Grace for Law
 
Well, it has been a little while since I blogged here. As I noted earlier, I have moved into a new law firm and the change in my daily life is dramatic, to say the least. In addition to having lots of people to deal with every day, I find myself with a lot less time to just think about things. And, let's face it, blogs come from thinking about things a lot.

It is getting into summer weather here, but still cool enough at night to keep you alive and avoid the really horrible air conditioning costs that will come later. We have finally had some rain, which is nice.

My younger daughter is home from college for the summer, which is also a nice thing. My wife and I are in the stage of "almost empty nester," which means that we have one child who is still "at home" plus the daughter who is "in college" and therefore home "sometimes." When she comes home for summer, everything changes from the "when she is gone" stage.

I think, more than anything else right now, I am struck by how much change there really is in our lives.  I think this is a memory problem for us. Each day, we deal with dozens of decisions, but when we sit down at the end of a week and look back, we don't see it that way. We forget all the little things we had to do during the week. We forget the errands and the conversations and the moments here and there and everything just looks the same. Yet, each day, we deal with all these things.

Life is odd like that. We are odd like that.

I think this is why the Bible's constant rule for us is to "live today." "Sufficient for the day is its own trouble," Jesus tells us, reminding us not to worry about tomorrow so much. We are told to live today. We are not able to live tomorrow (although we would like to, we think). We cannot relive yesterday (although we spend a lot of time thinking of what we would do if we could). We only have today.

Live today. Every time you catch yourself with a regret, snuff it out. Every time you catch yourself daydreaming about some other make-believe day you might have had, nip it in the bud. Love your neighbor today. Listen to your child today. Love your spouse today.

It is the only day you have.

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Recently, preachers seem to have become much more comfortable with preaching against pornography. I have mixed feelings about this. It is clear that pornography is a sinful matter and sin is to be denounced, so that makes this seem like a good thing. On the other hand, I hate having to hear even the word "pornography" anywhere, much less in my church service. I see how people react to the word, especially women, who seem very put off by this new emphasis. 

I also have another concern about this. 

Put simply, my concern is about the tendency we all have to preach against things that we do not do while ignoring what we do all too often. Baptists (my church) have a sad history of preaching against sins they would never commit. They preach against abortion, for example, or against drunkenness, while speaking to small congregations in which there are no abortionists and almost certainly no drunks. But, a good line against abortion is always worth some applause or "amens" from a conservative Baptist congregation. 

I think this is a problem because, for all the sermons where I hear someone attack pornography, I never hear a word about conversation. Yet, I am sure that most churchgoers commit many more sins in conversation than in pornography.

We are, after all, to love our neighbors. That means that, in every conversation, our role is to love the person to whom we are speaking. Yet, I see so many conversations in which both parties are merely doing what they want to do, declaring what they want to say, and saying things of no value to their partner. Likewise, we are to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice, but most Christian conversations are not really about the person to whom we are speaking, but are about us. "We have to share" what is important to us and we take very little time to hear what matters to our partner in the conversation. 

I have seen very little pornography in churches, but have seen lots of people hurt by cruel words. I have seen no one actually look at pornography while at church, but have seen many people hurt and attack one another in conversations and meetings. I have never seen a preacher read pornography in a pulpit, but have seen many preachers fill their sermons with snide remarks, insults, and harsh language for anyone who opposes their ideas. 

I think it is a good thing that we recognize the sin of pornography for what it is. I just wish we would recognize our own sins as well. 

And preach about them. 
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I have recently moved into a local law firm. For those who know me, I have been "on my own" since 1996. This means that I have been practicing without anyone else in my office. I have never had a secretary, for example, or any employees at all. My office was mine. When I went to work, I went to a place that was just me. No one bothered me, except calling for work, which was fine. The office was one place where I could rest, relax, reflect, and restore my calm. It was great.

Now, I am in an office. It is nice to have people to talk to, but there is something I had not really considered before moving here. I have lost my sanctuary.

You see, now I am in an office with quite a number of other people. There are five other lawyers, two paralegals, three secretaries, and two receptionists (they share the job). That means that I used to have an office where I never had to think of dealing with others, now I spend all day dealing with others.

What makes it hard is that second duty. You remember: "love your neighbor." There is no "work exemption" on that command. I am not allowed to "not love" people at work. I am required to love them. I am required to deal with them as with neighbors.

