Second Sunday in Lent: The faith of Abraham

The lectionary reading for the just-past second Sunday in Lent had one focus on the faith of Abraham, both in the original Genesis setting and in Paul's re-envisioning of it in Romans 4.

Abraham is always held up as an example of having faith in God, and Paul uses him as the example of the kind of faith that God counts as righteousness.

But as we consider this, we should be careful not to co-join Abraham's faith with some idea that it was his exemplary life that pleased God. Yes, Abraham did a lot of things right. Most importantly he was willing to migrate when he was already 75 years old. But he lived in a nomadic society, and God did not call him to do this until after his father had died. It was not as important that he migrated, as is was that he heard and listened to God, then headed in the direction God asked. This is what Paul is getting at in Romans 4: the important thing is that Abraham believed God. Even then, Abraham migrated in part because God also promised him this would be a good land that would be given to his descendants.

Notice that God was not asking Abraham to sacrifice his lifestyle, or do a lot of good deeds, or to obey a set of laws, or love his neighbor as himself. He was really only asking Abraham to believe what he said, and move. It was only then, after Abraham took this first step, that God revealed more to him and the two of them began to establish a relationship of trust, promise, obedience and fulfillment.

As they lived in relationship, God seemed to prefer direct and unmistakable communication, spaced at length intervals. For his part, Abraham felt free to question, to try to change God's mind on behalf of others, and to wonder if he'd misinterpreted something—especially after long periods of silence with an important promise left unfulfilled after decades.

We see Abraham treating visitors and the peoples he lived among with respect and hospitality. We see him willing to give his nephew the supposedly better deal. Abraham emerges as a straight dealer who keeps his word. And God seemingly rewards him by steadily  increasing his wealth and standing.

Yet we should not miss that life is not always easy for Abraham, and that like us he must deal with his share of hardships, life events and uncertainties, as well as those long periods of non-communication from God. It's easy for us moderns to chide Abraham's passing off Sarah as his sister (twice!) when they end up in Egypt because of the famines. Or both Abraham and Sarah giving up on the long-delayed promise of children, and figuring that after all the silence from God, perhaps they'd gotten it wrong and Abraham needed to give it a try with Hagar. Or the harsh treatment of Hagar by Sarah, with Abraham's tacit approval. Or the fact that this family "owned" other people to begin with. But this was 4,000 or so years ago, in a culture very unlike our own. Likely the ancient Hebrews nodded in understanding at the passages we read with a skeptical eye today.

But here is precisely where we can take solace with Abraham's life story and his relationship with God. In the end, what is counted to Abraham "as righteousness" according to Paul? That he believed God.

Abraham listened to God and did what God asked, when he asked. In between those times, Abraham lived the kind of life available to people of his time period. He had slaves. His wife had a certain position and status typical of the day. He had sex outside of marriage. He experienced hunger and preserved his family by lying and yes, opening up the possibility his wife would essentially be raped. He heard things from God and then years of silence passed in which he wondered whether he'd missed something or was remembering things the wrong way. He saw God destroy Sodom; he saw God not intervene in famines. It seems he had to negotiate deals with the locals and live much of his life without God's direct help.

He lived his life then much as we live ours now: some occasional periods of certainty about God, a couple of mountaintop experiences, periods of figuring stuff out on his own, wondering whether he was doing what God wanted him to do, making mistakes, being blessed, enduring hardships. The constant was that Abraham believed God, and God counted it to him as righteousness. Abraham stuck with it, even when things did not make sense (as with the almost-sacrifice of Isaac), even when he seemed to be on his own. There were just enough God events to keep Abraham going, and to his credit, he did. God credited it to him as righteousness.

This is what God really wants from us: to believe him and listen to him, to enter into and then stay in relationship with him. Will we make mistakes? Yes. Will God let us make a lot of our own decisions and plot our own course? Yes. Will the bad things of life happen to us? Yes. God does not promise to take those things away from us.

But there will be times, like Abraham probably with lengthy intervals in between, when God will speak to us, instruct us, ask something of us. There will be times when we argue with God. Those times seem to matter very much to God, and if we believe him and continue to honor and remain in relationship with him for the long haul, we will be emulating our brother Abraham.

