Reflections on a Yard Sale
Posted on | May 14, 2011 | Posted by Bo Grimes | No Comments |
Yes, I confess. I used to dread our biannual church yard sales, which are always on a Saturday, but take two days to set-up. A lot of my distaste for them was the pressure of time while raising kids, the neglect of my own home and yard that would still have to be made up, and the tedium. I’ve noticed a gradual and growing shift in my attitude over the years, and while my reflections are fresh in my mind from our most recent one today, I thought I’d share some of them.
We live in a consumption driven, acquisitively orientated society. No doubt about it. I lament it often—just ask my kids—while knowing full well I am implicated in it. It’s tempting to look at all the donations we have at our yard sale and think “What a shame. All this stuff people acquire and discard. We live in such a disposable society, buying stuff we don’t need and then tossing it out.”
I used to do that, and maybe I’m just projecting onto others; maybe no one else looks at it that way. Without a doubt there’s some truth to it. I see it differently now, though. I look around and I see a high chair parents used to feed their baby in. I see couches people used to snuggle on as they rested at the end of the day. I see kitchen tables that people used to fellowship around, pray around, laugh around and sustain themselves with daily bread. I see toys and games a child once opened with delight under a Christmas tree or unwrapped for a birthday. I see clothes that protected people and kept them warm or cool or dry as they worked, played, worshipped or even hurt, hungered and grieved. I see exercise equipment that at least represented hope if not reality, cups that helped quench thirst, pictures that used to hang on walls and brighten a room and vases that held beautiful flowers that brightened a day. I see books that educated, fascinated and entertained.
It’s all there, and more, much more. Above it all I see love. We all know that the most precious gifts we have to offer are not tangible. But, being the frail creatures of the tangible world of sense that we are, when we freely and joyfully give tangible gifts to one another, we are able, by doing so, to also give them intangible gifts.
Not all, but some of the donations were once gifts given or received in love. Some of them were probably things that used to belong to departed loved ones that their family is finally able to give away as they struggle to move through their grief. Some of them were originally purchased as a way to care and provide for someone’s family. Some were bought in hopes (perhaps misplaced, but who knows?) of being better people. Some were bought to do good work, to better care for creation, to spend time in genuine activities of re-creation. Some, yes even some, were probably bought wisely, on a budget, when something else nicer, better, lovelier, but more expensive, would have been preferred, but the person wanted to save more for generous, cheerful giving or necessary provision. And now they have given them away, in hopes that others may find some value in them, rather than toss it in a landfill.
Of course some of the stuff was unneeded, was charged with money one did not have, was bought in an attempt to satisfy a selfish desire, or was put to bad use, but not all, probably not most. Many of the donations we had to offer were bought by people seeking to fulfill real needs or to give as the best gift they could to someone they dearly love, and maybe even to save money to give more to God or to others, and the donations helped them to do just that.
On yard sale weekends, our fellowship hall is packed with shared humanity: our memories, hopes, generosity, longings and love as well as our greed, acquisitiveness, envy, discontent and self-inflicted pain. It’s packed with the image-bearers of God and the fallen, broken, prideful rebels those image-bearers have become.
And it’s packed with another kind of humanity, too: the humanity of church family fellowshipping and serving. I say serving because I believe most of the people who come are sincerely glad and genuinely needful of the things they buy, and knowing it’s not ideal, it truly helps our church continue to serve and worship God. It would be nice to not have to use the proceeds for the budget, to give it all away to Lutheran Services for the Aging or ELCA World Hunger or Disaster Relief, or to Synod benevolence, and that’s a good goal worth striving for and remaining mindful about, but God knows our frame; He knows our need; and He understands our fears and weaknesses.
I’m not willing to concretely say that we have not been faithful in giving. I only know that I haven’t always, so it’s likely in the abstract that others have sometimes also not been as faithful as they should. But this too I know: God is always faithful, and He provides in our unfaithfulness without ever approving of it, always prompting us to more faithfulness and more generosity. We need, nay, we must move towards that with the help of God’s grace and the power of His Spirit, but we must also give thanks to God for His provision now.
I also say fellowshipping because there’s a chance to get to talk to church family you may not get to talk to that often, the sharing of stories and memories, and even a good laugh or two. Most get the chance to sit down and share a meal with someone. There’s also the natural fellowship of shared labor, which doesn’t always include words, and the appreciation one gains for the willingness of others who do all the setting up and preparing. To top it all off, it’s intergenerational fellowship!
