Tag Archives: Abuse

Uncategorized

Showdown

Leave a comment

Showdown (CaD Jhn 8) – Wayfarer

“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
John 8:44 (NIV)

A few weeks ago I watched an HBO Documentary entitled Let Us Prey. It tells the stories of three women who grew up in a fundamentalist Baptist denomination and were sexually abused by men in authority within the church. Echoing the same scandal within the Roman Catholic church, the church hushed up, shuffled perpetrators to other locations, and stonewalled attempts to hold those involved criminally responsible. It is difficult to watch.

Along my spiritual journey, I have observed that any human religious institution can become a perpetrator of evil.

This is precisely the heart of today’s chapter. John established from the beginning of his account that there was a conflict between Jesus and the institutional leaders of the Jewish religious council. Today’s chapter is set in the council’s backyard, the Temple courts at the Feast of Tabernacles. Today’s chapter is a continuation of the previous chapter. The conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders comes to a head and becomes a public showdown.

At the center of Jesus’ argument is truth and lies. While I mentioned it in yesterday’s chapter, it is in the showdown with the religious leaders that Jesus famously says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus then contrasts the truth and freedom He offers with the actions and motivations of the religious leaders. The religious leaders are trying to have Jesus killed, they are trying to hold on to their earthly power and the wealth, status, and control it affords them. Jesus then points to the evil one and makes a case that it is the evil one that the religious leaders are following.

Across the Great Story, the evil one is always anti-God. God is for life so the evil one rejoices in death. God is for truth so the evil one uses lies and deceptions. In Jesus, God shows that His way is one of love, truth, humility, selflessness, service, and sacrifice. As the “Prince of this world” the evil one and the kingdoms of this world are about hatred, lies, pride, selfishness, power, and control. Jesus simply points out that the religious council needs only to see their own actions and attitudes toward Him to see who they are really following.

As a disciple of Jesus, I can’t help but think about current events through the lens of Jesus’ own words, teachings, and example. I find it fascinating the extent to which truth is ignored today to perpetuate false realities. Women, with whom God said there would be special enmity from the evil one, are once again being subjugated. This time it is from those who are biological males simply claiming to be women. From a spiritual perspective, I observe this to be simply a new form of the same old misogyny that the evil one has perpetuated from the beginning.

Of course, I can’t point the finger without three fingers pointing back at me. In the quiet this morning, I am equally reminded by Jesus’ showdown with the religious leaders of His people that any religious system can be corrupted, even the ones with which I am involved. This reminds me of Jesus’ admonition to His followers: “Be as shrewd as serpents and as gentle as doves.” This is not only true as I walk in this world but also in the human institutions that wear the label of my own faith.

I’m back on Facebook for those who liked to read my chapter-a-day posts there! Facebook refuses to give me access to my old, hacked account, but I have started a new account. Please search for me on Facebook and friend me. If Facebook won’t let you friend me, please go to my Facebook profile and “Message” me, which should then allow me to friend you. Cheers! -Tom

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Justice

1 Comment

 

Justice (CaD Rev 10) – Wayfarer

I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour.
Revelation 10:10 (NIV)

Over the past couple of days, I have been watching a documentary about Roman Catholic priests who committed terrible acts of child abuse and subsequent horrific crimes to cover it up. The institutional church also aided in stonewalling the victims, as did the local authorities. There have been multiple times that I’ve come close to turning it off and walking away. It’s hard to watch.

Our fallen world is full of injustice. It always has been. And, the institutional church has been complicit. Just a few weeks ago the Southern Baptist Convention announced the results of an independent investigation which revealed that the denomination had hidden countless acts of sexual abuse by pastors and volunteers for decades. Even in the conservative small town where we live, there has been scandal and cover-up.

Our children’s generation has championed social justice, and they’ve been critical of previous generations of believers, and the institutional church, for not doing enough to address injustice. My ears and my heart are open to this critique. This world will never be found wanting as it relates to the need for justice. The Great Story is filled with cries for justice from Abel’s blood to the prophets, Job, the psalmists, and Jesus.

And that brings me to Revelation. The judgments envisioned and prophetically predicted for the end times are God’s judgment on a corrupt, unjust, and unrepentant world.

Today’s chapter is an interlude between the sixth and seventh “trumpet” judgments. A giant angel descends to earth holding a small scroll. John is told to eat it. It tastes like a treat from the dessert bar, but once it’s finished it turns his stomach sour. The prophetic words of the scroll are what John is told to proclaim and prophetically predict. The final stomach-churning judgments. Seven bowls of just reckoning and Judgment Day.

Kind of like the documentary I’ve been watching, it would be easy to shut the book and walk away. Revelation is not an easy read. But, it’s a necessary read in understanding the whole of the Great Story.

In the quiet this morning, I circle back to the stories of adults wracked with pain and anger because they were victimized by men who were supposed to be God’s servants. On one hand, it has my heart crying out for Judgment Day. On the other hand, I’m reminded of my own sins, my own complicities, and the injustices I’ve not only failed to address, but to which I’ve contributed either by word, act, or omission.

