Who Is My Neighbor?

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" 

He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself. 

"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."   

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"  (Matthew 10:25-28)

I"ve been thinking lately about how easy it is for us to go about our lives without really paying much attention to the substantive needs around us.  Jesus famously told the story of the Good Samaritan to press this point.  We all like to think of ourselves as good Samaritans, but occasionally may be shocked to see that we are as guilty as the Levite who callously walked past.

That happened to me recently.

Last week News 9 did a story about hunger at Putnam City West High School.   Not just about poverty or declining enrollment or diminishing parent participation, but HUNGER.

P.C. West is my alma mater.  It is a school in the shadow of our church.  It is the school that many of our students attend and many of our church members either attended, had children who attended or are currently teaching or coaching there.  Many of us would say that PC West is OUR school.  

And according to the News 9 report, there are young people who come to class and go to after school activities every day who have gone without food and are seriously malnourished.  The problem is so bad that several players on the football team suffered broken bones last year not because of hard hitting, but because their under nourished bodies couldn't take the contact.

How could I have walked past this?

It's hard for me to describe the emotion I've felt since watching this news report.  It is somewhere between sadness and shame and then finally determination.   I am sad that this kind of thing is happening in our community.  I am ashamed it is so close to us and I've not paid enough attention.  I am determined that we do something about it.

Apparently many of you feel the same way.  Since the report aired hundreds of people from around the community have responded.  Many of our church members have been networking and calling and working together.  Alumni have formed facebook groups and have organized and are beginning to mobilize.    Connection Classes are responding.

We have church members who are already heavily involved, like Coach John and Tammy Jensen and Corey Tennell who were highlighted in the news story.  There is also our Bridge Ministry leadership including Corey, Amy Milner, Chris Allen and Beth Dempsey and our High School and Middle School pastors Michael Butler and Micah White.  We have people in place who can make a difference and who are making a difference.  The challenge for us is to determine what can be done and how it can be done most effectively.  We are working as a staff to find solutions (some examples here).  We are asking the administration at West what we can do to help.  We will bring many of those answers to the congregation in the weeks ahead.  Our intention is to work toward long term solutions, not just the quick fixes we may be tempted to gravitate toward when our emotions are running high.

But the first step for all of us is to see the situation in our community in the way Christ sees it and the way the Bible teaches.  When Jesus used the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate the meaning of "our neighbor",  He raised the bar on the conventional understanding of community responsibility.  He was saying in affect, "the desperate needs of the least of these in the community are the responsibility of everyone who is a part of me."  (Matthew 25:40)

In his book Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning told a compelling story about the famous former mayor of New York City Forello La Guardia that I think illustrates this point in an unforgettable way.  La Guardia is a legendary giant of New York City history who is now memorialized by the international airport.  Back during the depression La Guardia would barge into municipal courts and take the gavel from the presiding judge and hold court in order to make examples of petty criminals.  It was his way of keeping the order and sending a message during the desperate, dark days of the depression.

He was such a force of personality that simple courtroom rulings would often turn into front page news.  According to Manning, on a cold night in 1935 a grandmother was brought before La Guardias makeshift court in one of New York City's poorest districts.  She was charged with stealing bread.  The desperate elderly woman pled with Mayor La Guardia that she had no other way of feeding her grandchildren than to steal the bread.   The grocery store owner was not willing to drop the charges, explaining to the Mayor that it was a very rough neighborhood and he couldn't afford to back down.

La Guardia looked at the woman and said, "I have no other choice, the law must be upheld, ten dollars or ten days in jail." But even as he was saying it he reached into his pocket and extracted a ten dollar bill and threw it in his famous black derby hat and then called out to the courtroom, "Here is the ten dollar fine I now remit; and furthermore I fine everyone in this courtroom 10 cents for living in a city where a woman has to steal bread in order to feed her grandchildren!"

We should not forget that the pertinent question answered by the parable of The Good Samaritan is "Who is my neighbor?'    It was as if Jesus were saying, "Your neighbor is that person in need. The one over there on the side of the road you have been ignoring.  The one you wish you hadn't seen.  The one you have chosen not to look at- the one who desperately needs your attention! Yes, that one, the one who is going hungry- that is your neighbor.  And loving him is what I mean by loving your neighbor as you love yourself."