One also meets members of the community. Some of the same people come year after year, and many of them will stop and talk if you give them an opening. In the slow part of the afternoon this past Saturday, I spoke to a man who seemed hesitant to say more than hello, but I pressed a little and the next thing I knew we had a 20 minute conversation.
It’s a different world for me than it was 5-6 years ago when I begrudgingly started working at them. Go to one sometime and see for yourself. Bring a fresh pair of eyes. They really help!
Perseverance, or What’s It All About Alfie?
Posted on | May 10, 2011 | Posted by Bo Grimes | No Comments |
Sometimes I think the harder you fight the more resistance there is such that more energy is expended to accomplish the same amount. It’s like jogging 3 miles, but every time you increase your pace the wind blows back in equal proportion, so that you still only jog 3 miles, and you do it in the exact same amount of time, but you’re more worn out and exhausted at the end.
Even if you increase in strength and stamina from the extra exertion, so that each time you jog you can run faster and faster, the resistance is just going to increase proportionally. Like Sisyphus pushing that damn bolder up the hill every day. You gotta know by the 1000th year of that he was exponentially stronger than when he started. Didn’t matter. Push rock up; rock rolls down (lather, rinse, repeat, buy more shampoo).
Of course the analogy breaks down because we don’t move a fixed distance, and what looks like getting nowhere builds character and hope (if we have eyes to see), but that is hard. Especially when most people in your life only have a snapshot of you. You come into their picture only regarding specific expectations and needs. For them, those expectations must be met in full, to their standards, on their timelines, and are all high priority, front burner, world-ending-if-not-done-right-and-on-time issues, and your value to them is based on how well you meet those expectations, no matter how unrealistic, and they do not see the depth and density of your life, care what else you’re doing or about healthy balance.
Our lives are motion pictures but we see one another in still frames.Let us now praise Crony Capitalism and its offspring: rapacious consumption, driven workaholism, false identity, burn out and debased culture.
“I believe in love, Alfie. Without true love we just exist.”
Where Are Their Civil Rights?
Posted on | October 19, 2010 | Posted by Bo Grimes | No Comments |
January 1973
Tags: abortion > Justice > roe v wade
(5 + 2) x Jesus = Enough 4 All
Posted on | September 15, 2010 | Posted by Bo Grimes | No Comments |
“Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, ’Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?’” –John 6:8b-9
As school starts back and we approach Rally Day and the kick-off of our annual stewardship campaign, imagine if there were a way to multiply time. Would you believe me if I told you it’s possible?
The Bible is full of lessons on different types of sacrifices to make to God: a “broken and contrite heart” (Ps 51), “a sacrifice of thanksgiving” (Ps 116), “of praise” (Heb. 13), our “bodies as a living sacrifice” (Rom. 12), and money, among others. In speaking of the monetary sacrifices made “beyond their means” to financially support his ministry, Paul said, of the “churches of Macedonia,” that “they gave themselves first to the Lord.”
“They gave themselves first to the Lord,” and somehow, then, were able to give “beyond their means, of their own free will, begging earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.” (2 Cor. 2:8) Wow!
Jesus has a knack of multiplying that which we first freely give to him for His service. Take the fish and loaves, for example. When I read that story in John 6, I have to stop and think “Only a child would have given his small lunch to Jesus to feed 5000 people.” Someone, probably more like Martha than Mary, had responsibly sent her son out with a small lunch. Which of us would have given it up? I’d have thought “Why should I go hungry so that everyone else can also go hungry, because if I give up this lunch you can be sure of one thing: None of us will be satisfied.”
Not that boy. He gave “first to the Lord,” and the Lord multiplied it, not just until everyone was satisfied, but until everyone was satisfied and there were leftovers to boot! In our frantic, panicked, stressed-out, overwhelmed lives do we dare to believe He can do it with time?
I think the answer is a resounding and emphatic “YES!” I firmly believe that God gives us more than enough time to do the work He’s given us to do. Sadly, we beg for enough time when He longs to give us leftovers.
Often times in our lives, when it all gets to be too much, the first thing we neglect is our relationship with God. Our personal devotions, our church attendance, and our participation in Sunday school and Bible study (that is, our personal and corporate worship and our Christian education) suffer. Our service is often maintained, because so much of our image is dependent upon it, but it’s often done with feelings of stress and frustration rather than joy and gladness.
Lord knows (and I say that literally without an ounce of irreverence) we need to rest. He knew it when he designed us; He knew it when He instituted the Sabbath; He knew it when He called us and when He commissioned us. We’re the ones who don’t seem to understand.
