “other lands”—different sub-cultures and faith traditions both here and abroad—to learn our “Christian-ese” insider lingo. Instead, they learn how to contextualize Christian concepts to the other person’s ways of speaking.

·        Good ambassadors come to stay until removed by the one who sent them. They listen, are soft-spoken, and literate both linguistically and culturally. What does it mean to be literate in their culture? We must be willing to learn

·        Good ambassadors are compassionate, conciliatory, communicators of God’s grace…without compromise. They bring added value to all they engage.

Where in that post my focus was on how we are representing Christ, this week I would like to focus on the “who” it is that we represent. This question is huge. An ambassador should be an accurate and approachable representative of the community that has commissioned him/her to go. This is problematic if the ambassador is representing a country or group known for duplicity, injustice, and a desire for power. An ambassador is only as good as the one he represents.

Is the Christ that we are striving to represent the Jesus Christ of the Bible, some personally shaped lesser deity, or is he a construct of our Western socio-cultural environment? Everyone on the street has an opinion about who Jesus Christ is and what he is like. These opinions have been formed, shaped, and influenced by various sources, both good and bad. We who aspire to be ambassadors are no different. Our view of who it is we are representing will shape the how.

I am a strong believer that we are not at liberty to shape idols in our own image and call them “Jesus” any more than the ancient Israelites were at liberty to make a golden calf or two and call it Yahweh (Exodus 32; 1 Kings 12:25-33)…yet we do it all too often. The Jesus of the Bible created all cultures and works within them, but is not constricted by their constructs. If we want to know who we represent, we need to read the Bible through regularly, or rather, allow the Bible to read us regularly. What does God say about himself in the words of the Old Testament? What does God say about himself in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, in the four gospel accounts? What does it mean to live as ambassadors of Christ, as the New Testament letters encourage us?

To answer the first question, regarding what God says about himself in the Old Testament, I submit Exodus 34:5-7, where God came and proclaimed his name (i.e., stated his essential character) to Moses,

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

This same idea is repeated throughout the Bible (See also à Numbers 14:18; Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; 4:2; Nahum 1:3). Most people today would probably not realize this truth about God in the OT. Might we have misjudged Jesus as well? I will leave the second and third questions for you to answer for yourselves.

If we are to get past our lesser views of Christ, we must acknowledge that we have them. Our understanding of who Jesus is can be colored by our own fallen desires and the biases of the culture we are part of. It is important that we subject all of our views of Jesus to the witness of the Scriptures themselves, looking to that “Original Communication Context” (OCC) for interpretive clues instead of assuming it was written within a Western/American cultural filter (because it wasn’t).

If we are ambassadors for Christ, what is it about him that we should be communicating? I would like to go further, but will stop here and ask three serious questions:

“In reading the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)…

1.    What two or three emotions do we see most often in Jesus?

2.    What three to five character qualities do we see used most often to describe Jesus?

3.    What are the four most common verbs that describe Jesus’ actions?

Having answered the three questions above, try one more… 

       So, as Ambassadors for Christ, are we representing the right Jesus?

Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

How Do We Represent? Are We Ambassadors (Part 3)

Are we Tourists, Businessmen, or Ambassadors? (Part 3)

So far in this series of blog posts, we have considered two modes of engaging other cultures
as tourists and as businessmen. We saw that tourists either run roughshod over indigenous cultures (directly or indirectly) or consume indigenous cultures for their own entertainment. We also saw that businessmen who are good at what they do understand the importance of knowing the culture and listening to those they today we will consider a third mode of 
engagement, that of Ambassador for Christ.

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash

Perhaps one of the easiest ways to see what it means to be an ambassador is to see what it is not. It is not a vacation trip spent in personal comfort and enjoyment. It involves important business but not for personal profit. It is not simply the role of a messenger but one that involves the power and authority of the one who sent him/her. They don't demand, they woo. They don't cave in but stay true to their convictions. They don't walk away but stay at the table. They don't lose hope but give time and space for the message to do its work. They don't forget where they are from, why they came, or to whom they must answer.

