Tag Archives: Evil

The Snake Still Slithers

While America watched the horrors at our United States Capitol building on January 6, 2021, hurting and crying over the awful scenes unfolding on our screens, tumultuous laughter could be heard from one who some of us deny even exists. One elected representative evacuated that day even described his experience with unusual words for a politician: “it was like looking at evil.” If you don’t believe Satan is alive and well, believe it now. He is the prince of this world, and what a chance God took when he set that snake on the loose! He has already been defeated; Jesus took care of that on the cross. He has no power now, except the power we decide to give him. When Jesus cried from the cross, “It is finished,” did you think he meant his life? But Jesus was raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father.

So what did Jesus mean? What was finished? Satan’s power. Jesus meant, “He lost. We won!” But Satan failed to get the memo; he moves ruthlessly through his days, a wimp of who he used to be, trying in vain to continue his deception. As far as our lives are concerned, he is only as successful as we allow. His mission is to wreak havoc any way he can. He does not care who is embarrassed, hurt, mistreated, or slandered as he sets about to fulfill his purposes on this earth: turning every last one of us away from God’s glorious kingdom of light and pulling us into the destruction and darkness he loves.

Someone has said, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.” I bought into that when I was younger. I thought he was simply a wind of evil that floats among us all, influencing bad things to happen. A good friend of mine echoes my thoughts during those days. “I thought Satan wasn’t actually real – until I met him face to face during my divorce.”

Yes, Satan is real. He is alive and well, and if we know this, we need to get ourselves into God’s Word, where we can not only see him described, but also recognize that he is a has-been. You and I have to stand against his spirit of self-destruction. Biblical teaching reminds us that, “Greater is He [Jesus] that is in you, than he [Satan] that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

Satan is clearly our enemy, our adversary. He was dancing while the Capitol was being damaged, lives taken, injuries and trauma inflicted. “Be watchful. Your adversary, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Look at some of the horrific acts he has handled. You will not understand this unless you have made a decision that Satan is our real enemy. We can all point to names of those we consider to be the real problem, and we might be right, but look beyond those names and watch how Satan instigates every act of darkness. And remember that he is always a liar.

“Now the serpent was craftier that any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?”’” (Genesis 3:1)

When Eve ate the fruit and offered some to Adam, they both willfully chose to listen to the liar instead of their Creator. Before that moment, they were happy. But on taking a bite, they lost the innocence with which they were born. Quickly, they made clothes of leaves to cover up.

As glass was shattering, doors were smashing and anger was exploding at our Capitol building, Satan was propped contentedly on a tree near the Capitol, slithering from limb to limb and laughing hysterically as one by one, scuffling people broke doors and windows, feeling they had the right to do whatever they wanted. “It’s our building,” some chanted, excusing themselves from the mayhem they caused.

And the snake slithered on.

Of course, Satan had long been after America. I am appalled at the divisions in our country. I can’t imagine how I would feel if one I loved had been mistreated or killed on our streets. In fact, for a while, the only redeemable picture from the brutalization of our Capitol was the realization that for a short period, members of both parties were on the same side, binding together, helping each other escape to safety, fearing for themselves and each other – and praying. If we could have gotten into the hearts of our elected officials, we would have heard many prayers being spoken silently.

The night of January sixth, Inside Edition anchor Debra Norville ended the evening with, “God bless America.” The message is not a subtle one. America needs to return to the God we ask to bless us.

Had we been able to actually see a real snake crawling on a tree near the Capitol, we would have noticed one very real, very telling detail. The snake’s head is bashed in. He slithers with a wound. He circles with a crooked head, smashed at the victory over death by our strong Warrior, Jesus Christ. God’s words to Satan after the fall in the garden are telling. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:16)

Yes, the snake still slithers. But he is defeated. When he starts attacking you, repeat the name of Jesus, for, “At the name of Jesus, Satan has to flee.” (James 4:7) God is the ruler yet! Live in these uncertain days in the clear and certain authority of your Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Featured image courtesy David Clode on Unsplash.

Suzanne Nicholson ~ Suffering through Thanksgiving

This is the time of year when advertisements inundate us with images of happy families gloriously celebrating the holidays. Women in velvet dresses clink champagne glasses with men in suits and plaid bowties. Their beautifully decorated homes overflow with relatives who eat turkey and all the fixings from holly-themed china plates. You can almost smell the cinnamon and nutmeg wafting through the air.

Thankfulness comes easily under those circumstances. It is effortless to live in the moment, to seize the day, when all is sparkly and beautiful. But when the current moment is rife with injustice, living in the moment is nothing short of cruel. A loved one murdered, and the killer avoids prison. A child trafficked for sex, with no one to protect her. A pension fund plundered, leaving retirees penniless.

How does one rejoice in the midst of injustice?

Scripture is full of stories of injustice. After Joseph saved Egypt from famine and brought his family under the protection of Pharaoh, time passed. The new pharaoh failed to remember that a Hebrew had saved the land; instead, he suspected the Hebrews of planning sedition (Exod. 1:8-10). The Egyptians enslaved those who had saved them.

Job’s only flaw was being so faithful to God that Satan took notice (Job 1:9-11). In the testing that followed, Job lost his business, his family, and his health. Despite his faithfulness, disaster ensued.

Sometimes even justified suffering seemed to come through unjust means. God punished Israel and Judah for their great sinfulness by means of the exile. But the prophet Habakkuk questioned how God could use the wicked Babylonians to discipline the people of God. He cried out to God: “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you are unable to look at disaster. Why would you look at the treacherous or keep silent when the wicked swallows one who is more righteous?” (Hab. 1:13).

Habakkuk’s outburst reflects common themes in the lament psalms. Psalm 22, which Jesus began to recite on the cross, starts with “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest” (Ps. 22:1-2).