Place, Limits, Liberty
Posted on | July 1, 2010 | Posted by Bo Grimes | No Comments |
Over at The Front Porch Republic, John Willson has a wonderful essay titled “Why I am a Conservative.“ It has a very precise statement that is dense with historical flora and philosophical fauna:
To be an American conservative is to believe that first, there is an Order of Creation. Second, that God’s authority has given us an eternal contract between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn. Third, that this contract is expressed in the church, the family, and the local community. Fourth, that there is a constitutional arrangement in the common sense of things, limited in authority, that gave shape to these truths. Fifth, that a reasonable amount of individual freedom, based on the above, rewards enterprise and initiative. Sixth, that there is a duty among all citizens to defend, sometimes (not often) even militarily, all of the above.
None of this implies an ideological box. These principles do not predict for whom I would vote or what foreign policy initiative I would support. They do, however, exclude me from thinking that we will likely achieve some state of earthly bliss.
Place. Limits. Liberty. Do these words have real meaning? I have often asked my ideological friends, “Is there a place you love? What would you do to defend it?” Or, “Is there a limit to what you would ask government to do? Name it, or at least give an approximation.” “Is there a better definition for liberty than the one in Micah 4:4?” But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. This is, by the way, the definition of liberty that was overwhelmingly the one used in the early years of our republic.
If you love place, limits, liberty, and think they are words that have meaning, you are probably conservative, and should honor that word also. If you waffle, and want to be cosmopolitan and sophisticated and make up your own names and categories, you probably want to live in a world dominated by what Walter Lippmann called in 1938, the “dominant dogma of the age,” that government has the ability to make us happy. I like “conservative,” because I know what I want to conserve, and am unapologetic about what I want to exclude.
Not a Christian Nation
Posted on | May 6, 2010 | Posted by Bo Grimes | No Comments |
I support the National Day of Prayer. It’s not unconstitutional; there is no imposition; one can pray to Whomever, whomever (only my God gets the capital–that’s how it works on my blog), or whatever they want, or to no one or nothing. The recent court decision declaring that it violates the Constitution is nonsense, and it will be overturned. The text of U.S. Public Law 324 clearly states that this is optional: ”The President shall issue each year a proclamation designating the first Thursday in May as a National Day of Prayer on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.”
However, I do not agree with all the rhetoric in support of it based on the notion that “America is a Christian nation.” Without a doubt, Judeo-Christian values, history and philosophy have informed, shaped and influenced this nation’s founding, laws and history, profoundly. Yet, the definition of Christian is grounded in what one believes about the person of Jesus Christ, His death, and His resurrection.
Christianity is not a philosophy, ideology, political theory or worldview. It can and does guide and shape those things; those things can and do arise and grow naturally out of Scripture and tradition, of necessity as we strive to honor God with our lives.
Christianity itself, though, is about “Who do you say that [Jesus is]“, and what, precisely are you going to do with that answer? If you believe he is the Messiah, the God-man, the Christ who died for your sins and rose from the dead, and you surrender yourself to His grace and submit yourself to His Lordship in all things, then you can claim the name of Christian. If you place your country above Him, you have, in fact, made an idol of your nation and violated the First and Second Commandments.
No where in our founding documents is the divinity of Christ, His atoning work on the cross for our sins, or His resurrection from the dead even implied. They are political documents strongly influenced by Judeo-Christian ethics and values, but they are not Christian in the sense that “The Epistle To Hebrews” is Christian, or even “The Augsburg Confession,” or “The Catechism of the Catholic Church.” All are written affirmations of who Jesus Christ was, His purpose and mission, His call and our response.
If you do not believe what Scripture proclaims and the Spirit confirms about Jesus Christ and answer His call to come to Him, grow in Him and go for Him, then nothing you write, say or do can rightly be characterized as Christian.
Tags: christian nation > christianity and politics > national day of prayer
Greeks R Us
Posted on | May 6, 2010 | Posted by Bo Grimes | No Comments |
Over the last several days there have been violent protest in Greece, including several deaths, over the spending cuts the government is proposing. From “The Wall Street Journal:”
The Greeks are giving the world a good taste of their modern politics. Periclean democracy, meet Athenian mob rule: Tens of thousands are rampaging through the capital and other large cities this week in protest against €30 billion in austerity measures needed to secure the €110 million bailout for the bankrupt country.
The nationwide strike—led by government-employee unions, which threaten further disruptions after parliament yesterday approved the rescue package—was a timely show for Greece’s prospective rescuers in Germany and at the International Monetary Fund. The medicine for Greece’s deficit and debt woes (at 13% and 124.9% of GDP, respectively.
