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Celebrity

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Celebrity (CaD 1 Cor 3) – Wayfarer

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.
1 Corinthians 3:5-6 (NIV)

When I was a young man, it was the age of mega churches and celebrity preachers. Size mattered, as well has having a preacher who could make it in the big leagues of television or publishing. It didn’t take me very long to observe that there was an entire industry built around them. Between conferences, videos, books, and guest appearances, there’s money to be made. I also observed in many instances that the higher certain individuals rose in celebrity, the harder they fell in messy, public ways.

There is something very human about the way we love celebrity. You can even see it behind the scenes in the Great Story. John the Baptist’s disciples start to feel the sting of John’s fading celebrity as the crowds start to migrate to Jesus. Jesus’ disciples start to argue over what positions they’ll occupy in what they assume will be Jesus’ earthly Kingdom. In the local gathering of Jesus’ followers in Corinth there was division based on loyalty to different leaders such as Paul, Peter, or a dynamic young preacher named Apollos.

Our local gathering of Jesus’ followers asked me to participate in trying something that was, in my experience, pretty unique. Over several years, I was asked to mentor and help individuals develop their preaching skills. not just church staff but also members who had demonstrated giftedness or calling. People were given opportunities, the messages in weekly worship were spread out among many individuals. It was a wonderful experience and I was privileged to be part of it.

In fact, there are many things that continue to be learned among our local gathering in which the multiple, diverse teacher paradigm generally continues. People began to appreciate different voices, perspectives, and communication styles. I as a listener discovered I had a responsibility to learn from whoever might be teaching any given week, not worry about who was teaching. It was amazing to watch how every teacher’s style resonated with different parts of the whole. All-in-all, I witnessed spiritual maturation taking place that was a complete contrast to the celebrity preacher paradigm I experienced in my youth and still witness in many places.

Paul is trying to make this very point with the fledgling believers in Corinth who are doing what we human beings do when we turn leaders into celebrities. Paul even tells the Corinthian believers directly that they are acting like silly human beings rather than spiritually mature disciples who understand that every leader, teacher, and preacher is an instrument that God uses to teach, develop, and grow us up. My spotlight should not be on the preacher I’m listening to, but on what God is doing in me to grow me up, mature me spiritually, and make me more spiritually fruitful each day. Or as Paul put it:

I don’t want to hear any of you bragging about yourself or anyone else. Everything is already yours as a gift—Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the present, the future—all of it is yours, and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God.

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

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Chapter-a-Day

Of Motives and Outcomes

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So Herodias [King Herod’s wife] nursed a grudge against John [the Baptist] and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him.

The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head.
Mark 6:19-20, 26-27 (NIV)

Along my life journey, I’ve been a part of a handful of regular gatherings of Jesus’ followers that drew large crowds, in a large part, because of the gifted teaching and/or charismatic personality of the leader. Looking back, I find each one of the experiences to have been a living parable of one form or another. Man, do I have some stories.

As I revisit every one of these experiences in my memory, I can quickly conjure the names and faces of individuals who were a regular part of the gatherings. These individuals were prominent members of their communities, leaders of commerce, local government officials, affluent, and influential. I observed over time that many of these individuals led lives that were unabashedly incongruent with Jesus’ teachings. I mention this, not in judgement, because I didn’t know them intimately nor did I know their stories. I was always glad they were interested enough to be there. I rarely, however, witnessed much, if any, change in these individual’s lives in response to what they heard.

This came to mind this morning as I read about King Herod Antipas and Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist. John was a wildly popular preacher. Crowds regularly flocked to hear him preach in the wilderness and to be baptized. King Herod was intrigued and fascinated by the rogue, prophetic, wild man. He liked to hear the preacher. He even carried a deep level of respect for the man.

It’s important to know that Herod, along with his father (Herod the Great) were card-carrying members of the Jewish faith. This was, of course, politically expedient since they ruled over a constituency that was mostly Jewish. Herod, however, did not live like he gave two-bits about the Law of Moses and how God prescribed for His people to live. So, when Herod married his own brother’s wife, John loudly and publicly call him out on it. Herod found it expedient to arrest John to manage PR and control the narrative.

What’s fascinating about the story is that even with John in prison, Herod protected John, and even gave him audience. Mark describes that Herod respected that John was the real deal, a sincere and holy man of God.

Nevertheless, when Herod’s step-daughter performed a dance for him at a party full of the rich and influential brokers you’ll find at the center of any worldly center of power, John makes the mistake of offering her up-to half his kingdom as a reward for her amazing performance. At her mother’s suggestion, she chooses the head of John the Baptist, and he reluctantly delivers.

