Foolish Expectations

We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
We wailed, and you did not weep (Luke 7:32)

I regularly receive phone calls from other men in the pastorate, asking my advice when there is trouble in their congregations. I don’t say this to make you think that I'm some kind of ecclesiastical guru or that I have all the answers to these kinds of church problems. I'm not and I don't. Most of these appeals come from friends or former seminary students with which I have maintained friendly relations.

Many of the problems arise when people in these congregations air their grievances with letters or emails to the pastor or session.

And, just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that this is wrong or that you should never address your elders or pastors with corrections and suggestions. That process can be quite healthy. I welcome genuine criticism. My leadership, and our church, is always in need of reformation and development. And, just to be balanced, there are times when Pastors and sessions do things that are very wrong or don't do things that are quite necessary. In situations like these, people in the congregation are justified in addressing their leaders.

Even so, I have a sizable collection of examples of these complaints and written accusations as they are passed on to me. And there's a disturbing pattern. Everybody has certain expectations about what the church is supposed to be doing, especially for them. And, to be honest with you, often these complaints sound like whining from spoiled children. The church isn't doing this enough or that enough. Or it's doing too much of something and not enough of something else.

I should also confess here that I myself am not free from this problem. As I grow older I have to repent of the way that I once criticized former churches and pastors and sessions and even my own presbytery and denomination. This is just to say that I am not only pointing my finger, I am reflecting on my own sinful foolishness as well.

The reoccurring, disturbing pattern is to demand that the church meet all of your own personal expectations. Which is often simply another way of saying: God needs to give me this and do that, or serve me this way and that, or I'm not gonna be happy with his church. You know how it goes. The pastor talks about sin and judgment too much. Then in the next paragraph; there's too much feasting and joking and partying in this church. The details of these grievances are often quite petty, even when they are dressed up with spiritual, pious talk and accented with biblical proof texts.

Each of us is that proverbial child in the market place that is never satisfied, whose expectations are never met. This is at the heart of our sinful condition. We think we know what we want and need and therefore sit down with our arms folded and wait for God to meet our expectations. Like spoiled children. Adult babies. Brats, I think is the proper word.

What you have in the Gospel stories is the Lord of heaven and earth, appearing in the flesh to serve his people, to serve the world, and nobody is satisfied with what he is doing. Everybody thinks that it's not enough or it's too much. Confounded, we know what we need and want, and this is not it.

And we know how it ends. Where it ends. It ends with the cross. Humanity doesn't get what it thinks it needs, what it expects from God, and and so we crucify the Lord of heaven and earth.

You and I must read the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—as if they were mirrors. Not just windows on the foolishness of the Jews or the arrogance of the Romans, but mirrors. If the Spirit of God is at work in your heart and mind, you will see yourself in these stories.

As I have said so often, you have to learn to identify yourself, your behavior, your motives, with the sinful foolishness of the people of God when they are face to face with their Lord. You cannot say, "I would never do that. I'm not like that. I'm better than that. If I were there, I would have followed and defended Jesus." No, you wouldn't have. No, we don't. We would have done exactly what they did.

The questions Jesus puts to the crowds in passages like Luke 7:31-35 are questions put to us. They are not merely history, but the Word of God written for us. We stand before Jesus and our expectations are challenged, and by God's grace transformed and redefined so that we are able to receive and follow Jesus as he is, to receive the ministry of Jesus as he in fact works—whether he meets with our bratty, childish expectations or not.

Image of the Day

Since I'm on a roll with little critters on flowers here's another one.
Now I need to say something about this image. I proves something. It was not taken with my best Nikon camera. It proves that you don't need an expensive, pro camera to take a good picture. What you need is the right light and good timing. The early morning light for this shot was really nice. I walked outside to take some test pictures with a new used Nikon D40 I got from eBay. It's a gift for someone. I also got a 18-55 kit lens with it. I wanted to test the camera, so I just started taking pictures around the yard to make sure everything was working well. I caught this bee on the flower at just the right time. I don't think this shot would have been any better with my big, pro camera. I believe it would have looked about the same. Then too, of course, I wouldn't have gotten this kind of image with a little point and shoot. I had the D40 set on shutter speed priority (1/800 sec) to try to catch the moving bee. So one would have needed at least a DSLR for this shot. But what I didn't need was a 12.5 megapixel FX camera body or a $1000 prime Nikkor mirco lens. The little 6.1 mp D40 with a $70 lens worked just fine. Another caveat: I wouldn't have been able to take the macro shot of the little green hopper with this lens. But I would have been able to hook up my Nikkor micro lens to the D40 and get almost the same shot. I know some of you guys with D40s and D50s out there. Get out and capture some great images! You don't need an expensive camera. You can do it!

