Of living dogs and dead lions

Ecclesiastes 9:4

But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

As a general rule, lions are cooler than dogs.  They are stronger, mightier, kingier of the jungler, manier, growlier, etc...  In a fight, smart money is always on the lion.

Dogs at the time of the writing of this proverb were not as they are now.  They did not have clothes or hotels or prescription medication or psychologists or special doctors.  They were scavengers, cast aways, mangy, street-dwelling, grifters.  To place it more in context, think of a raccoon.  Wild, untamed, hungry, and not something with which you want your child to play.

Dogs represent the lowly.  Lions represent the regal.  If there was a metaphor to be applied to the loftiest aspirations of man, lion-type language would be ascribed.  If there was a metaphor to be applied to the most despised, dirtbagged, depravities of man, dog-type language would be ascribed.

Dogs represent despair.  Lions represent pride.

Even so, those who are alive are better off as dogs than to be a dead, useless lion.  Dogs have the opportunity to be blessed by God, to know Him, to love Him, to worship, to serve, to be alive.  For all that lions are and represent, the defining characteristic of a dead lion is not his "lionness" but his "deadness."  Dog or lion is less meaningful a quality than dead or alive.  Whatever you are or where or hope to become will never be more defining than your being alive or dead.

The Good News is that dogs, though depraved, may be seen as lions through rebirth.  One who is alive in Christ, even though a dog, is better than one who is dead, even though a lion.  In this life, lions may devour dogs daily, but again the dominating characteristic is not doggedness or lionness, but aliveness or deadness.  A living peasant rules more than a dead king.  It is better to be a living fool than a dead professor.  It is better to be a living whore than a dead virgin.  It is better to be a living murderer than a dead pacifist. 

If God grants you the ability to see your sin in poverty, foolishness, perversity, hate, etc... and in so doing makes possible your dependence on His righteousness for you, it is a far better position than to be convinced of your own goodness in riches, wisdom, morality, niceties, etc... and in so doing reject the provision and gift of God in Christ in order to rely on your self-made and hard-earned righteousness.

The Good News is that we can be defined by what has been done for us rather than what we have done.

Living is an adjective granted.  Dead is an adjective earned.

The danger or delight of delayed death

Ecclesiastes 8:11

Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.

"On the day you eat of it, you shall surely die," God told Adam and Eve regarding the fruit on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of that tree and did not die that day (at least in the way one would expect - lightning bolt, earth opening up, a poof of smoke where Adam used to be, etc...) 

We are prone to evil at the wicked impulse of our deceptive hearts.  We are sometimes restrained by the threat of retribution and the penalty of breaching our duties to the law.  However, when we see others cross the the forbidden line and not suffer immediate, swift, and symbiotic punishment, our hearts are more prone to explore this new evil opportunity now free of the fetters of fear of consequences.

Delayed justice does not create in us more evil, it exposes the extent to which we are already evil.  We like evil. Not just the fruits of evil, but the evil itself.

St. Augustine illuminates this when he states,

"Late one night -- having prolonged our games in the streets until then, as our bad habit was -- a group of young scoundrels, and I among them, went to shake and rob this tree. We carried off a huge load of pears, not to eat ourselves, but to dump out to the hogs, after barely tasting some of them ourselves. Doing this pleased us all the more because it was forbidden. Such was my heart, O God, such was my heart -- which thou didst pity even in that bottomless pit. Behold, now let my heart confess to thee what it was seeking there, when I was being gratuitously wanton, having no inducement to evil but the evil itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved my own undoing. I loved my error -- not that for which I erred but the error itself. A depraved soul, falling away from security in thee to destruction in itself, seeking nothing from the shameful deed but shame itself."

Praise God for His forebearance in not bringing to us justice in a manner as swift as we have earned and encouraged.  For in His patience, we have been granted mercy and opportunity of repentance in love at the hearing of His Gospel accomplished in Christ.

We are indeed (and also in deed) evil.  Our perverse minds are enticed to greater evil by the temptation to believe that delayed justice may imply no justice at all.  In God's grace, He has broke in and revealed His justice is earned, assured, looming, and coming soon to a theatre near you despite the skeptical dismissveness perpetuated by the previews.