Meditation on the will of God

The devotional book I am following this year is A Guide to Prayer for All Who Walk with God, published by Upper Room Books.

Today I read this devotion by E. Glenn Hinson. It recalled to me the many people I have met over the years who had been told that not only must they determine God's will for their life in order to please him, but that they also must make sure they are in the "center" of God's will. There is a teaching out there that only by finding and staying in "the center" of God's will will one make God happy, and only then will God bestow all the blessings he desires that person to have. Many people seem to take this to mean a happy, long life with a trouble-free family and a settled, prosperous existence. I've seen more than one person agonize over how to find this "center" and then remain in it to gain God's maximum favor and approval. They never seem to be able to rest in God's grace; instead they are always worried they've strayed from the "center."

Hinson sees it differently:

Many conceive of the will of God as a track laid out before them which, if they will get on it and stay on it, will assure that their lives run smoothly, but, if they jump off the track, will bring only sadness and despair and lead ot wreck and ruin. Others think of the will of God as a blueprint which, if properly read and followed, will help them build a sturdy house in which they may live safely and happily.

The Apostle Paul gave a different twist to this concept. In his letters, the will of God, what pleases God, or what is acceptable to God has to do with what kind of persons we are, with attitude and outlook. God wants us to be persons who live our lives from the vantage point of a covenant with God through and in Jesus Christ, conscientized and sensitized and tenderized by love, making the very best decisions we can make in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

| A Guide to Prayer for All Who Walk with God |

Collateral damage 10

Something is going on here as we mutually cause each other harm, participating in the cycle of collateral damage.

I believe this is one reason Jesus said forgiveness was so important. The cycle has to be broken at some point, and the way to do that is through the healing power forgiveness offers.

It's why I needed to find a process of forgiveness that worked for me, and why I shared it with you here.

I don't want to spend the rest of my life being a hostage to the collateral damage I've experienced. I don't like living in victimhood. I want to acknowledge things that have happened, give them their due, and then move on from the hold they have on me. Forgiveness is the way to reclaim who God wants me to be and begin to live for Him again.

Through soberly considering my own PTSD and collateral damage, I have been given the gift of empathy for others in similar situations. I can use the feelings I've experienced, the lost opportunities, hurt and pain I know firsthand to have compassion for people caught in bad situations around the world. This has become an important part of my prayer life and my witness to others.

Such experiences, I've found, in the end also bring me closer to Christ, who was misunderstood, ignored, bore pain and heartache, suffered, and was killed. Jesus understands and fights against collateral damage. I can use the same tools of compassion, forthrightness and forgiveness as he did to do the same.

Collateral damage 9

When you've devoted years to thinking you were making a difference, realizing instead that you were actually collateral damage is not something you easily embrace.

You have to let go of believing certain things:

-- That you are respected by others
-- That people care about what you say and think
-- That you have the ability to influence outcomes
-- That others will rally to your ideas
-- That you have control in the situation
-- That you can come up with a plan that will work

This can do a number on your ego and your sense of place in the world. It can lead you to wonder whether you've been thinking you were someone you were not. It can cause you to question what is really important to you. It can lead to changing your priorities and retreating for a while.

But it can also help you make sense of your physical ailments, failing confidence, emotional swings, depression, poor sleep and diet, anxiety, short temper and more. All of a sudden you realize these things are tied into having been collateral damage. And things begin to make more sense.

A fog starts to lift. You give yourself permission to be hurt, to be somewhat of a mess. You realize it's OK to change your perspective and priorities. It's OK to rest for a while. It's OK to take stock and reconsider. You understand that you are angry at some folks, some situations, even some institutions. You realize maybe you need to talk to someone, get some help so you can heal.

And then you begin to take the steps you need to take—and you begin to get better.

Collateral damage 8

I have finally admitted to myself that on numerous occasions I've been the collateral damage in other people's wars with sin and each other. This has changed the way I think about myself and my work for the Kingdom. I'm still sorting out whether this is a change for the better.

