Masks of God

According to this article bearing the same name as this post and written by Gene Edward Veith: "God works through you in your vocation, whatever it may be." Here is how it begins:

When I go into a restaurant, the waitress who brings me my meal, the cook in the back who prepared it, the delivery men, the wholesalers, the workers in the food-processing factories, the butchers, the farmers, the ranchers, and everyone else in the economic food chain are all being used by God to "give me this day my daily bread."

This is the doctrine of vocation. God works through people, in their ordinary stations of life to which He has called them, to care for His creation. In this way, He cares for everyone— Christian and non-Christian—whom He has given life.

Luther puts it even more strongly: Vocations are “masks of God.” On the surface, we see an ordinary human face—our mother, the doctor, the teacher, the waitress, our pastor—but, beneath the appearances, God is ministering to us through them. God is hidden in human vocations.

The other side of the coin is that God is hidden in us. When we live out our callings—as spouses, parents, children, employers, employees, citizens, and the rest—God is working through us. Even when we do not realize it, when we fulfill our callings, we too are masks of God.

I love the idea that we are the masks that God wears as He ministers in the world. Here is the way that Dr Veith wraps up his teaching:

If we are masks of God, even when we do not realize it, it is also true that God is masked in our neighbor. Particularly when our neighbor is in need—when he or she is sick, hungry, thirsty, naked, a prisoner, a stranger—Christ Himself is hidden. "In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren," the Lord says, "ye have done it unto me" (Matt. 25:40).

In serving our neighbors, we end up serving Christ after all.

I so resonate with this. Regardless of who we are.. even if we do not have a "professional" title.. we can minister His love to those who are made in His image. We are the masks He wears and the gloves He puts on to minister His love to broken and hurting people.

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On Judging Sinners ...

Been think of late about the whole tension that exists amongst religious folks and sincere people of faith. Consider the contrasts presented in this story from the ninth chapter of Matthew's gospel:

As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector's booth; and He said to him, "Follow Me!" And he got up and followed Him. Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?"

But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. "But go and learn what this means: ' I desire compassion and not sacrifice,' for I did not come to call the
righteous, but sinners."

Here are a few of my thoughts about the contrasts in the passage:

• Matthew: There is something wonderful in the simple way that Jesus called and Matthew followed.. I think that it reflects the heart of Jesus.. and Matthew's response is reflective of his heart as well.. imagine what it must have been like for an outcast of religious people to be called this way.. simply wonderful.
• Pharisees: There is something dark and sinister about the way that these folks reject the call to sinners.. I think their judging attitude is reflective of people that have dark and hard hearts.. the religious elitism and arrogance is so repugnant.
• Jesus: Once again our Lord amazes us as He confronts the issue head on rebuking the religious people and instructing them about how they should be responding to sinners.

I think it sad that religion prevented some sinners from answering Jesus call. I wonder what it is about religion that caused us to harden against God? It reminds me of what James says about real religion:

Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

Notice that James mentions nothing about judging sinners or keeping the law.

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Changing the World from the Inside Out

For many years I have loved to read and collect quotes from all sorts of people.. famous and not. A while back I read this quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

For many of my earlier years I would have embraced that comment - my life was all about impacting the world.. making a difference.. being someone! Then one day I gradually came to that same realization that Solomon did in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes:

What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.

Lets take a look at his words point by point:

• Each of us have our own roles to play in the world.. no one is insignificant;
  
• Our work in itself is a thing of beauty;
• We are bigger than what we do.. there is a sense of eternity in our heart;
• God's ways are beyond our intellectual capacities;
• Our response to God and life is to rejoice and do good;
• The simple things like food and work are God's gifts to us.
  

So often we people of faith, like Gandhi, embrace an arrogant and self-important view of ourselves thinking that we are God's gifts to the world when in fact the simple things of life are His gifts to us. We often seem to live out tired cliches like:

"If it is to be, it is up to me."

The truth of the matter is that even God the Son could do nothing on His own. Consider this:

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

I think that lasting change can only come from the an inner heart level.. only when we are changed from the inside out. In a sense Gandhi was right.. we have to "be" changed on the inside by the Holy Spirit.. but we do not have to embrace a philosophy says that somehow being is all about outward acts and appearances.

The Question of God

I have been having a great conversation over at my other blog with a commenter called Happy.. here is a part of one of his comments.. it hits to the heart of his response:

All I am stating is that the model of a omnipotent and ultimately moral God is inconsistent with what we observe in the real world. My point is that only a Utopian world can be consistent with such a God. In my humble opinion the very reason that we do not live in such a Utopian society leaves us with the following options: Either he does not exist, or he exists but is not omnipotent, or he exists, is omnipotent but simply unwilling to help which would make him immoral.