Even after the resurrection of Jesus, unjust suffering continues. In 2 Corinthians 11, the apostle Paul recounts the numerous times he has been flogged, beaten with rods, pelted with stones, shipwrecked, and subjected to other horrors as a result of preaching the Gospel.

These injustices point to the “already/not-yet tension” in the New Testament. Jesus has already inaugurated the Kingdom by dealing with sin and defeating death. The fullness of the Kingdom, however, has not yet been realized. The Holy Spirit is at work in believers, transforming our lives and empowering us to be salt and light in a dark, decaying world. But until Christ returns to complete the process he started, we will continue to experience injustice in this life.

But the truth of Christ’s impending return is what keeps faithful men and women going. When we take a long view of history, our current injustices take on a different meaning. We look back at what Christ accomplished on the cross—a fact of history that can never be changed or reversed—and we understand that sin and death have met their match. We look forward to the fullness of the Kingdom and recognize that greater blessings are yet to come.

This is why Paul can write to the Philippians—while chained to a Roman guard!—that we should rejoice in the Lord always (Phil. 4:4). Earlier in the letter he told the church that he focuses on what lies ahead, pressing onward to win the goal of the prize for which God has called him (3:13-14). Paul’s reality is centered not on his chains, but on the promise of eternal life with God.

This does not mean that Paul somehow ignores his present pain or pretends it did not happen. In fact, in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 he tells us that he had a thorn in his flesh that tormented him. Scholars have speculated on what this thorn might have been, based on hints in his letters—an eye problem? Arthritis? Some other physical deformity? Paul prayed three times for this thorn to be removed, and each time he was told no. Paul—who had healed the sick and raised the dead—was not given the power to heal himself. In Paul’s case, he needed to learn that God’s grace was sufficient to carry him through all weakness. His response: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:9b-10). Paul defines his present and future by the power of God. In the current moment of pain, Paul takes a long view of history and rejoices in the ultimate victory of the God who overcomes.

This perspective is woven through the biblical narrative. The Hebrews experiencing years of slavery in Egypt cried out to God, who called Moses to deliver them. Job’s health and business were restored, and he was blessed with more sons and daughters. God promised Habakkuk that he would bring justice to the wicked Babylonians. And Psalm 22 reassures us that Jesus’ cry of abandonment on the cross is not the last word: the lament psalm remembers God’s past faithfulness and proclaims that God will triumph and all nations will praise him.

For those who are suffering injustice, the biblical narrative brings reassurance that God is at work in this world. While restoration may occur here and now, some injustices cannot be adequately addressed in this lifetime. For those who suffer in this way, Scripture proclaims that their story does not end here. Rejoice! The God of justice is coming.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Narrative of Evil

Note from the Editor: At the time of original publication, Wesleyan Accent suspended its usual posting of a weekend sermon to reflect on the 2015 coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, France.

Where haute couture fashion houses dominate and the Mona Lisa smiles, where the Notre Dame cathedral towers with long-held cultural memories of a famed hunchback and the Eiffel Tower beckons to retainer-wearing junior high tourists, where Rick and Ilsa looked out as the Nazis rolled in.

What is the true narrative of Paris, a very old city with a colorful history, the grand dame of Europe whose eyes twinkle as she alludes to youthful scandal?

What is the true narrative of Paris, where St. Thomas Aquinas studied, wrote and taught? The same Paris that boiled with blood during the French Revolution? The same Paris overtaken by the Third Reich? The same Paris scourged by the Black Plague? The same Paris now in a state of emergency with enforced curfew marooned in a nation whose borders have had to clang shut.

The true narrative of Paris is the narrative of any individual – at moments glorious, fallible, heartbroken, and exquisite.

Like the true narrative of Baghdad.

Or Damascus.

Recently Canon Andrew White, “the vicar of Baghdad,” alluded to his chiaroscuro life.

They were coming for him and his people. Friends were being killed or fleeing for their lives. So Andrew White did what he always does when faced with an enemy. “I invited the leaders of Isis [Islamic State] for dinner. I am a great believer in that. I have asked some of the worst people ever to eat with me.”

This extraordinarily self-confident priest is best known as the vicar of Baghdad, leader of a church in the chaos outside the protected Green Zone. He made his offer last year as the terrorist forces threatened to take the city. Did he get a reply?

“Isis said, ‘You can invite us to dinner, but we’ll chop your head off.’ So I didn’t invite them again!”

And he roars with laughter, despite believing that Islamic State has put a huge price on his head, apparently willing to pay $157m (£100m) to anyone who can kill this harmless-looking eccentric. Canon White was a doctor before he became a priest and could be one still, in his colourful bow-tie and double-breasted blazer with a pocket square spilling silk. But appearances are deceptive.

For the last two decades, he has worked as a mediator in some of the deadliest disputes on Earth, in Israel and Palestine, Iraq and Nigeria. He has sat down to eat with terrorists, extremists, warlords and the sons of Saddam Hussein, with presidents and prime ministers.

White has been shot at and kidnapped, and was once held captive in a room littered with other people’s severed fingers and toes, until he talked his way out of it. He is an Anglican priest but was raised a Pentecostal and has that church’s gift of the gab.

Canon Andrew has served as a voice from a region that we skim over in the headlines because it troubles us. But something that troubles you will eventually force its way into your consciousness, like a lump you want to ignore or the scrabbling of a mouse across the floor in the night.

Damascus, Baghdad, Paris.

What next? Miami, Atlanta, Boston? How might the narrative of more cities morph under the influence of evil? Paris is closer to the Western world than Damascus or Baghdad are in many ways. The American Statue of Liberty was a gift from France. French thinkers and writers have influenced intellectual development over the past few centuries. Our language is dotted with vocabulary we don’t think twice about because we don’t pronounce it in proper nasal fashion, but chaperone, restaurant, coup de grace – all these illustrate the invisible ties that stretch like cords across Atlantic waves. And so we sit up and take notice when Paris is beaten up and left bloodied on the roadside more than we do when Damascus and Baghdad are kidnapped and held for ransom.