So, the result is that the office has become a very different world for me. Rather than a world where I was at peace, the office has become a place of challenges, a place where I am called to serve God through serving others. It is a very different experience.

Not only does it change work, but it changes my home as well. I used to go to work at a place of peace and quiet and came home pretty relaxed and ready for an evening with the family. Now, I come home without having had several hours of peace before arriving.

Strange how little things affect us. And big things, too.
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I have previously posted about various cliches which are popular in modern Christian circles, but there is something else out there which we need to consider. On the Internet, I frequently receive posts of things that people really like, which purport to be some kind of description of how we are supposed to be. Yesterday, for example, I received two of them. One of them was a "man/boy" comparison, as follows:

    The main difference between a boy and a man:  A man is aiming at a goal;  The boy is drifting aimlessly."
   -Boys are students: Men are teachers
  --Boys are consumers: Men are producers
   -Boys play with toys: Men work with tools
   -Boys break things: Men make things
   -Boys ask questions: Men give answers
   -Boys are disruptive: Men bring order
   -Boys run in gangs: Men organize teams
   -Boys play house: Men build homes
   -Boys shack up: Men get married
   -Boys make babies: Men raise children
   -A boy won’t raise his own children: A man will raise his and somebody else’s
   -Boys invent excuses for failure: Men produce strategies for success
   -Boys look for somebody to take care of them: Men look for somebody to take care of
   -Boys seek popularity: Men demand respect
 
Okay, it is kind of cute. But did you notice what is not present? Anything about Christ. Or anything about living a godly life at all.

Is this really who we are?  Is being a "man" simply a series of things we are supposed to do, clever phrases we can apply? Think about them, even just a few of them:

"Boys ask questions, men give answers." But what if a man has a question? Men ask questions. Men want to know more than they know. They seek the knowledge of God. We want men who will ask questions. We do not want men who do nothing but attempt to give answers. We all know men who never ask questions but always give answers. They are annoying.

"Boys are students: Men are teachers." Really? I have known many men who were not teachers, yet were godly men. I also teach classes filled with men who are, thereby, students. Every man I have ever respected has been a lifelong student. I learn all the time and seek to learn all the time. I am always a student. Learning, growing, is inherent in a man's purpose in life. If we are gong to be worldly in this regard, consider Solon's great quote: "Every day he grew older, and learned something new." Real men are students.

"Boys play with toys: Men work with tools." Yeah, and men play with toys as well. They hunt, they fish, they search the internet, they play tennis and golf. All of these are good things God has given us to enjoy. Men play with their children and with their friends and with their families. Men play.

"Boys are disruptive: Men bring order." Men are also disruptive, preaching the gospel in places where it is illegal, witnessing for Christ in places where it causes disorder. "Woe unto you when all men speak well of you." Godly men are often very disruptive. Remember how Paul upset whole towns?

 "Boys seek popularity: Men demand respect." Well, no. Men do not demand respect, they earn it. It is not important whether anyone respects me, as long as God rules my life. Even if the world does not respect me, yet I may have lived a great life of faith and obedience. Again, "woe unto you when all men speak well of you."

The problem with this kind of list is that it reflects a world-centered view (and not a very complex view). It does not recognize that being a "man of God" is much more than what it views as "being a man," and that much of what it views as "being a man" is not consistent with being a "man of God."

This kind of list is dangerous because it encourages women to a false view of manhood, leaving them unable to understand what God is really doing with the men in their lives and leaving them likely to choose and marry someone other than a man of God. It also encourages men to a false view of what is right for themselves.

God's list is a better list. A man of God, as an example, manifests the fruit of the spirit, a life filled with "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." 

There are other lists in scripture, but it is hard to get away from that list. That is what it means to be a man.
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In Ephesians 4, we have the following statement: "speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is  the head," meaning Christ. Speaking the truth in love.

I have heard this phrase all my Christian life. People are very fond of it. They will put in on pictures and etch it on decorative mirrors and post it on Facebook. "Speak the truth in love," they will remind us.

But how often do we actually see this?

Churches are not, sadly, filled with people who speak the truth in love. Paul has a clear idea in mind. He is describing God's plan in giving the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teacher. He says that they are to grow us to maturity, to help us attain the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. He explains that we are no longer to be children. Then, he gets to "speaking the truth in love."

It is not a command, oddly enough, but a description. It is a description of what we are supposed to be doing (not a statement of what we ought to do, like "love they neighbor" is a command statement). Speaking the truth in love is what mature people do.

