The societal limits which impinge on our world also affect our personal existence in profound ways. Nowhere is this more critical than in our own dreams and visions.
Dreams and visions are important in life. Every action we take in life was designed by someone. Every piece of clothing, every building, every hymn book, every chair, every light fixture, and every automobile existed first in someone's vision. Someone had to have the idea or the dream to turn out the product. The same holds true for the way we act. As Jesus said, "The eye is the seat of the body." If you cannot dream it, cannot envision it, then you simply cannot do it.
Dreams and visions can also be very crushing. Not all dreams come true. We invent certain images of ourselves, certain pictures of the way life is supposed to be, and then we are somewhat shocked at the way things do not turn out. Just as the dreams and visions of the 1990s provide an inadequate base for living in a pluralistic world, so, too, do some of our individual aspirations place us on the brink of frustration.
Dr. J. Wallace Hamilton, in his book Horns and Halos in Human Nature, tells of one of the weirdest auction sales in history. It was held in the city of Washington, D.C. It was an auction of designs, actually patent models of old inventions that did not make it in the marketplace. There were 150,000 designs up for auction. There was an illuminated cat to scare away mice. There was a device to prevent snoring which consisted of a trumpet reaching from the mouth to the ear. One person designed a tube to reach from his mouth to his feet so that his breath would keep his feet warm as he slept. There was an adjustable pulpit which could be raised or lowered. You could hit a button and make the pulpit descend or ascend to illustrate a point dramatically. Obviously, at one time somebody had high hopes for each of those designs which did not make it.14 Some people died in poverty, having spent all their money trying to sell their dream. One hundred fifty thousand broken dreams! Is there anything sadder?
If we call God the master designer of the universe, then we must view the New Testament as a book of broken dreams. It begins with a massacre of innocent children by King Herod. It is centered in the execution of its hero. And it ends with the martyred saints crying, "How long, O Lord, how long?" In terms of the design of life, the crucifixion of Jesus caused serious questions to be written in the minds of humanity. There on the cross was a man who loved His enemies, a man whose righteousness was greater than the Pharisees, a man who was rich but became poor, a man who gave His robe to those who took His cloak, a man who prayed for those who despitefully used Him.15 Yet, society crucified Him, executed Him. The question to ask in the presence of this awesome scene is whether such goodness is the design of the universe or forms an exception. Is life designed to be loving, serving, giving, and dying? Does that design work? Does it pay off? Is it rewarding?
If not, then we perhaps should abandon the Christian approach in favor of hedonism or existentialism. These latter approaches champion the futility of human efforts to find meaning in the face of death. For the hedonist the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the highest goods. If we all die meaningless deaths then we had best grab what pleasures are available to us while we can.
The existentialist is correct in asserting that the human being is the only animal that knows it is going to die. This obvious stress and anxiety can champion a meaningless approach to life. Indeed, why have dreams and visions if we all die anyway?
One of my first lectures to freshmen in our university is centered around an exercise to start them thinking about the meaning of existence. After asking them to write down how they envision leaving their stamp of influence on the world, professionally, personally, religiously, and familiarly, I stump and shock them with a request. I ask, "Now, I would like someone to stand and please call out the first and last names of your great-grandparents!" To date, not one student has been able to rise to the occasion. Obviously, one has to examine one's projected impact on life in the face of the fact that most likely our own great-grandchildren will not even know our name, much less our religious affiliation, our vocation, or our philosophy of life.
We perhaps can identify with the men on the road to Emmaus who were walking and talking with each other following the death of Jesus. They told of all that had happened, how this Jesus of Nazareth, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, had been condemned to death and crucified.
Are there any clearer words of a broken dream than theirs? "But we had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21). Oh, we had hoped He was the one to make it. We had dreamed He would be the one. But it just didn't work out.
All of us have dreams for ourselves and our lives that just do not make it. We come back home on the Emmaus road with our dream broken in our hip pocket, a sure-fire program that fell flat, a preventive that didn't prevent, a solution that did not solve, a panacea that did not pan out. We wail the plaintive cry, "But we had hoped this would redeem us. Oh, we had hoped it would be another way." Saint Paul wrote to the Romans. He told them that he hoped to see them on his way to Spain. Going to Spain was his grand design, his great dream, his high hope. But Paul never got to Spain. Instead, his journey ended in a prison cell in Rome. He could not pull off what he saw in his mind.