I think that many have this kind of view of God's role in the universe and those folks are stymied when people think differently. Here is one of the responses I had for Happy:

I guess my reactions to much of what you are saying is that I think that your image of what God should be is that of a divine manipulator of creation.. a God that has created a robotic existence.. a God who is afraid of pain.. a God who is not interested in having a relationship with His creation.. a God who doesn't understand what it is to love. That kind of a deity does not attract me at all. Okay if it does you though.

I think that many times people come out of painful situations blaming God for their pain.. many times this sort of reasoning is felt to be consistent with who we imagine God to be. The truth is that God created humans in His image and as such we have the capacity to choose our responses to pain.. we are free to choose His ways or we can choose our ways.. and our choices are a reflection of us and not Him.

The Erroneous Theology of Job

Last year my son and I were in the car and he advised me that he thought I was a modern day Job - I had to chuckle as I told him that Job had nothing on me. Of course we all have a story and mine is not all that different than many.. it is just different than folks who have not dealt with the death of a spouse.. or a parent who has not dealt with grieving children.. or a person who has not struggled with a disabling disease that has attacked their spouse.. we all struggle.. and our struggles are ever so personal.

So when I think about the story of Job in the Old Testament I first think about two parents who lost all of their children and their possessions.. and my heart breaks for them. I also think of a man who struggled with a disabling disease that inflicted him with boils all over his body.. a man who had friends.. and a man who was trapped by a bad theology.. a theology that yet disables many even today. It is the theology of divine judgment.

Job and his friends argued about the reasons for his hardships.. his friends blamed him.. Job asserted his innocence.. but at the heart of their cumulative thinking was the idea that someone was to blame for what happened.. and God was judging Job and his wife for some secret sin that they had committed. Even though Job asserted his innocence he did not contest the basis of his friends claims. Job also believed that his hardship was God's judgment.. he just did not believe that he was guilty of a sin worthy of the judgment.

Of course Job's hardship was not initiated by Job or by God.. the story tells us that Job was not being judged.. it says that Job was blameless.. and it also says that Satan (not God) killed Job's children and afflicted Job with a disease. Even so Job and his friends believed that God's judgment was involved.

This theology of divine judgment often rears it's ugly head even today. When bad things happened to New Orleans four years ago religious pundits were speaking about the judgment of God on this area. More recently religious prognosticators were embracing Job's theology and speaking oracles of divine judgment when a massive earthquake hit Haiti. These religious folks seem to have embraced the erroneous theology of Job by saying that hurricanes and earthquakes were God's reaction to somebody's sin.

Interesting that in Job's story God shows up at the end of the story speaking from a whirlwind.. but the wind did not seem to hurt anyone or damage any property.. perhaps God's winds are of this sort? The end of Job's story also teaches us that "sometimes" hardship ends okay - I say okay because even though Job was healed, his fortunes restored and new children were born there were still many lives lost in tragedy.

The moral of Job's story is that things are not always as they seem.. bad things happen to  blameless people.. and it is foolish to blame God or invoke a theology of divine judgment when hard times come. I reject that theology on a personal level and I also reject it for the people of New Orleans and Haiti.

Sins of a Weak Heart

The seventh chapter of proverbs is focused entirely on the temptations and consequences of sexual sin. It is so compelling to consider that Solomon, one of the wisest of all men, thought it so important to drill this information into the mind and heart of his son in so many proverbs.

"Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call insight your intimate friend” (v4)

I have often said that wisdom is an inner quality.. something that only your heart or innermost being can possess. The mind is a great tool for accumulating and assimilating information but it is not equipped to lead you in wise and insightful ways. It takes a humble heart to navigate life. It takes a strong heart to defeat sexual sin. And it is good to remember that a strong heart comes only from pumping spiritual iron.

"I have seen among the simple, I have perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense"(v7)

In this verse we see the definition of a fool.. one who is simple and lacking in sense about the consequences of sexual sin. The remainder of the chapter is an indictment against such fools.

"With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him. All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life." (v21-23)

Throughout the psalm Solomon weaves imagery like those of these verses in warning that the path of sexual sin is the way of death. In each psalm I have considered so far Solomon has warned his son to keep himself sexually pure.. it is like he wants his son to escape the heartbreak and death that this kind of sin has wreaked on his own life.

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If you liked this post then please click here to catch some of my other ponderings on the book of Proverbs.

Remembering Martin

To celebrate the day I thought that I would share a few quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.. sometimes I forget that he was first and foremost a Christian man.. many of these quotes reflect the beautiful heart of a very young man..

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.

A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.”

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.