Gnats to you!

Let me just start by saying that this blog is aimed--that's right, "aimed" (and I include myself here)--at people who are Christians.  Normally I try to write with encouraging words that could lead us all deeper into God's presence, whether we acknowledge a relationship with Jesus or not. Today though, I have some words for Christians, though if you are not please read along and perhaps cheer at the appropriate spots.

This morning I was reading my bible and I came upon the passage in Matthew where Jesus berates the Pharisees because they "strain out a gnat but swallow a camel." (Matthew 23:24) So what is the big deal with swallowing camels?  Maybe they taste good!  I think that Jesus here has some great words for Christians in today's world, words which are much needed and (I believe) will help us in today's increasingly anti-Christian culture.  They echo a sermon that I heard Andy Stanley preach last week, the link to which is found at the end of this post (you can watch it for extra credit!).

Gnats vs. Camels
Before you start envisioning some kind of titanic battle where a horde of gnats is taking down a poor, bedraggled, lone camel, lets read the passage:

 ²³ “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. ²⁴ You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. (Matthew 23:23-24, NIV)

 So what's this about gnats and camels?  Jesus is speaking here in the middle of a long tirade against the people who were supposedly the holiest of the holy in his day.  These are people who have proclaimed that they have followed God for years (probably since birth).  I think that the key to understanding this verse is "Everything they do is done for men to see..." (Matthew 23:5a).  They have set up a kind of religion where there are little things that you do to prove your faithfulness to God become the test of your faith.


What Jesus is talking about here is a kind of attitude that it is so easy to fall into as a follower of God, and I know that the church has been guilty of it over many points of history--and far too often in huge and embarrassing ways. I could list here all the ways we have violated it, and all denominations and expressions of the faith could be mentioned.  As Andy Stanley says in his sermon (see below), "We (the church) tell people that if they change to look like us, then they can join us."  We are guilty of telling people that their hard lives, their sins, their differences, exclude them from joining in with the People of God.  We are guilty.


Jesus' Way
Yet the way the Jesus preached, healed, taught, and related to people is drastically different than the way that the Pharisees in his day worked.  Can you imagine being so hyper-"spiritual" that you would go to your cupboard and divide out a tenth of your spices and bring them to church one Sunday as part of your tithe?  Yet what was the issue that Jesus pointed out?  They were nit-picking (gnat-straining) but in doing so were too busy to attend to real issues!  They neglected justice!  They left out mercy!  And they thought they were being faithful to the commandments of God but in fact were not practicing faithfulness.

When we look at the Bible, how then do we see Jesus acting?  I believe that Jesus never neglected to tithe (giving a tenth of your income), I believe he never lied, and I believe that he was faithful to every letter of the law that the Pharisees held dear.  We read that he was a righteous man, a perfect man, and without sin.  Better than Mary Poppins he wasn't just "practically perfect," he was perfect!  Yet here he points that there are larger issues than just personally following the letter of the law.

What Jesus did, and what he calls (albeit harshly) the Pharisees to do, is to speak out for those who have no voice.  He calls them to love those they deem "sinners."  I say "deem" because here Jesus is pointing out the sin of those who think themselves "righteous."  Jesus did not worry about whether he would be thought proper for going and partying with the sinners, he just went and did so!  And the result of that is that many of those he ate with and talked to became followers of him and had their lives transformed.

Today's Church
So I said at the beginning that I am speaking to the Christians I know in today's world.  Can you think of ways that the church has become like Jesus' Pharisees?  I have long felt what Andy preaches in his sermon "The Separation of Church and Hate."   Think about the last 50 years of the church in America.  We have stood up for the laws of God and done our best to tell people what they cannot do.  In many cases the only real ground (and I believe that it is real ground, more real than what the world counts on) that we stand on is the Bible.  We have been right to stand up for the issues we have battered the rest of our culture with, but I think that we have failed in doing so in the wrong way.

I believe that the Bible teaches real and eternal truth.  I believe that when God says that he hates sin, he hates sin.  I believe that when the Bible says that we should not do "x" or "y" or "z" then we should not do those things.  However I also believe that using the laws of the land to enforce the mandates of the Bible creates people who hate the Church and God, as well as turns the church into "sons of hell" (Matthew 23:15).  This is a hard thing to think about.  Should we stand up for morality?  YES! Definitely!  But please lets go about it in a different way.

The Bible only applies to the people of God.  I can't turn to my Buddhist neighbors and point to the Bible and say "This is why you are going to go to hell."  They would laugh at me!  Would I be wrong?  No.  Will they convert to Christianity?  No.  What would the result be?  They would hate me and the God I supposedly stood for!  So then what do we do?  How do we protect the sanctity of marriage?  How do we protect the sacredness of life?  How do we uphold the laws of God?  By loving God with all of our hearts, minds, souls and strength, followed by loving our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39).

How to Uphold God's Laws
If we want to truly uphold and take a stand for God's laws, then we need to convert those around us.  We cannot do this any longer by trying to pass laws in Congress to outlaw gay marriage or any of the other issues that we face.  We need to convert a church that hates the sins of their neighbors but does nothing about the sins in their own hearts.  Do you want to know why people of my generation are fleeing further from the church than their parents went?  Because the church does not present a better way!  We proclaim the evils of homosexuality but do nothing to promote marital health in our own walls.  Our relationships are just as broken (in some ways more so) than those of the people who don't follow God.