It has been very well said that every person dreams of one life and is forced to live another. Such appears to have been true for Jesus, and yes, even for God! From the garden of Eden to the crucifixion, God seems to have had a grand dream for the human race but was forced to live another experience. Every person dreams of one life and is forced to live another.
Parents have dreams for their children. We all do. I always knew my children would be a cross between Albert Einstein, Tom Selleck, and Joe Montana. On the other hand, I'm certain that I'm not their ideal dream of a parent, either. I knew just how I'd be as a parent in my dreams. I'd be slim, popular, handsome, and very caring and understanding. I'd be up on their music, and kind and tolerant when they brought home poor grades. I'd spend hours communicating with my boys. We'd go down the road, arm-in-arm like Andy Taylor and Opie in Mayberry on the way to the fishing hole, and have these long, meaningful father-son talks. You dream one life and are forced to live another. It's enough to make you live only for momentary pleasure or admit the utter meaninglessness of life.
Here, it seems, is the essence of life. If indeed every person dreams of one life and is forced to live another, then the manner in which one repairs that dream and connects it with a lasting purpose has to be the greatest news in the world. The essence of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not solely to be found in a personal guarantee of life after death for you and me. The resurrection of Christ is an affirmation of a certain dream for life. The schematic designs of human evil were exposed and condemned for what they were. The central claim of the New Testament is the ultimate triumph of goodness. The resurrection is the triumph of a design for life that is upheld as the fundamental principle of the universe even if the world tries to crucify it.
Consequently, Saint Paul could affirm, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His dream" (Romans 8:28). Here Paul is not saying that we all get to live the life of our dreams. A lot of things happen to us that are not good. We are indeed forced to live another kind of life at times. Paul is saying that if a person will consider all the experiences of his or her life, both the good and the bad, and bond them together with love for God, then the sum total of that life, the grand design of that person's history, will be good. As such, it is indeed possible to believe in the sun when it is not shining, to believe in love when you cannot directly feel it, and to believe in God when God is silent for a period. Even if the world crucifies you, the design of God's universe and your life with it will ultimately triumph. The dream will triumph even if it is not immediately evident.
You and I live by our dreams as much as by our particular experiences. In this limited world of broken dreams, in this world where we dream of one life and are forced to live another, a conclusion comes from resurrection. If God's dream for goodness triumphs, then one thing is certain: we can, indeed, live with the limits we have to face.
Failure is relative to time. No one really knows when he has succeeded or failed if all he does is look at the present.16 God's design and God's time turn a lot of failures into successes. We must measure success by God's standard of design in history, not by whether or not we are immediately on the top of the world's heap. I know many people who have "arrived" and they are not very happy. I know others who look back on what they thought was a burden at the time and they now view it as having been a tremendous learning experience.
Consider the Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto. In 1944, he was the minister of the largest Protestant congregation in southern Japan. It was in the city of Hiroshima. Tanimoto must have been proud of his large church. Then one day, a yellow flash came. Mr. Tanimoto dove instinctively into a garden and wedged himself between two huge rocks. A powerful blast of wind and fire blew over him. It knocked him unconscious. When he came to and got on his feet, the city was flat as a desert. Sixty-eight thousand human beings were killed instantly. Only thirty members of his 3,500 member church were still alive. Rev. Tanimoto began to rebuild his crucified church. He arranged for the spiritual adoption of five hundred Hiroshima orphans by North American families. As a result of his work, all bomb survivors became eligible for free medical treatment. Rev. Tanimoto also created a Peace Foundation. In that Foundation's museum a little girl named Sadako placed two cranes made of folded paper. It was her belief that if a person who was ill made these little paper cranes, the person would get better. Well, Rev. Tanimoto died and little Sadako also died, after ten years of horrible suffering.17 Two people who loved their enemies, whose righteousness was greater than the Pharisees, who were executed by forces they did not understand, cause us to ask, "Where was the design in all of this?" What happened to the dream? They believed in the sun when all they saw was a mushroom cloud that rose six miles high in only eight minutes. They believed in love when they could not feel it, and they believed in God when God was silent for a period. Naked, bleeding, hairless, and with skin hanging loose, they went to their early graves. They dreamed of one life and were forced to live another.
Today, thirty years after their death, a statue stands in Hiroshima. The statue was built in memory of their deaths. It is the figure of two children on either side and another child on top, their arms outstretched to express their hope for a peaceful world. For over thirty years, to this very day, Japanese children keep the center of that statue filled with many-colored paper cranes. It is the largest monument to peace in the history of the world. God's design of love holds. It stands. It triumphs for all generations over any design of darkness and death. Paul is absolutely correct. History has proved it in a thousand ways. If a person will consider all the experiences of his life and bond them together with love for God, then the sum total of that life will be good.