I attend business meetings in my lawyer job. One of the great things about business meetings with serious business people is that they do not waste a lot of time. They speak the truth. They are not interested in having their emotions stroked or their egos enlarged. They want to redeem the time and speak truth. That is what maturity does.

But we often see the opposite in our churches. Pastors are so concerned about "how people will react" that they try to avoid saying anything at all. Deacons worry about "how the pastor will react" and about "how people will react," and meetings often turn into kind of a circus, where no one wants to say anything really truthful. We want people to "come around" to our point of view, without ever really saying what our point of view is.

On the other hand, we almost always have a few members who are very interested in "speaking the truth" but not very interested in the "in love" part of the sentence. They will say whatever they think "needs to be said" regardless of the people to whom they speak.

In short, what we find is that Paul expects the natural growth of the church to arise through "speaking the truth in love," but we find almost none of it in our church meetings.

We also have little unwritten rules about what can be said. In most churches, no one will speak to the pastor about his preaching if they are unhappy with his preaching or confused by it. Preachers kind of like this silence, I am afraid. We do not want people "speaking the truth in love" about us. I remember a pastor telling me that he liked to hear from people who loved his sermons, but did not want to hear from those who were unhappy. "They just don't understand," he asserted. Amazing how we can deceive ourselves into thinking those who like us are smarter than those who don't, and that those who don't like our preaching are somehow at fauth. We like to say "speak the truth about others" but are not so happy with the truth about ourselves. And we wonder why we are not growing.

Speaking the truth in love is a fundamental goal for every serious preacher and teacher. We do not want to speak what is easy or false or popular. We do not want to speak truth in anger (although I see far too much of this from pulpits). We want to love and to speak truth. We want our people to love and express truth.

To the extent that you see this as a conflict, to that extent you will fail as a preacher and teacher. To the extent that we, as churches, find it impossible both to love and be honest, we will fail as churches.

Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Christ, from whom the whole body will ultimately be built up in love.

That, my friends, is a real "church growth" plan.
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There is a tendency among us to very casually accept the command to "love your neighbor." We will say, again and again, that our two greatest duties are to "love God and love our neighbors." But I wonder how much we mean this. 

Sitting in churches and listening to people talk, even in church, I think we do not really understand this command very well. Sitting in a workplace and dealing with people in that workplace, I think we may not understand it at all. 

It is astonishing how little our duty to love our neighbors seems to apply to us at work. We argue a lot at work (if we argued that much at home, well, it would not be like home at all). We complain a lot at work. Conversations at work are often just competitions, with each person rushing to get their words in as soon as there is a break or as soon as they can think of something to say. 

I think lawyers are probably worse than most people in this regard. We tend to want to talk a lot because we think we are very smart. We are sure that whatever we want to say is more important than what someone else is saying. They, undoubtedly, are about to say something that is not as smart as what we are preparing to say. So, let's interrupt them. 

And, while we are at it, let's assume the worst possible interpretation of anything they may be doing. If they fail in something, it is because they don't care or because they had some motive in failing (as opposed to just making a mistake). Usually, it is because they have not listened to us because we know exactly what needs to be done in every situation and we would never have made such a mistake.

If we make a mistake, it is because someone else told us something wrong, or maybe our secretary messed it up, or it is because we are working so hard that something just fell through the cracks. It is not usually because we were wrong, unless we were just trying so hard on other things.

Love your neighbor is a hard command. It is hard in big things (like the Good Samaritan story). It is really, really hard in little things. It is hard sitting at lunch and talking with someone. It is hard in dealing with someone's failure at work. It is hard when sitting around "just talking." 

It is hard to love your neighbor. I will say more. It is impossible. No person can, in his or her own self, adequately love their neighbor. Only God can make that possible. 

Another day is beginning. A day in which I am to love God and love my neighbor. I think that if God were my neighbor, this would not be nearly as hard to do. But you are my neighbor. I am to love you.  
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At the very beginning, we have to acknowledge that the Masters is a huge event. Thousands (in fact, more than a hundred thousand) of people come to this event. Residents rent out their homes (residents with nice homes) to the visitors. There are full-time, year-round corporations that just rent out homes for the Masters. Cooks are flown in from around the nation (and the world, a lot from London this year) just to prepare food for the various social functions and "networking" events of the year.  