In God's mercy justice does not occur immediately on the heels of every offense.  In man's pervasity, this delay often provokes even greater rebellion as the belief of retribution becomes dulled by repetative silence.  Instead of seeing God's worshipful patience, the lawbreaker perceives it to be apathetic indifference or flacid potence.  So we see revealed in delayed justice both the glory of God and the depravity of man.

Thoughts from "The Three Amigos" circa 1986

Paige and I decided to watch The Three Amigos the other night because we're awesome. At one point in the movie, Steve Martin's character (Lucky Day) utters the following statement:

“In a way, all of us has an El Guapo to face. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big, dangerous man who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Lucky Day, the people of Santa Poco can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be *the actual* El Guapo!”

I absolutely adore the humor employed in exposing this nonsensicial sentiment often applied to preaching through Bible texts (particularly the Old Testament as though it were not about Jesus and were about us).

The ridiculousness of comparing shyness to imminent physical harm is absurd. That is the joke and Steve Martin expected you to laugh.. I love that the comedic value of this device was so apparent.  That is not to say this was a diatribe regarsding preaching, but rather that this principle of making everything about you is a skill set.  In principle, I have observed this phenomenon saturating a lot of what is passing for preaching.

Have you ever heard been asked, "What is your Goliath?" or "What is your Jordan?"  Now I get what some of these people often mean when they use these examples, but still it meets with resistance in my spirit at the suspicion of what could be meant by it. 

First of all:  David and Goliath is NOT a story about YOU!  You arrogant, self-absorbed, self-righteous jerk.  Everything should not have to be about you in order for you to care about it or to be relevant.  The Bible is relevant because it is, not because it appeals or applies to you in each and every circumstance in a "this for that" transaction. .

Second of all: The Bible is about Jesus.  David and Goliath is part of the metanarrative that is the revelation of the Messiah.  Some stories historically demonstrate God's preservation of the people through whom the Christ would arrive in fulfillment of His specific promise.  Some stories are documented as types and shadows of who the Christ will be.  Jesus is the Old Testament and the fulfillment thereof.

Lastly: Whatever your Goliath is, it is not "the actual" Goliath.  We all have difficulties to overcome and crosses to carry and none of them are Goliath or The Cross carried by Christ.  That is not to dismiss real pain and trial, but is to say that yours and David's were two different trials specific to you.

I know what people often mean when they employ this strategy of providing application points for the congregation.  I know the need to provide a "take home."  But sometimes the take home is pondering the glory of God in Christ and His faithfulness to fulfill His promises through unfaithful people.  Sometimes there is not a "to do" application for you. .

A story about Moses climbing Sinai may just be a historical event about which the relevance is mined in knowing how that event has shaped our present.  The task is not to discover or infer what our Sinai is, was, or will be.  Maybe for us, there is no Sinai.  And THAT'S OK!  it's not about you. If you have an hour and want to understand this better.  Click HERE.

A little ditty about rubber and glue and which one sticks where comes to mind

Ecclesiastes 7:21-22

21 Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. 22 Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.

People talk too much and the more they talk the more likely they are to say something that goes further than what they really mean.  We all have been guilty of saying things that go further than we mean in a moment of passion or fickle inattention.  It stands to reason that others do the same and that sometimes we might be the source of their embelishments.

We all say things we don't mean on occasion which if they were heard could hurt the one about whom we are speaking without meaning.  The advice here is to afford less gravity in weight to the words others speak (particularly about us). 

It is also a reminder of our obsession with our selfish, little, narcissistic selves.  There is something about overhearing someone talking about us that immediately piques our curiosity.  We get very quick to cash in and pay attention to the conversation.   It is very hard to resist eavesdropping on conversations in which we get a whiff of our personage being discussed if we have the opportunity.  We love hearing about what others have to say about us.  Our most treasured idols are the ones we create so easily by looking in the mirror. Hence: Facebook and Twitter. Boom! Roasted.

Do not take to heart all the things people say about you.  You know, if you are honest, that you have often said things about others.  Whether it is a matter of getting caught or overstatement; either way we should talk less about others and be concerned less with what others are saying about us.