And this brings me back to those rich and influential local brokers I’ve observed gathering around talented and charismatic teachers along life’s road. One of the things that my observation taught me was to consider both motives and outcomes, first in myself, and then in others. Jesus Himself exemplified this. In John’s biography of Jesus, he records that Jesus refused to “entrust” Himself to the crowds that gathered to listen to Him because He knew their motives. Then when the crowds followed Jesus after He fed 5,000 with a couple of fish and five loaves, John records that Jesus called their motives into question and called them to set their sights on a different outcome:

Jesus answered, “You’ve come looking for me not because you saw God in my actions but because I fed you, filled your stomachs—and for free.

“Don’t waste your energy striving for perishable food like that. Work for the food that sticks with you, food that nourishes your lasting life, food the Son of Man provides. He and what he does are guaranteed by God the Father to last.”
John 6:26-27 (MSG)

Herod may have respected John the Baptist. He may have recognized John as a man of God and protected him. The truth of the situation was, however, that Herod protected John only when it was expedient for him to do so. And when it came to Herod’s daily life, it was obvious that God’s message through John fell on a heart of stone just like Jesus’ parable of the sower and the seed a few chapters ago. And, the evidence is that Herod never changed. Herod viewed John as an amusement, and a couple of years later he would treat Jesus the same way on the morning of His crucifixion, dressing the beaten and bloodied Jesus up in glittery robe and begging for Jesus to entertain him with a miracle.

In the quiet this morning, I come back to the only motives and outcomes I can control, and those are my own. What are my motives for going to church, being a disciple, and reading a chapter-a-day? What outcome does it have in my daily words, actions, and relationships? Along life’s road I’ve observed that crowds are fickle, fame is fleeting, what’s popular isn’t typically true, and people are generally attracted to all three like flies to feces. I’m reminded this morning as I head into another work week that Jesus said, “small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

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

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Unorthodox Message

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Unorthodox Message (CaD Ezk 4) – Wayfarer

“Now, son of man, take a block of clay, put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it. Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it. Then take an iron pan, place it as an iron wall between you and the city and turn your face toward it. It will be under siege, and you shall besiege it. This will be a sign to the people of Israel.”
Ezekiel 4:1-3 (NIV)

As I have mentioned before, I spent a handful of years mentoring individuals within my local gathering of Jesus’ followers in the art of preaching. It was a great experience, and I continue to believe that perhaps I learned more over that stretch of time than my protégés.

As I think back to those years and try to remember the messages of the people I coached, there is one thing that makes many of them stand out in my memory: unusual visual lessons. I remember one message using a full-sized rowboat on stage. Another message was delivered while walking on a treadmill. One of my favorites was the individual who came out portraying Mr. Rogers, singing the theme song, switching from suit coat to sweater, and changing from dress shoes to sneakers. Not only were these things attention grabbers, but the metaphors they presented visually with a boat, a treadmill, and Mr. Rogers helped to remember the message they were trying to get across.

In today’s chapter, God assigns the young prophet Ezekiel his first prophetic message to the people of Israel already living in Babylon. In modern terms, it was like God saying, “Grab some Legos from the kids’ room, a skillet from your kitchen, some bungee chords you have in your garage, and the ingredients for making bread from your pantry. Oh, and grab a bottle of water, too.”

God had Zeke create a model of the City of Jerusalem as if it was under siege, then put the skillet between the City and himself as he tied himself up with ropes, lay on his side, and made bread for lunch using a dried cow pie as fuel along with rationed sips of water at regular intervals. Oh, and he was to repeat this little performance art piece every day for 430 days.

The scene, of course, was a message in and of itself. I always say that God’s base language is metaphor. Zeke’s daily performance art symbolized what God was about to do, allowing His people in Jerusalem to suffer a long and bitter siege by the Babylonians because they refused to listen, repent, and turn their hearts back to God even after years of His prophets like Jeremiah warning them of the bitter consequences if they refuse. Zeke’s Lego and bungee chord performance art not only gave his people a memorable visual, but it drew attention, created conversation, and the daily repetition for over a year ensured that it would stick in people’s heads, even if they refused to let it penetrate their hearts.

As I sit in the quiet and meditate on Ezekiel’s first prophetic message, I have to believe he was more than a little taken aback by the assignment. I have found human beings to be stringent in our herd mentalities. We want to be normal, socially acceptable, and not make waves. We don’t want to stand out or be labeled as strange. If Zeke was like the average human being, he would have initially balked at what God was asking Him to do, and indeed he does push back at God when the original instructions were for him to use human excrement as his fuel for baking bread every day, which is exactly the type of extreme measures that human beings stuck in a city under siege had to resort to to stay alive. God wasn’t pulling any punches with Zeke’s metaphorical message.

