Hidden Costs
People are good at hiding from themselves the true cost of anything they really want to do.
If I want a new car, my actual reason might be as basic as the fact that Spring has infected me with new car fever. How can I justify such a purchase? Hiding certain costs from myself will help. I can ignore the increased cost of insurance, the impact of a car payment on my budget, the cost of having to worry about scratches and dents, and the cost of lost freedom that debt always brings.
Or take low prices for example. We all love them, which is why we shop at the big box stores that deliver cheap shirts and cheaper TVs. But is there a hidden cost behind low prices? If low prices require a child labor force in Malaysia or environmental catastrophe in China, or if they produce a growing underclass of low-wage workers here in America that need government help to survive, we had better count the cost up front and be ready to pay the whole thing.
What about war? It’s too easy to hide the costs of war. That’s why I appreciate an online display I found recently called Faces of the Dead. It’s simply a creative display of the photos of every U. S. service member killed in Iraq, from Jay T. Aubin on March 21, 2003 to David Stelmat on March 22, 2008. These 4,000 men and women are only part of the cost – which includes civilians, families, businesses, hopes, dreams and billions of dollars – but let’s never allow these people to be hidden.
Perhaps the essence of sin is to hide the real costs of our actions and focus on short-term pleasure or profit. If David could have seen from his rooftop the awful cost of his sin, would he have sent for Bathsheba? If Judas had known the personal price he would pay, would thirty pieces of silver have seemed like such a good bargain?
If you and I would simply take a little time and sift out the hidden costs behind our cherished sins, would we choose to live differently?
Jesus doesn’t want anyone to follow him on false pretenses. He doesn’t hide costs. He puts them out front: “Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple”, he says in Luke 14:33. Jesus never says that discipleship will be cheap. He says that it will be worth it.
For the April 2008 MHCC newsletter – 3.25.8
Good Friday meditation
For an apt meditation on Good Friday, page through this slideshow at Christianity Today of art depicting the Last Supper. Some of it is quite unusual and will make you think about the meaning of the day.
In the painting at the left, for example, the artist uses light and darkness to illustrate the spiritual war behind the meal.
unChristian - by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons
We’ll know in a year if unChristian really is as life-changing as I have made it out to be in my preaching. I’ve gotten hot about other books or concepts before, only to forget them. But the truth in unChristian is too important for that.
The research behind this book shows that 91% of those under 29 think that the best word to describe evangelical Christians is “antihomosexual”. 87% choose the word judgmental and 85% said we’re hypocritical. And Kinnaman and Lyons show that these aren’t people who don’t know us. This generation has a surprising familiarity with church. They have been to our Sunday Schools and VBSs and camps. And this is what they see?
unChristian lays out not only problems but paths toward solution. With God’s help, the truth here will help focus my preaching and our church into a rebirth.
unChristian gets a 9 out of 10 from me.
He is not here.
I visited a beautiful church building last night - really pretty, in a high-church-yet-contemporary way. They had a pipe organ AND drums, and although the drums are well-hidden, they’re a gorgeous set of maple wood Pearls that match the sanctuary nicely.
Anyways, I saw a banner in the loft above the sanctuary with the message: “He is not here. He is risen.” I understand the Easter implications, but do you really want a banner in your sanctuary announcing that Jesus is not here? 
John Piper: Responding to the bridge collapse
John Piper, author of Desiring God and many other books, ministers to a congregation within sight of the Interstate 35W bridge which collapsed yesterday. His response to the tragedy is excellent. It’s called Putting My Daughter to Bed Two Hours After the Bridge Collapsed: What Do Tragedies Like This Mean for Us?…and it’s well worth reading - neither greeting-card-fluff nor shoot-from-the-hip theologizing. Piper isn’t afraid to wade in to issues of repentance, judgment, and God’s love. Check it out. (Link via Relevant).
Reading the red
This week as I prepare for my sermon on Jesus and poverty, I’m reading though all the red text in my red-letter edition of the Gospels. If you’ve never tried reading only the actual words of Jesus, I recommend it as an occasional discipline.