I used to have a lot of affinity with the Democratic Party, but, besides moral relativism, this is the main reason why they are moving us in the wrong direction, fast. In order to stay in power, their main tactic is to created dependent constituencies with an ideology of entitlement. If you make people dependent upon cradle-to-grave government programs and services, and fill them with the sense that they are entitled to it, that they have a right to expect it, then they will demand more and refuse to accept any limits.
Notice there are no protests in the streets of Germany over paying for the bail-out. No, instead, in Greece, where despite the fact that other nations will be forced to finance their dependence in order to keep the contagion from spreading, they are refusing, with violence and murder, to accept any cuts in in their entitlements. Just like the NJ teachers’ union, which refuses to take a salary freeze so that programs don’t have to be cut. From an op-ed at NorthJersey.com:
The much reported “death curse” on Governor Christie and the teachers union’s response to it seem to prove the point that the leadership of the New Jersey Education Association is not thinking clearly. Christie’s demand that teachers forgo their wage increases is reasonable, based on the state’s tenuous fiscal situation.
No, no. Endless spending is an entitlement. Give us 10 years, Greece; we’ll catch up.
Tags: democrats > entitlements > Greece > political economy > teachers' unions
Survivor in This Amazing Race
Posted on | May 3, 2010 | Posted by Bo Grimes | No Comments |
I liked this. I think I’ll use it at the next youth group meeting.
Who Would Jesus Deport
Posted on | May 1, 2010 | Posted by Bo Grimes | No Comments |
Today, the first of May, there were protest all over the country against Arizona’s new immigration law. One protestor was carrying a sign “Who Would Jesus Deport?” What if it said “Who Would Jesus Marry?” (I mean by this not get married to but whose marriage would he preside over.) Can you image the outrage?
The Left welcome Christian principles and arguments when they support, or they think they can be used to support, the things they agree with like homosexuality, immigration, the environment, and care of the poor. They don’t seem to have any problem at all suggesting that governments should encode such principles into law.
At a blog I recently stumbled across and really like, the author, Wes Ellis, posted a prayer for humility regarding immigrants. I liked it, and have no problem praying it in agreement with the him. However, it implied to me that he thought Christian charity on this point should be the rule of law, so I posted a comment:
Amen, by which I literally mean, I agree and beseech God with you. I do, however, believe there is a distinction between the Church Universal and national policy.
As Christians, the true Jews, the command in Leviticus 19:34 is also commanded of us: “The alien who resides among you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” Likewise Hebrews 13:2: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
This is how the Church should act, and pray.
That does not mean God’s left hand, the State, does not have an obligation to protect its citizens or enforce the laws, nor does it mean Biblical commands given to God’s people should be encoded into immigration policy.
To which he replied: “I don’t think God’s left hand would work in opposition to his right…”
This is loaded with all kinds of implications for Church/State relations, most of which the Left would condemn if used to support a conservative viewpoint. It almost sounds like he supports a theocracy, like Israel was when God gave them the command in Leviticus. Besides, nothing I wrote even implied that I thought God works at cross-purposes with Himself.
I think that we should be Christ to immigrants, and we should call on our government to create just policies. But those just policies have to take into account justice for the citizen. Forget popular sovereignty; only God is sovereign, and He established the US government (whether they know it or not) to govern US citizens.
Concerning the roles of the State in the Two Kingdoms, Luther argues that government is “First, established [by God] to provide order and maintain the peace. Second, it must wield the sword with justice and according to the statues and laws of the nation.”[1] No government has ever been the source for God’s redemptive, social transformative work. That’s not its function. That is the task of His Church.
In an interview in 2004, N. T. Wright addressed this kind of thinking:
“I’ve sometimes hypothesized, what if someone were to say to Paul: ‘Well, according to your principle of love, all God’s people should share their possessions with one another. Therefore, some of us in the church think that we should help this process on the way by going into our neighbors’ houses and helping ourselves to whatever we fancy, thus liberating these objects from the spurious idea of possession.’ You can imagine someone might say, ‘Well, some of us believe in theft and others don’t, so let’s not judge one another.’”
As long as we have legitimate laws, the State has to enforce them. As a Christian I will minister to a resident alien, but I will not hire him or help him get here. I simply do not see how my ministering to anyone obligates me to support a particular governmental policy. Are we to just open the borders then?