The design of God will ultimately triumph. From Bethlehem to Gethsemane to Calvary, the innocent do suffer. The good and the lonely often get what they do not deserve. But goodness never stays in the dark. The truth never stays crucified. The central theme in human history is the same as the central theme of the New Testament: the ultimate triumph of goodness. If we would but believe that, our lives would claim an unbelievable power and freedom. This power and freedom would give us some religious authenticity as we seek to live in a world of blind guides and ignorant professors.
Blind Guides And Ignorant Professors
During a recent fall break, my colleague, Professor Bill Cope, another friend and I went fishing off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We had been out in a boat about 10 miles from the channel. After a successful day, with our coolers full of fish and our bodies aching, we headed the boat back toward the mainland. As we followed the channel toward shallow water we saw a huge commotion speeding out of the channel toward the open water. A group of a dozen or more dolphins was breaking the water in a perfect circle. They were chattering incessantly in their high-pitched voices and swimming and diving at top speed. Many small fishing boats had stopped to watch the spectacle. The dolphins, still in a huge circle, weaved their way among the islands, staying right in the middle of the channel. We curiously puttered over to within 15 feet of the circle. All of a sudden a black mountain seemed to rise out of the circle and plunge down again, leaving a huge tail to slam the water. It was a whale, the largest living thing any of us had ever seen. It was almost seventy feet long. We hastily backed up. The last we saw of it, the whale was on a straight shot to the open ocean about five miles out to sea. And the dolphins were still leading it out.
This fortunate beast had become confused and gone into shallow water. His buddies, the dolphins, were guiding him to safety. They were faithfully doing what nature had given them the capacity to do. Without those guides, this powerful animal would have died.
Regardless of how strong and brilliant we humans become, we, too, become confused in life and have to turn to others to lead us away from shallow perceptions and ways of thinking. More often than not our guides tend to be our religious leaders and our professors. Teachers and preachers are supposed to be people who know much and have wisdom that can help us solve problems. If you can't follow your priests, preachers, and teachers, whom can you follow?
How amazing and startling it is to find in the New Testament a reference to blind guides and ignorant professors. The terms appear to be oxymorons. Who would want to hire a guide that is blind? Who would be foolish enough to pay money to study under a professor who is ignorant?
Romans 2:17-24 is not a good scripture for preachers and teachers. We would do well to avoid it. But the scripture is there. It must be articulated. Not only is it there but it has a ring of contemporary relevance even though it comes from an ancient setting. The church has always had problems with the moral blindness and intellectual foolishness of its priests, preachers, and teachers.
In our day when the faith of many has been rocked by the child abuse and materialistic greed of preachers and teachers, this scripture screams at us. Blind guides and ignorant professors. There are Catholic priests and bishops being indicted for having molested children, Protestant evangelists in jail for fraud, and professors earning over $100,000 a year from church-related institutions who have never taught a course there. They have simply sold their name.
Any contemporary discussion about living in a limited world must honestly wrestle with the limited influence of traditional religious images. So bogus has become the image of religion in the eyes of many citizens that the symbols of religion are fair game for the entertainment industry. I sat with my wife and college-aged son at a Jimmy Buffett concert in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was a wonderful concert, attended by over 40,000 devoted fans, myself included.
When the fabulous Buffett reached a certain segment of his song "Fruitcakes," the crowd with me good-naturedly started poking and pointing. The words are simple but true: "Religion, religion, oh there's a thin line / Between Saturday night and Sunday morning."18 The song goes on to talk about the dishonesty of preachers and notes that religion is in the hands of some strange people. But the actual truth is that nothing is as simple as these religious people try to make it.
The words of the song were as haunting to me as they are true. Each semester I teach a course titled Religion 119, Christian Worship. Students who attend nine of the fourteen worship services in our chapel and produce a final paper about the experience, writing essays on certain questions, can receive one hour of semester course credit. To date, over 600 students have written these papers in the past five years. And as I read papers I always discern a familiar pattern. About one-third of the students will have stopped attending church prior to college. And the number one reason given for their lack of a religious background will be this: their parents dropped out of church over the hypocrisy of someone who pretended to be a guide or teacher. The preacher ran off with the choir director or a secretary. Or the venerable church school teacher or deacon got arrested for embezzlement. Or some arrogant born-again Christian kept putting on the pressure, looking for the speck of sawdust in their parents' moral behavior while ignoring the plank of smug self-righteousness sticking out of his own eye. So their parents quit church and that meant they stopped taking the children. It's an old but true story.
