21 Oct

THE BEGINNING AND THE END

Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his works shall be.  I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.Revelation 22:12-13 KJV

Getting older is an interesting (wait, is interesting the right word? Perhaps disconcerting?  disturbing?  deconstructing?  disheveling?) experience, not just for the body and the mind, but for the constructs of the body and the mind.  For one thing, certain texts in the Bible just don’t seem to say the same things they did when I read them years ago.  And yet it doesn’t strike me as though I was wrong in my past reading, but rather that I was as right, generally speaking, as I could be at the time, and I am as right, Lord willing, as I can be now.  All of which is not to automatically make the judgment that my “now” view is superior to my “then” view—only that in many ways life experience makes the “now” view inevitable, or maybe better, unavoidable.

“New occasions teach new duties,
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward,
Who would keep abreast of truth.”*

But perhaps all this is a minor problem since there will always be people ready and eager to tell you what Jesus requires of you.  Sometimes they might even be right.  Yet even if they are right in the hour of their speaking, are the specific requirements of Jesus in the moment the unchanging requirements through time?  Or is it possible James Lowell got it right, that new occasions do teach new duties, and time does makes ancient good uncouth?

Can we keep doing the same things we always did and still be faithful?  Can we keep saying the same things we always said and still be telling the truth?  Are we sliding into error if, when we read the Bible, it doesn’t seem to say the same thing to us now that we heard it saying to us then?  Is it possible we could be right “now” without having been wrong “then”, even if “now” and “then” don’t agree?

Ours is not the first time when believers struggled to deal with disagreement regarding what things still mattered and what things had served their purpose for their day.  Remember the whole circumcision controversy in the early church?  Circumcision was the divine sign given to Abraham to serve as the definitive mark of God’s people, an irrevocable indicator in the flesh delineating the chosen people from the unchosen, an act so indispensable that according to Exodus 4:24-25 it was the LORD’s intention to put Moses to death for breaking this rule by not circumcising his sons (a situation Zipporah speedily rectified, but not without denoting Moses as a “bridegroom of blood” over the incident).

Yet in the New Testament we find Paul making this rather confusing statement:  “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts”  (1 Corinthians 7:19 NIV), causing one to rightly reflect, “Wasn’t circumcision God’s command?”  Paul seeks to fix any misunderstanding in the next verse by saying, “Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them” (v. 20), which is true enough if taken in the narrow context of circumcision, but not a position we traditionally would be inclined to encourage if the situation in which one was called was “living together out of wedlock.”

Back to Paul:

“Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.”  Philippians 3:2-3 NIV

How could circumcision, the sign given to Abraham, the definitive mark of the people of God, suddenly, without any divine statement [beyond that of the indirect implication that a new reality had begun when the Holy Spirit fell upon Cornelius and his family prior to them being circumcised (see Acts 10)], be now considered unnecessary?  You think traditions regarding ordination are hard to give up, imagine if we had had to make the decision on circumcision (not to make trouble, but isn’t it ironic how most of us in America who are male are, in fact, circumcised?).  Yet Paul, in describing those who were still trying to remain faithful to the standard passed down from Abraham, refers to them as “dogs” and “mutilators of the flesh”, while stating this about himself and the others who have moved on from what in the past was held as unchallengeable truth:  “we … are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.”

“New occasions teach new duties
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward,
Who would keep abreast of truth.”

Are we moving ever upward and onward?  Are we keeping abreast of truth?  I’m pretty sure I have a decent idea what it meant to be a faithful Adventist in Ellen White’s day.  Does it mean the same thing now?  What is Present Truth, not for the 19th Century, but for the 21st?

Five generations ago my great-great grandfather, Ernst Schoepflin, moved with his wife and children from a region in Germany just north of Basil, Switzerland, to eastern Washington state, where he and his family (which grew to 12 children) would become Seventh-day Adventists at meetings held in the region, as family lore has it, by none other than A. T. Jones.  Today, I find myself the son and grandson of lifelong Adventist pastors from that Schoepflin line, and myself a pastor of the Boulder Seventh-day Adventist Church, the current incarnation of a community of believers bearing this name on Mapleton Hill since the church’s founding here in 1879, probably within a few years of when my ancestors were themselves first becoming Adventist.