Canon Andrew does not underestimate the strength of the evil that has been brutalizing Iraqis, Syrians, and now Parisians.

So what is to be done? “We must try and continue to keep the door open. We have to show that there is a willingness to engage. There are good Sunni leaders; they are not all evil like Isis.”

But surely there is only one logical conclusion to be drawn? He sighs, and answers slowly. “You are asking me how we can deal radically with Isis. The only answer is to radically destroy them. I don’t think we can do it by dropping bombs. We have got to bring about real change. It is a terrible thing to say as a priest.

“You’re probably thinking, ‘So you’re telling me there should be war?’ Yes!”

I am shocked by his answer, because this is a man who has risked his life many times to bring peace.

“It really hurts. I have tried so hard. I will do anything to save life and bring about tranquillity, and here I am forced by death and destruction to say there should be war.”

White had to be ordered to leave Baghdad at Christmas by his close friend the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby.

Evil is not the narrative of terror: terror is the narrative of evil. That which destroys for destruction’s sake; that which desecrates for desecration’s sake; that which relishes in inflicting suffering for suffering’s sake; that which forces death unannounced for death’s sake – this is the nature of evil.

And destroying for destruction’s sake, desecrating for desecration’s sake, inflicting suffering for suffering’s sake, forcing death for death’s sake – this leaves paralyzing fear in its wake, the kind of dry-mouthed, helpless terror that watches in vivid slow motion. This leaves night terror in its wake, thrashing in blankets from flashbacks. This leaves fear in its wake, the kind that bars windows and triple-checks locks, the kind that huddles in groups and squints in suspicion.

David wrote of this anguish in Psalm 22, and while it’s often read through the lens of the crucifixion of Christ, it also stands on its own, as his own distress:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.

But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
    “let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
    since he delights in him.”

My heart has turned to wax;
    it has melted within me.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
    and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
    you lay me in the dust of death.

Dogs surround me,
    a pack of villains encircles me.

There is no shame in feeling fear, or sorrow, or terror. There is no shame in shaking with grief, and loss, and shock. There is no shame in finding your mind paralyzed, your heart numb, your eyes glazed. No, there is no shame in bolting awake in the dark night with your heart pounding.

But in the midst of fear, grief, paralysis, and panic, there remains a quiet, immovable promise – the kind of promise that doesn’t erase suffering, but buys it out and remodels it. This hushed promise of granite-like solidity transcends laughter, happiness, and joy. It includes hope but exists outside of your ability to hope. Truth exists outside of your ability to feel happiness.

David finishes his song like this:

All the ends of the earth
    will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
    will bow down before him,
for dominion belongs to the Lord
    and he rules over the nations.

All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
    all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
    those who cannot keep themselves alive.
Posterity will serve him;
    future generations will be told about the Lord.
They will proclaim his righteousness,
    declaring to a people yet unborn:
    He has done it!

No one can obliterate the future. No one can obliterate your life so completely that it is irredeemable. This is the truth that was not burned up in the furnaces of death camps. It cannot be buried in a mass grave. It can’t be executed at a concert or detonated at a soccer game.

“For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”
Oh, the promise that trumps the narrative of evil. Oh, the promise that takes our sweaty palms in its hands.
We are not at the mercy of terrorists. They are at our mercy as we live in flesh and blood and bone the loving mercy of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel-God-With-Us, who was and is and is to come. As the orange-suited martyrs cried to Jesus on their sandy beach deathbeds, evil crumpled. They have no power over Jesus Christ, they have no power over the world to come, they have no power over your soul. 
And so today we do not pray first and foremost for safety – as if it could be achieved in this life anyway. We pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray for boldness and courage. We pray for peace, for healing, for comfort, for hope. We pray for faithfulness, for wisdom, for vision. We pray for Spirit-led choices, for grace, for redemption. And we pray for those who blow themselves up, kill other people, threaten and bully, remembering the Apostle Paul, who, before he met Christ, harassed believers and breathed murderous threats against them.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
And root out the sneaking parts of my own soul that wish harm on others, flare up in anger, or belittle my valuable fellow humans. For we all stand in need of the mercy of Jesus Christ.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Narrative of Evil

Note from the Editor: Today Wesleyan Accent suspends its usual posting of a weekend sermon to reflect on yesterday’s coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, France.

What is the true narrative of Paris, a very old city with a colorful history, the grand dame of Europe whose eyes twinkle as she alludes to youthful scandal?

The true narrative of Paris is the narrative of any individual – at moments glorious, fallible, heartbroken, and exquisite.

Like the true narrative of Baghdad.

Or Damascus.

Recently Canon Andrew White, “the vicar of Baghdad,” alluded to his chiaroscuro life.

They were coming for him and his people. Friends were being killed or fleeing for their lives. So Andrew White did what he always does when faced with an enemy. “I invited the leaders of Isis [Islamic State] for dinner. I am a great believer in that. I have asked some of the worst people ever to eat with me.”

This extraordinarily self-confident priest is best known as the vicar of Baghdad, leader of a church in the chaos outside the protected Green Zone. He made his offer last year as the terrorist forces threatened to take the city. Did he get a reply?

“Isis said, ‘You can invite us to dinner, but we’ll chop your head off.’ So I didn’t invite them again!”

And he roars with laughter, despite believing that Islamic State has put a huge price on his head, apparently willing to pay $157m (£100m) to anyone who can kill this harmless-looking eccentric. Canon White was a doctor before he became a priest and could be one still, in his colourful bow-tie and double-breasted blazer with a pocket square spilling silk. But appearances are deceptive.

