Ordinarily I stay out of things like this, but maybe that isn’t as much about discretion as I would like to believe, so here are a few thoughts on the topic of the month.

              Since I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else, let me start with this.  Jesus celebrated a national holiday that was not included in the Law.  The Feast of Dedication began between the testaments and there is no indication at all that God ordained it, yet the Lord attended the celebrations, John 10:22--what we call Hanukkah, ironically enough.  Clearly, celebrating a national holiday, even one with religious overtones such as our Thanksgiving, is not wrong.

              Already this past week I have been accused of being a part of a group that has a holier-than-thou attitude, and in some cases that person is right.  I fear we are too quick to jump on our friends and neighbors when the example in the New Testament is to use whatever opportunities we have to teach, not pontificate with our chests puffed out and thumbs stuck beneath our metaphorical suspenders. 

              When the apostles preached on Pentecost, they didn’t start out by telling those people they were celebrating a festival that was no longer valid.  There were far more important issues at hand, like salvation from sin.  The Holy Spirit had no qualms about using their [Providential] attendance at that event to inspire a sermon they all needed to hear, in many languages, no less.

              When Paul traveled around preaching, he went to the synagogues on the Sabbath.  Didn’t he know that the Sabbath was no longer in force?  What kind of example did he think he was setting?  He didn’t seem to worry about that.  He knew he would find some devout Jews there, so he went.

              When he preached in Athens, he used their idolatry to teach them about the true God.  He even accommodated their mistaken understanding by talking about the idol he had found “to the unknown god.”  Pagan idolatry often included sins like fornication, yet Paul used their incorrect beliefs, and even their own culture, to begin teaching them about salvation.  He didn’t jump on them with high-handed zeal about how ignorant and debauched they were.

              “But you are not an apostle,” I hear someone saying.  Seems like an odd line for people who use approved apostolic example to determine authority in all we do.

              “I became all things to all men,” Paul says in one passage.  If my neighbor is talking about Jesus this time of year, I am not going to ignore him or tell him that Jesus was not born on December 25.  I am going to “become him” by telling him even more about a Savior who came to earth to save us all.  Do you think I would ever have a chance to do that if I approached it the other way? 

              I have known people who say we shouldn’t celebrate Christ’s birth at all.  Yet we celebrate that every time we read about Deity “emptying himself” and “being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7); about the Word “becoming flesh and dwelling among us” (John 1:14); about the “body thou hast prepared for me” (Heb 10:5).  The sacrifice of our Lord did not begin on Calvary; it began when the Creator of the world (Col 1:16) became a human, when the Holy Spirit conceived him in the womb of a virgin in Nazareth. 

              If we should not celebrate his incarnation, whenever it was, we shouldn’t just avoid singing what the world calls Christmas carols, but should also avoid songs with lines like, “Why did my Savior come to earth?”  We sing several hundred of them.  You see, it isn’t that anyone really believes this.  It’s that they are inconsistent in their beliefs because they have not considered the full ramifications. 

              If I give my neighbor a gift of homemade cookies this week, I am not condoning paganism or worldliness; I am reaching out at a time when he might be more receptive.  And if he has given me a bag of grapefruit from his tree and I don’t reciprocate, he will not think I have scruples, he will just feel rebuffed and turn away from me. 

              We have a tendency to make specious arguments that won’t hold water under close observation.  We all need to be careful, especially when we are so certain, not that we are on God’s side, but that He is on ours.       

              For the next couple of weeks, we have an opportunity.  Seize it!
 
Who are you that judges the servant of another? to his own lord he stands or falls. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord has power to make him stand. One man esteems one day above another: another esteems every day [alike]. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind, Rom 14:4,5
 
Dene Ward

On December 9, 1973 Marshall Efron’s Illustrated Simplified Painless Sunday School began on CBS.  Seeing that little tidbit of information brought back words I hadn’t thought of in years.  “That’s just asking too much.”

             You’d think that I could remember who said that to us one evening while we sat studying the Bible in his home.  You’d think I could remember where he drew the line that kept him from serving the Lord.  It isn’t often you find someone that honest.  Most people offer excuses instead.  They understand that they are telling God they are not willing to sacrifice for him.  In fact, they will usually make a list of everything they have done before adding, “But that’s just asking too much.”  What they fail to see is that if they are willing to give it up, it isn’t a sacrifice.  The sacrifice comes when you don’t want to give it up; the sacrifice comes when it hurts. Serving God is not supposed to be “painless.” 

