The Narrow Gate

Welcome to the continuation of my blog, post-seminary. Ministry and evangelism have brought me back home to Chattanooga. I welcome your company on my journey.

The original blog, Down In Mississippi, shared stories from 2008 and 2009 of the hope and determination of people in the face of disaster wrought by the hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005, of work done primarily by volunteers from churches across America and with financial support of many aid agencies and private donations and the Church. My Mississippi posts really ended with the post of August 16, 2009. Much work, especially for the neediest, remained undone after the denominational church pulled out. Such is the nature of institutions. The world still needs your hands for a hand up. I commend to you my seven stories, Down in Mississippi I -VII, at the bottom of this page and the blog posts. They describe an experience of grace.



Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Day 1826 – Are You Working for Peace or Negotiating a Faustian Bargain?


A sermon shared with my dear friends at First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, December 10, 2017

Are you striving for Peace or looking for a Faustian Bargain?
How frequently in daily life do we pause to ask, “Am I living a holy and godly life waiting for and hastening the coming day of the Lord?” If we believe his promise to come again, are we striving for peace without a blemish suggesting otherwise, or are we hoping it will not be tomorrow?

      You may, or may not have heard of the man “Doctor Faust,” (or Faustus)?  A 500-year-old legend dating to the late 15th century describes an educated man who was dissatisfied with life and impatient to gain the knowledge of the future to give him power over today. Satan offered him a deal to have it all.  People widely identify with this story as a reflection on life. Famous playwrights and authors wrote of it. In the 1500’s the playwright Christopher Marlowe, and in the late 1700’s, the famous German play/novelist Johan Goethe, made the legend famous with their own version.  Goethe supposedly worked on and off on this story for at least 60 years.
      The story of Dr. Faustus was originally a Christian moral story. It sounds somewhat the event on the mountain in the forty days in the desert when Satan offers Jesus all powers.
Doctor Faust was a highly successful magician and alchemist (we would call him a chemist or scientist today) who realized the more he learned about life and living the more he discovered that he could not gain enough human power through the knowledge of life to shape, control and enjoy the present.  He drifted away spiritually and concluded pure happiness can never be had. Satan offered Faust a bargain to lead him through the world for 24 years satisfying Faust’s desire for all knowledge and power and at the end, Satan would claim Faust’s soul for payment.
      In Goethe’s play, Faust did not believe Satan could make good on the bargain so he accepted the offer of finding true human knowledge and power that in the end did not include happiness. Satan led him to a beautiful woman who Faust fell madly in love, but his Satanic-given powers led to the ruin and death of her family. She survived but Faust overwhelmed by grief and shame over his deeds abandoned the woman and continued with Satan.
      Satan continued to lead Faust to great worldly power. Faust tamed and controlled the world of politics and nature and had it all.  Then, Satan calls in payment of Faust’s bargain.
In the old legend, the Devil carries Faust off to Hell, with the moral that all the powers one gathers in life cannot save the soul of one who deals with the devil for worldly gain.
      But in Faust’s play, Faust’s grief and shame over his evil deeds to the beautify woman and her family torment and never leave him. When Satan calls in the deal, the angels of heaven directed by God’s forgiving grace deliver Dr. Faust to heaven. God forgives and brings him into eternal grace because of Faust never stopped repenting in sorrow and shame. Goethe’s (and our) moral is God shows the gift of unmerited grace to every sorrowful repenting soul. For them, deals with the devil do not work. Dr. Faust is a tale of Christian faith and God’s grace.

      Why spend so much time on the story of Dr. Faust and his bargain with Satan? The weariness or loss of hope in the present and God’s care and action for us in the future parallels the message in 2 Peter. 2 Peter talks directly to the danger of despair and loss of hope, the same woes that the playwright Goethe revealed in Dr. Faust.
      It is worth noting that Paul’s letters are a window into the life and conflict within the early Christian congregations. The collected letters at the end of the New Testament (James, 1 Peter, Jude and 2 Peter, 1,2, 3) are called the “catholic” or universal letters.  As universal letters read by the church at large, they present a window into life of Mediterranean Christianity in the time after Paul has passed from the scene and the last remaining Apostles were dying.  It was a time of worry over mockery and persecution for their faith, and a time wondering about when or if Jesus shall return, and who if anyone would lead them after the Apostles were gone. The text of 2 Peter suggests Peter, probably the last remaining disciple, is near death (see 1:12-15).
      The Christian world of 2 Peter maybe 80 or 100 years after the crucifixion, was stressed by tension and arguments over scripture for all these reasons. Many Believers doubted that Jesus would return and some who had lost hope created alternative versions of Christianity that focused only on living for the present, not the future. They said satisfy your physical desires now since there is no future.
      Faust and 2 Peter go directly to this point of living for the present day. 2 Peter reminds us time for the Lord is different from time for humanity. To the Lord, a thousand years are like one day.
      2 Peter tells us not to let our impatience with the future make us doubt his promises because the Lord is good for his word. God loves us. The passage brings me back again to the ant and the grasshopper fable. Do not forget that Jesus said he will come as a thief in the night and everything will be revealed. The message the writer of 2 Peter sends is, “be on guard.” As Paul says to the Philippians, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”
      Boiled down to its core, 2 Peter urges us to be aware of two things, (1) our vision of the future of Jesus’s promised return; and (2) whether we are using the present as a time for moral transformation and preparation to get ready for the future, or using the present only as a time to satisfy material wants.
      Our faith assures us that we know the day of the Lord will come to pass. Should we despair of the future? Or should we get ready for its coming?  Peter’s answer is hold on to hope, not despair, because, “We shall not walk this road alone.” If our faith sustains that belief in the future, then we need to ask whether or not we are using our time in the present for moral transformation - or not.