Let's look at the preacher or priest. How do we view these spiritual guides, these people who talk to us from pulpits? I'm amazed at the mystique associated with clergy. Every fall those of us who follow sports hear much about the Notre Dame mystique as it applies to their football team. The mystique is now enhanced by a movie titled Rudy. The movie focuses on this little, tough fellow whose goal in life is to play for Notre Dame. It chronicles his dedication and hard work, both athletically and academically. And, indeed, the real-life drama concludes with Rudy playing a play in a game and being carried off the field on his teammates' shoulders.
I spoke in South Bend, Indiana, some years ago. And the experience reminded me of a mystique that is common to most of us. As part of the speaking engagement's requirements I had to be the guest on an early morning television talk show. The station was WSJV, Channel 28, South Bend. The show came on right after Good Morning America. It was called Good Morning Michiana. I was doing a forum entitled "How to Be a Minister and a Human Being." Like past forum keynote speakers I had to sit on a couch with the talk show host and ala the Larry King Show take telephone calls from people in that part of Michigan and Indiana. I dreaded it. I just knew some professors would call in questions I couldn't answer. Or worse yet, some nut would call in a crazy question and get me in a trap that would demand an answer certain to antagonize half the viewers. The interview began with the host asking me, "Uh, what shall I call you: Doctor, Father, Reverend or Preacher Warlick?" Rather innocently I said, "I prefer to be called Hal."
You would have thought I had struck him between the eyes with a club. He said, "Oh, I could never call a Holy Man by his first name." The television switchboard immediately lit up like a Christmas tree. That's all we dealt with the whole show: the mystique embodied in what you call or don't call a supposed Holy Person. I never knew how many people's sensitivities were offended or affirmed by calling someone by his first name.
From Chicago to East Lansing the viewers were at it. Who is this person who declares God can speak through him or her?
Is the person a man, woman, or a myth?
Is the person a saint or a sinner?
Are we talking to a conversion artist or a con artist?
Are you a spiritual shepherd or an ecclesiastical pimp?
A missionary or a mercenary?
Are we receiving tithes and offerings or just stealing in the name of the Lord?
At some point in life we have to address these issues. What better place than in discussing life's limits? Robes can't hide us from what's underneath. And a collar on backwards cannot shield us from reality.
One of the problems with clergy is the holy person myth. Many people will accept ludicrous misrepresentations of reality from these people because they faithfully believe that these leaders have been set aside from ordinary humans. Somehow the myth states that these people have moral perfection, freedom from temptation and sin, and are possessed with special wisdom. As such, they speak of God, know God, and can make things right for us with God.
If you read the Bible you will note that most of its leading religious figures are not holy men or women at all. To be certain, they are not flagrantly immoral, insane, or uncouth. They do keep their noses relatively clean. And, like most preachers and teachers today, they are some of the finest people you could ever meet. But they are all human. They all live with limits. And, like today, the dangerous ones are those who believe in the myth that they are somehow immune from human temptation and realities, that they have no limits with which to grapple theologically.
One of the most important aspects of an education is learning to see our leaders, whether governmental, religious, or educational, for what they are: imperfect human beings. Conversely, if we can learn to have faith in the political process, the church, and in education in spite of setbacks to our myths about preachers, teachers, and politicians, then we have learned much. Leaders are people who require the input, the knowledge, and the challenge of people just like you and me. When we stand back and allow the clergy, the professors, and the politicians to make all our decisions for us we are in trouble. Not only do we follow, but we help create blind guides and ignorant professors.
This is not easy to do. All of us want reassurance that there are no mysteries to trouble the mind. We like being told, "Only believe. These are the facts." Crowds follow the person who announces very confidently, "It's all so very simple. Come hear the answers. One, two, three, four. Now, I have told you what to do. Go and do it!"
The Bible was not afraid to explode this myth. It had to. Those who claimed to know the way had suddenly lost the way. But they were still serving as guides and professors.
The messages of Jesus and Paul are not just aimed at professional preachers and teachers. They are aimed at everyone who fancies himself or herself a devout believer. You and I live in an era when it has become in vogue, that is, popular, to tell people, "I am a born-again Christian. I'm saved. I've got it made. And here is how I can help you. It's all so very simple. One, two, three, four. Now that I have told you how to do it, you go and do it! It's simple and no limits are involved."