              Too many of us believe that just because we got up, dressed up, and drove to another location instead of sitting there watching some sort of “Painless Sunday School” on television that we are sacrificing for the Lord.  We will sit in the meetinghouse on Sunday morning.  We will even sit for the full two or three hours, whatever our group has chosen.  Just exactly what have we given up?  Sleep?  Another day of fishing?  A little more yard work?  Doesn’t sound like much of a sacrifice.

              Many will alter their lifestyles a bit.  What have they given up?  Hangovers?  Gambling debts?  STDs?  If you aren’t stupid, that’s another easy sacrifice to make.  It only becomes difficult when the dependency has developed.

              What we steadfastly refuse to give up is ourselves. 

              Can we admit wrong?  Can we yield to others?  Can we toe the line, even when the thing in question affects us individually?  It’s much easier for the non-music lover to give up instrumental music in the worship.  Trust me.  I know.  It’s much easier to abide by the Lord’s words concerning marriage when you have a solid relationship, and when your children have also chosen well.  It’s much easier to serve when you actually like the people you are serving.  Yet ease is the very thing that makes it not much of a sacrifice.  The true sacrifice comes when, instead of twisting scriptures to suit ourselves and frantically searching for loopholes, we do what hurts.

              The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise, Psalm 51:17.  Pain is what makes a sacrifice sincere.  Humble repentance that involves giving up selfish desires and yielding to others who do not deserve it are the most difficult sacrifices to give, and therefore, the ones that God wants most to see in us.  Until we manage that, anything else we do in service to God is a sham, no matter how beautifully we sing, how generously we donate, or how knowledgeably we teach.

              When Jeroboam became king of the northern 10 tribes of Israel, in spite of God’s promise to him of a lasting dynasty if he only obeyed, he looked at those fickle people and said, “I know exactly how to keep them here.”  He made it easy to serve God.

              And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now will the kingdom return to the house of David: if this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem, then will the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt. 1 Kings 12:26-28.

              “It’s asking too much,” he told them.  “Let me make it easy for you.”  And just like that, the people in the north left the God who had delivered them from slavery, defeated their enemies, and provided all their needs. 

              What is it that Jeroboam would offer you?

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ, Philippians 3:7-8.
 
Dene Ward

I suppose a younger generation doesn't understand this yet, but every year the Grinches and the Whos are out to get each other.  It is nothing new.  They have been at this since before we even had those titles to put to them.  Dr. Seuss did not invent this squabble.  Now that we have social media it seems to have reached a new high—those two camps go on at each other like it's something that really matters, like it's a matter of life and death, heaven and hell, Truth and false doctrine.  I just sit back and shake my head.

              First, because each group thinks they know exactly why the other group feels the way they do.

              "She is silly and immature to get so excited about something like a strand of colored lights."

              "He has a hateful heart because he doesn't get any joy from a holiday that prizes family time."

              Both of them have made unfair judgments.

              I live with a Grinch.  He isn't hateful.  He actually enjoys the day, especially when our children were young and now when our grandchildren can be with us.  His "Grinch-ness" comes from the commercialization of the season.  To him it's about retail trying to spread the time out longer and longer--yes, even into September—so they can make more money.  I can see that, and having done a little sales in my years, I know he is probably right.  Recognizing that issue and disliking it does not make him the Devil Incarnate.

              As for the Whos, if they have happy memories of childhood and want to recreate those memories for their children and grandchildren, or even recreate it for themselves every year, I am happy they were so blessed.  That does not make them silly or immature.

              And so, as with every other disagreement, the issue is about each side making sweeping judgments and generalizations they should not make.  You don't make assumptions about motives, for one thing, and you don't stoop to name calling for another.

