Tag: God

COVID AND ME

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Finally, I got the bug, the disease, the germ. It was a couple of days ago and it wasn’t pretty. But I’m better, thankfully. 

I don’t think God had anything to do with my getting Covid. It’s about a lot of complicated stuff in the world contributing to the original outbreak, and subsequent deaths, but none of that is God’s doing. God wants what’s best for us, not suffering or evil. God doesn’t do Covid or Cancer. Look at Jesus. Jesus did what the Father was doing… loving, forgiving, and giving health and wholeness. 

God does everything God can do through his influence, love, wisdom, and grace to effect change and bring about goodness. Last Sunday I was preaching about Romans 8:28 where Paul writes that God is working all things to the good with those who are called according to his purpose. That means that God is partnering with his creation to bring healing. 

Good doctors, good medicines, loving people, and wise scientists all are helping in this endeavor and in every situation of ill health, evil, and sufferings too numerous to name. There might be blame for Covid but none of it rests with God. 

Here’s what helped me on my path toward better health. First, my wife. I came home from an errand during which I had masked because I thought I had the flu and wanted to be kind and not infect others. But when I walked in the door of my house that day I started to cry. I felt so poorly. I sat down with Gigi and she prayed for me. She asked God to help me leave my burdens with God so as not to be weighed down and feel so down. She prayed for healing. And I felt the love. God’s love in her was now connecting with my soul and my spirit was lifted. And then I started hearing from my children and even one of my grandchildren called me to wish me well.

Then she went and got me Paxlovid from my good pharmacist. She forbade me to do any chores, and I heartily agreed. And then people from my church wrote saying they hurt with me and were praying for me. That’s love, the greatest power on earth. And it comes from God. And even if I didn’t feel better I am more than grateful for the love and partnering with God, church folks, my wife, and family. And I am thankful for advances in medicines and vaccines influenced by God’s grace in this world. 

One more thing. I have learned that when I hurt, God hurts with me. God is in me as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To them belongs the glory. Amen

WHY DOES GOD ALLOW SUCH TERROR AND SUFFERING AND DEATH?

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I’m writing this in response to a question on many minds these days. As my friend reminds me, it is the perennial question of humanity affected by suffering. I am thinking of Israelis and Palestinians whose worlds have been devastated. And children who are dying every day.

Why does God allow this, permit this, ‘will’ this suffering? Many who have suffered ask this question. Some have even given up their faith.

This is what I want to suggest. GOD DID NOT WILL THIS. GOD DOES NOT WILL SUCH SUFFERING. GOD DOESN’T EVEN ALLOW IT. 

We see God clearly in Jesus Christ. God as we see in Christ is love, self-sacrificing love. Healing love. There is no hatred in Christ. Christ was against suffering. He healed people. He cast out demons. He worked against evil.

God cannot stop this suffering because of God’s own being and design of this world and the creatures who inhabit it. God did not want Hamas to kill Israelis and terrorize a nation. God doesn’t want bombs to rain down on the Palestinians. God is against such horror, always has been. 

God is moving in the hearts and minds of all people through his powerful love and it will be when people open themselves to such a God that God will be able to stop this madness. God cannot singlehandedly affect what is going on. 

There are evil powers at work in this world. There is chaos. Read the book of Job. This world is complicated as Job found out. 

God wants us to live, to love, to flourish and God is moving to make that happen. But evil and free will are at work to oppose God, who chooses to work by the essence of his being which is love. 

Every day I think and pray about this question of suffering. And the closest I come to any comfort at all is to believe this: GOD IS EXPERIENCING THIS PAIN THROUGH JESUS CHRIST. 

Christ knows terror, abandonment, torture, and death. Through Christ, God is in his creation, enduring by love everything that causes pain and agony in the humanity of this world. God feels it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote from his prison cell in Germany, “Only a suffering God can help us now.”