In many ways I think this News 9 report was for us church family.  It was God's way of saying to us, "Look over there, on the other side of the road, look at your neighbor."

A Defining Moment

My heart attack came on me suddenly and without warning.  I had no symptoms leading up to it.  Teri and I exercise together faithfully and I eat well, so not only did I not have physical warning signs, I was psychologically unprepared.  "I'm way too young and too healthy",  I could easily rationalize. 


But when the attack came, it was manifested in all the classic signs.  I had a severe pain in my chest that shot up my left arm.  My neck and jaws hurt and I had shortness of breath.  The most difficult of all the symptoms to deal with was an overwhelming sense of anxiety.  It is amazing how the body will tell you you are in trouble.  My body was screaming at me.  Emotionally I was in a kind of denial.  "It can't be happening", I told myself.  "Surely this isn't what I think it is!"  But my body was telling me with emphatic clarity what I did not want to believe to be true.


It turns out the left ventricle to my heart, the artery they call "the widow maker", was completely blocked.  My cardiologist told me later that likely I had a small blockage that broke free and caused the total blockage.


I was outside working in the yard when it happened.  I made my way to the house, told Teri I was not feeling well and took a cold shower.  The shower revived me somewhat but the symptoms quickly returned.  "We've got to go to the hospital", I told Teri.


After a quick conversation with our doctor friend, Matt Britt, who told us to get to the heart hospital as quickly as possible, we jumped in the car and Teri wasted no time getting me to the emergency room (our apologies to anyone we might have offended in that 7 minute flight).


I can't say enough about the professionalism of the nurses, doctors and specialists at the Oklahoma Heart Hospital.  Within mere minutes I was in a cath lab and they performed a balloon procedure utilizing a stent that liberated my stressed heart.  I have no doubt their quick work saved my life.


A friend asked me this week how my heart attack has changed me?  Of course only time will tell, but already I can see a perspective I only had in part before but now I have in full.  I would summarize them like this:


1.  I notice I don't worry as much about the small stuff.  If it's not worth carrying into eternity, why should it matter?    This is a truth that has been an important biblical concept to me that has taken on new meaning post heart attack.


2.  The big stuff seems to matter more.  I now see that every second I have with family and friends is a precious gift.   My wife's smile has never been so important to me.  My daughters silly jokes are more funny.  Every conversation with my son takes on new importance.   I find myself wanting to squeeze every ounce of life from each second I have with the people I love.    I have noticed that I notice more.   I notice how much my friends mean to me.  I notice how much my church means to me and what incredible love exists in the fellowship of God's people.  I notice the things I used to take for granted- things like children's laughter, a beautiful sunrise or a worship song that strikes a chord.  Life seems more full and has greater clarity.


3.  I feel a greater sense of purpose for what God put me on this planet to accomplish.  My calling to proclaim and live the gospel has never been more important to me.  I have had  so many people pray for me the past few weeks that I truly believe that whatever good might come from my life from this day forward- however many people may come to know Christ because of my ministry- will be the direct result of those prayers.   I have heard the expression "God isn't finished with me yet" thousands of times in my life.   It is more than just a cliche for me now.


More than at any time in my life I am excited to be on the journey we are on together.   Because of what God has brought me through in that defining moment three weeks ago, I am more determined than ever to see it through with purpose and joy.

The Learning Community

This past Monday I spent the day interviewing various church members about the lessons God has taught them through the years on various subjects.  The result of these interviews will be several videos we are having produced to show at various times throughout our Words of Wisdom series through the book of Proverbs.

Listening to their amazing stories and the accumulated wisdom of their many years of walking with Christ reinforced my conviction that one of the most compelling reasons for our regular gathering is that when we come together we draw from a deep well of experience, knowledge and wisdom that exists within the church family.  We regularly gather because that's what the Bible instructs us to do.   But more than that we gather because we are strengthened by one another and because we learn from one another.

I have my own experience to draw from her.  In a very real sense,  I was not only raised in the church, but was raised BY the church.  By that I mean the relationships I developed by attending church with my family reinforced the biblical principles I was taught in the home.  Not only did I learn the Bible didactically within the church but also experientially by the way people lived around me.

This is what we mean when we say biblical community is an important discipline of the faith.  The community of grace is an environment of dynamic learning from cradle to grave.