              Yes, even the pro-holiday crowd (the ones who say it is all about joy) is guilty of those things.  They are the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.  Maybe they have lived a sheltered life.  Maybe they are just so self-oriented they cannot imagine a reason to think differently than they do.  But the truth of the matter is that some people do not like the holidays because they once endured a tragedy during that season and the anniversary is too hard to bear.  Some people have not had the blessing of a close and loving family, or they have no family left, and so all these commercials showing happy families together just rub their noses in their own loss and loneliness.  There is a reason that suicides are common in December.  You would think that a group like the Whos, who consider themselves "the good guys," would empathize instead of criticize by calling the other group a bunch of meanies, or, as we are putting it here, Grinches, or some other epithet.  See what I mean about pots and kettles?

              I am, alas, not surprised to find such a rift even among Christians.  If we don't have a doctrine to argue about, or politics to take each other to task over, we will find something—even a civil holiday supposedly about joy and peace.  It's time to stop judging each other, as Paul told the Romans about something far more important.  Do your thing quietly and let the other guy alone.  God loves you both—whether you like it or not.
 
Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.  One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.  The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.  For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself  For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. Rom 14:4-8
 
Dene Ward

We have put up several new feeders and the bird population has exploded.  We see more new kinds and more of them than ever before.  We have also seen a few new bird antics as well.

              Yesterday we looked out in time to see two doves running around the pole one of the feeders hangs from.  While cardinals and titmice usually fly the four feet up from the ground to the feeders, the doves are content to peck off the ground what falls, and a great deal does.  Pick up the binoculars and watch the seeds fly every time one of the birds “on high” pecks at it.  Meanwhile, down below, the doves revel in the raining plenty.

              Except those two.  For several minutes they chased one another around and around and around that pole, the one trying to shoo the other away from the free meal.  Occasionally the one in front got far enough ahead to stop and peck a seed, but the one behind, running literally ankle deep in food, never got a bite.

              Kind of reminds me of a few Bible classes I have sat in.  Two men wrapped up in their own opinions, chase one another around in circles with their “logic,” and neither one of them get any of the spiritual nourishment being offered that morning.  Or one man desperately tries to have his meal while another of differing opinion cannot allow it and pursues him with “arguments about words.”  In fact, if the man isn’t careful, he will usually be cornered right after class as the chase continues.  Like those two birds I watched that day, neither one is fed, despite the banquet laid right in front of them.

              Paul calls that sort of behavior “carnal” and immature, 1 Cor 3:1-3.  He equates it with orgies and drunkenness, Rom 13:13.  James puts it on a par with “every vile practice,” 3:16.  All of them link quarreling with things like jealousy, envy, hostility, and selfishness.  James even adds murder and adultery to the mix, 4:1-4.  It is one thing to have a spirited discussion of the Scriptures.  It is another entirely to refuse to consider new ideas, clinging to beliefs out of pride or dismissing a point simply because of who presented it, all cloaked in concern for words and their correct meanings while patently ignoring basic spiritual concepts like Divine authority and holiness. 

              Our spiritual meals are presented to help us glorify God, not to exalt ourselves over others.  They are food for the soul, not ammunition for the spiteful.   They are nourishment for the kind, not fodder for the vindictive.  If all we can do is chase one another in circles with the Word of God, we don’t deserve to hold those sacred writings in our hands.

              I laughed at those two stupid doves under my feeder.  Then I just shook my head and sighed.  I have seen too many Christians just like them.
 
For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, Galatians 5:14-16.
 
Dene Ward

Chloe doesn’t have much of a sense of smell thanks to her doggie allergies, which alternately cause congestion or a runny nose.  We can throw her a treat and then sit for several minutes unbothered while she searches for it in the grass.  But her sense of hearing must be amazing.

              She can distinguish our car engine all the way from the highway, almost a half mile.  I’ve seen her sit there and watch for Keith for several minutes before he even gets to the gate, before the dogs along the lane begin to bark at his passing because she hears “him” coming.

              And she can hear moles digging underground.  We will be walking along outside when suddenly she stands at point, looking at the grass just ahead of her, then pounces and begins digging, her snout in nearly to her eyeballs as she digs and sniffs (bless her heart, she tries) and searches.  Many times she has brought out the mole and disposed of it.  This year we have had plenty for her to work on.