God wants it to end. Yes, we know that one day there will be a new heaven and earth. But God wants his will to be done on this earth as it is in God’s Kingdom. Now. God wants us to live. Every life is made in the image of God and matters deeply to God. 

According to what I know in Christ and read in God’s word, God is doing all he can to work good out of this mess, this unspeakable horror on all sides. It’s not happening soon enough for us or for God. Keep the faith. Work hard against evil and suffering. Pray. Love one another.

OUR CHILDREN DESERVE BETTER

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“Three children and three staff members were shot and killed at a private school in Nashville, Tennessee, according to officials.”– news from March 28.

This comes from my heart. My mind is tired of all the stats and arguments.

I have 5 grandchildren ages 7 through 13. I love them, and their lives are precious to my wife and me and more importantly to God.

It is hypocritical that books are banned because some people feel children ought to be ‘protected’ from the subject matter while these very same people do not take steps to protect children from attacks with assault weapons by calling for a ban.

We vote against abortions in order to protect the rights of the unborn, but leave children vulnerable to mass killings by not taking any steps to protect them. It makes no sense to me.

Thoughts and prayers are not enough. Expressions of sympathy are not enough. At the very least, we need to have the courage to ban assault rifles. These guns can take so many more lives in a matter of seconds. 

I don’t believe that God will hear our prayers if we are not willing to cooperate with God. God will not act alone. But I pray that God will stir the hearts of those who can make a difference to act.

God tells us to be careful how we treat our children, the least of these, the innocent ones whose lives are cut short. Thank God for the brave first responders and volunteers who save lives by their own bravery. Now let the rest of us be brave by at least calling for the banning of assault weapons.

I pray for those who died yesterday to rest in the arms of our Savior. 

P.S. I just finished reading an article in the Washington Post that depicts vividly the lethal damage an AR-15 did to two children in separate shooting incidents. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-damage-to-human-body/

READING THE BIBLE WITH GRACE-FILLED EYES

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The violent character of God as presented in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, has always troubled me.  I grew up having been taught that the whole Bible is the word of God without any errors. This idea of inerrancy became sort of a doctrine one had to subscribe to within the evangelical church.

Some people raised in more fundamentalist homes and churches were taught the Bible says it and I believe it, only to discover how untenable some of that ancient stuff really is. So when God commands the slaughter of people, well we just know that God had his reasons. He was purifying the world by getting rid of the bad people. Some say that God’s ways are mysterious and we can’t know God’s will. We just accept the printed word.

People leave the faith because of answers like that. I believe we CAN understand the violence in the Old Testament but it will require a certain grace to read the scriptures differently than what we might have been taught.

Let me write this cautiously because some will be offended even though they might not know why: Not every biblical event in those ancient times was specifically from God. Much that was written interpreting God’s intent and actions was actually the way a tribal society amidst other tribal societies interpreted what God was saying and doing through them.

I know that ‘all scriptures are inspired by God,’ but not all of them are accurate portrayals of God’s character. How do we know God’s character? Through Jesus, the Christ. He was the very WORD made flesh so that we can know God. Jesus himself says at one point, ‘if you see me, you see the Father’.

So I came to a conclusion late in life that if I see something from the old stories that don’t conform to what I know about God in Jesus then at the very least I say now that the old stories are problematic and probably not accurate. I feel under no pressure to believe differently now because I have come to know the living eternal God through Christ. God’s character never changes. He is love, once and for all time. The cross is the place where love and justice meet in Christ. Our God is a merciful and forgiving God. Christ shows us that time and time again in his acts of forgiveness, healing and Godly love.

 As one evangelical writer put it, “Some biblical writers got the message wrong.” Jesus even corrects some old sayings when he speaks what we now call the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5,6, and 7. (C.S. Cowles) For example: “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the LORD.” – ( Leviticus 19:18) But Jesus goes on to say, “43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” ESV.