But you cannot be passive in the process, you have to dedicate yourself to involvement.  The growth process is enhanced as we go to church habitually, and when we serve and actively pursue relationships with other believers.  One of the great benefits of being a part of a large body of believers is the eclectic variety of influences and accumulated wisdom around you and your family.

I believe this is one of the most important reasons that Jesus gave us the church and that God called us into faith community.  To further reinforce this point, take just a minute to watch this slice of the interview John Ortberg did with Christian scholar, philosopher and head of the University of Southern California School of Philosophy Dallas Willard recently at Menlo Park Church in San Francisco California:


John Ortberg and Dallas Willard from MPPC on Vimeo.

How To Forgive An Umpire

Umpire Jim Joyce blew the call.  It was made painfully obvious with each replay on Detroit's Comerica Park's Jumbo Tron.  It was one of those moments umpires would give anything to get back- like a scene from the Southwest Airlines commercial, "Wanna get away?"


Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga had been nursing a perfect game against divisional rival Cleveland and this was his last pitch.


The crowd was practically apoplectic in anticipation of only the 21st such game in Major League Baseballs illustrious history.   They were on their feet cheering wildly as Jason Donald hit a weak grounder between first and second and the routine play was easily made to first base.  Donald was out by a full step and everyone knew it.  Everyone that is except umpire Jim Joyce who emphatically and enthusiastically made the wrong call.  


One second he was just another major league umpire, the next he is eternally and notoriously enshrined in baseball trivia.  


He didn't know it for certain until after the game when he watched the play on a monitor in his dressing room.  He was so upset by what he saw that he couldn't shower.  He felt sick at his stomach.  And in a rare admission for a big league umpire  he made his way to the Detroit locker room and asked Tiger's manager Dave Dombrowski if he could apologize to Galarraga.  


He gave the pitcher a hug and told him he wished he had it back.   "He felt really bad"  Galarraga said.   


Every now and then something emerges in popular culture that serves as a striking example of a deep truth of biblical teaching.  One such example occurred the next afternoon when the two teams faced each other again and umpire Joyce was at the plate.  


Dombrowski sent Galaraga out to sign the lineup card and to shake Joyce's hand to begin the game.  With cameras rolling the two men met, and in a terrific display of maturity and grace Galaraga patted the shamed umpire on the shoulder as a way of saying "all is forgiven."   Dombrowski wiped tears from his eyes in accepting the remarkable gesture of forgiveness.  


Galarraga may never get another chance to throw a perfect game.  But what he did on that home plate the day after the blown call that robbed him of it will go down as something almost as perfect and noteworthy.  In a culture where hating umpires is a religious rite and blaming others for every little thing that goes wrong is an art form, what the world saw at home plate stood as a shining example of civility and class.  


Would to God that little league parents across America were paying attention.  


It reminded me of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 about the inevitable injustices we all face from time to time:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven."

The Bible teaches that as Christians we are to be good forgivers because we are all partakers of the ultimate forgiveness that God offers through His atoning work on the cross:

"Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." Col. 3:13

As Christians we are set free from our anger and bitterness by a lifestyle of forgiveness.  In other words, because of what Jesus did, we can all "shake it off" and move on.  We live with these two realities: 

• Unfair things will happen.  The wrong calls will be made and injustice will adversely affect our hard work.  The world is fallen and as a result rain falls on those who deserve it and on those who don't.  Until Christ comes to make things right, life will always be unfair.
• When we bear a grudge we destroy ourselves.  The Bible says "Be angry and sin not."  Anger about injustice is normal, but to live in perpetual anger is sinful and destructive.  

So the forgiveness prominently displayed at Comerica stadium last week is a shining example of this important biblical principle- that we are not just to occasionally and begrudgingly forgive, but that we are to live our lives in a perpetual state of forgiving.   I know it seems hard to pull off in an unjust world with blown calls and blind umpires.  But when we consider how truly undeserving we are of His grace, how could we live any other way?

Hats off to Jim Joyce for being man enough to admit he blew it.  And hats off to Galarraga for giving us a great picture of how a real man forgives.

What To Make of Lost

Last nights last episode of "Lost", one of the most popular television shows in the U.S. and around the world, has provoked some substantive questions about the ultimate meaning of life.  When people are asking these kinds ofl questions, I think it's good to have some answers.

Maybe your not a fan of Lost and therefore have nothing really to contribute to the discussion.  But for those of you who, like me, have been following this series from the beginning, I want to pitch in a few of my thoughts.