I first considered this about six months ago when I was trying to figure out why I was having trouble visiting churches for Sunday worship, and having trouble even considering getting involved in a new congregation.

I had a revelation at that point: I felt like I was a soldier, or a first responder, or a battered spouse, or a disaster survivor or any number of other people who have developed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I realized I had a pretty bad case of PTSD from my years of church leadership and the series of crises I'd been through.

I also realized that even though my Christian friends were encouraging me to find and get involved with another church, that was not a good idea for me. I needed to deal with the PTSD first. I pictured a soldier being told the best way to deal with their PTSD was to get right back out there on the battlefield. That's how this felt to me: hey, you're a mess because of church—now get out there and find another one in which to serve.

Once I figured this out, I began to wonder how I'd ended up with the PTSD. It was then I realized I'd repeatedly been collateral damage in other people's wars. As a leader, I had tried to help, to lessen damage, to find resolutions to issues, to make wise decisions, to help people move forward, to bring healthy ideas. But in a church community, a leader's authority only carries as far as people are willing to listen and be influenced. When people are bent on thinking and acting in certain ways, you may think you're a mediator or a person with some authority. But you're not. I realized in these situations  I'd had no real authority to actually change anything. People were going to do what they were going to do.

Instead of being a mediator, a diplomat, a judge, or a policeman, all I'd ended up being was part of the collateral damage.

It's quite a different way to think of yourself: as a person who thought they had some authority or power to make a difference, but in reality had none. You go from believing you can exert some control over a situation to being someone who's just swept away by it.

Collateral damage 7

I expect collateral damage in the world at large.

But somehow, I have always felt that the church should be better than that. Things hurt a little more when they happen in the church.

See, in church, people are supposed to be all on the same page, following Jesus, being transformed and changed into his likeness, living out the beatitudes, following the golden rule, not focused on themselves but on others, out there in mission to the poor, doing good in the world, helping and caring for each other, and so on.

Church is supposed to be a safe place where God is the priority and people come to be healed and to experience community with mature believers, and then sent out into ministry into the world, always having this secure and caring base to which to return. 

In the world at large I have never had a problem understanding that not everyone is operating in good faith. But inside the church, where the Kingdom is supposed to be spreading? It took me a long time to realize the church is a real mess itself, that it is more like the world than not, and that you really can't count on people behaving differently in church than outside of it.

When there's a church problem, I have finally learned that we should never make the mistake of thinking everyone's willing to work things out together because we all are looking to Jesus as our example. I've also learned we should never assume there's good will on the other side in a church conflict, and that if we just talk long enough, reason things out together, and try to understand each other there will be a resolution. I've discovered that sometimes there is no good solution out there that we just haven't been smart enough to find. Sometimes, there are only negative paths, and the only choice is to take the one that is the least negative.

Along the way in my church leadership career I have had to discard two assumptions: 1) that the opposition has taken their position in good faith and is reasonable, and 2) that there's a solution out there somewhere.

I do not like this one bit. There's still a part of me that thinks the church should be a different kind of place with its own (better) rules, and with people who are seriously trying to follow and be like Christ. And that this should lead to a better class of behavior within the church when we disagree with each other. I still think this is how things should be. I just have never seen it.

Collateral damage 6

You can cause collateral damage even when all you are trying to do is help.

That's a painful thing for me to think about, consider, and admit.

Such are the effects of sin that those who are called to deal with it cannot do so surgically, cutting it out without causing damage elsewhere.

My church career has been filled with prolonged periods of time when I've been tasked with stepping up to the plate, usually as part of a team, to deal with a harmful situation. These times have entailed weeks, months, even years of debilitating stress, disruption of family life, late and sleepless nights, endless rounds of meetings, communication after communication, fending off accusations, loss of friendships. They've taken a physical, mental and emotional toll on me and those with whom I've served. I suspect they've taken a few years off my life.

But no matter how diligently we served, how hard we tried not to make mistakes, how fair and Christ-honoring we attempted to be, the situations played themselves out in similar ways. Our fingers in the failing dikes may have saved a few people, but when the floods burst through anyway, there was collateral damage everywhere.