For the last two decades, he has worked as a mediator in some of the deadliest disputes on Earth, in Israel and Palestine, Iraq and Nigeria. He has sat down to eat with terrorists, extremists, warlords and the sons of Saddam Hussein, with presidents and prime ministers.

White has been shot at and kidnapped, and was once held captive in a room littered with other people’s severed fingers and toes, until he talked his way out of it. He is an Anglican priest but was raised a Pentecostal and has that church’s gift of the gab.

Canon Andrew has served as a voice from a region that we skim over in the headlines because it troubles us. But something that troubles you will eventually force its way into your consciousness, like a lump you want to ignore or the scrabbling of a mouse across the floor in the night.

Damascus, Baghdad, Paris.

What next? Miami, Atlanta, Boston? How might the narrative of more cities morph under the influence of evil? Paris is closer to the Western world than Damascus or Baghdad are in many ways. The American Statue of Liberty was a gift from France. French thinkers and writers have influenced intellectual development over the past few centuries. Our language is dotted with vocabulary we don’t think twice about because we don’t pronounce it in proper nasal fashion, but chaperone, restaurant, coup de grace – all these illustrate the invisible ties that stretch like cords across Atlantic waves. And so we sit up and take notice when Paris is beaten up and left bloodied on the roadside more than we do when Damascus and Baghdad are kidnapped and held for ransom.

Canon Andrew does not underestimate the strength of the evil that has been brutalizing Iraqis, Syrians, and now Parisians.

So what is to be done? “We must try and continue to keep the door open. We have to show that there is a willingness to engage. There are good Sunni leaders; they are not all evil like Isis.”

But surely there is only one logical conclusion to be drawn? He sighs, and answers slowly. “You are asking me how we can deal radically with Isis. The only answer is to radically destroy them. I don’t think we can do it by dropping bombs. We have got to bring about real change. It is a terrible thing to say as a priest.

“You’re probably thinking, ‘So you’re telling me there should be war?’ Yes!”

I am shocked by his answer, because this is a man who has risked his life many times to bring peace.

“It really hurts. I have tried so hard. I will do anything to save life and bring about tranquillity, and here I am forced by death and destruction to say there should be war.”

White had to be ordered to leave Baghdad at Christmas by his close friend the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby.

David wrote of this anguish in Psalm 22, and while it’s often read through the lens of the crucifixion of Christ, it also stands on its own, as his own distress:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.

But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
    “let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
    since he delights in him.”

My heart has turned to wax;
    it has melted within me.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
    and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
    you lay me in the dust of death.

Dogs surround me,
    a pack of villains encircles me.

But in the midst of fear, grief, paralysis, and panic, there remains a quiet, immovable promise – the kind of promise that doesn’t erase suffering, but buys it out and remodels it. This hushed promise of granite-like solidity transcends laughter, happiness and joy. It includes hope but exists outside of your ability to hope. Truth exists outside of your ability to feel happiness.

David finishes his song like this:

All the ends of the earth
    will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
    will bow down before him,
for dominion belongs to the Lord
    and he rules over the nations.

All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
    all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
    those who cannot keep themselves alive.
Posterity will serve him;
    future generations will be told about the Lord.
They will proclaim his righteousness,
    declaring to a people yet unborn:
    He has done it!

No one can obliterate the future. No one can obliterate your life so completely that it is irredeemable. This is the truth that was not burned up in the furnaces of death camps. It cannot be buried in a mass grave. It can’t be executed at a concert or detonated at a soccer game.

“For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”
Oh, the promise that trumps the narrative of evil. Oh, the promise that takes our sweaty palms in its hands.
We are not at the mercy of terrorists. They are at our mercy as we live in flesh and blood and bone the loving mercy of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel-God-With-Us, who was and is and is to come. As the orange-suited martyrs cried to Jesus on their sandy beach deathbeds, evil crumpled. They have no power over Jesus Christ, they have no power over the world to come, they have no power over your soul. 
And so today we do not pray first and foremost for safety – as if it could be achieved in this life anyway. We pray for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray for boldness and courage. We pray for peace, for healing, for comfort, for hope. We pray for faithfulness, for wisdom, for vision. We pray for Spirit-led choices, for grace, for redemption. And we pray for those who blow themselves up, kill other people, threaten and bully, remembering the Apostle Paul, who, before he met Christ, harassed believers and breathed murderous threats against them.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.
And root out the sneaking parts of my own soul that wish harm on others, flare up in anger, or belittle my valuable fellow humans. For we all stand in need of the mercy of Jesus Christ.

Don’t Be Afraid

Today is April 16. Every year I write something in memory of my Mama Sarah and in honor of my mom, Maxine Stoddard. On this day 37 years ago, my Mama Sarah was murdered by my biological father; at that point, many lives were forever changed. She was murdered on my mom’s birthday (April 16) and buried on mine (April 18). You can read all the details of this day and some of the effects it’s had on me and my family through the years in any of the linked posts, but the thing I always cling to in this, and any tragedy or moment I am afraid, is the truth found in Genesis 50:20:

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

And Romans 8:28:

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

God is at work in all things. And the power of God is not that he always stops bad things from happening. The power of God is that he can (and will) bring good out of everything.

So, today, this is where my mind is going. I think about the fear that must have been in my Mama Sarah’s heart as she walked out of the house with me in her arms before she was shot. I think about the fear that must have been in hearts of Maxine and Connie Stoddard with the loss of their daughter and now the unknown future of adopting their two-year-old grandson.

That fear that they faced could have paralyzed them. It could have kept them from moving or doing anything. It could have caused their world to crumble.

But you know what? They looked the fear that they faced in that moment, they looked it in the face and did the right thing anyway. They chose to not give into fear. They chose to do the right thing in spite of the fear in their heart. They trusted even in the darkness.