Thousands of people rent out their homes and take vacations. Offices close in the local area. It is an annual ritual of travel and spending and days off. It is rather like what we think of an Old Testament feast day, where everyone participates. 

There are vacation cabins in our local area whose major income is this week. Golf courses are packed at very high green fees. There are hospitality centers providing food and maid services providing clean-up. Hotels are filled (many with technical people from ESPN and CBS and other media). Everything is different for one week. 

For those of us who live here, who do not rent out their homes, and who actually have nothing to do with the Masters at all, it is kind of an odd week. There is this huge event just a few miles away (I live about four miles from the course). Thousands of people are involved. Hundreds of businesses are working hard on the whole event. 

Yet, my life continues with only a small difference (someone may be gone, some restaurant may be more crowded). It is almost like the greatest event in our area, one of the greatest in the country, does not exist. 

How odd it is that so many people live entire lives with no knowledge of what God is doing. Thousands (and millions) of people are being saved, are being filled with the Spirit, are leading quiet lives of dignity, service, and love, but they do not know. The Word is being preached, but they do not know. People are growing in righteousness, in peace, and in freedom. They are developing friendships that will last not only in this life but in the life to come, but so few people even know. 

The kingdom of God is at hand, but they see only a shadow, a hint of what is actually happening. 

I had someone tell me once that they "did not want" to see the Masters tournament. They did not want to walk on the green grass and see the beauty of the course. They did not want the service and the pleasure of the event. They just would not go if they had the chance.

As for me, I wonder about all the people who say the same to the kingdom of God. One day, they, if His grace does not intervene, will stand aside while the glories of the kingdom are celebrated by the children of the King. As for me, I will be glad to be inside on that day,
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Masters Week 04/03/2012
 
No, not what you are thinking. It is a golf tournament. It is held in Augusta every first week of April since the 1930's. It is an amazing event. 

On the one hand, it is a golf tournament. They call it a "major" tournament, which means something somewhere, I suppose. It is a very hard course, we are told, and the winner is considered someone special. But, that is not the point for me. 

The amazing thing to me is how well this whole thing runs. Every now and then, you get the chance to see something done very, very well. The Masters is one such thing. There are two keys to this, one that is "accidental," you might say, and one that is entirely human. 

The accidental fact is that the tournament is at the same place every year. Golf is a vagabond sport. The players go from place to place every week. The other major tournaments (the US Open, the British Open, the PGA Championship) move every year, rotating among various locations. But the Masters is always here. This means that, over the years, they have faced and dealt with almost any situation you can imagine. 

The human fact is that the tournament is run by the Augusta National Golf Club, which is a golf club made up of nothing but very successful people. It is not a "local" club, but a national club, made up of people who run multinational corporations and such. They have a lot of money at their disposal and a lot of expertise and pride. They use these abilities and resources to put on the greatest tournament in the world. 

For example, the greatest problem in modern sporting events is parking. Parking is everything because people drive to get where they want to go. In recent years, the National has purchased an entire subdivision of homes (nice homes, by the way, not cheap homes) near their land. They removed all the homes. They removed all the pavement. They have planned and carried it out in such a way that multiple acres of land in a heavily developed section of Augusta are now park land (most of the year) and parking for the Masters, for one week. 

And the parking is free. Seriously. Where else do you get free parking to a major sporting event? They could easily charge $10.00 a day for parking for everyone (more for close parking), but they make it free. 

When you enter the grounds, everything is perfect. The walkways are beautifully maintained and laid out perfectly for the crowds. The stores are crowded, but move quickly and efficiently. The food is simple, excellent, and really cheap. You can eat a meal for $5.00, less than a single soda costs at some ballparks. Why? Because they are not interested in making as much money as they can. 

The experience of the Masters is, for that reason alone, totally unique. In every other setting (whether college or pro, team sports or individuals), you are constantly the target of marketing efforts. Everyone wants you to buy some high-priced piece of "memorabilia." Or, perhaps, they just want you to spend $4.00 for some cotton candy. Salesmen hawk their goods in the crowd and in the concourses. But, at the Masters, they have stores and sell things in their stores. Otherwise, no one bothers you. You can go in (if you have a pass) and spend the whole day without ever being asked to spend a dime. Marvelous.

It is, in many ways, a perfect human effort to make things as nice as they can possibly be. The tournament has avoided many of the pitfalls of the modern age, while simultaneously adopting every good thing they can find. Their website is quite good, for example. 