Last spring we discussed this issue in one of our classes, looking at the differences between tourists and ambassadors. I have added the third idea of the businessman to those thoughts. So here are a few points of difference we discussed that I have organized into a table format to make comparison easier.

Tourists	Businessmen	Ambassadors for Christ
Tourists are often intrusive...they tend to feel their hosts' lives revolve around them	Businessmen are often pushy and take-charge. Their focus is on the customer as long as there is profit to be had.	Ambassadors are invited guests who have a posture of humility and graciousness. They are not in it for their own interests but represent the one who sent them.
Tourists are often loud and illiterate in the tongue of another land.	Businessmen are more sensitive to cultural taboos now than in the past but still are famous for marketing schemes that go awry.	Ambassadors don’t expect people of “other lands”—different sub-cultures and faith traditions both here and abroad—to learn our “Christian-ese” insider lingo. Instead, they learn how to contextualize Christian concepts to the other person’s ways of speaking.
Tourists have no staying power. They are short-term visitors, and usually not fully literate in the cultures they visit. As a result, they often say and do things that are insensitive or offensive to their hosts.	Businessmen have more staying power than tourists but in most cases are less engaged than ambassadors. They will stay as long as it pays.	Good ambassadors come to stay until removed by the one who sent them. They listen, are soft-spoken, and literate both linguistically and culturally. What does it mean to be literate in their culture? We must be willing to learn
Tourists are consumers	Businessmen are the middleman between producers and consumers…with more emphasis on the consuming side.	Good ambassadors are compassionate, conciliatory, communicators of God’s grace…without compromise. They bring added value to all they engage.

It would seem clear that for the Christian the engagement model of the ambassador is to be preferred. Though I honestly doubt our ability to fully purge the tourist/businessmen’s self-interest from our network servers before Christ’s return (Luke 17:26-33) we can be open about our struggles and together learn to pursue a greater profit as the Day draws near (Hebrews 10:22-25).

If we catch a vision of the greatness and glory that is ours in the love of Christ the lesser loves/profits of the world will look like tarnished brass bobbles. I am reminded of Jesus’ short parable of the hidden treasure, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:44) But if we focus on what worldly goods and life we can save up for ourselves then we stand to lose the greater (i.e., eternal) profit Christ shares with us through his willing loss, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26; Mark 8:36; Luke 9:25). 

So when people look at our lives, what do they think is most important to us? Would they say we are sightseers full of ourselves, sold-out compromisers seeking a profit, or solid and steadfast in what we stand for? Would we be seen as approachable and invitational or would we be seen as judgmental and standoffish? What would your hairstylist, garbage man, or barista say?

Are we filled with awe as we represent the Kingdom of God? I know that I can get too caught up in the task at hand, or an apparent lack of progress towards a deadline, that I can lose my awe. So today while my wife was in New Seasons, I paused outside to look up and watch the clouds (all shades of white, grey, and black) running rapidly down from the north, putting the honking geese to shame. I marveled at the crispy-crunchiness of the blowing leaves on the sidewalk. I caught what remained of the late October sun on my face and felt the creative pleasure of the Divine Artist behind it all. When I speak to people this week I hope they see the spiritual awe of my homeland shining through me.

 

[Next week I hope to talk more about who it is that we are to be ambassadors of.]

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

 

What’s the Bottom Line? Personal Profit or the Interest of Others? (Part 2)

Are we Tourists, Businessmen, or Ambassadors? (Part 2)

Last week I began a discussion about our role in the world and how we are to live as Christians in the midst of a foreign culture. Because Western Christians often engage other cultures as tourists, I began by talking about the dangers of the “Tourist” mentality and how it negatively affects others. This week I want to address a second way that our culture interacts with others…as businessmen and businesswomen. Our culture is one of commerce and English is the “official” language of international business. This shapes the way that we as Western Christians engage the world at home and abroad. It also shapes how we are perceived by others.