I’m tempted to say that if I had to choose a small portion of Scripture to sustain me for the rest of my life, I’d choose the red letters, the words of Jesus. What could be better than constantly re-reading the things Jesus actually said? But today’s reading through Matthew and Mark reveals a problem with that.
Today I was looking for the things Jesus said about the poor. While he did SAY some profound things (Matthew 25:31-46, the Sheep and the Goats is hard to miss), the lessons from his actions are at least as important. If I didn’t already know what the black letters say about who Jesus spent his time with and who he ministered to, the red letters would be disembodied truth, sayings divorced from real life. Like me, his words are made meaningful by his actions.
So if I had to choose only a small portion? I’d choose Luke. What about you?
Did Einstein believe in God?
Time magazine has an enlightening article by Walter Isaacson about Albert Einstein and faith. It was published in early April but I just discovered it today (thanks to Preaching Today).
Einstein DID believe in God, and he came to his belief not through religious texts or traditions, but by peering into the mystery of nature. Of atheists, he wrote: “They are creatures who–in their grudge against traditional religion as the ‘opium of the masses’– cannot hear the music of the spheres.” As for Jesus, Einstein said “I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.” Yet Einstein did not believe in a personal God, immortality for humans, or even free-will.
For more fascinating reading on this man whose name is synonymous with genius, check out the Time article, which is an excerpt from Isaacson’s new book on Einstein.
Last year’s school shooting
In the awful eclipse of tragedy by tragedy, it’s easy to forget that on October 2, 2006, a one-room Amish school was victimized in the same horrible way that Virginia Tech was last week. U.S. News has a great story on how the people around Lancaster County, PA are coping six months on.
The overwhelming response by the Amish to the shooting has been forgiveness, and the article dwells on this point:
The forgiveness here “wasn’t an aberration,” Kraybill said during a recent interview. “To a person, the Amish would argue that forgiveness is the central teaching of Jesus. They will take you to the Lord’s Prayer-if you don’t forgive, you won’t be forgiven.”
I grew up in Holmes County, Ohio, which has a strong Amish population. Living so close to Amish people makes it easy to pick on their apparent legalism - they don’t own cars but they ride in them; they have no phones in their homes, but use cell phones - but it sure is hard to argue with people who follow Christ by taking forgiveness so seriously.
Thanks to PreachingToday.com for pointing me to this article.
Today is “Waiting For Sunday” day
Even though I’ve been neglecting my blog lately, I have to post today. This, after all, is “Waiting For Sunday” day.
As I’m sure you’ve read on my “More about me” page, I love Philip Yancey’s eloquent words about the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the day that symbolizes our life between Ascension and Second Coming.
“…we live on Saturday, the day with no name. What the disciples experienced in small scale - three days, in grief over one man who had died on a cross - we now live through on cosmic scale. Human history grinds on, between promise and fulfillment. Can we trust that God can make something holy and beautiful and good out of a world that includes Bosnia and Rwanda and inner-city ghettos and jammed prisons in the richest nation on earth? It’s Saturday on planet earth; will Sunday ever come?” (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995, p. 267)
This in-between day is when we need our faith. Salvation is here, redemption is beginning. And yet…
…we’re waiting for Sunday.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Is Christianity a religion of peace?
My father-in-law recently pointed me to an interesting article called “Who Gets to Define Islam?”, a review of a new book by Lawrence Wright called The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11. George W. Bush, Muhammad Ali and a host of other public figures say that Islam is a religion of peace (and therefore terrorists cannot be true Muslims). But it isn’t that simple, as Prothero says in his closing paragraph:
The Looming Tower gives the lie to the idea that there is one Muslim world. It also steers clear of the pious foolishness that no real Muslim could crash a plane into a building of innocents. After all, those who steered those planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were convinced that no real Muslim would refuse such an honor.
OK, but what about Christianity? Who gets to define it? What would a real Christian do or refuse to do? The problem for Christians, as for Muslims, is that there is no one Christian world. The two presidents in my lifetime who were the most vocal about their Christianity are George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, two men with entirely different ideas about faith and war. Which is correct? Is either?
Is Christianity a religion of peace? From the things Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, you’d think so. But many of us seem to prefer an Old Testament style of conflict resolution. No wonder Christianity, like Islam, has a bad image problem.