My ancestors were fervent in the faith, as we should all hope to be, seeking to be faithful to what they understood to be their duty in their day.  And for the most part, I think they succeeded, considering that five generations later I am still a believer.  Yet so much has changed.  When my grandfather was born, his parents made the statement, “He will never be old enough to bring in wood,” meaning Jesus would come before he could even do chores.  He died in 2006 at the age of 96, having served as an Adventist pastor for all his working years.  His son, my father, now in his eighties, also spent his working years as an Adventist pastor.  Now here I am, 57, having pastored for 26 years.  But it doesn’t stop with me.  I have, as of today, a granddaughter, a seventh-generation proclaimer of the soon coming of Jesus.  And to that you might at first be inclined to say, “Amen”, but then follow that up with, “Wait, what?”

As I said at the beginning, certain texts in the Bible sometimes just don’t seem to say the same thing they said the first time I read them.  And life experience ought to make a “now” view sometimes inevitable, or even unavoidable.  What new duty does today’s new occasion teach?

If we would remain God’s people, we must, I think, continue ever onward and upward, with one eye on the road down which our Lord has led us (the beginning), and the other on the unknown future (the end), for which of us can say with certainty my granddaughter will “never be old enough to bring in wood”, or if one day her 7th-generation descendent will write fondly of her?

I have in a sense always envied this one thing about first generation Adventists: they are able to speak of the expectation of the imminent return of Jesus without any hint of irony, something I cannot do.  And please, don’t come at me with the trite phrase, “imagine how much closer the return is now!”  That means nothing, you know, because sure, I know exactly how much closer the return is now (seven generations, based upon my family history).  But knowing that tells me exactly nothing about how close it is until Jesus actually appears.

Based on the Matthew chronology of the coming of the Messiah the first time, my family spans roughly Jeconiah to Zadok (see Matthew 1:12-16).  Are we willing to wait, even if it means seven more generations, until the Christ appears again?

New occasions teach new duties…

Luke 12:42-43 says: “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns.”

It is not the timing of the beginning and the end that matters as much as it is the One who is The Beginning and The End.  May God give us the wisdom to be faithful in our day.

 Geoff Patterson is senior pastor at Boulder Adventist Church, Boulder, Colorado. Email him at [email protected]

*James Russell Lowell, “Once to Every Man and Nations”, quoted from the Church Hymnal (otherwise known as the “Old” Hymnal), song number 513, verse 3.

28 Mar

MORALITY: MINE, YOURS, AND THEIRS

By Geoff Patterson … Reading the Bible can sometimes be a startling experience for those with a strong sense of 21st Century morality. For example, Abraham’s nephew Lot finds two strangers in the town square and, as the morality of the day required, invited and urged them not to stay in the town square but instead to lodge with him and his family. Unfortunately, later that night the immoral men of the town came to Lot’s door and demanded he send out to them the men he was hosting that they might have sexual relations with them, a demand to which Lot replied: “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” (Genesis 19:7-8).

In the context of his time, Lot was acting “morally,” for it seems morality demanded that to take someone into your house was to commit yourself to their safety and well-being at all costs. Yet I think it clear enough to you and me that his offer wasn’t just immoral, it was appalling.

Abraham’s failings seem tame in comparison but was it really moral to allow Abimelech to believe Sarah was Abraham’s sister, thus putting his wife in danger of being sexually assaulted simply for the sake of his own safety (Genesis 20). In addition, according to later writings, Abraham was out of line for even marrying his half-sister in the first place (Leviticus 18:9). And was Jacob acting “morally” when he married two sisters, Leah and Rachel, and then, likely without consent, took their servant girls as concubines? Perhaps it was a result of these unfortunate decisions that the counsel we find in Leviticus 18:18 was written.

So, what do we do? Should we cancel Lot, and Abraham, and Jacob, given the obvious immorality they display? Or should we censor the book of Genesis because it lacks trigger warnings and fails to take a strong stand against such blatant immorality?

We do ourselves a disservice when we attempt to hold Old Testament characters to 21st Century morality. But we also do ourselves a disservice when we attempt to hold 21st Century citizens to what serves as Old Testament morality. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem: morality changes. Which leads me to suggest, if we would remain moral in our day, so must we.