I hear the question of Jesus’ followers echoing in my heart: “Who then can be saved?”

“With man it is impossible,” Jesus replied, “but with God all things are possible.”

I sit in the quiet and ponder what this means for me on this day. The words of the prophet Micah rise within my spirit, words that Micah proclaims are God pleading his just case to the mountains and the hills:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly with your God.

And so, I enter another day of this earthly journey intent on doing so.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

God’s X-Rated Word Pictures

4 Comments

Egyptian Phallic StatueThere she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. Ezekiel 23:20 (NIV)

You’re likely not going to hear a sermon at your neighborhood church on today’s chapter. The MPAA would rate a movie of Ezekiel’s word pictures NC-17 in the blink of an eye, and depending on the Director of the film, it would likely end up X rated. Today’s chapter reminds me that there are those sections of God’s Message commonly chosen for public consumption on Sunday morning, and there are those that are commonly avoided.

However, as I’ve read and studied the entirety of God’s Message over the years, I find that it does not shy away from base human realities. Sex and violence are a very real part of the human experience. Even the “heroes” of the faith are revealed to have core character flaws and to be guilty of all sorts of wrongdoing.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The pornographic imagery that fueled ancient fertility cults are akin to graphic porn on our computer screens to which many are addictively drawn. I look around my local gathering of Jesus followers and know those who have been physical, verbal, and sexual abusers as well as victims of physical, verbal, and sexual abuse. These are core realities of the fallen state from which we all need to experience repentance, healing, forgiveness, redemption, and salvation.

The ancient prophets like Ezekiel were not given to social propriety and white washing the truth in idyllic terms. They were given to speaking in honest, base terms about the human condition. Today’s chapter is a prime example in which God gives Zeke a word picture that many starched, religious church goers I know would prefer to simply skip over. The metaphors center on two female prostitutes who have given themselves over to their insatiable sexual lusts. The sisters represent the divided kingdoms of Israel (Samaria in the north and Judah in the south) who, in God’s graphic word picture, whored themselves out in political and religious alliances with their neighbors rather than being faithful and trusting of God.

This is not subtle, read between the lines, imagery. The things a person experienced in Ezekiel’s day is almost unfathomable to our relatively puritanical, politically correct world. There were sex cults and child sacrifices. Graphic, giant phallic (penis) imagery in sculptures and graphic depiction were a normal part of pagan societies, and God through Ezekiel’s message addresses these things in equally graphic terms. Desperate times call for desperate messages, and God does not shy away from speaking directly, graphically, and emphatically to his people.

Today, I am reminded that prophets are not only fore-tellers but forth-tellers who are not afraid to shock people out of their comfortable, proper religiosity to say what needs to be said. I am reminded that socially or religiously cloistering ourselves from the realities of fallen humanity does not insulate us from those realities or their consequences. Blissfully ignoring and piously avoiding any public evidence of our sin doesn’t immunize us from sin and its disastrous effects, rather it keeps us from honestly addressing sin in healthy ways that will promote positive change, healing and redemption.

I believe that messages like Ezekiel’s are God’s way of shocking us out of our religious duplicity to address this base reality.

Chapter-a-Day

Governing Observations

4 Comments

The dome of the US Capitol building. Français ...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So Samuel passed on the Lord’s warning to the people who were asking him for a king. “This is how a king will reign over you….” 1 Samuel 8:10 (NLT)

This morning’s chapter was about ancient Israel’s desire for a new system of government. They were frustrated with the way things were having lived for generations under a theocracy in which God raised up a “judge” to lead the people at different times. The book of Judges is a chronicle of Israel’s history during this time. It was a messy form of government, to be sure. The grass looked so much greener on the other side of the border. Their neighbors with their centralized authority (a.k.a. a king) seemed so much cleaner and easier than the theocracy they’d been attempting to live out for hundreds of years. Despite Saul’s warnings of the flaws inherent in a monarchy, the people continued to demand it until they got their way.

As I read this morning I found myself pondering our continual frustration with government, which seems to be universal wherever you go. As I have sojourned in this life, I have observed and have come to some personal conclusions about human government. Looking at things on a macro level, here are my observations:

  • Governments rarely, if ever, shrink (unless by force or implosion), they only expand.
  • Most who reach places of governmental power and authority will do all that they can to retain and expand that power and authority (so that they can do “more good,” of course).
  • Those in government who make rules for others quite regularly exempt themselves from those rules our make loopholes for themselves, friends, and or loved ones.
  • Politics is a performance played out in sound bytes, tweets, posts, press conferences, and public addresses. Public words cloak personal motives.
  • There is no system of government on the face of this earth which is not given to corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse.
  • Every one of us live under a corrupt system of government because we are all governed by human beings marred by the human condition.

What then shall we do? I continue to ponder that as well. I have no great revelation nor answers to share. Personally, I find myself continually returning to what Jesus asks of me as a follower.

Seek God. Love others. Press on.

Related articles