This is not to say that everyone in my story is perfect. That’s far from true. I’m not, Mama Sarah was not, my parents are not. But I do know this. In the midst of uncertainty and danger and fear, they chose not to give into the fear. They chose to do the right thing, even when they were afraid. They chose to trust that God had a plan, even in the midst of human brokenness.

They chose trust and obedience over fear.

So must we today. I have no idea what you are facing today. You may be very, very afraid. The future may be unknown. There may be great pain in your life. There may be things in your life that you have no control over. Things that make you very, very afraid.

It’s ok. We all are afraid at times. We are. But don’t give into it. Don’t. Faith is bigger than fear. Trust in the fact that there is a God bigger and smarter and wiser than you. That has a plan. Trust. God will bring something good out of it, even if you don’t understand what.

He will. That’s what He does.

Don’t be scared. No matter what you face. One of my favorite quotes from my favorite the shows, “Doctor Who,” is this: the main character, The Doctor says, “Courage isn’t just a matter of not being frightened, you know. It’s being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway.”

You may be afraid today. I understand. I learned at very young age everything I hold precious could be taken from me. Relationships can be ended; harm can come. I always have that fear in my belly. Always.

But I can’t give into it. I have to (by God’s grace) be strong and lean on God’s grace. I have to have faith, not fear. Because fear never wins; faith does. It always does.

So, today, don’t be scared. Have faith. God has a plan. Trust. Obey. Move. Don’t give into the fear. All things will work for our God and his glory: I know that.

Don’t be afraid; it’s going to be okay.

Maxie Dunnam ~ Ministering Angels in a Dark World

Frederick Buechner is one of my favorite writers. I don’t know of any contemporary writer who says anything clearer or more creative than Buechner, He has one book entitled Wishful Thinking which he subtitles “A Seeker’s ABC”. In this book he defines words, words that are common in our Christian vocabulary. He defines glory as, “what God looks like when for the time being all that you have to look at him with is a pair of eyes.” He defines a glutton as “one who raids the icebox for a cure for spiritual malnutrition.”

Well I could spend the whole morning talking about definitions, but I simply do all this to share with you what Buechner says about angels. Listen to him: “Slight-of-hand magic is based on the demonstrable fact that as a rule, people see only what they expect to see. Angels are powerful spirits whom God sends into the world to wish us well. Since we don’t expect to see them, we don’t. An angel spreads his glittering wings over us, and we say things like “it was one of those days that made you feel good just to be alive”, or “I had a hunch every thing was going to turn out alright,” or “I don’t know where I ever found the courage.” (Wishful Thinking, Frederick Buechner, Harper & Rowe, Publishers, New York, 1973, P. 1-2)

We don’t talk about angels very much – do we? When was the last time you talked seriously about angels? When we do talk about them, we do so very vaguely. We think about them far more than we talk about them. Today, I want to talk about angels, because that’s what our scripture lesson is about. I’m not going to argue their nature and existence. I’m simply going to accept our text today. The Bible never debates that angels do work in our lives. God said to the Hebrews, “Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared.” (Exodus 23:20)

How do angels minister to us?

Note first, the purpose of the angel, God sent to Israel. “I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared.” The purpose of the angel was to guard and to guide. He was to guard them on the way and lead them to the place which God had prepared for them.

I think it’s easy for us to think in terms of guidance.

There have been those times in all our lives when we’re certain that we were being guided by a power not our own.

The confusion comes, however, at the point of the function of the angel to guard us. Now to be sure, there is the aspect of protection in this. God protected the Israelites against all their enemies, blessed their bread and their water. And as the scripture says, “He took sickness away from the midst of them.”

Many of us can testify to the protecting hand of God in our lives and in the lives of our family. But, that’s not always the case. Christians die tragic deaths. Trouble intervenes in a Christian family, and rips the fabric of that family, sometimes to shreds. The rain is always falling on the just as well as the unjust.

So, what is the truth of this guarding, this protecting work of the angel of God in our lives?

I think the protection is at the point of our integrity of commitment, our steadfastness in the faith. There is a hint of it in verse 21 of our text: “You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces.” Then verse 25: “You shall serve the Lord your God.”

The promise is not that we would be safe but that we would be faithful. The angel of God does not always spare us from tragedy or troubles, but enables us to look at tragedy troubles through different eyes.

There’s the story about the three-year-old child who was visiting his aunt, and at night, he begged for the hall light to be left on and his bedroom door to be kept ajar. His aunt reminded him that he was never afraid of the dark when he was at home. To which he responded, “Yes, but there, it’s my dark.”

That’s the protection, the guarding, that the angel of God provides for us. He makes the dark our dark because He’s with us in it.

Sometimes in our pain and misery, in our trials and tribulations, we get to thinking that if God’s angels are there they certainly are not active. If they’re in the midst of our trouble and tribulation, we want to know, what good are they? We don’t see them, they don’t do anything.

Again, we need to remember that we are not protected in the sense of being safe. All the saints have agreed to this. Simone Weil said, “If you want a love that will protect the soul from wounds, we must love something other than God.”

So, the guarding, guiding ministry of God’s angels is the ministry of keeping us faithful, giving us a new way of seeing things that enable us to be courageous, and joyful, to know inner peace even in the midst of trouble and turmoil.

Do you remember Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill a Mockingbird Atticus was a wise and generous man in that novel. He tells his son, Jem, about an old woman who was dying of cancer. Her name is Mrs. Dubose. She’s been a bitter critic of Atticus for his insistence on equal rights for Blacks in that small Southern town. So Jem hates the old woman for criticizing his father. But Atticus wants Jem to see the greatness of this cantankerous old woman. For years, she’d taken morphine at her doctor’s orders, to ease her pain; eventually, she became a morphine addict. As it became clear that her days were numbered, she became determined to end her addiction to morphine before she died so that according to her, would die beholden to nothing, to nobody. Jem reads to her day by day as she endures the pain of not taking the morphine. After her death, Atticus says to Jem: “I want you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand, courage is when you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway, and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all 98 pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.”