We uphold God's laws when we do so ourselves.  This is the first part of what Jesus says to us.  Who wants to drink gnats?  Get them out of your soup, but in doing so please remember the issues of justice, mercy, and faithfulness!  Here's the issue: before I can talk to my neighbor about what he is doing wrong, I need to win him over as a brother in Christ.  Before I can "win" him, I need to love him to the point that he truly sees Jesus in my heart.  In the Bible we do not see Jesus chastising those far from God.  He doesn't need to convince them of their sinfulness (a la Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort), he just loves them.  The only people Jesus calls out are those who have the scriptures and call themselves followers of God.

My Plan For Changing The World 

1. Love God with everything that you are.  
1. This also means do your best to apply the teachings of Jesus in your own life: let go of your sins and get right.  (I think we all should do what they do in AA groups and make a searching and fearless moral inventory and then confess those wrongs to someone.)
2. As you love God, and even before you do, God's love will start to transform your life!
2. Love your neighbors as you love yourself.  
1. As you love God, your love for yourself will blossom and grow!  If you have a problem with being able to love yourself, then love God harder.  As your love for God grows, you will see that he created you to be one of his children, beautiful and holy.  How can you not love that?
2. Your neighbor was created to be one of God's children too!  I don't care what they look like to you now, treat them as if they were already one.  We never know the whole story anyhow.
3. Give up trying to be the one to convict them of their sins, that's God's job anyhow.  Just love them and let God do the rest.  If they are a brother or sister in Jesus, then you can go to them and share from the Bible.  (But be careful, they have just as much right to do the same with you...)

Basically what I am saying is that the church has injured the world around us by becoming a self-righteous vessel that spoke words of hate.  We should have been a vessel filled with Jesus' righteousness (not our own) and spoke words of love.  Its time for us to repent and change our ways.  Should we stand up for what is right?  Yes!  Should we spend our time worrying about what laws to pass? No (See the bottom of this post about a note or two regarding this statement).  If you really are concerned with saving lives and morality then think about the fact that your neighbors are going to die and go to hell unless we get off our high horses and do something about it.

Jesus gives one consistent command throughout the gospels, and we should heed it:  "Follow me."  We don't need to go to classes (though they do benefit us), we don't need to have believed in Jesus for "x" number of years or decades, we simply are called to follow him.  I would much rather be a "Jesus-follower" than a "Christian" any day.

Video link:
The Separation of Church and Hate - Andy Stanley

Notes:
There are a few issues that I feel we should stand up for legally.  I think that we should still act to preserve life.  I think that we should still act to free people from oppression.  We should still act to end the cycles of poverty. I would say that it is one thing to try to legislate the acts of consenting adults, perhaps we need to lay off.  However, it is another thing altogether to act to protect those without a voice, or at least a significant one.  Put another way: trying to legislate against homosexuality (which do I read in the Bible that God says is a sin) is not going to be productive or impart mercy.  However, trying to free the slaves across the world or save unborn children is something worth standing up for, socially and legally.  But lets do so in a smart way.

EDIT:
I had a conversation with my wife about this, after I posted it, and she brought my attention to some areas where I may have communicated things that I didn't want to communicate.  I really appreciated what she and I talked about, and wanted to make some clarifications with this particular blog:

1. If it is not clear, I think that what the bible says about all of our "Hot Button" issues is true.  We need to believe that when the Bible says something is a sin, it is.   I do not want to sound wishy-washy on these issues.  What I want to do though, is to tell my fellow Christians to stop abusing others with their faith.  We can believe something is wrong, but still speak to others about it with a spirit of grace and love.
2. In my notes I said we need to stop legislating our morality.  What I want to clear up is: vote!  If there is something on a ballot, then vote as you feel you should.  Vote with all your faith in God if you can.  I just have heard too many in the "Religious Right" stand up and say things that have caused too much hurt for people in our country.  I have seen too many Liberal Christians walk away from Biblical teaching in order to embrace everybody.  We need to find ways to be centered on the will of God, and show God's love and here we have had so many struggles it is ridiculous.  I don't have an answer here right now, except to do our best to be grounded in scripture AND love our neighbors!  Ideas?
3. Last clarification: I stated that the "Bible only applies to the people of God" and I feel I need to expand on that.  Does the Bible speak truth?  Yes.  Does that truth apply to the world regardless of your religious beliefs?  Yes!  Whether or not we accept the authority of the Bible, it applies to us.  The bible contains many things that are beneficial to us no matter what we believe.  It also contains the laws of God, the standards by which he expects us to live.  However, I don't understand why we use it as a final proof in a secular environment.  Inside the Christian world we can point to a bible passage and say "Thus saith the Lord" and know that that ends the discussion.  However, it doesn't work like that with the rest of the world, instead we come across as judgmental!  It sure ends the conversation, but only because our conversation partners feel like we have gone into outer space and have no grounds to continue.  Are we "correct" in using the Bible?  Yes!  Are we "right" to do so in that way?  Perhaps not.  Can the Bible transform people, regardless of their beliefs?  YES!
1. So how can we use the Bible to speak into people's lives?  Use it in the context of our own lives.  In my sermon tomorrow, and as I have been preaching for the last couple of weeks, I will talk about telling our stories.  We will only drive people to cling to their beliefs (mistaken or otherwise) harder if we argue.  We get them asking questions if we tell our own stories.  We can even share that we apply the truths of the Bible to our own lives, tell how it speaks truth for us and changes us, if we do so in a personal way.  Point the fingers at yourself and tell about how God has changed you.  Leave the conviction of the person you are talking with up to God.  (Its his job anyhow...)

Thanks!  May God bless you!