Changes Changing

Malachi 3:6-7

For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished. Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, “How shall we return?”

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Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

"Changes" by David Bowie

Here's the problem we face as individuals and as the church. We're changing all the time. God never changes. Sometimes we improve and sometimes we don't. God never changes. What makes it difficult is when we change in directions that move toward God and away from society. That's very difficult. What's even worse is the thought that hundreds of years of conventional wisdom rooted in scripture can suddenly be wrong.

The church has dealt with this in the past. In fact, about every 500 years the church faces this in earnest. In the fifth century it came with the writing of the Nicene Creed. One stupid little Latin word, filioque (it means "from the Son"), caused a stink that broke the church into two parts, the Church of Rome (we call it Roman Catholic today) and the Orthodox Church. Half of the church says the Holy Spirit comes from the father, the other half says the Holy Spirit comes from the Father and from the Son. Splittsville!

Five hundred years later it was something else. Five hundred years after that it was a little thing we call the Reformation.

God never changes, we change. It has actually happened since the beginning. Acts 15 describes The Jerusalem Council where Peter wanted the gentiles to be more Jewish and Paul said in Christ we are all Jewish enough. God never changes. We change.

It's happening again all over the world. In the last 100 years, churches with their European roots have begun ordaining the children of African slaves, women, divorced people, and the latest hot button, homosexuals. Each of these changes have caused cracks in the face of the church-some smaller some larger. On both sides of the splits, people say that they are right and the opposition is wrong. In the worst of these, some call themselves faithful and the others unfaithful. Some Godly and the others ungodly.

God never changes and this is the only reason we don't perish.

God says we all have turned from the faith. God says we have turned from the faith since the beginning, so nothing is new under the sun. We have turned from the statutes of God since the first statute, "Don't eat that!" Our salvation is that when we change and when we don't, God doesn't change better than us.

We need to return. We need to return to the Word and we need to return to the Lord. But this is where we must beware, because as we turn we must decide whether we are turning toward or away from God. Regardless of the choice, someone will say the choice is good where others will say it is bad. No sweat, the Lord will judge.

What Friends Are For?

Job 2: 11-13

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home--Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

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It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming 'Let me out'

"Under Pressure" by Queen with David Bowie

Friends are a joy. Job has just lost everything. His wife was the opposite of help saying "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die." I put the emphasis on "still" because I can imagine her saying it that way. I can't decide whether she wants him to curse God to put him out of his misery or her own. Maybe that's a two-birds-with-one-stone deal.

But his friends hear of his plight and they come to see him, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They have come to grieve with their friend. They came to console and comfort him. They could see him from a distance, or they saw where his house was. They couldn't recognize him. All that their friend was is gone, all that remains is the shell of the man. They knew his suffering was great, so they did as friends would. They tore their robes and covered themselves with dust from the scalp down. They could tell his suffering was so great didn't say a word for a week ...if they had just left it at that.

Suddenly everyone tried to explain what had happened. They tried to explain the tragedy. They tried to put this great calamity into perspective. They failed miserably. They failed so miserably ultimately the Lord, the Voice from the whirlwind would tell them to be quiet. If they had just kept going while they were ahead.

They saw the terror of their friends grief, they could see him screaming "Let me out." They were simply present for a week and that was good. Nobody said try to make him feel better. Nobody said try to explain it away. Nobody told them to say a word, but alas the quiet ended and the remaining forty chapters of the book of Job unfolded, often with anger, rarely with compassion.

There is something to be said for just being present when a friend is in pain. More often than not, just listening to the screams and holding them in the pain and sorrow is what is needed.

Ashes to Ashes

Ash Wednesday


Genesis 3:19
Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.

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Ashes to ashes, funk to funky

"Ashes to Ashes" by David Bowie from "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)" (1980)

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, the season of introspection, reflection, and repentence. Who says the season doesn't need better Public Relations?

Of course, we're more familiar with Ash Wednesday's naughty cousin, Mardi Gras. Given the choice between reveling like tomorrow won't come and wearing ashes hearing someone in a black robe say, "From dust you came and to dust you will return," who wouldn't take beer and beads any day of the week?

Of course, there's more to the choices than that, which is why I've been the guy in the black robe holding the ashes.

"From dust" is the curse laid upon humanity after the fall, after the first (the original) sin. Upon eating of the tree Adam and Eve learned of death, and they learned what it would mean to them, they would return from whence they came. When the only rule you had to follow was "Don't eat that," it's a mighty fall from grace to death.

Ashes to ashes, funk to funky.

Still, there is more to Lent than just ashes and fasting. Today, many of us will be reminded of this curse, this curse Jesus accepted as his own, the truth that the body will be put to the ground. We do this with the mark of the ash. Jesus did this by the agony of the cross. But in this agony there is mercy and there is grace.

A few years ago, when imposing the ashes, I was encouraged to say "You are a child of God. From ashes you came and to ashes you will return." This first sentence is the addition. It should be understood of course, and it should be repeated as often as possible. It's easy to remember pain and suffering. It's easy to remember work. It's easy even to remember the glory of what comes after the end. But without the joy of what comes with life in God in Christ, we are truly lost. And we are all children of God, that must never be forgotten.

As Adam and Eve were God's children we are God's children. As they were disciplined for disobeying we too are disciplined for disobeying, but the joy of life in God; that is something they could not forget and something we must always remember.

By the mercy of God, let us be marked as his. Marked by the ash, and by his blood. Marked that in life and in death we belong to God.