      The tale of Dr. Faust and his bargain with the devil explains or amplifies 2 Peter. It also is a good example of why we ought not dismiss the drama of famous novels and plays as not being the stuff of our own lives, but read, read, read.  Every day, great literature describes the challenges that we might consider our own Faustian bargains.
      Look around at our own world for examples. First, I'm not quibbling with anyone's political views, you are entitled to them. I am talking about choice and behavior. We have a president who enjoys support by many Christian groups who expect him to defend their specific denominational values in the political scene. Many of them have heard his open admission of using his power to abuse women and his broad disdain for women and anyone with less money and power than he has, and excuse it because he may further their political cause.  We have a man running for Senate with strong evidence showing as a 30 year-old man he abused under-aged teenagers. This man shows a life-long, total disregard for the rule of law and our Constitution.  Elected senators and their party officials, many who proudly wear the label, “Christian,” say they need the vote of this morally corrupt man in Congress to achieve their political goals. They say his actions, even if proven true, are minor thing. It is better to elect a morally corrupt ally than allow an honest person of the other party to win.  After all, God is on our side…
      Now, none of us know what faith sits in the heart of these people, and though we have admission of real transgressions of some, in others we may never get proof one way or the other about what sits in their heart. But it is a fact that the political leaders and their evangelical supporters who claim the be followers of Jesus do say it is better to elect corrupt men than a good person in order to achieve their political objectives. They are more than willing to overlook evil deeds done in the pursuit of power.  To me, that is a perfect Faustian bargain.  
      They ask Satan for power at the expense of everything spiritual that they claim to believe.  In the end, they shall answer as to whether they repent to their maker.
      But this political issue of abuse of under-aged teens and women is just a small part of a bigger problem.  
      These same evangelical folks push to proclaim Jerusalem the capital of Israel.  They read about the battle of the eagle and bear, and how the ascendancy of Jerusalem marks the beginning of the Parousia, the Day of the Lord (Go read the Revelation of John). They have waited long enough for the Day of the Lord and want the power to bring it about now!  Never mind God’s time, they operate on their time seeking to force God’s hand thereby denying God’s own power.  They seem like the folks in the time of 2 Peter who lost hope in God’s timeframe, and like Dr. Faustus.
      The core question is, “Are we ready to trade faith, love and hope for the future that God has promised for the immediate reward of worldly gain?”

      Has Christianity deteriorated today into forgetfulness of the promise of the Lord’s coming?  Do these political positions above represent what we believe as Christians? Have we transformed Christian practice into pursuit of happiness, pervasive suspicion of outsiders and completely disconnected ourselves from God’s time? Have we forgotten that in this time of waiting that we are expected to be the force for peace that shapes the world for a better future by our own personal moral transformation, not our power?
      The Day of the Lord will come with the Parousia or with our own death.
      I wonder if we have forgotten Paul’s three core principles, Faith, Love, and Hope. Do we have the faith to answer 2 Peter’s questions, “What sort of persons ought we to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness that waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God? Do our hearts contain the love of others to hope and work for their well being? Are we striving to be found by the Lord Jesus Christ at peace, without spot or blemish and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation?” Do you like 2 Peter’s words, “Regard the patience of the Lord as salvation?”
      This coming day of the Lord may panic you, but it ought to make you dream.  Take me. Relatively speaking, I am an old man with a young heart.  But I still dream dreams about the future.  Really, I do.  Naysayers cut off the future, dreamers are all that we all have for the future.  I dream about your future.  Every time I look at one of our young people I imagine what great things they will be doing in the world in 5, 10, 20 years from now as great parents, doctors, mayors, scientists, pastors, and more, making it a better place because you adults all helped them get there.  I want them to look at you and me, and our leaders and think, “I can do a better job if I do not let Faith, Love and Hope die. I can make this a more peaceful place with my own two hands as I wait for the Lord.”

      They need our help.  The future needs their hope.  Are you working for peace for them knowing it will come in God’s time? Or are you negotiating a Faustian Bargain?

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