That’s what God was saying to the Israelites. They would have nothing between them and him. They would be beholden to nothing and to nobody. That’s what verse 24 says: “You shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do according to their works.”

But not only making us courageous, the angel of God makes us joyously courageous. That’s the reason we can talk about weeping for joy. Joy lies between tears and laughter. Someone has said that the soul would have no rainbows had the eyes no tears. Did you get that? It’s the great gift of the angel of God, who enables us to sing with Paul and Silas at midnight in prison; and to claim with Paul amongst his prison chains, “Nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”

So, the guiding ministry of God’s angels is the ministry of keeping us faithful, giving us a new way of seeing things which enables us to be courageous and joyful, and that leads to inner peace even in the midst of trouble and turmoil- God’s angel gives inner peace even in the midst of trouble and turmoil.

Note a third fact. God sends his angels to guide and guard us, to undergird and comfort us, to minister to us at the point of our need. Here it is in a story. A minister tells it, and it will be more effective if I tell it in his own words:

This morning I was awakened by the telephone. The anguished voice of a parishioner informed me of the sudden death of his only child, seven years old. He begged me to come as quickly as possible, for his wife had closed herself off in a bedroom in a speechless state of total despair. I dressed and, before leaving I prayed. What did this woman need? Peace! I prayed that God would give her peace.

When I arrived at the house I was met at the door by the husband, the look on his face telling the grief which consumed him. With a motion of his hand, he pointed out the bedroom I went in. The blinds were closed. I could vaguely distinguish the form of a woman lying fully clothed on the bed. Her eyes were closed and her face expressed no emotion. I leaned over and took her hand, but she made no movement. I mumbled a few words of sympathy and sat down beside the bed.

I remained there without a word, immobile as she, and the phrase kept tumbling over in my mind, “I am here to bring you peace,” but I could not speak a word.

The time passed painfully, interminably, and each time I found myself mentally formulating a sentence that would wreak the silence, something said to me gently but inescapably, “Be quiet!” So I continued to be silent. I didn’t even know if the woman was aware of my presence. I had no idea how long the silence was lasting. Then, fifteen…twenty minutes…maybe longer, I’ll never know.

Suddenly her eyes opened and her face turned towards me. Her hand motioned to me. And then I heard…yes, I heard these words coming from the depth of her sorrow:

“Pastor, give me peace.” I had not said a word. Now I replied, “Yes, that is why I have come.” I knelt down beside her bed and placed my hands on her forehead and said, “I give you peace in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

I had given the gift of peace to one who was dying for lack of it. Some months later we met again, and she said to me, “I shall never forget how you gave me peace. I remember the moment and the peace returns…thank you!” (Quoted by Dr. Robert C. Brubaker, First United Methodist Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan)

Somewhere Henry Drummonds tells the story of two artists who were commissioned to paint pictures that would express peace.

The first artist painted a peaceful environment: a mountain lake that was calm, quiet, tranquil, serene. Green hills, ringed with tall pine trees, served as background as well as reflection in the mirror-like surface of the lake. This is the picture of peace for those who believe peace comes from the outside in.

The second artist painted a very turbulent scene with violent waterfall crashing down jagged chunks of granite rock. Sound like home or the place where you work? But he added something. Alongside the waterfall was a slender birch tree with its fragile branches reaching just above the crashing foam. And in the fork of one of the branches was a bird’s nest. In the nest lying calmly was a bird. The bird was not oblivious to the fragile nature of its security – in this case a slim branch – but knew that if the branch breaks, it had wings.

That is the picture of the inner peace God’s angel gives us. Knowing that even in a turbulent environment we have options. “When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take that step into the darkness of the unknown,” wrote Patrick Overton, “we just believe that one of two things will happen: There will be something solid for us to stand on, or, we will be taught how to fly.”

Remember that in the presence of Christ – here in bread and wine, we have something to stand on – but also – the power to fly.

There’s a marvelous story about Teresa of Avila, one of the great saints of the church. She was journeying in her wagon with the curtain topped, and was determined to get to Burgos even though it meant crossing the flooded Arlanzon River on an improvised bridge of pontoon floats that were swimming in water. When the carriage toppled over and forced her to wade to shore in water halfway up her legs, she cried out, “Lord, amid so many ills, this comes on top of all the rest,” and then she heard the Lord say to her. “That is how I treat my friends.” And the message drew from her the tart reply, “Ah, my God, that is why you have so few of them!”

And, we’re like that aren’t we? With friends like God’s angels, we sometimes wonder who needs any enemies. But if we stay with it, if we stay open to that guiding and guarding ministry of the angel of God, then we’ll be back in the groove again, as was Theresa of Avila, who could later pray, “Oh God, we thank you for the bad roads, and thank you, dear Lord, for the fleas.”

(This story recalled by Douglas B. Steere, Together in Solitude, The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 1982, p. 191)

So, we are not protected in the sense of being safe. All the saints have agreed to this. Simone Weil put it well: “If you want a love that will protect the soul from wounds, we must love something other than God.” (Gravity and Grace, London: Routledge and Keegan, Paul, 1952, p. 22).

What then is the nature of this guarding, guiding ministry of angels? Again, as I said earlier, it is the ministry of keeping us faithful, giving us a new way of seeing things that enables us to remain courageous and joyous, even in the midst of trouble and turmoil.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Reveal

Revelation.