The show ended with all the main characters gathered in a church building that was adorned with stained glass windows reflecting all the major world religions.  In this climactic final scene, the viewers learn that all the people in the show are now actually dead and that the "parallel reality" they had been in was in fact a kind of purgatory in which they hung in an immortal suspension while awaiting a form of redemption from their past lives.  Upon entering the church building they are filled with joy, peace and contentment as they are lead by "Christian Shepherd" toward a bright light at the back of the church.

Intriguing stuff indeed.  And really great fodder to invoke discussion about the meaning of eternity and man's need for redemption.

My take:

1.  The show was not meant to answer theological questions- it was meant to entertain.  In that regard I believe the script and production has been masterful.  All good art form seeks to ask questions more than answer them, and so the writers of the show, J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof are to be congratulated.  It has been perhaps one of the most compelling storylines ever written for television.

2.  With that said, it is obvious to me that Abrams and Lindelof are admirers of Buddhist Taoism and through their storytelling sought to converge Eastern and Western religious expressions .  This is an increasingly mainstream philosophy.

The final episode reveals a lot to us about current American culture in my opinion.  We must now admit that most people in America do not accept the Bible's teaching about the exclusivity of the gospel.   Most Americans believe that there are many roads to heaven and that there is no such thing as absolute truth.  Very few people today even in the Bible Belt have a comprehensive Biblical worldview.   When that belief is occasionally expressed in popular culture, it is seen as narrow and intolerant.

For example, in a recent article in the Washington Post, Kathleen Parker criticized Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham and head of Samaritans Purse for his belief that Islam is a false and evil religion.  Parker's point was that Graham's view is out of step with American culture, even some in Christian evangelical culture:

Graham isn’t alone in his views. A survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors, conducted by an evangelical polling firm, found that 47 percent agree that Islam is “a very evil and a very wicked religion.” But such opinions may be confined mostly to an older generation. Evangelicals under 30 believe that there are many ways to God, not just through Jesus.

Kathleen Parker was making the point that it won't be long before the old fashioined belief that Jesus is the only way to heaven will die out.  She then cites research by David Campbell of Notre Dame and Robert Putman of Harvard indicating that “nearly two-thirds of evangelicals under 35 believe non-Christians can go to heaven, vs. 39 percent of those over 65.”

As I was watching the final scene of Lost last night and saw all the different world religious expressions represented in the stained glass of the church, it occurred to me that far from being unorthodox, the stained glass actually represents the way most people in America view religious truth.

It dawned on me that we who hold to a Biblical perspective  are on the outside looking in at this argument.  So when people hear us say that our belief is that there is only one truth and there can't be more than one version of that truth (or any truth for that matter), we are the ones who sound unorthodox and unconventional.   

3.   I think it is important for Christians to be engaged with culture and to be willing to have the discussions.  Instead of complaining about what we see in popular art forms, we need to have substantive conversations about what they mean to us. I believe one of the most important approaches we can take in conversations like this is to simply challenge people to think through what they believe.

My suspicion is that a lot of people watch a show like the final episode of Lost and think something like, "Yeah, that's what I believe..."  but never really think through the implications of believing that all religions are basically the same.  They're not.  And they can't all be true at the same time.  It would be logically impossible to believe that if you really thought through what each religion teaches.

All the religions cannot be true at the same time because every religion makes absolute truth claims that directly contradict the absolute truth claims of every other religion.  Since two or more contradicting truth claims cannot all be true at the same time, reasonable people cannot say that they believe in the truth of all of them. 

Lets take Buddhism in contrast to Christianity for instance.

There is no God in Buddhism. Christianity, however,  presents a living,  personal,  holy and almighty God who created the world from nothingness.

In Buddhism, the world and human self are nothing but an illusion;   Contrast this with the Bible that teaches the physical reality of Jesus Christ, mankind and God’s creation.

There are many more contradictions such as the Christian teaching of sin, suffering and the reality of a physical heaven, all of which are directly contradicted in the teaching of Buddhism.

And these are just the contradictions between Buddhism and Christianity.  There are many more contradictions between Christianity and every other religion and as Christians we have to point out that there can only be one truth.   To the complaint that Christianity is too narrow  we say "All truth is narrow."   Any person who makes a truth claim (such as Christianity is too narrow for instance) is being narrow in holding to that truth claim.