Let me give an example from my own lifetime. I will be 57 this year, which makes me no longer young, but not exactly old either. Yet, in my lifetime, I have seen some very significant shifts in “morality”. For example, when I was a child, interracial marriage was considered by much of society and the church to be immoral. In fact, in many places, it was illegal (for example, see Loving v. Virginia, April 10, 1967, eight days after my second birthday). Yet today, anyone taking this position would be viewed as holding immoral views centered in racism, so much so that after George W. Bush visited Bob Jones University in the year 2000, he felt compelled to issue an apology for “failing to criticize the school’s anti-Catholic views and racial policies during his visit to the Greenville, S.C., campus.” (See: Los Angeles Times, March 4, 2000)

Bob Jones University would soon after drop its “no interracial dating” policy: what had once been established as morality was now being dropped as immoral. Yet in the Bible, such moratoriums were well supported. The Bible reports that Nehemiah, when he found that the some of the men had taken foreign wives, confronted them, cursed them, beat them, and pulled out their hair, among other things (Nehemiah 13).

And earlier, before Nehemiah’s time, Ezra had counseled that morality demanded the men of Israel “put away” all the foreign wives and their children, an act that we today would consider the height of immorality (Ezra 10).

Let me go on record with this: I do believe there is such a thing as Truth with a capital “T,” meaning an ultimate, unassailable reality known and established by God. I also believe there is ultimate Right (with a capital “R”) and Wrong (with a capital “W”). Plus, I believe that morality, in every age, is based on these immutable realities. But all too often, if the examples I’ve stated above are a fair indication, it seems morality as manifest in each age, is little more than Truth and Right and Wrong viewed through the lens of current culture.

The good news is that we aren’t expected by God to be “moral” Old Testament believers. And we aren’t expected by Him to be “moral” 1880s believers or 1950s believers. Yet we are expected to be “moral” 2022 believers.

But what does that mean? What is morality for our time? How many of the ancient and not-so-ancient morals have themselves become immoral? And how much of the “new morality” will one day cause horror to those who come after us? How should we, as 21st Century Seventh-day Adventist Christians, live? Is there just one morality for our time? Who gets to decide?

How much room for diversity of thought and even morality should there be within the church? Can the “Black Lives Matter” activist and the “Make America Great Again” proponent live alongside one another in Christian love and respect? Clearly, the “morality” driving both groups is not the same. Are the differences greater than the professions that might hold us together (righteousness by faith, the Creator God, the soon return of Jesus)? Can we live together in peace without a singular morality?

If our moralities are the result of Truth filtered through our culture and experience, does this explain, in large part, why we end up with such different morals? And are the capital “T” Truths big enough to hold us together? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Does “Do unto others as you would have them do to you” still hold, regardless of BLM or MAGA status?

We all know we are supposed to be moral. The problem is, what does that mean right now?

Perhaps there is wisdom to help us in Ecclesiastes 3:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die; … a time to kill, and a time to heal; …
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; …
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; …
a time to love, and a time to hate; …
a time for war, and a time for peace.

In this list of actions, we find dichotomous behaviors that might be considered moral or immoral, depending upon the situation. This suggests that when the morality we have chosen traps us on only one side of these dichotomies, we will likely fail to fulfill the duties of our day, and thus fail to be moral 21st Century Christians. There are times when war is moral, but also times when it is not. There are times when speaking up is moral, and times when it is not. There are times when killing is moral, and times when it is not. Are there also times when the drive behind BLM is right, and times when MAGA is the way?

Perfect adherence to any list of rules, no matter who made the list, will never be enough to guarantee we are living moral lives. Moral living takes continual effort of heart, mind, and spirit, and is only achieved through trial and error and a willingness to learn. As the author of Hebrews says: “… solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:14)

There is no perfectly complete list of the moral rules for our day. There never has been a perfectly complete list, even in the days of Israel. Yet we know God calls us to live moral lives. If we would be the church God has appointed for this day, we must always be seeking, learning, and testing ourselves against the convictions of one another. It is the blessing of God, not the curse, that puts us in community with others who see a very different morality.

Let’s be mature believers, like the men of Issachar in the days of David, “… men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do …”

(1 Chronicles 12:32). We are 2022 Seventh-day Adventist Christians. May God grant us the ability to know and do our moral duty.

–Geoff Patterson is senior pastor at Boulder Adventist Church, Boulder, Colorado. Email him at: [email protected]