Not of the contents of a carefully wrapped box in your childhood home, hidden from view until enterprising siblings helped you spy out the contents (or were you one of the professional tape-peelers who could lift a flap of wrapping paper without leaving a trace?).

Not of a painful holiday discovery, realizing your daughter has an eating disorder or your sister has cancer or Uncle Joe isn’t who everyone thought he is.

Not of the extravagant new church cantata, rehearsed over months and performed under spotlights in matching robes to an audience in green and red.

Christmas is a revelation, one that trumps even North American preoccupation with the Book of Revelation and end times, because Christmas is Word-Made-Flesh and in him was life and light. And what we know about Christ’s second coming is always framed in what we know of Christ’s first coming, of who Christ is revealed to be through the incarnation, Emmanuel, God with us. We have seen the careful braiding of a whip in the temple, we have seen the mud smeared on a blind man’s eyes, we have seen the gentle drawing in the dirt as a woman shivers and shakes while her accusers drop their rocks, we have seen friends’ gush of tears as they demand, “if you had been here, our brother would not have died,” we have seen the crazed man stumbling naked among the tombs and sitting dressed and in his right mind, we have seen a piercing glance towards Simon’s eyes across a courtyard, we have seen the stumble and fall in blood and sweat and the Cyrene who carried Christ’s instrument of torture and death (what a strange brotherhood).

Who is God? Emmanuel, Word-Made-Flesh, Jesus Christ the fully divine, fully mortal. And the Book of Revelation is understood through Emmanuel, God with us, who makes all things new – new, say, as a newborn, fists tight, eyes blinking, with that delicious newborn smell and tiny tufts of hair.

Our world needs to be new again: reborn, pressed against the chest of its Creator. Do galaxies have a newborn smell? Do subatomic particles dance with the hard-to-predict movements of a newborn’s kicking legs? In the youth of the world, did the trees yawn the contented sigh of a just-nursed newborn?

The earth needs swaddling cloths. How can we be young again? Innocent like a newborn baby? How can we go back, before terrorism or Rwandan genocide or Vietnam or the Holocaust or Hiroshima or the Spanish flu or mustard gas or humans bought and sold or the plague or Mongolian war chiefs or the crusades or martyrs or Hebrew slaves in Egypt or Cain and Abel…how old and jaded the human race feels sometimes.

All things new: our world needs to be new again, but not by going back. We can’t be young again, returning to childhood, peeling tape away from the edge of Rudolph wrapping paper, Citizen Kane whispering, “Rosebud…” How can a man be born again? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time? “See, I am making all things new:”

See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

What do we want for Christmas? A set of swaddling cloths for the world, newborn and blinking. Mercifully, we’ve gotten a peek at the cosmic birth narrative through the birth of Jesus Christ and the unveiling of the new birth of the cosmos in the Book of Revelation.

Meanwhile, enjoy your set of tiny jams or a crisp new pair of flannel pajamas with relished contentment, and let hope be born in your heart today.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Truth, Beauty & Tragedy: How to Be Happy

“Jack, take your hands off of your ears.”

“But I don’t want to hear what you are saying!”

This is what shoppers strolling down store aisles could overhear recently. Alas, the four year old had acted up; alas, Mama had to intervene with a reminder of behavior expectations. But the child had realized that with hearing comes accountability. If I can’t hear you, you can’t hold me responsible.

And the hands clamped tightly over the ears.

I get the instinct.

I haven’t been swiping an imaginary monster along grocery store shelves knocking products out of place, but I’ve certainly wanted to power down communications coming at me fast and unrelenting. There are days when I feel I can’t take hearing about another iota of tragedy. Once while I was breathing through the nauseating misery of a panic attack a loved one asked what was wrong.

“The Holocaust,” I said.

I meant it.

An image had planted in my mind from a fragment of an Oprah show seen years before featuring a tour of the World War II horror, Auschwitz – the shoes…the piles and piles of shoes, so human, creased on top where a foot had bent – and one tiny little red pair…

I retched.

I get the instinct to clamp my hands tightly over my ear, to turn my grimacing face away. Even as a news junkie (especially as a news junkie?) sometimes I have to limit how closely I follow unfolding events.

I can probably affect something as intimate as your blood pressure level right now.

ISIS

Ebola

Russia and the Ukraine

Syria

Ferguson

Scandal, addiction, bankruptcy, cancer

“But I don’t want to hear what you are saying!”

I know, dear friend. I know you don’t. And there’s good news in the world, too, after all –

The ice bucket challenge

Donation of a kidney

Adoption

Rain after a drought

Unlikely reconciliation

Here’s the twist: the second list may lower your blood pressure or make you smile, but it won’t ultimately make you happy without the first list. I’m not advocating the tired “you need evil to appreciate the good” theology – there’s no such thing as a “felix culpa”, a happy crime that’s blessed because you appreciate the good more.

No, you need the first list in order to be truly happy because we humans can only be happy when we face the reality of evil. We can’t be happy without the truth. Despite being surrounded by the truth of ugly facts – genocide or beheadings or crowded refugee camps or grotesquely contagious diseases – we have the inner impulse to reach also for the truth of reality, of existence, the Truth that transcends current events, that tunes the music of the spheres and absorbs everything into the unity that is Triune love.

To avoid the truth – whether of current events or the transcendent reality – is to construct a scaffolding of denial constantly in need of repair and maintenance. If you live attempting to ignore the retch-inducing evil of this world, you will consign yourself to living constantly in fear – more fear, in fact, than what comes from facing current events or theological questions or past experiences or worries for the future.