Or take Saul, for another example. (1Samuel 16) The Bible says that God sent an evil spirit into Saul. Then look at Jesus…. He never put evil spirits in anyone he encountered but rather removed them.

So I am not troubled any more by the misunderstandings I read. Although I must be forthright and say that many churches wouldn’t want such an evangelical as me. But I want to be honest to God and I want to seek truth. And the only one who really had the truth was Jesus who himself said that he WAS the truth.

So I am reading the Scriptures with grace-filled eyes these days so I can model my life on the God I know in Jesus who gave me life and life eternal. On the Mount of Transfiguration God said to Moses and Elijah, about Jesus, “This one is my son. Listen to him.” That’s who directs my ways these days.

One more thought. A man approached a monk one day and asked, “Why does the Bible contain so many bizarre, offensive and un-Christlike depictions of God?” The monk replied, “Because God let his children tell the story.”

And so it was. The children continued to tell the story progressively until the WORD became flesh and dwelt among us and we now get to behold his glory.

So, enjoy the Scriptures. We learn much about God. And when your friends tell you they can’t believe some of the violence in the Old Testament, feel free to say, “It’s ok, I have the same trouble with it.” Then get to Jesus.

REMARKABLE HOW LITTLE I MISS GOING TO CHURCH

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The other morning after a four-inch snow I decided to help my neighbor with my trusty snowblower. Coincidentally another neighbor showed up and we worked together to clear our neighbor’s sidewalks and driveway. We got done, high-fived each other and I said, ‘There, we’ve had church for today.” Mark 12:33 says that loving a neighbor is better than going to church. Yep, that’s a paraphrase but it’s right there. 

During this Covid time, I have reflected on the meaning of the church. From my own professional and personal experience I have come to think that church is very much a part of the Constantinian Captivity. After the church was made legal and even mandatory it lost its central message of ‘loving one another’ and instead came up with religious inoculation whereby if you get a little of it you won’t be subject to the whole infection of God. Now, that might seem a bit extreme but it’s been proven time and time again that when push comes to shove ‘the church’ would rather be safe and secure than dying for the neighbor in trouble, which is the true definition of love.

Let me give you an example. Once upon a time, as a pastor, I had a finance person ask me, ‘What are you going to do to put more bodies in the pews?’ Not what I was going to do to spread the gospel or help a neighbor but rather how was I planning to get more people in church so that… we could more easily finance the budget. 

The church today has become weighed down by its own bureaucracy and self-security.  

I am reading Bonhoeffer’s “Letters and Papers From Prison”. At one point he writes to a friend, ‘It’s remarkable how little I miss going to church. I wonder why.’ Many of us have not been inside a church for a long time during this pandemic and some of us are just not missing the experience.

I am wondering if the church is not intimate and outward-focused enough. I suspect that smaller and more intimate groups would be better suited to fulfill the commands Jesus gave to us in the Sermon on the Mount and the two greatest commandments by which he tells us to love God and neighbor. Remember, Jesus only had 12 disciples through which God changed the world.

From the conflict I observe these days in churches, I am convinced that small intimate groups are the only way to reconcile people and resolve such conflicts. The political vitriol we see has split some churches into factions that have become unmanageable.

Now, onto a confession of my own. I have been a professionally paid pastor most all my life. My personal security has been taken care of by the larger institution and so I feel some sense of guilt of speaking this way about the church. But I’ll get over it. However, I am seriously thinking that a small group of disciples can more effectively be the fellowship of change and reconciliation that God wants in this world.  And some larger churches can make this work by means of smaller fellowships that carry out the mission of Christ in the world and with one another.

Bonhoeffer went so far as to say that the time will come and should be upon us when the church sells its property to give the money to those in need. He says the pastor won’t be paid or at least very little and probably will have to find secular employment. A tall order that I am sure we can get around if we use the right Bible verses.

A smaller, more intimate group of people can better reach the marginalized people in the community. Much prayer, study, and accountability are better attainable in such a setting.