In short, when you are involved in the religious enterprise in any way that puts you in the limelight, you better be careful there isn't a ditch waiting for you just around the corner.
The words of Paul to the Romans would translate this way in the modern vernacular. "You call yourself a Christian. You think you've got it made because you've got Jesus. And not only that, but you brag about your relationship with God and how much scripture you know and how many Sunday School certificates you have and how you can pray. You think of those who don't believe as you believe as blind and you think it's your duty to guide them? You think of other people as foolish people and you think it is your responsibility to be their teacher? Well, if I'm not mistaken, in spite of your arrogance, there's a skeleton or two in your closet. You have become a blind guide and an ignorant professor when you do not live with your limits."
When we get right down to it, the apostle Paul and Jesus, especially in his teaching about people who see the speck of sawdust in others' eyes but avoid the plank in their own, are correct. In order for religion to have any authenticity, at some point integrity has to be possessed. The first thing that occurs whenever the world discovers the blind leading the blind and the ignorant teaching the foolish is that the world calls into question the sincerity of the entire enterprise.
Have you ever been on a trip or a hike with a really competent guide? A good guide is someone who knows the territory but doesn't make you feel like a fool for not knowing it. A competent guide is more concerned with what you experience than what he or she experiences. A good guide is more concerned with the safety of others than his own ability to impress.
And have you ever had a really good professor or teacher? Have you ever noticed that the good professors appear to know less than the mediocre professors? If they don't know something, the good professors say, "That's a good question. I don't know the answer." The mediocre teachers make up an answer.
We are all guides and teachers to one another. If not, we shall one day perform those roles for our children, our employees and occasionally even our loved ones. In our kind of world we may have to be religious guides to one another in a time when religion itself has lost its lofty place in the repertoire of human imagery. The signs may be limited, if there at all.
No Signs
The so-called experts tell us that we often form our opinion of someone in the first five seconds after we first meet him. Consequently they teach that the signs one gives off in the first five seconds of a job interview determine whether he or she will get the job. They contend that a person is greatly judged by appearance.
Students are aware of this. Watch a group of college students get ready to interview for a job. They don ties and jackets and long dresses. Some even shave their semester-long beard or cut their slightly long hair. The same holds true for rush week among fraternities and sororities. One often sees attractive 21-year-old ladies trying to wobble on high heels from a residence hall to the Campus Center. And some of the white dresses obviously haven't been worn since high school.
We are a world that looks for "signs" as to what is going on. "Is your child not eating right, not sleeping right, becoming more withdrawn, and so forth? That may be a sign that he or she is having experiences with drugs." At least that's what the commercial says. Signs are important.
Signs are certainly important in the business and political worlds. Not only do people have vital signs, such as pulse rates and blood pressure, but we are told that the economy has vital signs, political campaigns have vital signs and even universities have vital signs which measure their relative health or sickness.
Sometimes our infatuation with signs becomes almost silly. I once taught a course at Harvard University on organizational development. We utilized case studies from the Harvard Business School, CEOs from IBM and Polaroid, and a host of guest lecturers. I'll never forget some of the experiences when these hot shot corporate experts blew into the classroom. Based on the theory that people pick up our "signs" of professional competency in the first five seconds of a meeting, I had several guests who gave astounding lectures on "dressing for success." The basic premise was that how you dress gives a sign that communicates how you feel about yourself and who you are.
I sat in amazement as I listened to one "expert" tell my students how an executive woman should dress for success. The lecture went something like this. If your male colleagues wear dark blue or gray suits, white or blue long-sleeved shirts and subtle ties, then you should dress in outfits where the jackets and skirts are matching material. If the men wear sports coats with contrasting slacks, then you can mix and match your wardrobe, too. Even if the image is different from your personality, you should adopt it if you wish to succeed. Your goal is to make money, even if you have to compromise your dress during the work day in order to meet your goal. It's all a part of the game. You want to exhibit the right "signs." When you land your first job, borrow two or three thousand dollars from the bank to buy a new wardrobe. Camel, gray, black, navy, white or beige in a solid color are most acceptable. Buying that expensive wardrobe will be one of the keys to your success. Quality clothes help make the executive. They help you give off the right sign!
Then, as the students and I sat in open-mouthed silence, came the real zinger: "Always wear sunglasses when it's bright outdoors, for you want to avoid squinting, which causes premature crow's-feet."
Good grief. Here were students paying many hard-earned dollars in tuition alone to go to that university, and a high-priced person from the business world was telling them their success really didn't depend on that education. It depended on wearing sunglasses to keep from getting premature crow's-feet.