“But I don’t want to hear…”

Sometimes the well-worn, familiar refrain says it best, as Pastor Martin Niemöller so famously wrote and spoke:

    In Germany, they came first for the Communists,
    And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
    And then they came for the trade unionists,
    And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
    And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
    And then they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

There is a deep, gnawing dread when we deny the truth that stalks us, insisting to us that we untie the blindfold. But if I can’t take hearing about the facts of the world I live in, how will I pray for its transformation? If I seek out mind-numbing busyness, how will the Holy Spirit show me where to serve? And if I hear the facts only so that I can attempt to add them to my pile of pieces as I attempt to solve the puzzle of the Apocalypse and how things will ultimately end, then I am not living beautifully – I am living miserly, attempting to guess tomorrow’s weather so that I can gain from the forecast, regardless of who is suffering today. This day. Right now.

Denial never brings happiness – neither does distance, or distraction. We are a global neighborhood now. And while it’s tempting to mistake cynicism for wisdom, Christians are called to be the least cynical people on earth; not the most naïve, or the most chipper, or the cheeriest – simply the least cynical, because we dare to look into the abyss of the evil in our world or the evil in our own hearts and we still dare to say that that evil is not the last word.

God is the Creator and all Christians are artists – not called to paint over ugliness but rather to be a means of its melting and molding into something beautiful. “See, I am making all things new” is the context into which we must submit the 24-hour news cycle. And we have this example set in front of us: Jesus Christ, whose beautiful actions in the midst of ongoing suffering and evil lived the Truth of beautiful reality into the facts of the day around him.

Bear witness to atrocity. Weep with the suffering. Then choose actions of beauty, grace and redemption. Christ lived a life that turned “but I don’t want to hear…” into “tell me your story…” so that you and I can uncover the story of redemption on the mural of our world.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Vast Sufferer

To die, to sleep—
no more—and by a sleep to say we end
the heartache and the thousand natural shocks
that flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub,
for in that sleep of death what dreams may come
when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
must give us pause. There’s the respect
that makes calamity of so long life.

– Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1

How can you end suffering? The kind of suffering that Shakespeare called “the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”? Perhaps no one in recent times better captures Hamlet’s suffering than actor David Tennant who, alongside Sir Patrick Stewart, crushed new pain out of a stiffly familiar role.

Shakespeare treats us to a glimpse of Hamlet’s inner musings: he suffers tremendously from the actions of others; and this suffering brings an existential weariness that lures him to consider how blissful an eternal sleep could be. Unless…

Unless death could not offer peaceful sleep; unless an afterlife existed in which untold new suffering might have to be endured for one who took it upon himself to end his own suffering. There it was: humans endure deep suffering when the thought of an unknown afterlife gives them pause. And so the question could not simply remain “to be or not to be” – no such luck for Hamlet. Rather, “to be, or to be I know not what.” Tragedy at its sharpest: there is no sure and certain way out.

Do you suffer? Not the set of first-world problems so many face – the caterer for an event proving to be a disaster, or a high-tech labor-saving appliance failing to work properly. No, do you suffer? Suffering can exist in upper-middle class subdivisions as easily as it can in the slums of Calcutta, as Mother Teresa so aptly pointed out: there are different kinds of poverty, and wealthy people may yet experience a poverty of love. So Hamlet discovered: a young man of privilege and wealth who grieves both the loss of a father and the instability of a mother who remarries too quickly – and who remarries her dead husband’s brother. Not only does Hamlet wrestle with these circumstances: it is revealed that his father did not die a natural death. And he knows who killed him…

What a modern sounding story: the self-centeredness of elders destroying the hope, stability and dreams of the young. Hamlet’s world crashes down; the formerly high-spirited young man sinks into a deep depression that even his girlfriend can’t rescue him from.

Do you suffer? Trendy psychobabble can cover suffering in a multitude of ways, as George Carlin pointed out when he criticized the use of the phrase “post-traumatic stress disorder,” preferring the vivid old-fashioned word “shellshock” – even running it through your mouth creates a noise of hissing crash. The Western world prefers a sanitized suffering: suffering that is embalmed, placed under flattering lights and smeared with lipstick. Sanitized suffering that is covered with fake green plastic grass at a graveside, that waits for the crowd of mourners to depart before lowering the casket into the ground.

Hamlet refused to let his suffering to be sanitized, because he refused to let the evil that caused it to be sanitized.

Do you attempt to window-dress evil? To window-dress your own suffering?

If you don’t face your own suffering, how will you ever find rest? Real, true rest for the mind and spirit?

To face your own suffering is to come uncomfortably close to Christ in Gethsemene: does the idea of Christ, the suffering servant, comfort or trouble you? The fully divine, fully human being sweating drops of blood from anguish…

Rest will not come from appealing to “God”: “God,” that one mysterious being who motivates us when we need a pick-me-up through a smiling televangelist. But some rest may come from Father, from Son and from Holy Spirit.

Rest may come from the first person of the Trinity, the one that parents, that proclaims “let there be…”, the one from whom the Word proceeds. We may find comfort in seeking protection and safety from the birther of the universe, the one who is on the lookout for the return of the prodigal child.

Rest may come from the second person of the Trinity, the Word Made Flesh, the suffering servant. We may find refuge by placing ourselves alongside the weeping Jesus, before Lazarus’ tomb is opened, or in a moonlit garden where Jesus wrestles alone in tortuous prayer, or in the stations of the cross, where a suffering servant stumbles towards execution.

Rest may come from the third person of the Trinity, the fathomless Holy Spirit who moves and darts this way and that beyond our comprehension. We may find rest as we cease our efforts and allow the Holy Spirit to intercede for us with groans that cannot be uttered, or as we simply relax in the company of the Comforter, the Spirit of adoption.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us…

What dreams may come? Dreams may come that give us pause; there is much in the Book of Revelation to give anyone pause. But we may also dream of glory: a glory that revels in justice, that infuses new life, that reanimates dead hopes.

Come to me, all that are weary and heavy-laden –

and I will give you rest…

and end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks

that flesh is heir to…

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.