              Moles are small mammals, insectivores, adapted to a subterranean lifestyle.  They have tiny or invisible eyes and ears.  They have developed the ability to survive in a low oxygen environment by reusing oxygen inhaled aboveground.  That also means they can tolerate the higher levels of carbon dioxide that would poison most mammals.  They avoid each other except in breeding season and fight whenever they do meet.  I couldn’t even find a word for a group of moles.  They aren’t herds or swarms or gaggles or flocks.  Maybe that’s because the word is unnecessary since they never get together.

              Think about all that.  Does it sound familiar?

              Do you know any people with small eyes and ears, many of whom are blind?

               Why do you not understand my speech? [Even] because you cannot hear my word, John 8:43.

              In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Cor 4:4.

              Do you know a group who reuses old oxygen, failing to bring in any new work to revitalize its heart, poisoning itself in the process?

              Thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down, Mark 7:13.

              Do you know a group that avoids each other except in season (Sundays) and then fights when they do meet?

              Whence [come] wars and whence [come] fightings among you? [come they] not hence, [even] of your pleasures that war in your members? James 4:1.

              But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another, Gal 5:15.

              If all that sounds like a group you know, even if they call themselves the body of Christ, they are only pretenders.  That is not what he gave his life for.

              I am certain you could come up with other comparisons yourself.  But don’t waste your time on that or you are in danger of becoming one of those moles yourself, festering underground in your own poison.  Just do what you can by being what you ought to be.  Moles are ugly, in more ways than one.  It shouldn’t take much motivation to try not to become one.
 
"There are those who rebel against the light, who are not acquainted with its ways, and do not stay in its paths. The murderer rises before it is light, that he may kill the poor and needy, and in the night he is like a thief. The eye of the adulterer also waits for the twilight, saying, 'No eye will see me'; and he veils his face. In the dark they dig through houses; by day they shut themselves up; they do not know the light. Job 24:13-16.
 
Dene Ward

Did you see the video going around of the mother goose leading her babies up a set of two stone steps somewhere in an urban center?  (She might have been a duck, but I am not a poultry expert and it suits my purposes here to call her a goose.)  Those steps were twice as high as those goslings.  At first the mother waddled on, but soon she realized she was alone so she returned to the steps and watched as each baby leapt to the top of the next step over and over and over—and usually fell back.  It took no less than five or six tries per step for each one, and some many more.  The last little fellow almost had it but then fell onto his back, exhausted.  Did he give up?  No, he got up and kept on trying, and finally, several minutes after all the others had made it, he got to the top of the second step and ran to his mother, who then turned and led her tiny gaggle across the plaza.

              That mother had it easier than you and I do.  She had no hands and arms to be tempted to reach out and help.  All she could do was patiently wait, honking her encouragement.  Too many times we use those hands and arms when we shouldn’t, thinking we are doing the right thing, and our children grow up emotionally frail in the process, with a warped sense of their place in the world—usually the center, they think.

              What would have happened if you had never let go of those little hands as your toddler tried his first steps?  What would have happened if, when he tried to climb, you always came along, picked him up and put him where he was trying to go?  What would happen now if every time something wasn’t exactly the way he wanted it, you came along and made it that way?  Sooner or later he must find out that the world does not run to his schedule not his set of likes and dislikes, and the earlier he learns that the less painful it will be for all of you.

              In his work, Keith has come across many young people who finally found out that their parents could not get them out of trouble as they were hauled off to prison in manacles.  Once, a nineteen-year-old probationer thought he could bypass some of the rules of his sentence, namely his officer checking to see if he was home where he belonged, because “I have a mean dog.”

              “Lock him up,” Keith said.  “That’s your responsibility because I will be doing my job, which is your punishment for your crime.  If you don’t, I have authority to stop the dog any way it takes.”

              “Bbbbbbut you can’t hurt my dog,” he blubbered.

              “YOU will be hurting your dog,” his officer told him, and finally got through.  He did the crime because he thought he could get away with it—mama and daddy had always gotten him out of trouble before.  Now he had to pay the consequences.  I wonder if his parents ever did make him do something he did not want to do as a child. 

              God gave those goslings a goose, a mother who would stand there and patiently wait while her children tried and learned and grew stronger even with their failures.  He gave a goose who would honk her encouragement when they fell flat on their backs, urging them with “love” to get up and try again.