Of course, Zeke did obey, and I can only imagine the negative reactions he had to endure. How courageous he was in his obedience.

And, what lengths God was willing to go to get His message across to His people. He broke convention, grabbed attention, and gave memorable visuals that were hard to ignore. Zeke’s audience in Babylon had already experienced phase one of what God had been proclaiming through the prophets for decades. Having endured a 900-mile exile march and now living in a strange land, I would tend to think they might be more open to Zeke’s unorthodox warning.

I’m reminded this morning that sometimes I need to be more unorthodox when delivering a message, and more open-hearted when receiving one.

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

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Loyalty to a Trusted Source

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Loyalty to a Trusted Source (CaD Jhn 3) – Wayfarer

“The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.”
John 3:29 (NIV)

When I was a young man in my first full-time pastoral position, I served under a very wise and kind man named Bill. We were on opposite ends of our careers. I was hired as a youth pastor, fresh from school full of vim and vigor. Bill was in the final years of his pastoral career and planning for retirement. We were also from very different generations, and we were very different in our temperaments and styles of teaching. Nevertheless, we got along splendidly. He supported me and invested in me for the two years I was under his leadership. I loved him.

There was a church secretary at that time who didn’t like me at all. She wasn’t even a member of the church, but she made it abundantly clear on a daily basis that she was not a fan. In small, passive-aggressive ways she opposed me and used her position to set up obstacles at every opportunity.

One Sunday I had been asked to preach for Pastor Bill. It was a great Sunday, there was an outpouring of God’s Spirit and my message was enthusiastically received. The following morning, our entire staff joined in the break room for coffee time as we ritually did every weekday morning. My colleagues were very excited and complimentary about my message from the day before and the ways God’s Spirit had moved within the service. Pastor Bill joined in support, telling me what a good job I had done.

“I don’t know,” the secretary said in her usual sharp tone refusing to even look at me (which was also usual), “you don’t want him to be that good or people will want to hear him and not you.”

The entire staff sat in shocked silence, not believing that she had just said that out loud.

Pastor Bill smiled and responded, “No. We need enthusiastic and capable young men like Tom. There’s no competition. I couldn’t be more excited about what God is doing through him.”

I’ve forever been grateful for Pastor Bill’s resounding show of support for me in that moment.

Along my life journey, I’ve observed that people build up a sense of loyalty to voices that resonate with them. There’s a certain trust that is built, which can often result in mistrust of any other voices.

As Jesus began His earthly ministry, there were two predominant voices in the religious community in which He operated. The institutional voice of the ruling council was the most powerful and influential. For the non-conformists, the predominant voice was that of John the Baptist. Most of Jesus’ primary audience was divided in their loyalty to those two camps.

In today’s chapter, John addresses readers whose loyalty might lie in either of the two camps, but he’d already foreshadowed these tensions in the first two chapters. In the prologue, John addresses the conservative establishment crowd when he writes “[Jesus] came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” He then immediately addresses the non-conformist followers of John by stating clearly that John had testified, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.” In the second chapter, John once again addresses the establishment crowd writing that, from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry the ruling religious leaders were against Jesus and refused to believe.

There are two episodes in today’s chapter. Nicodemus, a member of the Ruling Council, pays Jesus a visit. His visit makes clear that not all of the Council members were adamantly against Jesus. Jesus, however, makes clear that the establishment will not accept His teaching. John then switches again to John the Baptist who tells his followers that his job was to prepare the way for Jesus and point them to Jesus. He says that this job was “complete.” John was ensuring that whether his readers’ loyalty leaned left or right, those loyalties had to submit to believing in and following Jesus if one desired to be part of God’s kingdom.

Over the last five years, I’ve had a unique opportunity to coach and mentor a diverse number of gifted individuals both male and female, pastors and lay people in the art of preaching. I’ve learned that every voice resonates with different individuals while not resonating with others. There’s something beautiful and natural about this in the context of Jesus’ followers being different parts of one body. I have come to believe that God disperses the gift of preaching and teaching to many different individuals precisely because one voice may not resonate with every part of the body. I think it’s wise that my local gathering is rediscovering this truth.