Despite the pervasive Old Testament teaching against charging interest from fellow Jews (13x), there are positive aspects of commerce found in the parables of Jesus. Conservative principles of investment, personal responsibility, and a strong work ethic are also found in the Scriptures. Yet the financial emphasis in the New Testament seems to be on kingdom-oriented stewardship and generosity rather than personal profit. But when we engage the world primarily as businessmen the bottom line is most often personal profit. Even corporate generosity (apart from accounting for maximum tax advantages) is spun endlessly for the greatest PR/marketing bang for the buck. Gifts come in the form of oversized checks, complete with photo-ops and hidden strings. When this business model is brought home to our families and churches it is a major hindrance to stable personal relationships not to mention relational ministry.

If you are motivated by your own personal interests in the corporate setting you are quick to use co-workers—objectifying them—to reach your own goals…usually an increase in power, pay, and prestige. The goal of profit in the wrong hands can result in poor quality products and poor customer service because individual businesspeople look to their own interests rather than to that of a larger constituency. Finding flaws in the business world doesn’t surprise anyone...it is low-hanging fruit. It should be very different in the Church that follows the example of Jesus Christ. However, in the church today we have too many people seeking their own interests to the place that certain types of ministries have become synonymous with selfishness and greed. This is not a new phenomenon. The Apostle Paul lamented that even he was hard-pressed because (apart from Timothy) many of the other ministers were motivated by their own interests.

“I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. (Phil 2:19-21)

If we engage others primarily as businessmen it often introduces a layer of subtle deception and nagging doubt into the relational dynamic found in the phrase "in order to...". The subtle deception is on our part if we:

·       Pay attention to people… only in order to make a sale.

·       Build relationships… to gain trust in order to expand our influence into new markets.

·       Do good things…with an ulterior motive (in order to increase corporate goodwill, brand loyalty, and marketing).

·       Make our own plans…assuming we are in control of our own lives and others..

·       In the name of stewardship…we apply economics to human relationships in order to protect ourselves.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com
on Unsplash

Those in a relationship with us will then have that terrible nagging doubt in the back of their minds, asking questions like, “Why is he doing this?”, “Is this about us or about him?” and finally,  “When will they cut their losses and reinvest somewhere else?” This is true of our co-workers, ministry partners, and even family members. They all are watching to see whether we are honestly committed to reconciliation, willing to stay at the table to work through differences, or getting ready to "cut and run." It seems all too common that we let a business mindset eat our family and consume the church.

Having thoroughly criticized business' effect on relationships, let's consider what happens when we let true family impact business? Business can be a powerful tool for good in the world when run ethically and used as a vehicle to care for the needs of others. Business can be a profoundly Kingdom mission if personal/corporate profit is not the focus. I have been encouraged by the many stories I have heard in recent years of creative and ethically sourced income streams being used to support kingdom ministry. However, the nature of business is most often to produce personal or corporate gain at the expense of the competition and the customer. We need to be good stewards, skillfully shepherding all the resources that God has entrusted to us. This includes those we would call the competition and the customer.  

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Phil. 2:3-4)

In the end, the business model of engagement is simply a more subtle and nuanced version of the tourist. Everything appears to make an effort at cultural sensitivity and even relational concern, but "the bottom line" is still self-determined and self-focused. As a business person, I may choose to go and live among those I do business with, but such an approach is usually neither relational nor incarnational enough. Jesus, in addressing the latent power-driven self-seeking attitude in his disciples said, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45; Matthew 20:28). Further, Jesus’ half-brother James speaks to the self-determination we see so often in the businessman model of engagement.

“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:13-14)

Can we learn to serve others first and submit to the Lord’s plan and timing before our lives are spent? Can our bottom line become "the interests of others"?

 

[This post will be continued next week..."Lord willing and the creek don't rise!"]