Image of the Day

A wider view of the baby hopper. (Nikon D300 w/Nikkor 60mm, f16, 1/8 sec, ISO 200, w/tripod, and morning light [9 AM]). The camera data for the hopper in the blog banner is the same except 1/30 sec shutter speed.

The Supreme Court Gets It Right!

The Supreme Court announced its decision in reference to the case in which plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of the Washington DC's gun ban. The District of Columbia appealed a lower court’s ruling last year affirming that the Second Amendment of the Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, and that the District’s bans on handguns, carrying firearms within the home, and possession of loaded or operable firearms for self-defense violate that right.

The case marks the first time a Second Amendment challenge to a firearm law has reached the Supreme Court since 1939.

From the Supreme Court's conclusion announced today:

In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense. Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.

We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the
many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns, see supra, at 54–55, and n. 26. But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home. Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment
is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct. We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

Read the entire decision here.

Liturgy in Brazil

This is pretty cool. Eduardo Chagas, a choirmaster at a Brazilian Presbyterian Church, has translated my old essay Why Presbyterians Don't Like Liturgy into Portuguese for Brazilian Presbyterians. If you read Portuguese, you can find it here.

Image of the Morning

I captured this yesterday in my back yard.

The green baby hopper on the banner was inside this flower.

Christ's Presence at the Table

Over at Evangelical Catholicity Jonathan Bonomo has a friendly response to Will Barker's talk at the GA Colloquium on the Sacraments. I think this kind of courteous, but pointed interaction with the substance of these talks is fruitful.

I said something like this in my comments on his post, but it bears repeating—over and over and over again. The way “spiritual” and “spiritually” are understood by most in conservative presbyterian circles is not Calvinian. Heck, it’s close to subchristian. It's certainly not biblical. It always amazes and angers me that people pit “spiritual” against “physical,” “material,” and/or “body” in popular Reformed theology. The adjective "spiritual" in the Bible is a reference to the work of the Holy Spirit. Something that is "spiritual" is "of the Holy Spirit," and not necessarily anti- or supra-material or physical. It’s the Holy SPIRIT, people! We should all agree to capitalize the word "Spiritual" from now on in order to get this straight.

"How is your Spiritual life this week?"
"Fine, I have been striving to not grieve the Spirit in my behavior at work"
"That's great. I've been praying for you."

What is worse, I’ve found that even most ministers think that the “spiritual presence of Jesus” in the Supper is a shorthand way of saying that he is omnipresent as God the Son. Press them about what they mean by "spiritual presence" and they will say that Jesus is present invisibly and “spiritually” in his divine nature at the Table. But that doesn't get us anywhere. God the Son is omnipresent as God always and everywhere. So is the "spiritual presence of Jesus" at the Lord's Supper nothing more than the reality of his divine presence at Home Depot or Greenbriar Golf Club? No. The miracle of the Lord's Supper is that the Holy Spirit makes the glorified, life-giving body and blood of Jesus present to his people.

Perhaps we are so sloppy in our thinking about the Supper because we practice it so infrequently and we are so frightened to say that Baptism and the Lord's Supper actually do something. Talking about Baptism and the Lord's Supper in our circles is pretty frustrating.

Sick Puppy

Yesterday Spencer was sick. But he is such a perfect puppy that he let us know that he needed to go outside to do his runny business. Not one drop inside. Nosiree. What a dog. Then in the evening he was on the bed with Chris when he jumped in her lap and started retching. She got up and took him into the bathroom where he obediently barfed into the toilet. Did I say he's a perfect puppy? Well, he splashed a little on the seat, but besides that he's better behaved sick than most of my kids (which isn't saying much). In honor of his exemplary behavior he got to go outside at dusk and get his portrait taken.

Behold the model dog!

Workhorse Lens

I see that Scott Kelby shot with his Nikon 18-200mm VR while he was in Italy on vacation. This lens gets some bad press in some snobby photographic circles. I might have thought that Scott was inside that circle, but apparently not. I have found this lens to be a great all-purpose lens. Great color, contrast, and sharpness. It has it's limitations. But once you know what they are you can work around them. For example, the little bit of distortion you get at the wide end can easily be fixed with PS3. It's just a great "walk around" lens. It's always on my D300 as the default lens. If I take my camera in the car with me and don't have room for any other lens (=I'm not wearing cargo shorts), this is the lens I take with me.

Oh, yeah, I shot the two images of the train below with this lens yesterday on the way home from dropping my son off at a party.

Today's Image

Another one. . .