4.  I think the biggest point to make to people is that Lost was enormously entertaining and that it provokes incredibly important questions.   The most important of which is "how does a person find ultimate reality?"

The Bible teaches that we were all created by God for an ultimate purpose that can only be realized when we give up on our tendency to find our own way and live for ourselves and see that Jesus Christ did all the necessary redemptive work on the cross so that we could be brought in and accepted by His grace.  If we follow our own natural inclination toward self idolatry, God will give us over to our choices resulting in eternal misery. 

Every other religion teaches that salvation is up to the individual and has to be earned, therefore there is no guarantee or assurance of what eternity brings.

And that's an ending none of us would want or enjoy.

For His Glory

Every now and then someone asks me what kinds of ministries we have in our church.  Usually they want to know about the reach of our on-site ministries, the relevance and activeness of our youth ministry, the strength of our children's and worship ministries and so on.

But I always like to remind people that while these ministries are top notch, they are just a part of the picture.  While it is true that many of the great ministries of our church are centered and driven from the church campus, the real truth is that  the most significant ministries that come out of CRBC are away from the church building on 30th and Council. 

The reason for this is that our church members are continually engaged in all kinds of ministry in the homes, neighborhoods, schools and workplaces all throughout our community.  We have church members who are engaged in Bible studies,  prison ministry, sports ministry, recovery ministry and home, school, and work place discipeship that are never seen by or reported to the church family.  

I was reminded again of this fact this week when I attended a breakfast that was put together by a couple of businessmen in our church for the purpose of raising funds for a new clinic at the orphanage in Motipur India our church is helping to build.  By the time the day was over these men had helped to raise over 70,000 dollars toward the 107,000 dollar project.

Because of their passion and hard work, thousands of people in this part of India will have access to medical care for the first time and the name of Christ will be glorified in one of the darkest corners of the planet.  So in these and countless other ways we don't even know about, the missional ministries of Council Road are advancing the Kingdom of God.

And it is all for His glory, not ours!

Live Sent

The missional church is a church that understands the Great Commission is not just for those who are called to cross-cultural ministry in a foreign country- but that every single one of us is a part of the cause- that we have all been "sent".   As Kyle Pewitt likes to say, "the missional church is one that lives sent". 

I have seen this mindset acted out in some awesome ways lately in our church family:

• Like the seven people who came to Christ last weekend because friends brought them to worship. 

• Like the host of  volunteers who help each week at the ROC clinic to care for the working poor in our community.

• Like the forty plus Middle Schoolers who spent their spring break caring for our homebound members.

• Like the testimony I heard a few weeks ago in Celebrate Recovery from a woman in our church who came to Christ in prison and told the group that when she walked down the dark cold corridor of concrete and steel afterward she felt more free than at any time in her life.  God is now using her to help set others free.

• Like the many children and pre-school workers who have stepped forward over the past few weeks to volunteer to help us during a transition in our Sunday morming minsitry and in our upcoming VBS. 

• Or like the terrific way God is using our teenagers.  Here is an email I got from one of our church members who was an organizer of the annual Memorial Marathan and wanted me to know how great our teenagers were at the event:

Thank you sooo much for all of your help with getting the teens out to the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon!  I know our Council Road kids are amazing, but it was still so much fun to watch them do their thing! They lined up along Classen, built human pyramids, cheered, hi-fived, and encouraged THOUSANDS of marathon runners yesterday.  They danced, they sang, they hopped a lot!!  They shivered, they jumped in and helped with different tasks in our area, they were a huge blessing!  I watched runners pull out their earbuds so they could hear our kids.  I even saw runners pull out their phones to take pictures of our group WHILE they were running the marathon.  Those teens were a huge inspiration!  We could physically see runners get their second wind as they came past us.  And the kids did all of this for a solid 4 hours!  Our teens are awesome!!!

One thing they did in particular at the end - there was an older, out of shape woman who was running all alone.   Everyone else had already run past.  She was very tired, but she was pushing through the pain just the same.  A large group of our kids ran down the road and joined her.  A huge smile came over her face when she saw the teens running to her.  They ran with her and encouraged her all the way to the checkpoint.  I was so proud to say that those were our Council Road Kids!!

Our area was a huge success because of each and every one of those kids that got involved.