It is a hard habit to break.  We love talking about others.  We love knowing others are talking about us. Only in finding ourselves in Christ are we set free from disparaging others with our words and rendering a satisfactory sense of self from the sugary sentiments of others.

Book Review: "The Confessions of St. Augustine"

I recently listened to this audio book while commuting to work. 

You can purchase the book HERE.

I loved it.  I look forward to owning a hard copy someday so that I can underline the living crap out of it to my heart's content.  It may be odd and arrogant on multiple levels to consider St. Augustine a kindred spirit, but listening to his confessions, particularly the narrative of his development and God's wooing of him produced in me a great deal of relatability.  Much more than I would anticipate given the amount of time and cultural shift that seperates us.  But I found myself mesmerized by what the cooler kids would call "relevance."  The historic, orthodox doctrine of Christianity is in full display in Augustine's confessions.  I was very comforted in hearing the Gospel proclaimed in the same terminology, gravity, and simplicity as it is even now communicated by those regenerated by the Spirit of truth.

I was greatly comforted not merely in feeling a connection to a monolithic figure like Augustin, but mroe so in the thought and delight that the same Gospel of Jesus Christ that mended back together his religious heart also did the same for me.  We are united.  Not in a way that elevates me to Augustine's level, but in a way that elevates Augustine and myself blameless before the throne of God in Christ.

Here are some highlights I found inspiring:

"I have not hope at all but in thy great mercy. Grant what thou commandest and command what thou wilt."

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”

“I was in misery, and misery is the state of every soul overcome by friendship with mortal things and lacerated when they are lost. Then the soul becomes aware of the misery which is its actual condition even before it loses them.”

"It was foul, and I loved it. I loved to perish. I loved my own error— not that for which I erred, but the error itself. Base soul, falling from Your firmament to utter destruction— not seeking anything through the shame but the shame itself!”

“For great are you, Lord, and you look kindly on what is humble, but the lofty-minded you regard from afar. Only to those whose hearts are crushed do you draw close. You will not let yourself be found by the proud, nor even by those who in their inquisitive skill count stars or grains of sand, or measure the expanses of heaven, or trace the paths of the planets.”

“You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run.”

“O Lord my God, tell me what you are to me. Say to my soul, 'I am your salvation.' Say it so that I can hear it. My heart is listening, Lord; open the ears of my head and say to my soul, 'I am your salvation.' Let me run toward this voice and seize hold of you. Do not hide your face from me: let me die so that I may see it, for not to see it would be death to me indeed.”

“The soul is torn apart in a painful condition as long as it prefers the eternal because of its Truth but does not discard the temporal because of familiarity.”

“You are my Lord, because You have no need of my goodness.”

No one does good. Everyone sins.

Ecclesiastes 7:20

Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

If there are two things we can conclude from our observation of the world around us and the world within us, it is this: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Most of us readily observe how far short the rest of the world falls of the standards of God.  By God's grace, some of us are also then able to discern that we also belong in that group we formerly labelled "them."

C.S. Lewis osbserved in Mere Christianity that we simultaneously know two things:

(1) There are rules that ought to be followed by everyone.

(2) We have broken the very rules we know others ought to follow.

Knowing that people should not lie and feeling the sting of being lied against by others somehow does not prevent us from lying to others when it benefits us to do so.  It is a desperate situation in which we find ourselves.

C.S. Lewis said it this way,

“Now we cannot...discover our failure to keep God's law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we really try, whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time we shall succeed in being completely good. Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going to bring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, "You must do this. I can't.”

It is amazing to me the number of people whose hearts are so hardened as to come to this point in a sincere, deep, humiliating way.  Some will parrot these words and live in self-reliance, but so few truly surrender their lives to Jesus in full repentance and obedience to this reality.  So many say they need Jesus but deny Him by their lives.  Saying the words, "I trust in Jesus," does not mean you do per se. 