Are we serious? Are the "signs" of accomplishment really accounting for personal and professional success? Do we give authority to people according to the signs we see? Apparently so. Our generation has witnessed the remarkable marketing of bogus signs. A $35.00 fake Rolex watch can be bought on any street corner in downtown Manhattan. The weight of the wristband and the movement of the second hand are the only differences which distinguish it from the real thing. Oh, as I found out a few years ago when I had one, after six months the fake Rolex watch stops running and the cheap metal wristband puts a green ring around your wrist. But, hey, for six months I looked very important. And, God bless Taiwan, they now have helped us all. There is a fake cellular-one car phone. That's right, friends, some of the cars you see riding around town with apparent car phones in them, don't have a car phone at all. But it looks good. Some people are just naive enough to reason that an insurance agent, a salesman, or even a preacher who has a car phone must be more successful and carry more authority than one who doesn't have one. We look for the right "sign" more than we'd care to admit. We need signs as vindication of a person's authority.
One day Jesus Christ encountered the same phenomenon. He was in debate with some Pharisees. The Pharisees asked Jesus to supply "a sign from heaven." It was a logical request to the Son of God. Comedian Woody Allen used to say, for example, that he would believe in God if God would give him a sign, like a million dollar deposit in Allen's name in a Swiss bank account.
The Pharisees weren't out of step to ask Jesus for a sign of His authority. Who wants to believe in a Messiah so limited he or she can't produce a sign of divine proof?
Apparently signs had been given before. When Moses approached Pharaoh as the spokesman of God and demanded the freeing of the slaves, Pharaoh wanted a "sign." Moses turned his rod into a snake and Nile water into blood. Pharaoh was obviously impressed by these signs which demonstrated Moses' authority.
In like manner, Elijah went before King Ahab to denounce his part in Baal-worship in Israel. Elijah announced three years' drought as a sign of God's power. Since Baal was supposed to be the rain-giver god, this sign hit Baal right in the kisser.
Didn't the Pharisees have a right to expect a similar sign from Jesus as proof of His status? Apparently this request, coming from religious people, really angered Jesus. It really angered Him.
Why did religious people, who were supposed to believe in God, need signs to believe in Him? Was not Jesus Himself "sign" enough? External signs may have been necessary for a heathen Pharaoh or a back-sliding king. But why couldn't religious people decide without the aid of signs whether Jesus' teaching was true or not? So Jesus responded, "Why does this evil generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation (Mark 8:12).19
It remains a pivotal issue for our generation. Why do Christians need signs? Isn't Jesus' life and death enough sign for us? Can the proclamation of the kingdom and the cross stand as enough evidence? In essence, Jesus maintained that if believers have to have signs, then no sign will convince that person of God's authority. The "sign" will never be authoritative enough. How much money would God have to raise as God's sign? Oral Roberts once said eleven million dollars. How many cures would God have to work?
Are we so evil that we need a sign? Are we so incapable of living with limits that faith without certainty is impossible?
Let me illustrate from personal experience. I was standing in the checkout line of a Boston bookstore where I knew the manager. He stopped me and said, "I've got a check I need for you to vouch for. We normally don't take checks, but this man rummaging through the used books back there says you know him and can reference him. He doesn't have any cash. He's very polite. Is it okay to take his check?" I looked back and there, in his usual attire of blue jeans and rumpled sweater, was Charles Merrill on his hands and knees rummaging through used books. Charles Merrill of Merrill, Lynch, Pierce can dress any way he wants to and usually does. I said, "Yes, you can take his check. And if he decides to give you another one to buy the building and turn it into a K-Mart, you can take that one, too." Charles Merrill doesn't have to worry about camel, gray, black or navy suits. He doesn't even have to worry about whether or not he gets premature crow's-feet. He has all the authority and money he needs. He doesn't need any of the "signs." He doesn't even have to play the game, if he doesn't want to. Now that's real authority.
Let me bring the issue closer to home. I used to write all over a good student's paper or test booklet. I wrote copious comments, paragraph after paragraph. Suddenly it dawned on me that all I need to write is "Excellent," A+. A good student knows it is good. By contrast, if the student doesn't know why it's excellent, it probably isn't excellent.
Consider how our world operates both with and without signs. In some public buildings there are signs prohibiting smoking. But in church sanctuaries no such signs are needed. Who would light up and smoke a cigarette during a church service? The nature of the building and the character of the service make it unnecessary to post a no-smoking sign in there. The church can live with the limitation of not having a sign prohibiting smoking because of its identity.