You take on the difficult, thankless task, you suffer for it, and still in the end, the actions you have taken contributed to the collateral damage people experience. In this kind of church work there is a kind of mutual collateral damage. It doesn't matter how thoughtful and prayerful you have been. Or how much you care about the people embroiled in the conflict, or how carefully you have considered your course of action.

The nature of sin, even when it is being addressed and dealt with, is to spread and cause as much damage as possible. When we dare to become involved in confronting it, we should harbor no illusions about its power. Collateral damage will pile up, even from the actions of those working to resolve the situation.

All we can hope for is that in the end the total amount of damage was less than it might have been without our intervention. And that is why we stepped up in service to begin with.

It's something worth pondering for an extended period of time:
• Where have you seen situations like this in the church?
• Where have you seen this in the world at large?
• Where have you read about this phenomenon in the Bible?
• Knowing this reality, how should thoughtful and committed Christians gird themselves for confrontations with sin?

Collateral damage 5

Just as we don't like to think of ourselves as collateral damage, we also don't want to believe we cause collateral damage to others.

But we do.

We have to be very careful not to fall into the trap of thinking of ourselves as perennial victims. In both the church and in regular life, the person who believes they are always and only on the receiving end of injustice is a dangerous person indeed.

Unfortunately, I have been in a position to try to resolve many local church conflicts over the years. In the overwhelming majority of these, the main problem has been one person (sometimes several people) at the heart of the situation who refuses to see themselves as anything other than a victim.

It is an amazing thing to see someone cause tremendous damage to a church, both directly within the conflict, and collaterally to the entire congregation, all the while believing that they are the one being wronged. When someone falls into a perpetual victim mindset, they justify everything they do as defensive, as standing up for themselves, as reacting to what others are doing to them. In this person's mind, the list of persecutors does nothing but grow as church leadership tries to deal with the situation. The person feels that they have many enemies, when in fact there are just many people trying to help.

The person in this frame of mind does not realize they are causing damage to others. They have gotten themselves into a way of thinking where they are completely innocent. And so, in their mind, anything they do is necessary and justified.

Some people have personality disorders and other forms of mental impairment that make it extremely difficult for them to see beyond themselves. This is a sad situation indeed, especially since so little can be done.

But most people slip into this way of thinking during a conflict, usually without realizing it. Here is where being ruthlessly honest with yourself about your motivations and perceptions can help. Do your friends and loved ones actually agree with your perceptions? Or are they just being a listening ear? Perhaps they have even tried to steer you out of the way you have been thinking. Rather than being defensive, it makes sense to listen to people who are trying to show you another perspective.

We are all people who both affect others and are affected by them. No one is only a victim. No one is only a perpetrator. For a person who sees themselves only as a victim, coming to a place where they realize they can cause damage as well as be damaged is a major step forward—both for themselves and for those around them.

In church, it is essential that we understand this dynamic. By its very nature, the church is a place where the hurting should find healing and where sinners should find transformation. But we in the church need to be very wise about these matters. We cannot afford to let people wallow in their victimhood. We cannot afford to ignore sin or sweep it under the rug. We need to live out a message of transformation for everyone, both for the "obvious" sinner and for those whose hurt sometimes disguises the fact that they, too, are capable of causing harm.

Collateral damage 4

We don't like to think of ourselves as collateral damage. In the U.S. people like to believe they are in control of their lives and what happens to them. You can go along for years believing this, even decades if you're lucky.

But then something happens. A drunk driver plows into another person's car in a terrible accident and and they die. The planes hit the Twin Towers or the snipers randomly shoot folks, or the hurricane wreaks havoc or the crazy guy walks into the elementary school or the movie theater or the mall.

And we think: Those people were just going about their everyday lives, and look what happened to them. That could have been me.

Those people were collateral damage. They weren't doing anything wrong, they weren't being stupid and putting themselves in harm's way. And stuff happened to them anyway.

We hate this. We want to think we have control of situations, that we are leaders, players, influencing what happens, able to prevent bad outcomes. And often this works. But not always. There are times when we are just supporting cast in a drama where the lead actors are going to do what they're going to do, and nothing we can do will prevent bad things from happening.