I don’t know what will happen once churches are fully open but I hope in the meantime we all do some deeper reflection on what it means to be disciples today.

God’s Big Tent

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WHO will enter the Kingdom of God? Who can be saved — another way of expressing the question. I believe to some extent most of us are ‘hopeful evangelical universalists’. We believe in the God of love who sought to find his lost people, his lost creation. God covered the earth in a large tent, something like a tabernacle in the wilderness. God’s presence is that tabernacle, and according to the Bible, that presence has been poured out on everyone (see Acts 2).

Everyone who came into creation came spiritually and organically through Christ. All have been made in the image of God and God has particular love for every one of his children (see John 3). If that is true then let’s consider the following scenarios of children within God’s eternal care.

A child who tragically dies in infancy. My mom lost a child who had died even before she was born. Will these children be damned forever or brought lovingly into God’s Kingdom? The Bible doesn’t tell us but I believe they are with the Lord because I believe in a loving God. Now some Calvinists believe that it is possible these children will be damned because they are not part of what Calvinists term ‘the elect’, those favored by God for salvation. The term ‘age of accountability’ doesn’t enter the equation since there is none given in the Bible, only inferred by religious interpretation.

What about a mentally impaired person who knows not the right response to an offer of salvation from a well-intentioned evangelist? Maybe he or she can mimic the correct answer but certainly not from understanding. Again we are hopeful that God will welcome these people into salvation.

Next we consider a person who has grown up in India under Hinduism teachings. We say we don’t know. Very conservative people say they are not the elect by reason of God’s choice. See, these are theories and theologies and I believe they are wrong. Even if Romans 1 speaks about natural revelation, God is a free God, free to love; free to bring whomever God wants into the Big Tent. People who don’t even know they are God’s children will have such a revelation at some point.

Now we observe an eighteen-year-old woman who was severely abused by her father and at this point in her life cannot believe in a ‘loving heavenly father’ and will not accept God’s son. Never having been brought into a loving relationship with the Savior she dies in unbelief. Does God stop loving her and count her unworthy of his eternal grace? We hope not.

And all the good Samaritans of this world? These are people who have done such good that aligns with God’s will but haven’t confessed Christ. I have hope for them as well as the victims of wrongs like slavery, abuse, children who through neglect were allowed to die of hunger or disease, Jews and Russians who were cruelly executed. I read the other day about an execution in our ‘sane’ country where, in the opinion of some, any chance for salvation was killed in the execution of a criminal. Even Jesus wasn’t willing for that to happen.

If we are God’s children we are hopeful for everyone, even our enemies. I mean it’s even possible for Trump supporters to be saved. We’ve no reason to wish eternal torment on anyone if we are sons and daughters of our heavenly Father.

God’s tent is big, as big as the universe. Oh, it may be that some will deliberately walk or run from that tent, like the prodigal did, but even in that scenario the door is left open. If you read the end of the book of Revelation you will see that the door to the Kingdom is left open.

The big tent of God, the presence of God in Christ whose birth we celebrate, is the assurance of our hope. The Bible says in John 1:14 that ‘God came and tented among us.’ He walked and talked with us and thus the whole world, extending the invitation farther and farther and even into eternity.

God is hopeful too. He wants all his creation to be restored and he wants to reconcile the whole world to himself. God wants all to be saved. And since God is not a robot or mechanical manager he has the freedom to relate to all people, even after death. That’s God’s freedom and desire.

I don’t want my tent to be any smaller that my Father’s tent-house-mansion and Kingdom. Like God I desire all to be saved. And that’s scriptural. So I am what some would term ‘a hopeful Christian universalist’.

And that’s Good News for the world, as the angels proclaimed.

BREATH

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My mom died in 2014. She could not get a good breath of air. She had COPD. But for the skill and kindness of Hospice she would have agonizingly suffocated. People who have suffered from the effects of COVID 19 on their lungs know all too well the gift of breath.