C.S. Lewis also said this,

"This is the fix we are in. If the universe is not governed by an absolute goodness, then all our efforts are in the long run hopeless. But if it is, then we are making ourselves enemies to that goodness every day, and are not in the least likely to do any better tomorrow, and so our case is hopeless again. We cannot do without it, and we cannot do with it. God is the only comfort, He is also the supreme terror: the thing we most need and the thing we most want to hide from. He is our only possible ally, and we have made ourselves His enemies. Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion.”

In Jesus we have a perfect Mediator who bridges the terrible gap back to God.

Book Review: "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck (pt. 2 of 2)

Life east of Eden is a varied mess of intentions and attentions.   We desire to be loved and carry the wounds of those who have rejected us.  We carry the weight of our sinful hearts and the feelings, actions, and attitudes that result from its heavy presence.

Steinbeck is a fantastic author and storyteller.  I just finished "East of Eden" this evening and I could not be happier/sadder . It's that familiar feeling of seeing the end coming and being excited and anxious all at the same time.  Anticipating the end in sorrow while anxiously speeding through the material to find out how it all resolves.  Life under the sun is a messy thingy and Steinbeck places into picture the aches and aspirations of the human heart in this compelling tale.

I really enjoyed this novel.  Really.Enjoyed.

I can see myself reading it many times again in the years to come.  It captures and releases back to us in narrative the human condition in our empathy for Caleb and our frustration with Adam, our fear of Cathy and our admiration of Samuel.  Steinbeck weaves in and out of the Cain and Abel story as a template throughout the book by pitting A's and C's against each other in competition for approval and resources often hovering around a father figure.  The C's carry a curse of sorts that makes them markedly different (puns for my peeps) and incapable of breaking free from the shameful scars they bear.  The A's are routinely duped and destroyed by the C's.  The A's are often good-natured, but gullible; childlike, yet not childish per se.

In the end, we see the redemption of a C character in the unlikely person of Caleb.  We see the internal struggle and the threat of despair in failing to overcome from within that which can only be calmed by invasion from without.  Caleb needed to be released and absolved of his sin.  He needed forgiveness and blessing.  He needed these not from Abra, but from his father.  He needed them not from himself, but from one outside himself.

Sadly, the father wound is a prevalent literary device because it is such a prominent societal wound and easily readily recognizable by most.  The wounds produced by fathers who were too distant to encourage, too self-involved to pay attention, too cold to show love, too ashamed to be weak, too angry to forgive, too proud to be humble, too strong to be vulnerable, etc... are everywhere.  The failure of fathers is seen in the behaviors and vacuums of responsibility and confidence observed in every generation.  That is not to say that all fathers fail in this tragic way, but so many do.   One works hard, but hardly spends time at home.  The other is always at home because they do not provide by going out to work.  One is very involved in every activity, but fails to know their child intimately.  The other speaks kind words and boasts of good intentions, but often fails to follow through.

By God's grace I have resolved to do everything I can to avoid placing on my sons and daughters the weight of indifference.  A boy needs to know that his father loves him and is proud of him.  A girl needs to know that her father loves her and will protect her, her beauty, and dignity with all he has.  These things I intend - inasmuch as it depends on me - to work hard to implant firmly in my children as in immutable fact of existence.  I love my children and could not imagine a scenario in which they doubted on a deep, soulish level my earnest love for them.  May I never give them reason to believe or foster this lie.  May they never lack assurance that their daddy loves them.  May I speak the words "I love you" often over them, work hard to demonstrate in action the implications of them, and listen often to their needs, hurts, sins, successes, failures, and finish lines attentively that I may know them and that they may feel known and pursued by their father.

Fathers have the ability by God's grace to place within their children a powerful anchor of assurance.  Fathers also have the ability to take from their chidlren  by the Devil's guile this security.  We rarely can escape our desire to please our fathers whether it fleshes out as rebellious attempts to grab attention, insincere devotion to earn approval, or earnest accomplishment to prove our worth.  We are all too often trying to earn the eye, attention and affection of our fathers.  We inherently know we need something from outside of us to make right the inside of us.  In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself and in Him we can become the righteousness of God.  We need Him to invade from outside in order to make right the tempestuous world of our inside. My chief duty as a father to my children is to point them ever always to this reality by word, deed, and example.