In fact, our freedom, our honor, and much of what is dear to us in life depend on acts that do not have to be enforced by signs. Consider the home. Out in the business world a wage and hour schedule is often posted by law. Gratuity information is printed on the menu - "parties of six or more will have fifteen percent gratuity added to the bill." Terms of employment statutes are posted in factories and speed limit signs control the highways. But consider the home. Can you imagine going into a home and seeing a sign which states the number of hours that mother will put in for a sick child? Can you imagine a sign posted in a living room which says, "Family will pay up to $10,000 for emergency surgery for any one of its members?" If you need a sign for things like that, I'd advise you to find another family. Certainly a family is bound together in spite of outward limits on its legalistic obligations.
This is what prompted Jesus' reaction to the Pharisees. People live by faith and not by signs. If you need positive signs to hold your faith together or to enforce it, then it isn't much of a faith. If Jesus Christ has to be equated with some particular political, economic, or medical sign in order to have some authority, that isn't much authority at all. Jesus Christ has been in all kinds of societies, living under all kinds of political systems, in all kinds of bodies. God has lived in democracies, and God has lived in the hearts of people under dictatorships. God does not have to bend anything to anyone's particular tastes in order to have authority. God can dress any way God wants to dress. People tend to want to point to "signs" that Jesus is the sole possession and monopoly of a certain class with a particular point of view.
Jesus knew that. "No signs," he countered. No signs? Well, what are we to do when people exclaim, "Look, here He is. There He goes. Yonder He is"?
Do believers need a sign? If I interpret this scripture correctly, "No, they don't." In fact, one of the grandest stages in Christianity is that moment when a person can simply but profoundly state, "Lord, I believe. That's all I need."
When you are in love, your girlfriend or boyfriend starts off giving you little signs of affection. Sometimes we reach the point of craving a letter, a card, a flower, as a sign that he "loves" me. But any true love, any intimate relationship, in the long run must reach a point where you know the person is your love even if there is no sign of it. Otherwise, instead of love, the relationship would be built on goose-stepping for favors.
Only those who live with limits can truly understand the meaning of "faith." We preachers not only come from a tradition which revels in dreams, insights, and signs but we enter our profession through a "call." We focus on words, speeches, and calls. Perhaps we can theologically appropriate limited signs. But limited calls? What do we do to keep the fires of faith flickering among the faithful when it appears to a modern-day world that God is severely limiting God's calls to humankind? Can we live with limited revelation?
No Calls
You and I live in the world of the telephone. Analysts tell us that most of us will spend two years of our lives on the telephone. Most likely they will not be the best two years.
Calling a college student has changed dramatically since I was in school. Over two-thirds of our students now have answering machines with recorded messages. This week I sat down to call some students. Here's what I got: "Hi, this is Page and Kathy's room. We are not here right now, but leave a message and we'll get back to you." According to our Dean of Student Affairs, "A telephone answering machine is almost standard equipment for today's college student."
And older adults are no different. Last month my office telephone bill had 51 long distance calls of less than twenty seconds to answering machines.
Ah, the age of the telephone. We of all people can ask, "Why doesn't God talk anymore?"
I mean, God called Moses through a burning bush. God placed a call to Abraham through three wandering strangers. God phoned Samuel late at night in a dream. God placed a call to Jacob down a long ladder. God whispered to Elijah on Mount Horeb. We have AT&T, Sprint, MCI, CNN, and a host of other companies. It would be so easy for God to place a call or give an interview. If Jesus came "in the fullness of time," what about now? Wouldn't everyone pause and lend an ear if God used the telephone just once and called earth?
In Tennessee Williams' play Sweet Bird of Youth, the heckler says to Miss Lucy, "I believe that the silence of God, the absolute speechlessness of God, is a long, long and awful thing ..." The late Carlyle Mamey retired from his church in Charlotte and went to Wolf Pen Mountain. There he waited for God to say something. He confessed that he had figured that if he could get some time completely free from his preaching, his church work, and his worldly obligations that God would really jabber. After five years of waiting, hiking, hoeing, splitting wood, sleeping, praying and studying, he finally reasoned that God had had ample time. But the inscrutable silence simply pushed him back on resources, memories and ideals he already had. With great certainty he said, "It's as if God has said all God intends to say."20
I can identify with the confusion. Our family owns a small farm and house in Davidson County. I go out there to work on sermons and be by myself. I've prayed, meditated, weeded the garden, watered the flowers, cut the grass, sat in the dark, removed myself from 36 channels of cable television and local newspapers. I haven't heard much. Maybe I don't have enough faith. Have you ever felt that way?