Breath was give to Adam and Eve. Breath came to the dry bones in the valley and they came alive (Ezekiel 37). Breath is a gift from God (Isaiah 42). Breath is sacred. And in the case of George Floyd, that gift was taken away by an act of evil.

I consider how many times the breath of black people has been taken away throughout our nation’s history. Time and time again their lives have been cut short by drowning, lynching, and a myriad of other ways. Their freedom to breathe has been extinguished by white people.

African Americans and other people of color want to breathe again. They want the same access to life that the rest of us have.

The riots in our streets are the choking cries of people who can’t breathe, people who have been suffocating under the giant knee of racism for so many years. Some people might say, ‘But look at the progress made by and for the African Americans over the years.’ Malcolm X once responded that if you plunge a knife nine inches into someone’s back and pull it out six inches you couldn’t call that progress.

We are all longing for a fresh breath of God given air. That’s what God wants for us. Let us hope and pray that in some better way we can all surface after this deluge of racism, murder, and street violence to once again breathe. Together.

There are some great words from a group called All Sons and Daughters. Let them be our anthem just for today.

Great Are You Lord

All Sons & Daughters

You give life, You are love
You bring light to the darkness
You give hope, You restore
Every heart that is broken
Great are You, Lord

It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise
We pour out our praise
It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise to You only

You give life, You are love
You bring light to the darkness
You give hope, You restore
Every heart that is broken
Great are You, Lord

 

 

 

A LAMENT FOR GOD’S CHILDREN

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This weekend has been declared a time of national mourning culminating in a day of mourning on June 1st. In three months over 100,000 people have died of COVID-19 in our nation alone.

People of all faiths are encouraged to join in this time of national mourning as in prayer we seek consolation and healing from our God. Every one of these lives lost matters to God as do the lives of public and private heroes. As well we grieve for the millions out of work and those devastated by the economic consequences of this pandemic.

And so we mourn together.

Below I have included a prayer from the National African American Clergy Network

God of our weary years and silent tears, we lift up our hearts in praise to you. You alone are able to receive the hailstorm of our tears and the torrential rain of our grief over the sudden death of nearly 100,000 of your precious children of all ages, backgrounds and social strata, from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Whether or not we have directly experienced the pain of loss, an indescribable spirit of lamentation and sorrow has fallen upon our collective American family. The sheer thought of 100,000 humans, made in your divine image, enough to fill any city, suddenly gone, numbs our minds and overwhelms our hearts.

O God in heaven, hear our hearts cry out for the loss of those who will never be mere numbers to us. They are our beloved mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, husbands, wives, children, and extended family. They are beloved fellow Americans, suddenly wiped out by an Invisible enemy mightier than all the world’s armies. Merciful Lord, we ask you to bless all those now shouldering heavy financial burdens from so great a loss.

All this has happened, Lord God, but we have not forgotten your promise to be with us in trouble and deliver us. Forgive the sin of our nation for the disproportionate number of people of color among the fallen, victimized by health care inequities and the unbearable burden of systemic racial injustice.

In the days ahead, we ask you Lord, to wrap loving arms around those left only with fleeting memories of warm smiles, joy-filled laughter, spirit-lifting hugs, the matchless pleasure of special days celebrated, and contributions to a better world now ended. You, alone, O God, can turn our mourning into dancing and our grief into joy over the sweet remembrance of our beloved. May you now rest their souls. In your blessed name, Lord God, we pray. Amen.

(Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner is president of the Skinner Leadership Institute and co-convener of the National African American Clergy Network)

 

THE KILLING OF GEORGE FLOYD

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As a follower of Christ I must say there is no place in the Kingdom of God life for the unjust killing of George Floyd by the police. And I for one think that Christians must raise their voices as one against such brutal violence on the part of law enforcement. We know all too well that too many black people have suffered violence and death at the hands of those who think they are carrying out justice.