A day at the Masters is a day that makes you think that, perhaps, human beings really can make something worth making. When a group of capable people, for whom money is not an object, dedicate themselves to doing something marvelously well, we human beings can, for a moment, produce something wonderful.  
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This was a quote from a recent radio interview with a coach of a sports team. He is 71 but says he "does not feel 71." This is one of the interesting examples of how we compare our lives to some mythical standard.

What does "71" feel like? The comment suggests that there is some way that a "71 year old" ought to feel and that he does not feel that way. But, seriously, how does a "71 year old" feel? The answer is that there is no answer.

There is no "right feeling" for 71 or any other age. There is no "I feel 15" or "I feel 35" or any other age. There is only some mythical idea in your head about what you think might be true of someone else.

Have you ever heard someone say "I don't feel married." Who cares? You are either married or not married, but how you feel doesn't matter to that question. Men, reportedly, use this kind of a line all the time when committing or trying to commit adultery. They will tell the woman they have targeted that "I don't feel married" and she thinks this has some meaning beyond "I want to commit adultery."

We also do this negatively. We will say "boy, I really feel married today" when we are unhappy about something, or "I feel 71 today" when we are tired or depressed, but this is just as foolish.

The phrases have no real meaning. There is no "feeling married" and no "feeling 71," there is just you. Trying to compare your feelings to reality in this way is a vanity (to use Ecclesiastical language). It encourages you to think that there is something true that is not true, whether good or bad.

Try this. Quit this process of (1) looking at your feelings and (2) looking at your circumstances and (3) deciding how you think you ought to feel in your circumstances and (4) deciding whether you feel the way you think you ought to feel. Where does this get you?

I am 54 years old. That is a fact. I do not "feel 54" because I have no idea how 54 is supposed to feel. I am 54. I have a wife and four children and three grandchildren. I have a job and a class to teach and a blog to write and work to do. I have friends and family with whom to deal. I have Christ to preach and the gospel to witness about and bills to pay. I have to love my wife and love my neighbors and love my God.

There is no "feeling 54" issue for me. I do not have time to take away from loving others and living my life to try to think of such things.

Just live your life. Live today. That is all you can really do. That is all God wants you to do.
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Time Passes 03/27/2012
 
A blog is kind of interesting, because your goal is to write something pretty much every day but your reality is not quite so simple. It has been six days since I wrote anything, which amazes me. How did six days go by?

This is the reality of our lives. Time passes.

It passes at precisely the same rate all the time. Every day, every day, every day, is just a day. It goes past us and is gone forever. Suddenly, six days have passed and we do not feel their passing at all. They are just gone.

Yet, when you speak with people, they so often cling to those by-gone days. Every day passes and all the cares of that day pass with it, yet we continue to focus on those days. We spend hours sitting around talking about days that have passed us by, even days from very long ago. Now that we have pictures, we even spend our days looking at pictures of past days. We try to feel what we felt then. We want to be what we were then. But time passes.

Ecclesiastes had this figured out long ago. The "all is vanity" charge is, to a large degree, a recognition of the inevitable passage of time. Remember that vanity is a breeze (that is what the Hebrew word comes from). It is something that comes and goes and passes away. Everything in our past is, to a large degree, a vanity, a breeze, something that has passed away already. Why do we care so much about it?

In relationships, in business, in life, we often spend more time thinking of what has happened than we do in thinking of what we are doing now. Today is the only day that matters to us. We cannot do anything about yesterday. We are told that over and over again, but we still want to focus on yesterday. We want to reach out and grab yesterday and hold it.

My youngest child is now 17 years old. I find that it is harder and harder to remember all the things he was when he was 8 or 12, but so what? He is not 8 or 12. He is 17. I cannot do anything about him when he was 8 or 12. I can only care for and love the boy who is 17.

Yet, I know so many parents who spend their time regretting what happened in the lives of their children. They regret what they did wrong (or think they did wrong) when they were younger. They regret who they married or they regret where they moved or what job they took. This is all vanity.

Today is my day. I must love my neighbor today. I must love my children today. I must love my wife today. I must love God today. Today is always the day that matters.

Time passes. It passes so quickly. Sometimes, our only desire is just to grab time, to stop it, to cling to something that has passed away. But we cannot do this at all. All we can do is hang on.

Time passes. Today is the only day I have. Let me make it a good one.
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