              Some parents don’t have the sense God gave a goose when they raise their children.  What do you think will happen if you fix every problem and adjust every situation to their liking?  As adults they will be persistently dissatisfied and miserable, or constantly in trouble and probably devoid of true friends who are tired of always having to do things their way.  Certainly love them, but “learn” to love them in the hard things (Titus 2:4).  Teach them, discipline them, tell them they can do it and cheer them on.  Add a more “tactile” form of exhortation when necessary.  Give them words of encouragement, of admonishment, of rebuke, of love.  That is why God gave them parents instead of a goose.
 
Hear, O sons, a father's instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching…My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. Proverbs 4:1-2,20-21
 
Dene Ward

The Environmental Protection Agency was established on December 2, 1970, at the call of President Richard Nixon to seriously address, at a Federal level, the problems arising from factory pollutants, automobile emissions, overuse of pesticides, dangerous practices in waste disposal, and oil spills.  Most of us have benefited from its oversight in areas of which we are not even aware.  But occasionally, they do seem to get a little unreasonable, in the same ways as anyone who tries to make rules in places they have never been and do not understand.

            Campgrounds, for example, have a lot of aggravating rules.  Some of them are just plain ridiculous, obviously made by people who sit behind a desk and have never camped in their lives.  Yet, I understand the problem.  Too many thoughtless people have no concept of picking up after themselves while being careful where they dump things. 

              Most state parks have a place to dump “gray water.”  We aren’t talking about raw sewage.  Gray water, as defined, includes the dishpan of water you washed your dishes in.  Ever carry a couple gallons of water 500 yards in an awkward dishpan you must hold out in front of you, trying not to slosh it all over yourself in the cold?  Nearly impossible.  And who, living in the country, doesn’t know that wash water works wonders on the blueberries and flower beds?  At least the last park we stayed at had dispensed with the gray water rule.

              I think some of these things bother me because, as country people, we are always green.  We are careful what gets dumped where, even if it means having to load it up and cart it off to the landfill ourselves; you don’t want your groundwater polluted, especially uphill from the well.  We rotate crops.  We even rotate garden spots. We use twigs to dissuade cutworms rather than plastic rings or metal nails. We mulch with the leaves from our live oaks, which we then turn under to enrich the ground after the garden is spent.  We dump the ashes from the woodstove into the fallow garden.  I am sure Keith could add even more to this list.

              God expects his people to be “green.”  Good stewardship of his gifts has always been his expectation, from our abilities to the gospel itself.  You can even find sewage disposal rules in the Law.  Cruelty to animals was punished under the Old Covenant.  That same principle of stewardship follows into the New.

              At the same time, God said, “Have dominion over [the earth] and subdue [the animals],” Gen 1:28.  He said to eat of the plants and the animals, 1:29; 9:3.  God meant this to be a place we used for our survival, not a zoological and botanical garden where nothing can be touched.  When we carefully use the resources of the earth, it will continue to furnish us with the things we need.  So we eat sustainable seafood.  We hunt in season, and eat the meat we bring home.  We raise and eat animals fed with garden refuse.  We carefully sow and reap so the ground will continue to be arable.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of that.

              Sometimes, though, the people who claim to be green are no longer flesh-colored (in all its assorted hues).  They care more for animals than people.  I know that is true when I see a “Save the Whales” bumper sticker on the same car touting “The Right to Choose.”  Let’s save the animals, but the babies are fair game.

              Shades of Romans 1--Paul speaks of the Gentiles who had rejected Jehovah throughout the ancient days and eventually arrived at the point that they “worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator” 1:25.  Our culture has come dangerously close to that.  The environment has become the cause du jour, and while I certainly agree that we should care for the beautiful home God gave us and not be cruel to animals, it is because I am grateful to the God who made them for me, not because I have less regard for humans.  I have always been that way, not just recently, yet I still know that people are more important than sea turtles, and unborn children more so than polar bears.

              So let’s be green, just as God has always expected—but let’s be flesh-colored too, caring about the people, and their souls even more than the animals.  And let us also be as white as snow—an obedient people who worship and serve the God who created it all.
 
From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth.  The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. In them the birds build their nests; the stork has her home in the fir trees. The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens. Man goes out to his work and to his labor until the evening. O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works, Psa 104:13,14,16-18,21-24,31.
 
Dene Ward