There have always been rationales for the brutality most of us saw on T.V. But as Christians we know better, or should know better.

When the Bible speaks about justice it does so in the context of how the marginalized people were being treated by the authorities of the day. In this instance justice must be brought to bear for those in charge of such brutality against George Floyd. And this is not just on behalf of African Americans. This must be done on behalf of all people. When one someone suffers like this, God suffers and we all suffer.

Christians can’t just read the NEWS. We are part of this NEWS and we may no more turn a blind eye and deaf ear to such horrendous murder than Christians could during the brutality of the Nazi regime.

It’s time again, as it was during the civil rights struggles, to raise one voice, no matter our race, against such violence that surely is contrary to the will of God.

It is up to the followers of Jesus to discern and determine what goes against God’s will and fight against such demonic actions with all the weapons we have at our disposal. (I refer to Ephesians 6) May God help us so to do.

And may God have mercy on the Floyd family and grant peace to Mr. Floyd in God’s eternal peace.

Pastor George Gaffga

 

MOSQUITOS AND TICKS. WHAT’S GOD GOT TO DO WITH ALL OF THIS?

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I can hear Job complaining to God right now; asking why coronavirus or any virus has to exist and destroy so much that is good in life. God’s response to Job might be that even viruses have good purpose. Ask a virologist. And as organisms, living things, they have a freedom to move hindered only by the ability of free human beings to destroy them. Having been the recipient of malaria through the bite of a mosquito, I understand this. It would appear that the human reach has not extended to the parts of the world where over 400,000 people die of malaria each year. I am somewhat certain that mosquitos have some beneficial purpose, food for bats for one thing. And if I were Job I certainly would ask God what the big plan for ticks was?

There is freedom in this creation. That’s what God intended. And this freedom is only bounded by God at work WITH his creation. God’s work involves a humanity first created to commune and work with God to care for all of creation. Think about Moses for a moment. He is said to have parted the sea but he was the human agent involved with God and with the natural element of wind. Moses was God’s partner. When we read the Bible we always read about humanity and God together: from Adam and Eve to Abraham to Jesus, humanity is freely working with God towards good, for the most part.

In these past painful weeks, with more to come throughout the world, we have witnessed the human community come together to fight; to limit a common enemy.

People on this earth are pursuing a good by all means possible, even at the risk of their own lives. Religious and non-religious folks have become a community to work out God’s good purposes. God doesn’t want this virus any more than you or I do. God is not punishing anyone or wanting anyone to suffer. Just consider what Jesus did to heal. It’s not as if God gave people demons and afflictions only to have his son work to get rid of them. Recall Jesus’ healing of the blind man. When Jesus was asked about who was to blame for the man’s blindness, Jesus responded that it was the fault of no one in particular but rather it was the will of God to get this man well and know that wellness was the will of the Father in heaven. What hurts and destroys is not God’s intention.

In Haiti there is a saying, ‘Bon Dye Pa Di Sa’ (God didn’t say that), in reference to why there is disease, earthquakes and such. No, God is at work to influence, to draw people together to fight, heal, and comfort. And yes, at certain levels people resist that influence because of their own egos. That is the risk of free will. God’s grace is making a difference as it has throughout history. The miracles of God will be found in the thousands of stories that will come out of this ‘evil’ experience.

Please realize that what I am writing is from a worldview that sees Christ as the best revelation of God’s will for his creation – that one day it will be brand new. For those who have died it IS a reality, even though it brings ache and agony to friends and family.

Right now through the medicine, intellect, faith, prayer, love, sacrifice and grief of millions of people on this planet, a difference is being made. There WILL be healing and good through God’s love and the efforts of humanity. That which intends evil can be changed into good by the grace and will of God working through his creation, particularly human agency.

May God grant special, willing and wise hearts of the government leaders and people of medicine to assist all humanity in the days ahead.