Besides which, Chrisian principles of love and hospitality apply to all Christians in all places at all times. So, should Christians in Japan, say, try to make the government relax its strict immigration policy? Are all governments everywhere supposed to encode our beliefs into law? Even in Iran, say? Did Jesus intend His commands to His Church to be imposed on all people through the State? Sure sounds like exactly what the Left is always accusing the Right of wanting.
When I protested his characterization of my comments, Mr Ellis clarified: “If God is in solidarity with the poor and with immigrants, and the government passes a law that is unjust toward immigrants, then God would be ‘cross-purposing’ himself.”
First, God does not stand with the poor and with immigrants, per se, in and of themselves. He makes it sound as if just by virtue of stepping aross a border, even if done so illegally, even if done so with the intent to commit crimes, that somehow God stands with and for them, collectively, as a group, automatically.
Nor does it follow that because God clearly does have a heart for the outcast, the poor, the sick, the broken, the marginalized and oppressed that anytime a government passes a law that may not be equitable and just He is either working at cross-purposes with Himself or He is not really sovereign over the State.
It’s a flawed conclusion from an equally flawed premise.
Tags: church and state > immigration > religion and society > two kingdoms
Abandoning Those Most in Need
Posted on | April 30, 2010 | Posted by Bo Grimes | No Comments |
If you follow what’s going on in the news in Africa, especially in Zimbabwe, you can see what suffering amidst chaos the church is dealing with there. Did anyone at the ELCA Assembly last August even stop to consider how the vote to roster gays would affect our ability to stand with them in solidarity and continue to support them, or would they even want our support after such a vote?
The following press release from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania clearly states the reasons that recent ELCA advocacy for same-sex unions is both false teaching and a serious threat to the authority of scripture.
- ELCT Press Release
- Date: April 29, 2010
- Press release No. 004/04/2010
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) has reiterated her opposition to same-sex marriage and stated that those who are in such unions are not welcome to work in the ELCT because such practice is incompatible with Biblical teaching.
The ELCT Executive Council meeting, held in Moshi on April 27 to 28 this year, received and approved “The Dodoma Statement” prepared in January this year by the ELCT Bishops’ Council. The bishops met in Dodoma to discuss in details steps to take after the decision of some European and American churches to recognize same-sex marriages.
The Statement says: “Those in same sex marriages, and those who support the legitimacy of such marriage, shall not be invited to work in the ELCT. We further reject their influence in any form, as well as their money and their support.”
“This church affirms that love is the essence of a relationship between two people who live, or who want to live, together in marriage. But, with regard to married spouses, this is the love between two people of the opposite sex.”
“This church does not accept reasons offered by advocates of same-sex marriage and its legitimacy unless it is based on the Word of God and Biblical teaching; therefore, we reject inappropriate and false interpretations of scripture produced to justify the marriage of people of the same gender.”
“This church encourages and supports all those around the world who oppose churches that have taken the decision to legalize same-sex marriage.”
“We appeal to those of like-mind with us to continue to be salt and light in our relationships. We should direct our energy into maintaining the unity and cooperation between us. Such unity will help us avoid falling into a state which would further injure the body of Christ, that is, the Church.”
“Those supporting same-sex marriages have started to do all they can to destroy one Biblical passage after another in order to legalize homosexuality and affirm that marriage is not necessarily between a man and a woman. They do so by putting forward their new and wrong interpretation – one which displays an attitude and understanding which differs from that which has existed for many years in the Church regarding the meaning of marriage in accordance with the teachings of the Word of God.”
Some Bible passages that have been misused and given another interpretation to defend same-sex marriage are the following: Genesis 1:27-28, 2:24, Matt. 19: 5-7, Rom. 1:26-27, Gal. 3:28, etc.
The statement goes on to say: “The ELCT and other people worldwide who support our stand on the issue of opposing same-sex marriage believe that the Bible cannot be interpreted according to people’s wishes or according to other authorities or to culture. Rather, the Bible is self explanatory and is merely translated into various languages without altering the meaning.”
“The ELCT accepts that moral values may change among people as their situations change; however, ELCT believers know and believe that there are some things that cannot change, such as people having noses, ears and mouths.”
“This church believes that, based on the teaching of the Word of God, there are values that cannot be adjusted even under the pressure of changing conditions and locations. One of these unwavering values concerns the issue of marriage and its meaning.”
Issued by:
Office of the Secretary-General, ELCT
Churches splitting here, new Synods being formed, staff layoffs because of decreased funding, world missions and unity undermined. So much for justice.
Tags: African Lutherans > ELCA > homosexuality. > Scripture