The writer of Hebrews makes a claim: "When in former times God spoke to our forefathers, he spoke in fragmentary and varied fashion through the prophets. But in this, the final age, God has spoken to us in the son" (1:1-2).
The biblical witness insists that God speaks, that God does talk. It begins in the angel's visit to Mary about the birth of Christ. In plain language the angel says, "Mary, God has been using various instruments to try to communicate to the world, but they haven't been working too well. God has been speaking to all these prophets for generations. But as many times as he has tried to reveal himself, humans haven't listened too well. Sometimes people barked, 'Who's this?' Other times whole societies hung up on him. Then again, some shrewd manipulators put God on hold and proceeded to speak for God. So, Mary, you are highly favored, because God has decided to hang up the telephone, cease these fragmentary and varied little conversations, and open up and tell it all. No more phone calls. No more recorded messages. God is going to make a personal visit and God needs some transportation, a vehicle to get here, or all those humans will hang up on God or say they're out to lunch again. God's going to really jabber this time. He's coming and you are going to be the person to help God get the message across."
A child was born. God opened up and wrote an autobiography in the life of God's son.
Now, amazingly enough, no sooner did this child get here and start talking than he began to talk about leaving.
Consider the sequence. God had previously talked to us only in fragments and in varied fashion through these people named Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Elijah, and all the rest. It wasn't clear enough. Too much static on the line. So God said, "I'm going to come down there and open up and bare it all." And God did. But as God revealed Godself the message led to the cross. Those people who stayed with this child of God and heard Him speak went through an emotional roller coaster. They saw Him confront the religious establishment, raise people from the dead, and love people as none had before. Then it all turned to despair. Bethlehem's child, the hope of the world, was crudely crucified. They fled the scene in disgust and desolation. Then when they were on the bottom with their emotions, He came back and started speaking again.
Their emotions went right back to the top. They were singing and laughing and applauding. One writer said they stayed in the church singing praises to God for three days. Then Jesus talked about leaving and God's being silent again. He told them that if He were to stay and keep talking they would be limited, but if He departed they would be expanded in their gospel.
What on earth does that mean? Wouldn't we truly be better off with Jesus around talking or at least placing a few person-to-person telephone calls?
James Stuart of Edinburgh used to say that Jesus had to leave in order that our religion would be spiritualized. Apparently Jesus wanted a religion that is a matter of experience and not of appearance or language.
Jesus' words to His disciples are quite clear. They are recorded in John's gospel: "... you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16:6-7, NIV).
Jesus was talking about the danger of hanging around too long or sending messages too often. My friend Tom Downing21 conjectured what probably would have happened had Jesus lived to a ripe old age. His followers would have become a little band of groupies running around in the kindergarten of their faith until the day they died. Every time there was a dilemma in their lives they would have gone to Jesus and asked, "What do we do now?" Like the followers of the Rajneesh or Jim Jones or the Dalai Lama, they would have relied on appearance and words, instead of their own experience with God.
Even with Jesus' early death that happened for a period of time. When Saint John died there were ten Christian churches in the Holy Land. Three hundred years later there were 24 churches in the Holy Land. Also at the time John died there were two churches in Italy and twenty in Asia Minor. But 300 years later whereas the ten Holy land churches had grown to 24, the two in Italy had grown to 77 churches and the twenty in Asia had grown to 165 churches.
Why? Obvious answer. The Holy Land churches had the disciples, their families, and their descendants in them. Every time there was a dilemma, they just went to some descendant of the original group and asked, "What do we do now?" And, for three hundred years every time they got a new idea or revelation I imagine many in the Holy Land heard the seven famous last words of the church: "We've never done it that way before."
Jesus' words were prophetic: "It's for your good that I'm going away and not talking anymore. From now on the Holy Spirit will speak through your experiences."
God speaks. God still speaks. But it is in the experiences we humans have with Him. Herein lies a genuine theological concern. In a world of dim visions, blind guides, limited signs, and far less than open communication with God, how can we open ourselves to receive genuine Christian experiences?
Perhaps the place to begin is with a radical reappraisal of our own lifestyles. If communication with God is, indeed, more limited than in certain periods of heightened spirituality, then we must consider comfort, procrastination and traditional road maps as impediments rather than guides to the Holy. Much of our inability to live with the perceived limitations placed upon us eventuated from our failure to distinguish illusion from reality.