As I have teamed up with a number of gifted individuals in this endeavor, I’ve often remembered Pastor Bill and that staff meeting years ago. Resonance may naturally create affinity and loyalty, but there is no competition. Like John, the job of the preacher is to point everyone to Jesus. When everyone understands and embraces this truth, there is no competition, only love and support.

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

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Every Leader Wears a Target

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The burden bearers carried their loads in such a way that each labored on the work with one hand and with the other held a weapon.
Nehemiah 4:17 (NRSV)

Along life’s journey I’ve learned that when set yourself up to lead almost any effort, no matter how noble your intent, you will always encounter opposition. Parents trying to lead their family well will experience opposition from children, so-called experts, other parents telling them they’re doing it wrong, or the grandparents telling them they’re screwing up the kids. Teachers leading a classroom have to wear emotional body armor against the slings and arrows they get from all sides. Every preacher on Sunday morning, no matter how true his or her message, has at least a few congregation members who will serve up roast pastor for their Sunday dinner. The greater the task being led, the more virulent the opposition will be.

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In this life, God has not led me on roads where I have been called upon to take on monumental leadership roles. I have never been Patton called on to lead armies in saving the free world from Hitler’s minions. I have always been George Bailey fighting the relatively silly skirmishes of Bedford Falls. Still, I am always amazed at how universally this paradigm holds true. People are people. Stand in a position of leadership and you wear a target on your chest.

So it was that Nehemiah and the people building the walls of Jerusalem encountered opposition from their neighbors and enemies in today’s chapter. Their enemies did not want the wall rebuilt. They did not want Judah to rebuild its regional power. They wanted the walls and gates to remain in heaps of rubble. And so, with the threat of their work being attacked, the laborers had to build the wall with one hand, and had to be prepared to defend their work with the other.

I love that word picture as I wear my relatively minor mantels of leadership. I have to be prepared for opposition as I lead any kind of task. Of course, I’ve also learned that not all opposition or criticism is malicious or divisive. Quite often it is criticism that makes me aware of my blind spots and helps me shore up areas of need. Wise King Solomon said, “The wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy.” Word. I’ve discovered that wisdom is often required to discern the difference between constructive criticism and opposition of ill intent. I’m still learning.

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Clear, Concise, and to the Point

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Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you. 2 Corinthians 13:11 (NLT)

I laughed to myself when I heard a preacher admit from his pulpit, “I know that I’m just standing up here saying the same thing over and over.” (I observed that his confession did not lead to a quick conclusion of the message.)

I love messages simply crafted, clearly delivered, which get effectively to the point. As I have read through the letters of Paul, Peter, John, and James countless times I am always struck when they conclude with a quick, and to the point, summation. In today’s chapter, Paul concluded his letter to the believers of Jesus in the city of Corinth with this summation:

  • Be joyful.
  • Grow to maturity.
  • Encourage each other.
  • Live in harmony and peace.

It’s like a quick check list. Without consciously thinking about it I read this one short list and find myself asking, “How am I doing?” as I read through each bullet. Questions abound. Am I joyful? Why or why not? Am I growing more mature? How do I know? What signs can I point to in my life? Am I encouraging others? Who? How? Am I living in harmony with others? What’s discordant? What is in harmony? Where am I sharp? Where am I flat?

I then find myself seeking one thing I can do today to experience joy, to grow, to encourage or to live in peace and harmony. One thing to keep pressing on towards my goal.

Quick, clear, concise, and to the point.

Got it. Let’s roll.

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Chapter-a-Day Psalm 12

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Help, O Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing!
    The faithful have vanished from the earth!
Psalm 12:1 (NLT) 

Everyone of us feel things extremely from time to time. Stretches of life’s journey which are particularly stressful or anxious tend to feed our innate ability to feel that all of life is completely out of whack. Out of our intense emotion we then tend to speak in hyperbole.

I am often struck by news commentators, politicians, public speakers and preachers who feed on the public’s penchant for being emotionally whipped up by sensationalist and extreme statements. In an era of instant news from around the globe on a 24/7/365 basis we are constantly bombarded with stories and visions of tragedy, injustice, violence, and upheaval. It’s easy for our hearts to cry out with David: “The godly are fast disappearing! The faithful have vanished from the earth!”

The truth is that there is an equally amazing amount of generosity and good being done by countless godly people around the globe. Those stories, sadly, do not drive high ratings, web hits, converts or financial contributions.

Today, I’m putting on my filters as I hear the news coming at me from a myriad of sources. I want to be realistic about what is happening but I’m refusing to give into fear and anxiety. I’m choosing to balance all the doom and gloom with the many good things I know God and His people are doing throughout the world today.