Because we inherently think we are in control, it's somewhat shameful to realize there are times when we're collateral damage. What did we miss? There must have been a sign we missed. What should we have done that would have prevented this from happening? We have a nagging feeling that we should have pitched in to help, but didn't. Or that if we did help, we didn't do enough. Or that we weren't smart enough to find a solution, persuasive enough to change someone's mind, courageous enough to confront perpetrators. There's also a sense of shame in believing we were played for a fool, or that we weren't paying attention to what was going on.

There are a lot of haunting "if onlys" that go along with being collateral damage.

Collateral damage 3

Whenever people are in a community of trust, whether it is a family, a neighborhood, a city, a country—or a church—sin and the efforts taken in its aftermath can cause collateral damage.

This is true whether the sin is covered up, explained away, ignored, or dealt with, either competently or incompetently. Once the sin has occurred, whatever is done or not done about it will cause collateral damage.

In the church context, there might be a fight among the staff. Or the pastor does something very wrong. Or someone in the congregation becomes a problem and acts badly. Or a drama unfolds between established and newer members. Or a faction within the congregation tries to gather and hold power. Because the church is community, in addition to those directly battling, there's a whole congregation of individuals who will be collateral damage. It's a sliding scale, of course. Some people will be mildly affected. Others will be more severely affected. But everyone will sustain some level of damage.

Some will leave and find another place to worship. Others become disillusioned with the very idea of church. People seeking Christ give up, seeing nothing in the church that is different from everyday life. They draw the conclusion that Christians are hypocrites, or that their religion does not help people change their lives or act differently. There are many different outcomes; not many of them are good ones.

In the church, when we fight with each other, when we partake in sin, we hurt not only ourselves and those with whom we have an issue. In church, private battles become public battles. People with no stake in the immediate situation get drawn in, as mediators, as decision makers, as supporters/detractors, or as spectators. Our battles are not just about us, as much as we may think they are. Our battles go viral, and the unintended consequences can have eternal repercussions.

Collateral damage 2

Collateral damage is an inevitable part of sin. Something is meant to be kept secret, but the word gets out and people are hurt. Or the word doesn't get out and in all the machinations to keep the secret, people get hurt.

The parents treat each other badly and the children, watching, are damaged. Crime escalates in a town and everyone ends up on edge, mistrustful. In trying to solve a national problem, a new law is passed. But after its enactment, there are unforeseen consequences. When the police try to protect someone, another person ends up wounded. The drones are sent to take out a terrorist. But an entire family is killed.

Wrong place, wrong time. Innocent bystanders. It could happen to any of us, which is why being part of collateral damage scares us so.

And it's probably why when people with an agenda set out intentionally to cause collateral damage, we get so angry, so indignant, and so fearful. People are going about their everyday lives—and boom, or blam, blam, blam—it's all over in an instant. We recoil hard at the kinds of violence associated with terrorists, whether it's roadside bombs, machete-wielding mobs, or governments gassing their own people overseas or the U.S. version, a home-grown, lone gunman.

The effect of (and often the whole point of) the bombings, the gassings, the mass shootings, and other forms of indiscriminate violence is to kill and maim some people, disrupt life, and make people more fearful, more watchful, less willing to help others.

Nobody wants to end up as collateral damage.

Collateral damage 1

Here at the start of Lent it seems appropriate to give some thought to the nature of sin, that condition of being human from which Christ came to redeem us.

Among its many other bad qualities, sin is an agent of infection. It has the ability to pass from person to person. Sin changes families, friendship groups, neighborhoods, countries and regions of the world.

When we sin, we harm not only themselves and those whom we influence. We also cause collateral damage to people we may not even know.

Within the context of the local church, sin damages not only the immediate players, but also the rest of the congregation, families and friends outside the congregation, and the cause of Christ. In the church setting, the collateral damage effect of sin spreads out far and wide, multiplying, and eclipsing the original people and situations that brought it forth in the first place.

In the coming days, a series of posts will explore some of the effects of sin within the church, in particular the way it causes collateral damage to the body of Christ.